Aside from the World Government's foremost scientist, Dr. Vegapunk—whose technology is said to lead humanity by five hundred years—there are precious few independent scientists of true ability left in the world.
Judge Vinsmoke, head of the once‑dominant Vinsmoke Family in the North Blue, is also a renowned researcher, but he commands his own faction and could never be so easily recruited or pressed into service by El's crew.
Queen, now their captive and one of the Three Disasters, is likewise a scientific genius—yet he belongs to the Beasts Pirates.
Forcing him to bow in defeat is simple enough, but earning his wholehearted loyalty is far harder.
Brilliant, capable scientists are not easily won.
Caesar, however—though less accomplished than the names above—is no fraud.
He has more than enough talent to serve as a capable head of their technical division for the time being.
El's purpose in heading for the hidden lab is twofold: first, to seize the entire Artificial Devil Fruit production chain, and second, to claim the self‑proclaimed genius scientist Caesar himself.
Any asset within reach ought to be brought into their own ranks.
With their goal set, El's ship set sail at once for the island where the facility lay.
Guided personally by Doflamingo's precise directions and charts, they made excellent time.
Once decided, action must be swift and decisive.
Now that El had chosen to take charge of the Artificial Devil Fruit industry, there was no room for hesitation or delay.
With the exact location of the hidden base confirmed, they pressed onward without pause.
He sought not just the production network itself, but the scientist who kept it running—Caesar.
To be sure, El's crew deserved a far more advanced research team, but such groups were rare even across the globe: independent innovators capable of leading entire projects from scratch were few and far between, and convincing them to switch sides was no simple task.
Caesar had long operated in the lawless gray zones.
Once a promising young protégé under Dr. Vegapunk, he had inherited the incomplete, discarded data from Vegapunk's own abandoned Artificial Zoan research—and through painstaking trial and error, had turned those rough notes into a commercially viable product.
That alone proved he was no amateur.
Doflamingo understood trade and logistics, but not the science behind it; Caesar was the only one who could truly advance El's goals here.
Neither the scientist nor the production chain would be left for the Beasts Pirates to claim—not out of fear that their power would surge, but because El would sooner see them stagnate than share such a prize.
The market for Artificial Zoan Devil Fruits was vast, and this was an industry he meant to monopolize.
In the past, the Donquixote Family had been forced to send almost their entire output to Kaido, too afraid to defy the Emperor.
But times had changed. Doflamingo no longer stood alone; backed by El's crew, he had nothing to fear from the Beasts Pirates' interference.
Caesar himself was an intriguing figure. With Vegapunk now serving the World Government openly, his former assistant had been left to fend for himself.
He was undeniably gifted—if not quite the once‑in‑five‑centuries visionary Vegapunk was—and had learned much navigating the shadows of the New World.
"Gold will shine wherever it lies"—a saying that rang especially true for pirates.
Any capable soul willing to set aside pride could find a home in any number of crews across the New World—and scientists were no exception.
With Vegapunk's work now restricted to official use, and Judge fully occupied building his invincible mobile kingdom, no other top‑tier innovators remained available.
As the old saying went: "When the tiger is away, the monkey rules the mountain." With the giants gone, Caesar had become the most sought‑after prize of all.
While serving the Donquixote Family, he had been kept under tight guard—partly because his work was irreplaceable, and partly because Doflamingo feared what might happen if others got to him first.
Before joining the Family, Caesar had faced hardships he never spoke of.
He had always dreamed of making a name for himself, but fate had rarely favored him; he had served as a hired expert for crew after crew, trading his skills for funding.
Once, he had been called to assist the Big Mom Pirates, who needed his help repairing a critical piece of technology.
For reasons he never explained, Caesar had demanded an exorbitant fee—vast sums of wealth and resources that far exceeded what the work was worth.
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