According to Caesar Clown, this dried corpse was just ruins. Trying to build a new house on the basis of ruins was far more difficult than finding a new suitable plot of land.
"Using Lunarian cells, there might still be a chance to clone something. But this thing has absolutely no life at all. Every cell in this body is completely dried dead. It's impossible to cultivate life from it."
Caesar Clown felt the other side didn't understand science at all.
"So you're saying, if his cells recover their vitality, you're confident you can revive him?"
Caesar Clown nodded. "Of course! In Vega… cough cough, in my research, this is absolutely possible. But this corpse looks like it's been dead for decades. How could the cells possibly still have vitality?"
Pure wishful thinking. Absolute wishful thinking. I have to find a chance to take the fruit back and think of a way to get away from them.
"Don't worry about that. This laboratory should have things like culture fluid and incubation pods. Bring them back and set them up. If his cells recover vitality, your job is to revive him, not to work on artificial Devil Fruits."
Artificial Devil Fruits are just worthless… or rather, Caesar Clown's two main 'achievements' are both worthless. His artificial Devil Fruits and the failed giant products are not what Vane needs.
"Do you even understand science, you bastard! This kind of thing simply can't happen!"
Vane: "Caesar, don't you think your thinking is already limited? You think this is impossible, that is impossible, with not a shred of imagination. Do you really think you have a chance to surpass Vegapunk!"
"Vegapunk is regarded by the world as the greatest scientist precisely because he created many impossibilities!"
"If you want to give up the moment you encounter a little difficulty, then I misjudged you, Caesar. You can't possibly become a great scientist, and you'll never surpass Vegapunk."
After saying that, Vane lifted the coffin and turned to leave.
Caesar Clown immediately exploded in anger.
"Hah! You say I can't become a great scientist! I'll show you what kind of strength I have that's even better than Vegapunk!"
"Isn't it just a dried corpse? I'll solve it for you in minutes."
He took the bait.
This is the real world's "PUA" talk mixed with a bit of provocation. Sure enough, it hooked this vain guy Caesar Clown.
"Good. Meowth, are you done moving things?"
"Not yet, meow. There are way too many good things here, meow."
Left in this base were two kinds of materials: one on body modification, and another about hypotheses regarding artificial Devil Fruits.
There were also many experimental instruments that were extremely hard to buy outside. All of them had to be moved.
Sugar also came out at this time and activated her Devil Fruit ability. By touching the small instruments, she could quickly teleport and take these things back into Meowth's body.
With two scientists who knew what was useful and what wasn't, the base was quickly emptied by more than half.
"The rest really can't be moved. They're integrated with this base."
"Alright, this is enough for you to digest for a while."
The gains from this trip were pretty good. There was no gold or jewels, but there was wealth that was far more useful.
"The king of the Future Country—Vegapunk's wealth took a shot for your treasury."
Having taken the technology Vegapunk left behind, Vane decided to spare the treasury of the Future Country.
This is Vegapunk's hometown. If they looted the treasury here, in the end the pressure would fall back on the people.
Back then, in the Twin Kingdom, the royal family was rotten to the core, so he demolished them directly and the people actually had better prospects. In the Future Country, because of Vegapunk, the lives of ordinary residents were fairly decent, so there was no need to toss them around.
Mainly, they hadn't heard that there were any ability users here.
"Shurorororo~ Cat, you're pretty capable. You actually created a machine like this."
Caesar Clown sat inside the Gyarados submarine, touching this and that, full of curiosity.
"Meow, of course I'm amazing, meow. You didn't think I only eat dried fish, did you, meow?"
When it comes to being praised, Meowth is actually pretty easy to praise—just not as tsundere as Chopper.
The Gyarados submarine soon returned to the Thunder Fortress. The people who stayed on the ship hadn't expected Vane and the others to bring back so many people this time.
Aside from the useless officer locked inside Meowth's body, Minotaurus, everyone else showed up together.
"Captain, why did you bring back so many kids?"
"Oh my god, why do they have such severe frostbite?!"
Martha saw that several of them had severe frostbite, and it broke her heart. She couldn't stand scenes like this.
"We already used the frostbite medicine you prepared on them, but… still, they're lucky. We arrived in time."
Vane told everyone about what the World Government had done. When she learned that more than a hundred children had frozen to death on the snowfield, Martha broke down in tears on the spot.
"Damn the World Government. How can they use such cruel methods?"
"Then was this child given some kind of drug by the World Government? At such a young age, he already looks so old."
Caesar Clown: "Bastard! I'm not a kid. I'm a real adult."
With poor eyesight, they also mistook Caesar Clown for a child.
"Alright, Caesar is a very formidable scientist. Put him into the Science Squad on our ship."
The Science Squad currently, including Meowth, are all Pokémon. Caesar Clown is still the first human. This kind of change can be considered steadily improving.
...
Over on the World Government's side, just two days later they discovered that their icebreaker had gone missing. Those were agents who had undergone strict training—unless they were dead, they absolutely wouldn't just disappear without a word.
The World Government immediately dispatched an investigation team.
"Lucci, did you find anything?"
On the icefield, the 14-year-old Lucci looked at a patch of ice that had refrozen. Because the freezing times were different, the traces here were a bit different from the surroundings.
The other agents quickly dug open this patch of ice and sent people who were good swimmers down to check the situation.
"Found it. The icebreaker suffered severe damage. The corpses below are all mutilated. Although we didn't find all the bodies, the people who came along should all be dead."
Lucci thought for a moment. "…Who could have done this?"
"Anyone who dares to lay hands on our icebreaker is basically some pirates who don't know anything… Recently, there aren't many in these waters with that kind of ability."
"Go check Vegapunk's research base. They landed without alerting the Future Country, so Vegapunk's research base will likely have traces left behind."