Starting with the Uchiha clan, they began cultivating demonic arts.

Chapter 247 Return to Alabasta

Uchiha Touyu only learned a little about Usopp and the Going Merry and didn't care much about it, but another piece of news caught his attention.

"What a strange pirate ship, and this guy looks like that... he must be Blackbeard!"

Looking at the portrait provided by Baroque Works in his hand, Uchiha Touyu immediately recognized the man in front of him—a man with a full beard, dark skin, a big belly, and missing teeth—as the strange, alien-looking black-bearded man.

Baroque Works has now become an intelligence agency for the Alabasta royal family, and it includes a pair of oddly ominous creatures, an otter and an eagle, who are considered the most outstanding intelligence agents in all of Alabasta.

In addition, animals generally don't attract much attention, and some even have a friendly aura (in the cover stories, even many cold-blooded boss pirates are very caring towards animals), so this animal duo drew a portrait of Blackbeard without drawing attention.

"They were probably chasing after Straw Hat Luffy and Fire Fist Ace! But were they eventually chased away by Pell?"

Bell is now an awakened user of the Falcon Fruit. After awakening his Devil Fruit, he easily learned both types of Haki. In terms of strength, he is considered a formidable opponent even among the Navy Vice Admirals.

This level of strength might not be enough to deal with Blackbeard, but it was enough to make this guy wary.

After all, Bell is the captain of the Alabasta Guard and is not someone who goes it alone. Not to mention, there's also Fire Fist Ace who could appear at any time. After weighing the pros and cons, it's a normal choice for Blackbeard to retreat.

This guy is someone with very clear goals; he has no interest in fighting powerful enemies unless there's something in it for him.

Furthermore, Blackbeard wants to obtain the status of a Shichibukai. In order to obtain this status, he can no longer act recklessly. Alabasta is not a small country like Drum Country. Even the Navy and the World Government have a certain degree of influence in Alabasta.

Blackbeard left Alabasta, but Uchiha Touyu was not willing to let it go so easily. With his current strength, he had a great advantage over Blackbeard, if not a complete crushing defeat.

If they could defeat Blackbeard ahead of time and obtain the secrets of his alien body and the Dark-Dark Fruit, Uchiha Tou's strength and potential would increase once again.

While the Vampire Fruit is impressive, it certainly can't compare to the Dark-Dark Fruit in terms of pure potential. This fruit, representing darkness and gravity, is essentially a combination of conceptual and physical abilities. If its potential were fully unleashed using the Future Life Sutra, even Uchiha Touya would find it difficult to estimate how powerful it would become.

"So now there are only two things left to do... find a way to capture Blackbeard, and spread the faith in Alabasta!"

The potential of the Vampire Fruit has not yet been fully explored, but the power of faith has been completely exhausted. Relying solely on the faith that is generated naturally every day, it would probably take more than a decade to fully develop the potential of this fruit. Therefore, promoting faith is imperative.

Let's put the black beard thing aside for now; there will be plenty of opportunities later. But promoting the faith is something that should be done as soon as possible.

In the Alabasta Royal Palace, a streak of blood-red light descended from the sky and condensed into the figure of Uchiha Touyu. After landing, he looked at the guards around him, their eyes filled with a mixture of surprise, fear, and admiration. He remained expressionless on the surface, but nodded slightly in his heart.

Since returning to Alabasta, Uchiha Touyu has been showing off his divine abilities in public. Fortunately, the Vampire Fruit, which has reached the mythical realm, brings various abilities that are indeed quite conspicuous. In addition, he is strong and has a great reputation, so this act of pretending to be a god is surprisingly effective.

Let alone ordinary civilians in Alabasta, even the more knowledgeable royal guards now look at Uchiha Touyu with the same disdain they would show a god.

"No wonder he's Princess Vivi's fiancé; just one look at me sends chills down my spine!"

"This is terrifying! I heard that all the rebels who fought against this royal consort were drained of their life force and turned into dried corpses!"

"It is said that this king consort is a god of slaughter born from blood, and his favorite thing to do is to fight and kill."

"Uh... if that's the case, wouldn't Princess Vivi be in great danger?"

