"What a luxurious sight~"
Looking at the rows upon rows of Green Blood reagents filling the entire room, the Straw Hat crew's eyes shone with excitement.
There were naturally many duplicates among the Green Blood samples, otherwise it would have been impossible to gather so many.
Even so, such an extravagant display still made their hearts race with anticipation.
"Franky, this is the ability list. The location of each ability is marked at the back."
"You can go pick the Devil Fruit abilities you want now."
Vegapunk suddenly pulled out a form and handed it to Franky.
A dazzling variety of Paramecia abilities immediately filled Franky's vision.
Not only were there Boa Hancock's Love-Love Fruit, Moria's Shadow-Shadow Fruit, and Golden Lion Shiki's Float-Float Fruit, there were also Whitebeard's Tremor-Tremor Fruit, as well as the Pocket-Pocket Fruit, Diamond-Diamond Fruit, and more from the Whitebeard Pirates...
There were also the Straw Hat crew's Storage-Storage Fruit, Speed-Speed Fruit, Flower-Flower Fruit, and Disaster-Disaster Fruit; the Straw Hat Grand Fleet's Split-Split Fruit and Barrier-Barrier Fruit; the Op-Op Fruit; and even abilities from the Navy side, such as Issho's Gravity-Gravity Fruit, Koby's Slip-Slip Fruit, the Rust-Rust Fruit, and so on.
Because Red had long intended to cooperate with Vegapunk, shortly after the Pokémon Sea stabilized, he used the Straw Hat Pirates' network to collect blood samples from Paramecia users all over the world.
The bloodline samples gathered by the Straw Hat Pirates, combined with the Devil Fruit abilities Vegapunk had secretly collected over the years while embedded in the Navy's Scientific Research Corps...
When all of them were added together, there were nearly two hundred different abilities, and every single one was more outrageous and more powerful than the last. It was enough to leave anyone spoiled for choice.
At that moment, even Franky, who had originally already had some ideas in mind, found himself hesitating for no reason.
Though Vegapunk had said that the chosen Fruit abilities were not impossible to replace later, changing them was also an extremely troublesome process.
On top of that, Devil Fruit abilities were the kind of power that grew stronger the more familiar you became with them.
So Franky still hoped he could get the optimal combination in one go.
After thinking for a while, he suddenly lifted his head and looked toward Red, the one in the Straw Hat crew with the most ideas.
Holding the list of Devil Fruit abilities in his hand, he raised it in front of Red.
"Red, which three abilities do you think I should choose?"
Whether it was Golden Lion Shiki's Float-Float Fruit, Issho's Gravity-Gravity Fruit, Whitebeard's Tremor-Tremor Fruit, or Vegapunk's Brain-Brain Fruit, all of them were undoubtedly among the most precious Paramecia abilities.
Even among a whole list of Devil Fruit powers, their brilliance was impossible to hide.
Franky could hardly imagine how powerful he would become if he possessed any three of them at the same time.
But...
Were the stronger abilities really always the better ones?
He fixed his gaze on Red, hoping for an answer.
Then he heard Red say:
"Don't overthink it, Franky."
"A Devil Fruit ability won't turn a weakling into a strong person. It's just a tool that helps a strong person become stronger."
"The best one is the one that suits you. There's no need to chase after things that are too flashy."
Were the Tremor-Tremor Fruit and the Float-Float Fruit really that strong!?
Judging by Whitebeard and Golden Lion Shiki's performance...
The answer was yes.
But that was because they were Whitebeard and Golden Lion Shiki.
Even without those Devil Fruit abilities, they still would have stood at the summit of the seas and forged their own legends.
If an ordinary Marine soldier ate the Tremor-Tremor Fruit instead, he might not even be able to shatter a single rock.
Powerful Devil Fruit abilities could indeed greatly increase the combat power of the strong.
But only abilities that truly suited someone could be turned into real combat strength more quickly.
After receiving Red's encouragement, a thoughtful glint flashed through Franky's eyes once again.
But very soon, his gaze steadied, as though he had made up his mind.
"I get it, Red."
Then Franky looked back at Vegapunk. After sweeping his eyes across the ability list once more, he immediately said:
"Dr. Vegapunk, please help me find the Fusion-Fusion Fruit, the Speed-Speed Fruit, and the Storage-Storage Fruit."
In the end, Franky stuck to the idea he had from the very beginning, choosing two abilities already possessed by his crewmates, along with the Fusion-Fusion Fruit, the one that had captivated him at first sight.
