Chapter 108: Transformed Into A True Devil Fruit
“This is······ a gorilla?”
Elus walked up to the old pirate. With all four limbs broken, such injuries couldn’t be healed in a short time even with a Zoan Devil Fruit. The old pirate had completely lost his mobility and could only curse verbally to gain some small advantage, nothing more.
Finding the old guy too noisy, Elus released a bit of spiritual pressure to intimidate him, fiercely impacting the old pirate’s soul and mind. This immediately scared the old pirate into shutting his mouth. His eyes gradually adjusted to the light in the room, and he finally saw Elus’s appearance clearly.
In just an instant, his already low and despairing mood plunged into hell.
It was actually the Black Prince······
As an experienced pirate, how could he not recognize Elus, who had appeared multiple times in the newspaper.
Deep despair turned into a big hand that tightly gripped his heart, making it almost impossible for him to breathe. The small hope he had used for self-consolation could no longer deceive himself. Falling into the Black Prince’s hands, where was there any chance of escape.
Death was their only outcome.
This was something well-known among the pirates of the New World today. The Fifth Overlord of the New World was not a pirate and harbored malice toward pirates. Falling into the hands of the other Pirate Emperors meant nine deaths out of ten, but if caught by the Black Prince, it was absolute death with no chance of survival.
Or perhaps, in the Black Prince’s hands, even a quick and painless death was a luxury.
Even the pain of his broken limbs was endured forcefully. He didn’t dare wail loudly and could only whimper softly, fearing to anger Elus and invite even crueler punishment.
With the annoying noise gone from his ears, Elus finally focused and carefully examined the old pirate’s condition.
Black fur, arms longer than his legs, magnified muscles that had bulked up significantly. From his appearance, it resembled a gorilla, but······ why was he stuck in this human-beast form? With all four limbs broken and his body severely injured, he shouldn’t have the stamina to maintain the human-beast form by reason.
Using abilities consumes stamina, and this is true for any type of Devil Fruit. Zoan Devil Fruit Users have strong vitality and endurance, but that doesn’t mean they are perpetual motion machines. Once the ability is activated, it consumes stamina—this is an unchanging truth.
“Why don’t you change back to human form?” Elus lightly kicked the old pirate.
“It hurts so much······”
Even a light kick was excruciating pain like drilling into the bone for the old pirate with broken bones. He hissed and drew in several breaths of cold air, letting out instinctive wails. But as he raised his head and inadvertently saw Elus’s emerald green eyes, glimpsing the undisguised coldness and ruthlessness.
The old pirate suddenly felt a chill in his heart.
The intuition and experience cultivated from over thirty years drifting on the Sea told him he absolutely could not defy the infamous Black Prince before him.
“Can’t······ change back? Hiss?”
The old pirate himself was stunned.
Having roamed the New World for so many years, even if he hadn’t eaten pork, he had seen pigs run. He knew Zoan Devil Fruit Users could switch between human and beast forms, and even if injured, as long as they were alive and had strength, they could definitely do it.
However, the old pirate found he had no ability to change at all.
If not for the obvious animal changes on his body, he would suspect someone had fed him shit before. This strange situation left the old pirate somewhat bewildered, but it didn’t bring more fear—after all, he was already unlucky enough.
“Can’t change······ Caesar, your Artificial Devil Fruit is a bit······”
Elus shook his head.
As expected, even after changing environments, Caesar’s research ability hadn’t improved much. The Artificial Devil Fruits he developed were still the defective products from his memory: first, they couldn’t stably grant abilities to the consumer; second, the abilities from Artificial Devil Fruits were incomplete and flawed.
In his memory, the Ability User legions built by Beasts were full of Artificial Devil Fruit Users with bizarre appearances—lion heads on chests, elephant heads, hippopotamus behinds, antelope horns for hands······
They couldn’t compare to orthodox Zoan Devil Fruit Users at all. Just look at the true higher-ups of the Beasts Pirates like the All-Stars and Flying Six—none were Artificial Devil Fruit Users. If Artificial Devil Fruits only stayed at this level, the Ability Users produced could only bolster mid-to-high-level combat power.
This still had some gap from the results Elus wanted.
He wasn’t prepared to let his loyal subordinates eat these purely luck-based Artificial Devil Fruits—good luck for a flawed ability, bad luck and they’d lose even their sad emotions······ No matter what, he wasn’t a pirate. Beasts could disregard the lives of failures, but Elus didn’t want to be a cold-blooded ruler.
This was the influence brought by different identities.
Pirates were lawless, unbound by law or morality, at the cost of being hunted by all and constantly targeted by the Navy. But as the crown prince of a country, Elus had more choices—he could be a tyrannical tyrant or a benevolent ruler······ Different choices led to different results.
Though Elus had gained the ferocious notoriety of the Black Prince.
This notoriety mostly circulated outside the Eckmond Kingdom. Domestically, Elus had a quite good reputation. Under the efforts of generations of the Sokachio Family to operate it, near-monopolistic coffee trade had made the country wealthy and powerful, benefiting the entire populace greatly, along with the maritime transport network.
Elus didn’t want to ruin this good reputation.
His true nature wasn’t that of a good person, but he absolutely didn’t want to become trash like the Celestial Dragons.