"It's said that the kind-hearted Princess Vivi couldn't bear it and used her gentleness to seal away this terrible demon king, which led him to reform..."

"Princess Vivi is so pitiful. I never imagined that a princess would be willing to sacrifice so much for us, her people!"

Uchiha Touyu's Observation Haki and Devil Fruit abilities have been fused together to the point where he can cover the entire city and read minds, so naturally, he could not hide the words and thoughts of these guards from him.

After listening to the discussion of the guards behind him, Uchiha Touyu was utterly exasperated. What were they even saying? The beginning was somewhat plausible, but the later parts were simply unbearable to read. He was being treated like an evil god and a great demon king!

But let them be regarded as evil gods and demon kings! It won't stop them from reaping faith, or rather, this kind of evil god faith might spread even faster in the short term.

Upon entering the palace, Uchiha Tou immediately saw Princess Vivi, dressed in a blue dress with a smile on her face.

"Feiyu, you're here! I heard you went to the New World this time. What's it like there?"

Princess Vivi was also busy during this time. Alabasta had just experienced a rebellion and needed this charismatic princess to appease the people, so she traveled and gave speeches throughout Alabasta.

Alabasta, where the rebellion had just been quelled, was not exactly peaceful. Fortunately, with the protection of Baroque Works, and Princess Vivi herself being no weakling, she easily resolved the problems she encountered.

However, because of this, today is the first day that Princess Vivi has met Uchiha Touyu.

Upon meeting, the princess approached Uchiha Hiyu with a face full of curiosity, grabbed his arm, and stared with her big, watery eyes as she asked a question.

Princess Vivi's own experiences show that she is not a conventional person. If it weren't for the responsibilities and concerns of Alabasta, she might have been a pirate. Naturally, she is very curious about Uchiha Tou's experiences.

"Okay, okay, stop shaking me. I'll tell you now..."

The waving arm suddenly transformed into many blood-red bats, which flew out of Vivi's hand and then returned to Uchiha Tou's shoulder, coalescing into his arm, causing the princess to widen her eyes in astonishment.

"This is my haul this time—a Zoan-type Mythical Zoan, the Vampire Fruit!"

"Wow, that's amazing! So, Touya, you went to the New World for this Devil Fruit?"

Princess Vivi doesn't actually know much about Devil Fruits. After all, the first half of the Grand Line isn't the New World, and powerful Devil Fruits rarely appear there.

But no matter what, as a princess of a country, even if she had never seen such a powerful Mythical Zoan, she had at least seen the Devil Fruit encyclopedia and knew the power of Mythical Zoan Devil Fruits—these were Devil Fruits that were even more powerful and rarer than ordinary Logia-type Devil Fruits.

In fact, even the most common Mythical Zoan type possesses at least the powerful physique and extraordinary strength of a Zoan-type Devil Fruit, equivalent to a combination of a powerful Ancient Zoan Devil Fruit and a Paramecia-type Devil Fruit.

"Pretty much... I've finally fulfilled my wish. This Mythical Zoan fruit is one of the best among all Devil Fruits."

"By the way, Vivi, do you want a Devil Fruit? On the way back this time, we ran into a group of ignorant pirates. Although they weren't very strong, the leader of the pirates had a pretty good Devil Fruit ability."

After acquiring the Future Life Sutra, Uchiha Tou no longer worried about the aftereffects of the Devil Fruit transfer, as the Magnet Fruit itself did not carry much faith power.

However, Vivi, as the princess of Alabasta, is kind-hearted, sweet-looking, and incredibly approachable. She possesses considerable faith power and can easily cultivate the Future Life Sutra to a certain level, thus eliminating the side effects of any Devil Fruit.

Furthermore, with Uchiha Tou's development of the Vampire Fruit and the fusion of Blood Nerve power, he will be able to directly extract Devil Fruit abilities from living people. Even if Princess Vivi wants a better Devil Fruit in the future, she can simply change it.

"A Devil Fruit? What kind of Devil Fruit?"

Princess Vivi paused for a moment, then immediately asked.

Having been driven to the brink of despair by Baroque Works and experienced the power of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, Vivi herself is absolutely craving power.

