Just then, someone in the crowd suddenly had a flash of inspiration and shouted.
"Vice-Captain, I want to make more money!" someone suddenly shouted, a flash of inspiration in his eyes.
"Are you still hiring assistants?!"
The words sparked a wildfire of realization through the crew.
That's right! another thought.
Working directly for the Vice-Captain... being close to the source...
"Even if we can't get a salary," someone else whispered excitedly, "We could at least get paid in Devil Fruits!"
The idea was simply perfect.
"Gurararara! You little brats, don't even think about pestering Ron!" Whitebeard's laugh extinguished their petty schemes.
"If you want money, go earn it yourselves!"
Jozu chuckled, breaking the dull atmosphere. "What's there to be afraid of? Pirates are never afraid of not having money!" he said casually. "Just catch a few of those billion-Belly bounty heads! Or we could just rob those corrupt kings, or even the Celestial Dragons! If all else fails," he finished with a sigh.
"We can go mining together."
Kingdew just shook his massive dragon head. "Jozu, you can go mining."
Squard curled his lip. "Without diamond drills, we can't handle that kind of work."
Jozu's face fell.
After all that, no one wanted to go mining with him.
"Ron," he said, turning with a hopeful expression, "Didn't you say there were two pieces of good news? What's the second surprise?"
The crew's attention snapped back to Ron, their faces full of a feverish curiosity.
Ron smiled slightly and carefully took out a small, unassuming, pure white fruit from his pocket.
It emitted a faint, strange light, as if it contained some mysterious, unformed power.
"This," he said slowly, "is the latest technology I've developed. The Item Fusion Devil Fruit."
"Item Fusion?" The crew looked at each other, completely baffled.
"Does that mean you can feed it to an item?" someone whispered.
"Swords don't have mouths, you know?"
Ron held up a hand, silencing their confused chatter.
"Just as you imagined," he explained patiently, "This new type of Devil Fruit can fuse with any non-living object, granting that object the corresponding Devil Fruit ability!"
A burst of stunned exclamations erupted from the room.
A weapon, a ship, even a building with a Devil Fruit power... the possibilities were staggering.
Ron then slowly took out a heavy, ornate gold ring from his pocket.
On it was carved a lifelike dragon, its scales so realistic they seemed ready to leap from the ring at any moment.
"The fusion is one step away from completion," Ron's voice echoed in the air.
"It only needs a drop of the ability user's blood."
In front of everyone, he carefully took out a single, shimmering drop of Capone Bege's blood and let it fall onto the pure white fruit.
Instantly, the fruit's surface was covered in a dense web of patterns, like some ancient, unknowable language, pulsing with a mysterious power.
"Pure white... a Fusion Devil Fruit," Ace murmured, completely captivated.
Whitebeard stood aside, observing all of this with a deep, interested gaze.
First Enchantment, then Replication, then Haki Fruits, and now this.
The boy had given him a new life, a new level of power, and was now single-handedly changing the very nature of the world.
Ron, my son... he thought, an immense sense of pride swelling in his chest.
"That's right," Ron confirmed, answering the crew's unspoken questions.
"It's to fuse with this ring."
As he finished speaking, he did not hesitate.
He crushed the pristine white fruit in his hand.
A pure, milky white liquid overflowed from it and slowly dripped onto the gold ring.
At that moment, a gasp went through the room.
The golden dragon ring seemed to come to life.
It began to wriggle, to pulse, emitting a faint, white light as the very laws of nature were rewritten before their eyes.
Under the astonished gazes of everyone, the golden ring began to pulse with a life of its own.
The finely carved dragon pattern came alive, its tiny, golden scales shimmering as it swam and coiled around the ring's band with a lifelike vividness.
The dazzling gold gradually deepened, shifting into a mysterious and majestic black-gold, a color that seemed to absorb the very light around it.
"Gasp... the... the ring is alive?!" one pirate whispered in disbelief.
"I'd only ever heard rumors about Vegapunk making objects eat Devil Fruits," another added, "but they were always unstable flaw! This... this was flawless!"
"Vegapunk? Pfft!" Jozu boomed. "Compared to our Ron, that government dog is a joke!"
The group stared at the finished ring in Ron's hand, their faces filled with an intense, burning curiosity.
"Ron, what abilities does this ring have? Show us!" a young crewmate asked eagerly.
"Don't rush," Ron said with a faint smirk.
"Capone Bege's ability comes from the Castle-Castle Fruit. It grants the user the power to transform into an incredibly sturdy castle, practically indestructible." He paused, letting the suspense build.
"But that's not the most astonishing part. What truly makes it one-of-a-kind is the intricate, functional world inside the castle it creates. Every room is a real, usable space."
He let his gaze sweep over their confused faces before delivering the final, crucial detail.
"In short," he said, "anything or anyone that can fit inside can be stored there, perfectly preserved and hidden from the world."
For a moment, there was only a stunned silence.
Then, a collective, greedy glint appeared in the eyes of every pirate in the room.
"Ron," Izou groaned, his voice thick with a profound, soul-crushing regret.
"If we'd had this during the raid on Kaido... it would have been perfect! We wouldn't have had to leave a single Berry behind! We could have taken his entire treasury, the walls, the floor, everything!"
"Just thinking about it makes me feel like we lost billions!" another commander wailed, and a chorus of frustrated, pained agreement followed.
"Ron, I want a Castle Ring like that too!" Jozu shouted excitedly. "Imagine it! We could hide our entire division inside and then pop out for a surprise attack! We'd catch the enemy completely off guard!"
The idea sent a wave of excited laughter through the group as they imagined the endless, devious possibilities.
Even Whitebeard was left dumbfounded, a wide, joyous, and incredibly thirsty grin spreading across his face.
"GURARARARA! Ron, my son, you absolutely must make me one of those rings!" he bellowed, his voice booming with excitement.
"With a castle that big to store liquor, this old man can drink whenever he pleases! Imagine it! An endless cellar of the world's finest sake, right here on my finger!"
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