“Where exactly is the problem? This shouldn’t be! Bloodline Factor—it’s the Bloodline Factor······ or SAD······” Caesar fell into deep distress. He had always strived to surpass Vegapunk, but Vegapunk, that freak, was said to have wisdom 500 years beyond humanity. Only someone as stubborn as Caesar didn’t know what quitting meant.
Vegapunk had abandoned Artificial Devil Fruit experiments, which gave Caesar a chance to surpass him. If he could mass-produce Devil Fruits, that would mean surpassing Vegapunk—at least in his own view.
Unfortunately, the results weren’t optimistic.
Such outcomes dealt a significant blow even to the overconfident, near-arrogant Caesar.
“The Bloodline Factor data is absolutely correct. Is it the SAD dosage? Or a loophole in the conversion process······” Caesar muttered to himself, fully immersed in his own world. Fran walked a few steps away in disgust, unwilling to approach the crazy-looking Caesar.
Elus ignored Caesar as well.
For this level of failure, though disappointed, Elus had some mental preparation. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t without results—even if it looked ugly and lacked the transformation ability of genuine Zoan Devil Fruit Users, the power boost was real, and vitality and recovery exceeded ordinary humans.
“Artificial Devil Fruit, flawed Ability User, huh?”
Elus squatted down. He placed his hand on the old pirate’s gorilla-like long arm and silently activated the Hogyoku’s power. Points of bluish light flew from his palm, slowly merging into the old pirate’s long arm.
“Ah——!!!”
The old pirate let out a heart-wrenching scream.
In this empty, enclosed room, it produced endless echoes. The two unlucky ones who could only laugh were terrified, dragging their heavy shackles on hands and feet to back away a few steps. They watched the old pirate on the ground with smiling (fearful) eyes, bodies shrinking in fear, tears of despair flowing uncontrollably, yet their faces still smiled.
“Eek!! So creepy.”
Fran scratched her arm.
The old pirate’s screams didn’t move her, but those two unlucky ones laughing while crying creeped her out.
“Caesar, look at the mess you’ve made, creating such creepy things. Next time if you don’t fix it, even if Your Highness doesn’t beat you, I won’t let you off.” As she spoke, the maid waved her fist threateningly. Her beautiful fist, like white jade, was enveloped in golden-red flames.
“······ Miss Fran, rest assured, I guarantee I’ll fix the current flaws.” Awakened from contemplation by the old pirate’s howls, Caesar dry-laughed twice, looking at Fran’s delicate pretty fist and swallowing.
He feared Elus, who could match BIG·MOM, but acted arrogant toward others—until separately taught lessons by Fran and Kappas, making this forgetful guy deeply understand what it meant to yield.
The Black Prince wasn’t just powerful himself; even his subordinates were monstrously strong. Two merciless beatings made Caesar fully realize his situation—he could strut before his researchers, but with others, better to behave honestly.
“I hope you’re not lying to me.”
Fran withdrew her fist and turned her gaze back to Elus. Caesar looked over too.
The old pirate’s screams were still loud.
But Elus didn’t let go, continuing to channel the Hogyoku’s power because the old pirate’s body was changing. The thick black fur not only covered his long arms but emerged densely all over his body. His aged face turned into an ape’s, especially the pair of white eyebrows on his face that stood out strikingly.
The change wasn’t long—just over a minute. The old pirate transformed from a half-finished gorilla form into a complete white-browed long-armed ape form. As the full transformation completed, his screams quickly subsided.
The pain of broken limb bones remained, but the earlier phantom pain like muscle tearing had actually raised his tolerance. He tried to ignore the pain, focusing attention on his changes. Even lying on the ground, he could lift his head to see his body—his neck wasn’t broken.
“This is······ why did it change again?”
The old pirate looked at his current form.
Even without seeing the white eyebrows on his face, he could tell his arms were completely different from before. Though still covered in thick black fur and longer than knees, they were slimmer now—his arms much thinner, without the previous bulging muscle power feel. A tail had grown from his butt, pressed uncomfortably beneath him.
Besides that, his body felt entirely different. Though unable to move limbs freely, he could feel his muscles becoming active. He could imagine that if his limb bones weren’t broken, he’d now be as agile as an ape.
Right,
And not just that—a profound intuition from his mind made him will it, and the thick black fur on his body vanished. The knee-length arms shortened back to normal, and the uncomfortable tail beneath him disappeared too.
He had changed back to human form.
This was—
A real Devil Fruit.
“Monkey Monkey Fruit: White-Browed Long-Armed Ape Form······”
Caesar recognized the old pirate’s form and murmured it out.
He widened his eyes in disbelief at the scene. If he hadn’t seen this change with his own eyes, he wouldn’t believe this······ unscientific thing. “This makes no sense? Impossible······ How is this possible······ Your Highness, you, you······”
The massive shock tied Caesar’s tongue.
This broke his understanding entirely. “A Devil Fruit? This is a Devil Fruit ability······ But I’ve never heard of it! The Devil Fruit Encyclopedia has no record of this fruit?”
He desperately wracked his brain for a reasonable explanation.
But no matter how he thought, he couldn’t find a self-consistent reason. Artificial Devil Fruits were recent inventions; there shouldn’t be technology or ability to turn them into real Devil Fruits.
Unable to find an explanation, he turned his gaze to Elus.
Elus was also examining the old pirate. Using the Hogyoku’s power to evolve the Artificial Devil Fruit into a real Devil Fruit—this experiment succeeded, but questions flooded his mind one after another.
“From gorilla to monkey······ Interesting!”
