For now, let's ignore how much chaos Harry Osborn's mistake—confusing a Skrull for the effects of the Green Goblin serum—will cause the rest of the Avengers.
After Norman Osborn, the unfortunate scapegoat, vanished, the Avengers would likely need to spend a significant amount of time tracking him down.
Back to Luca. "Pandora 2.0" was finally complete. Full of anticipation, he called Mitsuki over, intending to let him test the quality of his new exclusive weapon.
However, Mitsuki's arrival brought another piece of good news.
"Lord Luca, the Divine Tree Human experiment is showing promise. Should we proceed with the second phase?"
Hearing this, Luca was momentarily stunned before recalling the project he had nearly forgotten.
The so-called "Divine Tree Human" project was an attempt to create "Chakra Cyborgs" based on Mitsuki's cells.
This project had been led by Mitsuki, who had extensive experience with biological modification from his time with Orochimaru.
However, because Mitsuki was just too useful as a ninja...
Whether it was combat power, infiltration, assassination, counter-espionage, or commanding operations, his performance was outstanding across the board. Consequently, whenever an important mission arose, Luca naturally thought of his star employee.
This led to Mitsuki's identity as a researcher being frequently overlooked, causing the experiment's progress to drag on.
Of course, another reason was that the cellular structure of a "Ninja World human" like Mitsuki was vastly different from that of a normal human.
Standard modification methods couldn't grant ordinary humans "Chakra cellular properties." To obtain "Chakra Cyborgs," the only way was to clone Mitsuki's cells, creating a batch of infants with "Ninja World human" traits and raising them from scratch.
Luca obviously couldn't accept such a "result." The time cost and other factors made it unworthy of the effort.
Plus, since Luca didn't lack means to mass-produce combat power, the "Divine Tree Human" project gradually faded from his mind.
But despite forgetting about it, Luca was delighted that Mitsuki had produced results. He asked with interest, "Where did you make a breakthrough? I remember the last time... uh, when was the last time we talked about this?"
Luca realized he couldn't recall when he last checked on Mitsuki's project and looked a bit embarrassed.
Fortunately, Mitsuki maintained his usual loyalty and poker face, ignoring Luca's awkwardness. He summoned a small snake on the spot, retrieved his tablet from its belly, and handed it to Luca.
Looking at the slime-covered tablet, Luca hesitated for a moment before taking it with a grimace.
With his right hand...
Opposite him, seeing Luca take the tablet, Mitsuki began to explain.
"Actually, the breakthrough in the Divine Tree Human experiment is largely thanks to the SMILE fruit you gave to Miss Sherry, Lord Luca."
"Although Miss Sherry's attempts couldn't solve the random animal transformation side effects of the SMILE fruit, building on her research data, I tried integrating my own cellular traits into the SMILE formula."
"As you know, due to Lord Orochimaru's interests, my cells contain certain serpent traits, but the physical manifestation isn't much different from a normal human."
"This largely avoids the random animal transformations caused by the SMILE fruit while allowing the subject to integrate my physical characteristics almost completely."
"Current tests show that physical fitness, Chakra generation and usage, body modification, thermal vision, snake eyes—about 70 to 80 percent of these traits can be inherited."
As he spoke, a rare flash of fanaticism and joy appeared in the usually calm Mitsuki's eyes, making Luca scratch his head secretly.
Of course, the content of Mitsuki's words was more important.
"So... you're saying... you created a SMILE Devil Fruit—Chakra Serpent Form?"
Luca was aware of Sherry's research on the "SMILE fruit." The raw material was the "Black Panther Form Fruit" he brought back from Wakanda.
However, Sherry's research showed that while replicating the "SMILE fruit" itself wasn't difficult, improving the success rate and solving the random animal mutation issue proved impossible in the short term.
After ending up with a bunch of grotesque, laughing death-row inmates in the Sokovia prison, Luca had to ask Sherry to pause the project.
By the way, the Heart-Shaped Herb brought back from Wakanda was also under research.
Fearing a special connection between the herb and the Panther God, progress was slow. They had only designated a plot of soil containing Vibranium for cultivation while attempting to isolate the substance responsible for human enhancement.
Back to the topic, Luca hadn't expected Mitsuki to combine these two "failed" projects to create a brand-new enhancement method.
"Chakra Serpent Form? That name works. But since my previous research also utilized some of Yuri's clone modification technology, we don't necessarily need the SMILE fruit. We can add the modification components directly during the clone creation stage for a one-step process."
"Uh... Yuri's tech too? What kind of mishmash modification is this..."
Despite his words, Luca was very satisfied with Mitsuki's results.
However, there was one thing he needed to double-check.
"What's the success rate?"
After all, the original "SMILE fruit" had a pitiful one-in-ten success rate. While using clones meant they could just destroy failures and try again, it would inevitably increase costs and lower efficiency.
Fortunately, Mitsuki didn't disappoint him.
"Rest assured, my Lord. If applied during clone creation, the theoretical success rate is one hundred percent."
"Even if we manufacture the SMILE fruit separately for normal humans, considering individual differences, the probability of successful enhancement exceeds ninety-eight percent."
"Although my cells differ from ordinary humans, the SMILE fruit helps bridge that gap. Plus, since this enhancement doesn't involve animal will, there won't be willpower conflicts leading to failure or abnormal mutations."
"Well, or rather, even if abnormal mutations occur, they are basically unnoticeable."