The Fusion-Fusion Fruit allowed its user to fuse all inorganic matter together and shape it freely according to their imagination and creativity, instantly producing incredible creations no one would expect.
This was precisely the ability Franky had wanted ever since he saw Bullet use it.
In Bullet's hands, however, the power of the Fusion-Fusion Fruit had amounted to little more than piling up a heap of materials and turning them into a giant to fight with brute force.
In Franky's eyes, that kind of usage was simply a waste of the Fruit's potential!
The power of the Fusion-Fusion Fruit should never be used in such a crude and simplistic way as Bullet had used it.
Franky firmly believed that in his hands, this Fruit would create miracles never seen before.
As for the Storage-Storage Fruit and the Speed-Speed Fruit, in Franky's view, they were the perfect partners for the Fusion-Fusion Fruit.
The Storage-Storage Fruit's infinite bodily storage space would allow Franky to release large quantities of materials and weapons anytime and anywhere, then fuse them together on the spot.
It would also let him store completed fused weapons inside his body.
The Speed-Speed Fruit, meanwhile, would grant him greater mobility and battlefield reaction speed, allowing him to adjust his tactics at any time.
On top of that, Usopp and Sanji had already developed those two Fruit abilities to a relatively complete level, which would save him a tremendous amount of time in training them.
So in Franky's eyes, these three were the abilities that suited him best.
After hearing Franky's choice, the Straw Hats all showed different expressions.
Some wondered why Franky hadn't picked even more powerful abilities. Some wondered why he had chosen the same powers as his crewmates. And some had no idea what was going on at all, their eyes gleaming as they simply looked forward to whatever interesting thing would happen next.
At that moment, even Red revealed a trace of surprise.
The Fusion-Fusion Fruit and the Storage-Storage Fruit, he could understand.
Those two powers truly were an excellent match.
Take Bullet, for example. He had to fabricate a giant festival just to gather massive supplies in one place.
But once Franky had the Storage-Storage Fruit, he could unleash resources anytime and anywhere—resources so abundant they would make even Bullet jealous enough to drool!!!
The Pokémon Sea's ability to generate profit was far beyond what Totto Land had once been capable of.
Although the Five Elders had once launched a surprise attack, the fact that even they had failed to breach the sea's defenses only proved how secure the Pokémon Sea truly was.
Because of that, the Pokémon Sea had recently been flooded with commercial orders and trade activity.
Resources on the scale of a hundred Marine warships were by no means a trivial amount, even for the Straw Hat Pirates. But if it could make Franky even stronger, they would provide them without hesitation.
Aside from the Speed-Speed Fruit being a little unexpected, Red considered Franky's new Fruit combination practically perfect.
In any case, chosen Fruit abilities could always be replaced later, so Red ultimately said nothing about the Speed-Speed Fruit.
Once Franky confirmed his choice, three small flying robots immediately retrieved the three Green Blood abilities he wanted from the storage vault.
Under Vegapunk's rapid series of operations, the three abilities were soon loaded into Franky's body.
"Well? Well? Franky?!"
"Do you really have three Devil Fruit abilities now?!"
Luffy asked excitedly.
A sharp glint flashed in Franky's eyes, and the corners of his mouth suddenly spread into a huge grin.
"That's right!!!"
"The current me... is super powerful!"
As he spoke, his steel body suddenly underwent a dramatic transformation, swiftly turning into a gigantic warehouse with massive steel doors.
This was clearly the power of Usopp's Storage-Storage Fruit.
Back when Usopp had first eaten the Storage-Storage Fruit, he had also transformed into a similar form.
The difference was that Usopp's warehouse looked like a simple wooden shed used by farmers to store feed or straw.
The warehouse Franky turned into, however, was clearly the kind built to store valuable goods and resources.
The moment he saw this, Usopp was instantly dealt a heavy blow.
"Hey, hey, are you sure this is really the Storage-Storage Fruit!?"
"Why does it look completely different when you use it!?"
Usopp said sourly.
After all, even if he transformed into his warehouse form now, at most he had gone from a crude hut to a slightly sturdier wooden building.
After showing off the Storage-Storage Fruit, Franky returned to his normal form again.
Then a violent heartbeat suddenly thundered from within his body.
The next second, Franky turned into a streaking blur, spinning rapidly around the Straw Hats.
"That's the Speed-Speed Fruit!"
Sanji narrowed his eyes as he sensed the familiar aura.
Fortunately, the Speed-Speed Fruit as displayed by Franky was nowhere near as powerful as when Sanji himself used it.