However, Devil Fruits vary in strength. Although Uchiha Tou said it was a good Devil Fruit, Vivi definitely needed to know what kind of Devil Fruit it was before she could make a decision.

"It's a Paramecia-type Magnet-Magnet Fruit. With this Devil Fruit, you can control the power of magnetic fields. In the initial stage, you can manipulate metal. If you develop it to its limit, you should be able to change the magnetic field of an island, fly automatically, launch a railgun, and even open up micro wormholes."

Regarding the power of magnetic fields, disregarding those completely unscientific systems that could never be replicated in the One Piece world, the strongest magnetic field in Uchiha Touyu's imagination is naturally Magneto from American comics.

Magneto in American comics is not the Iron Man from the movies. Relying on his ability to control magnetic fields, he can create wormholes for teleportation on a microscopic level and reverse the magnetic fields of planets to destroy humanity on a macroscopic level. He can be described as a world-destroying, bug-like mutant. However, there are too many bug-like characters in American comics, so he doesn't stand out much.

In fact, this level is enough. If Princess Vivi could develop to the level of Magneto, she could easily overturn the Red Line, destroy Mary Geoise, and rule the entire pirate world. Whether she has the will or not is another matter, but her strength is definitely sufficient.

After hearing Uchiha Touyu's introduction, Princess Vivi paused for a moment, pondered, and then shook her head.

"I don't think this fruit can unleash its full potential in my hands. Uh... I'm a little embarrassed to admit, but actually, I've never passed a science class..."

As a princess of Alabasta, Vivi received the highest level of private education from a young age, with a comprehensive curriculum. While she did well in etiquette and cultural classes, her science classes were practically incomprehensible.

The development of the Magnet Fruit naturally requires knowledge of natural sciences. Don't be fooled by Kid's biker gang look; even if he is a biker, he's a steampunk biker, and his mechanical theory and knowledge are definitely up to par.

Even in the comics, his childhood image shows him holding a wrench in one hand and a small robot in the other, which shows that he was very talented in this area from a young age.

Upon hearing this, Uchiha Tou nodded, and at the same time, he gave up the idea of ​​giving Princess Vivi the Magnet Fruit.

The power of faith brought by the Future Life Sutra can only enhance the power of the Magnet Fruit. To fully develop this fruit ability related to the fundamental forces of physics, one's own scientific knowledge is also indispensable.

Despite Magneto graduating from a reclusive university, his actual knowledge is no less than that of electromagnetism PhDs. Since Princess Vivi is a science idiot, she has basically given up on this kind of basic power-type Devil Fruit.

"Alright, I'll see if there's a suitable Devil Fruit for you later... Tsk, this Devil Fruit would actually be best for Nami, but she definitely wouldn't want to."

In terms of power and potential, the Magnet-Magnet Fruit is far superior to the Smooth-Smooth Fruit. In terms of compatibility, the Magnet-Magnet Fruit is also a better fit for Nami.

However, the special effects of the Smooth-Smooth Fruit are irresistible to almost any woman, and Nami is no exception. Compared to it, her strength can only rank second.

Perhaps we can wait until Uchiha Touyu has figured out the secrets of Blackbeard's body structure before giving others another Devil Fruit. As for now, we can only let Captain Kid off the hook for the time being.

"There's one more thing. I need you to help me promote my faith in Alabasta so that I can develop my Devil Fruit."

Princess Vivi was well aware of how Uchiha Touyu had helped Pell develop his Devil Fruit, and she also understood the importance of faith. After hearing Uchiha Touyu's request, she naturally agreed, though her tone was slightly worried:

"Promoting the faith is no problem, but Feiyu, your reputation in Alabasta right now... well, it's not exactly bad, it's just..."

"It doesn't matter, whether it's an evil god or a great demon king, as long as there is enough faith, I'm not picky."

Uchiha Touyu waved his hand and said directly. Princess Vivi breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing this, then said somewhat shyly:

"I'm sorry, you're being blamed again. Nobody knows how much you've done behind the scenes for Alabasta."

Uchiha Touyu twitched his lips, knowing that the princess was starting to overthink things again, and didn't say anything more.

(End of this chapter)