Marine Headquarters, Marineford.
Kyle sat on a cliff's edge, tossing in his hand a fruit with a spiral pattern and a transparent texture that resembled a high-grade gem, a hint of interest showing in his eyes.
"I didn't expect that bastard Wang Zhi was hiding such a good thing!"
From the fruit's unique shape, it was obvious at a glance that it was a Devil Fruit.
Kyle had never seen what this Devil Fruit looked like in his previous life, and it was only after returning to Marine Headquarters and flipping through the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia that he learned exactly what this fruit was.
Paramecia Type: Barrier-Barrier Fruit!!
A very powerful fruit in the original work.
Its previous user, Kurozumi Semimaru, had used its barrier to forcibly block a full-powered slash from Oden, who was imbued with Conqueror's Haki.
Oden's slash could both severely wound Kaido and slice through a massive mountain, yet it was utterly helpless against the barrier, which also protected the serpent behind him.
As for the second user, Bartolomeo, he demonstrated the Barrier-Barrier Fruit's power even more vividly.
During the Dressrosa arc, Bartolomeo easily blocked King Elizabello II's King Punch with his barrier.
That punch required an hour of warm-up and charging and was said to be able to kill a Yonko.
Of course, that claim was definitely false anyway.
Furthermore, his most prominent feat was using his barrier ability to block Fujitora's attacks, forcing him to abandon a frontal assault and instead attack using falling rubble and debris from houses dropped from above.
Of course, whether Fujitora held back regarding this point was anyone's guess.
Moreover, the barrier wasn't just for defense; Bartolomeo had also developed many offensive techniques.
The only problem was...
No one wanted it!!
In their squad, only four people currently hadn't eaten a fruit.
Sabo, Zoro, Kuina, Sanji.
Among them, Zoro and Kuina were still the same as ever, only wanting to become the world's greatest swordsmen and not interested in Devil Fruits.
That guy Sanji didn't have any particular either; for him, the Barrier-Barrier Fruit's abilities just weren't appealing enough.
As for Sabo, he wasn't opposed to eating a Devil Fruit, but he only wanted to eat a Logia-type Devil Fruit.
In his words, whether it's strong or not could be considered later, but the cool factor first had to meet the conditions.
So, ultimately, this led to such a powerful Paramecia fruit as the Barrier-Barrier Fruit being practically useless to him here.
But even so, Kyle had no intention of handing it over; instead, he planned to keep it himself.
Just because it was useless now didn't mean it would be useless later.
Maybe sometime he would recruit new people, and then they might want it~
Selling it was even more out of the question.
His trip to Hachinosu had netted him another huge sum of Berries.
This pushed his Berries, which he already didn't know how to spend, to an unprecedented level.
He didn't know the exact amount, but he estimated it was probably close to ten billion Berries?
That bastard Wang Zhi had holed up in Hachinosu for so many years, and the wealth he had amassed was also an astronomical figure.
So in this mission report, Kyle couldn't possibly claim they hadn't captured anything; that would be too unconvincing.
In the mission report, from this Hachinosu mission trip, he had paid a full fifty Berries as a huge sum.
This was no small amount; it could buy the initial form of a god-level raccoon dog pet.
It was worth mentioning that after this mission, due to Kyle capturing Wang Zhi and Golden Lion Shiki, his position was once again elevated.
Now, he was a Marine Vice Admiral at Marine Headquarters!!
As for the others, basically everyone got promoted too.
Sabo, Ace, and Luffy, the three brothers, now all held the rank of Captain, and the rest were at the Commander level, all field-grade officers, and it wouldn't be long before they had the chance to be promoted to flag officer rank.
After tossing the Barrier-Barrier Fruit in his hand a few more times, Kyle stored it in his system space and slowly stood up.
A crackling sound rang out, and in an instant, Kyle's figure transformed into a bolt of purple lightning and vanished from the spot.
Before long, he arrived in front of a house in the Marineford residential area and, without any warning, pushed the door open and walked straight in.
Shortly after, a figure was thrown out from inside the house by Kyle and slammed onto the ground.
"Sleep, sleep, sleep, all you do is sleep! How can you fall asleep at your age? Don't you feel ashamed?!"
Kyle's voice came through, filled with frustration at Sabo's apparent lack of promise, instantly snapping the still somewhat dazed figure sitting on the ground back to reality.
Sabo stared intently at Kyle walking out of his house and spoke through gritted teeth:
"Kyle, do you have a screw loose?!!"
"You bastard, I was sleeping so soundly and you throw me out..."
Sabo's words abruptly stopped, and his throat couldn't help but bob nervously.
For, appearing before his eyes, seemingly from nowhere, was a long blade crackling faintly with lightning, pointing directly at him.
The purple lightning radiating from the blade was bloodcurdling.
"Go on, why don't you keep going? I think what you're saying, Sabo, is very reasonable!"
"Come on, continue!"
Kyle revealed a faint smile as he looked at Sabo and said 'gently.'
Sabo: ...
At this moment, Sabo mentally cursed Kyle countless times using the most elegant language, but dared not utter a single word aloud.
What eventually came out of his mouth was:
"Well, um, I just woke up, my head wasn't quite clear, I was talking some nonsense, Big Brother, please don't take it to heart! Heh heh~"
Sabo kept telling himself in his mind to endure, endure, and endure again.
Wait until the day his strength surpassed Kyle's...
Hmm! That possibility was somewhat slim; Kyle didn't quite seem like a normal human.
The difficulty level for him to surpass Kyle was somewhat high.
Maybe in the past he still had that confidence, but now he could only say that back then he was young and arrogant.
The longer he interacted with Kyle, the more he understood just how terrifying this guy was; thinking about surpassing him was truly somewhat unrealistic.
It was more reliable to think about when he might seize a chance, when Kyle wasn't paying attention, to slip him some potent laxative.
If he couldn't win in a frontal fight, surely he could still resort to underhanded tricks?
Just as Sabo was scheming about how to deal with Kyle, Kyle sheathed his sword, and his flat voice rang out:
"You said last time you wanted a Logia-type Devil Fruit?"
"I do happen to have some information about a powerful Logia-type Devil Fruit!"
"What do you say? Interested in checking it out?"
Sabo: !!!
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