It could only be described as solid and decent.
Against ordinary pirates worth over a hundred million, it would absolutely leave them dizzy and confused.
But against someone powerful in Observation Haki—especially those with the ability to see the future—even if this speed were faster, it still would not be enough to matter.
Battle was never determined by just one factor.
Yet a moment later, Sanji's brows suddenly rose, and a look of slight astonishment appeared on his face.
Franky's speed kept increasing, until in the end he left behind a whole field of afterimages around the Straw Hats, each one striking a different ridiculous pose.
Of course, that was not the part that truly surprised Sanji.
What really shocked him was that Franky's aura had not fluctuated or weakened in the slightest from beginning to end!
The Speed-Speed Fruit's power and effects were extremely strong, but its side effect was just as obvious.
It consumed stamina at an absurd rate.
If Sanji had not possessed the special body modified by Lineage Factor, he might not have been able to fully unleash the power of the Speed-Speed Fruit either.
At this moment, Red suddenly let out a realization-filled sigh from the side.
"So that's how it is. No wonder Franky chose the Speed-Speed Fruit."
His voice immediately drew the Straw Hats' attention.
Red smiled slightly and said directly:
"It looks like our ship is about to gain another freak with infinite stamina!"
The Mother Flame was hailed as a miraculous scientific creation capable of producing infinite energy.
It was Vegapunk's life's work, the masterpiece he had poured his entire being into creating!
Though Red had no idea how Vegapunk had managed to break the conventional laws of physics and create a source of infinite energy that should not exist in reality—
the fact that it existed at all meant that in the world of pirates, the law of conservation of energy might simply not apply.
Or perhaps it still existed in some manner Red could not comprehend.
Either way, even though Franky only carried a tiny fragment of the Mother Flame within him, thanks to its property of infinite energy, Franky also possessed limitless stamina!
And under such circumstances, a Fruit like the Speed-Speed Fruit—one that demanded tremendous stamina, but offered even greater effects and also paired well with Franky's close-combat style—
was simply the perfect choice!
"So that's it!"
After hearing Red's explanation, everyone gradually understood why Franky had made this decision.
Then Franky used the resources provided by Usopp to demonstrate the Fusion-Fusion Fruit's ability.
He lightly slapped both hands onto a pile of metal blocks, and a few seconds later, a brand-new assault rifle appeared before everyone's eyes.
Bullet could boast all he wanted about having been born in a war-torn nation and knowing weapons inside and out, but that was really just him talking big.
He only understood how to use weapons. When it came to manufacturing them, however, he was utterly clueless.
After all, expecting a guy with muscles for brains to study science and become an expert in it really was asking too much.
But in Franky's hands, this Fruit ability had truly undergone a whole new level of evolution!
After all, Franky was not only an outstanding shipwright with a thorough understanding of structural mechanics, material mechanics, and all sorts of other disciplines—
he was also a born master of weaponry!
Without any formal systematic training, he could build cannons and firearms by hand, and in times of crisis, he could even rebuild his own body using ordinary tools.
Franky...
was a genius in every sense of the word!!!
Swish swish swish swish...
In the blink of an eye, a huge pile of firearms was completed one after another under Franky's control.
Some were designs native to the world of pirates, while others were guns Franky had only heard about from Red.
Fire Kirin, Megalodon, Yinglong...
In any case, regardless of how strong they were, they all looked unbelievably cool.
Sure enough, the moment Franky finished making them, Luffy and Usopp each snatched one up impatiently and began polishing them like priceless treasures.
And this was only the most basic application of the Fusion-Fusion Fruit.
After roughly getting used to the power of the Fusion-Fusion Fruit, Franky suddenly walked up to Vegapunk and said seriously:
"Doctor, could I trouble you to send me a copy of my modification blueprints?"
"I just... suddenly had an incredible idea!"
If he could use the Fusion-Fusion Fruit's power to mass-produce a group of cyborgs just like himself, then equip them with Dr. Vegapunk's combat systems, and normally store them all inside his Storage-Storage space...
Wouldn't that mean...
that he too could become a one-man army like Usopp!?
With a wave of his hand, he could unleash thousands upon thousands of heavily armed cyborg troops—and they could even be paired with all sorts of Devil Fruit abilities.
Just imagining it was enough to make his blood boil!
At this moment, Red still had no idea what sudden thought had appeared in Franky's mind.
Otherwise, he definitely would have shouted in excitement:
"Isn't this basically the plot of Avengers: Age of Ultron!?"
(End of Chapter)