Seven days later, the Twin Goddesses sailed across the boundless sea.
After a full week of recovery, Yemu felt completely restored, with no lingering discomfort anywhere in his body. Still, on Doctor Ayala's advice, he continued resting instead of rushing back into training.
As Ayala explained it, Yemu had spent far too long pushing himself, leaving his body in a constant state of tension and fatigue. Taking this chance to let it truly rest was a good thing.
Yemu found her reasoning convincing. Besides, listening to the doctor wasn't just a matter of common sense, but also a way of showing respect to Ayala and encouraging her.
After all, seeing the captain himself obediently following medical advice gave little Ayala an enormous boost of confidence. Every day after that, she was full of energy and motivation.
If not for her physical limitations, she probably would not have rested for even a single minute, studying medicine nonstop to repay the trust her Captain brother had placed in her.
The whole situation felt a bit like playing house with a child, but Yemu chose to trust the girl anyway. Right now, he didn't really have any other option.
"Ah, this really is comfortable."
He had to admit, days without training were genuinely relaxing.
Yemu pushed open the door, and warm sunlight spilled over him, wrapping his body in a pleasant heat.
Looking out, the deck was lively. Tiger, now promoted to the Sky Pirates' physical training instructor, was leading his seven students through their routine.
Naturally, Tiger stood at the front of the first row.
The second row was made up of the three girls: Flare, Baby-5, and Ayala.
The third row consisted of the Kuromi brothers.
Everyone wore white training outfits, sweat pouring down as they held their stances and threw punch after punch. Their expressions were serious, their movements disciplined and earnest.
Altogether, it was a warm and harmonious scene, like a family head personally training a group of children.
Still, if he was being honest, Yemu felt conflicted. He had come to the Grand Line to build his own pirate crew and turn the world upside down. Yet now, his crew looked more like a daycare center than anything else.
Even though those four robots were technically more than seven hundred years old, their simple, clumsy, and oddly adorable behavior made them no different from children.
He had no intention of following Red-Haired's philosophy of entrusting everything to the next generation.
Fortunately, when it came to dealing with the dangers of the first half of the Grand Line, the ship's current combat strength was more than enough. But the New World was another matter entirely.
Yemu had never expected that such a short period of training would drastically raise Flare's combat power, or that of the others. Realistically, it would take at least one or two years.
Because of that, Yemu planned to keep giving them a little extra help.
Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't have had the means to do so. But with the Baku Baku no Mi, things were different.
In a way, it was a pleasant surprise.
After seven days of observing the Kuro brothers, Yemu also found himself feeling somewhat relieved. Thankfully, those four robots had eaten Devil Fruits. Otherwise, they would have been completely useless.
Despite being machines, their strength and aptitude were only slightly above that of ordinary people in this world, hardly impressive at all.
On top of that, because their bodies were mechanical, even though they contained some biological components, training did absolutely nothing to improve their strength. In some respects, they were worse off than normal humans.
Yemu had assumed that as technological creations from seven hundred years ago, they would at least possess some advanced knowledge. To his surprise, they truly had nothing of the sort.
In their own words, Dr. Kuro's original purpose in creating them was simply companionship. They were meant to serve as a vessel for his longing for his homeland. He never intended for them to become weapons or tools, nor did he want anything within their bodies to attract others' greed and bring about their destruction.
…
Yemu found himself momentarily at a loss for words.
Fortunately, things were completely different now that they had eaten Devil Fruits.
The idea itself had come to him in a sudden flash of inspiration.
Everyone knew that activating a Devil Fruit consumed the user's physical stamina as fuel. But robots clearly didn't have such a thing. They didn't possess stamina, only energy.
That raised a simple question. If the Kuro brothers had enough energy, did that mean they could use their Devil Fruit abilities without any limits at all?
With that in mind, Yemu spent the next seven days testing his theory.
The results were more than satisfying. You could even call it a blessing in disguise. His guess had been right.
As long as their energy supply was sufficient, the Kuromi brothers could develop their Devil Fruit abilities endlessly, without restraint. And because their bodies were mechanical, they didn't even have to worry about physical damage.
As a result, in just seven days, the Kuromi brothers' Devil Fruit abilities reached an almost unbelievable level.
That even led Yemu to another thought.
If things continued like this, the four of them might actually reach the stage of Devil Fruit awakening before he did.
Of course, that point was still some distance away, and Yemu wasn't in any hurry.
Because even now, the level they had already reached with their Devil Fruit abilities was enough to pleasantly surprise him.
Especially Kuromi's Baku Baku no Mi and Kuromu's Doa Doa no Mi.
Kuromu's Doa Doa no Mi gave Yemu confidence. Even after hearing the intelligence brought back by Morgans, that they had been marked by the Dark World, he still believed he could keep Flare and the others safe.
As for Kuromi's Baku Baku no Mi, it gave Yemu the confidence to truly give Flare and the others a powerful boost.
Yemu remembered the abilities of the Baku Baku no Mi very clearly from the manga.
That was partly because he had read plenty of analysis posts back then, and among discussions of Devil Fruits, the Baku Baku no Mi was one of the most frequently mentioned.
Its user could eat anything, turning it into a part of their body or combining it into something entirely new.
What interested Yemu most were two particular aspects.
First, in the manga, Wapol had used the Baku Baku no Mi to create Wapol Metal.
Unfortunately, Yemu could no longer remember exactly what that metal was used for, but it represented a possibility. The possibility of creating entirely new metals.
As a transmigrator who had seen countless movies and shows, Yemu knew very well how important powerful materials could be. Because of that, he had already begun thinking about having Kuromi experiment with creating new metals, using them to modify the group and raise their overall strength.
With the abilities of the Baku Baku no Mi, Yemu didn't even need to understand any advanced technology. As long as they could develop suitable metals, Kuromi could swallow his companions along with those materials, fuse everything together, and use it to modify them, or even himself.
The second point was that a Baku Baku no Mi user could swallow other ability users and make use of their powers.
Of course, Yemu wasn't talking about having Kuromi devour other ability users just to steal their strength and empower herself.
His vision had never been that short-sighted. What he was thinking about went much further than that.
For example, the method later mentioned in the manga, one that allowed non-living objects to obtain Devil Fruit abilities...