Vane had a pretty good impression of the Castle-Castle Fruit. This is a fruit with spatial abilities. After eating it, the user's body turns into a castle.
The internal space is enough to accommodate a force of several hundred people—your body directly becomes a mobile fortress.
The Castle-Castle Fruit user has a barrier around their body. Anyone and anything that enters this barrier will shrink, and from the inside to the outside they will all return to their original size.
Moreover, the user can open doors and windows on any part of their body. Back when Capone Bege was surrounded by the Navy, his body opened a ring of gun ports. After one round of salvo fire, everyone thought bullets were being fired. After passing through the barrier, the shells returned to their original size—the power was terrifying.
Back then the Navy thought they had surrounded Capone Bege, but they didn't expect a "army" to crawl out from inside his body.
Riflemen and artillery were one thing, but damn it, he could even get a cavalry unit to come out—who could stand that?
All in all, this is a very good fruit. If Whitebeard had had this kind of fruit back then, he wouldn't have needed Little Oars to open the way at the cost of his life. As long as you sent the Devil Fruit user into the walls, you could directly deliver an entire army inside.
In addition, for the user, the Castle-Castle Fruit is also a pretty good life-saving ability.
Castle, castle—naturally, the user's body will also be as hard as stone.
If developed well, at the very least it could tank several punches from a Yonko-level expert like Big Mom Charlotte Linlin… the defensive power is pretty good.
"Meowth, you eat this fruit."
Vane directly pushed the fruit in front of Meowth and told Meowth about this fruit's abilities.
In Vane's original plan, it would have been most suitable for Meowth to eat the Munch-Munch Fruit, but the Munch-Munch Fruit was still vague and illusory, while this Castle-Castle Fruit was right in front of them.
"After eating it, I'll have a space as big as a castle… that means if we run into treasure in the future, I can swallow it all into my belly, meow!"
Meowth immediately thought of the fruit's wonderful use: when it sees a large amount of treasure, it can swallow it into its belly. Seeing so much treasure in the Thorn Rose Kingdom's treasury had really made its mouth water.
"My body will also become as hard as stone—this is great, meow."
It can hold enough treasure for storage, and it can also make the body as hard as stone and not easy to get hurt.
Meowth immediately chose to eat the fruit.
"It's so awful, meow! It's really worse than trash."
Meowth took one bite and immediately started jumping around, with a face that looked like it was about to throw up.
Vane glanced at the Devil Fruit. He was really curious about the taste of Devil Fruits… Devil Fruits only work for the first bite; a second person who eats it won't gain the ability, but the taste should still be there, right?
But just in case, after Meowth's ability manifested, he pinched off a piece of the fruit and tossed it into his mouth.
What kind of taste was that? The texture was dry, and sour, pungent, expired flavors exploded like a bomb—this had to be something like gutter-pickled, over-fermented moldy vegetables…
It was truly outrageous. After trying it once, Vane was afraid he wouldn't be able to look at Devil Fruits straight again.
"Meow, get a few people over here and I'll show you this meow's Devil Fruit ability!"
Meowth couldn't wait to show everyone its ability, causing waves of exclamations—especially when they saw the two-and-a-half-meter-tall Tant shrink to about the size of a beetle and bit into Meowth's body, the cries reached a climax.
"In the future, any treasure or equipment can be stuffed straight into my body. No one will notice, meow."
Looking at a ship full of people fooling around, Vane was calculating in his heart the gains and losses of this trip.
The loss was that there was a high probability they would be wanted by the World Government and the Navy. From then on, it would likely be a one-way road into darkness.
The gains were: the Castle-Castle Fruit, this excellent fruit. One Articuno feather that came with the fruit.
One vampiric Cursed Sword.
The Navy's Rokushiki.
The gunner Lena and the doctor Martha.
Lena's marksmanship is truly very impressive—fast and accurate. Bonez, an assassin who was used to seeing gunners, gave Lena a very high evaluation.
Give her a good gun, and after she trains her Observation Haki well and pairs it with a suitable Devil Fruit ability, she will definitely become a role people have to be wary of.
Martha learned medicine from a young age. The reason she had such a good reputation in the Thorn Rose Kingdom was because she often treated common people without charging money.
Vane originally thought he had just grabbed a pretty vase onto the ship, but he didn't expect her to have such good medical skills—this filled out the ship's doctor lineup.
...
The Black Panther drifted on the sea for several days. For the time being there was no destination; everyone was waiting for news that could let Vane make the final call.
Finally, today at noon, a news-delivery seagull arrived on the Black Panther.
News-delivery seagulls are one of the few sources on this sea that can learn about the outside world, so no matter what role you are, as long as you still want to get the latest newspaper from these seagulls, you have to obediently pay.
"Boss, boss, the latest newspaper—there's coverage of our affair, and the latest bounty posters too."
A World Government member state, or rather a country about to join the World Government, had its king killed by "pirates." Such a major event was enough to make the news.
"Rose Princess…"
...
A few days earlier, after the Navy's investigation, the matter on Rose Island was reported to Navy Headquarters with a rough account of what happened.
One of the current Navy Admirals, Sengoku the Buddha, frowned as he looked at the intelligence on the major event in the West Blue. There were simply too many suspicious points in this report.
The first-hand news from the front line and the later investigation results were extremely disjointed.
The king of the Thorn Rose Kingdom was killed by Vane, and Vane was a pirate brought onto the island by the Thorn Rose Princess. The Rose Princess did it to overthrow the regime.
Looked at this way, it wasn't anything strange; similar things happen from time to time all over the world.
But the later investigation showed that the Rose Princess had an especially good reputation in the Thorn Rose Kingdom, and Vane had also been attacking pirates at sea during this period, acting like a pirate hunter.
And the head of the pirate alliance was someone else—and this person used to be a Navy Captain. Sengoku had heard this name before as well.
"There are too many problems."
For a moment, Sengoku didn't know where to start complaining. This kind of thing definitely had to be sent back for reinvestigation.
Just as Sengoku was about to feed the documents in his hand to his pet goat that served as a shredder, the door to his office was pushed open.
The one who came in was the current Fleet Admiral, Kong.
"Sengoku, you're still working so late."
Sengoku the Buddha is a typical man who can write with a pen and fight with a blade. In Kong's eyes, Sengoku would be the perfect choice to succeed him as Fleet Admiral in the future.
"Fleet Admiral, there's some intelligence from the West Blue here. I think there are problems…"
Kong: "I know, but the World Government has already defined this matter. No matter what Vane did before, the fact is that he killed the king of a World Government member state."
"The World Government believes that the incident ends here. We'll assign responsibility according to the first report that came up… this is also good for our Navy."
Erkoya is a Navy defector. If he were the real pirate boss of the Rose Island incident, reporting it would also affect the Navy's image.
It's better to define Vane as the responsible party and downplay Erkoya's existence.
"Set the bounty. Even though it's the first time, killing a king can be set higher…"
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Pls Drop some Power Stones
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