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

Chapter 255 The Hunt

After the golden ark was transported back to the Alabasta royal family, King Cobra announced to the people that it was a mirage.

Regardless of what people outside the country say, there is no golden ark here. It is just a mirage, a product of sunlight refraction. Apart from those who saw it with their own eyes, no one else believed in the golden ark, and it never spread.

Those who witnessed the golden ark firsthand gradually changed their minds under the influence of the surrounding environment. Could it be that they really saw a mirage? A ship made entirely of gold that could float in the sky—this was simply too outrageous.

Ignoring the turmoil in Alabasta, Uchiha Touyu was now preparing to do two things. First, he would use the Rumble-Rumble Fruit Cloud Shell to create a large amount of thunderclouds. As it turned out, the Rumble-Rumble Fruit did indeed permanently change the shape of the clouds, causing the thunderclouds produced by the Cloud Shell to not dissipate even on the ground.

Uchiha Touyu entrusted this matter to Nami. He also asked Cobra to find some scientists and meteorologists from Alabasta to help Nami, to see if they could create a new type of weather stick and learn more about meteorology.

The Clima-Tact was a tool created by Usopp. Although Usopp is a renowned genius in the Straw Hat Pirates, he is actually just a pseudo-scientist. If he can create the Clima-Tact, there is no reason why a country like Alabasta wouldn't have someone who can create it.

With the shellfish and thunderclouds from the Sky Island, even though the scientists in Alabasta were a bit less skilled, they could still manage to create the Weather Stick with some time.

The second thing is the Devil Fruit experiment that Uchiha Hiyu is preparing to carry out. Alabasta is a vast and resource-rich place, and there are naturally many people who should be sentenced to death.

Although a large number of prisoners were killed by Uchiha Tou, and Princess Vivi and King Cobra were kind-hearted, resulting in a small number of death row inmates, with a population of tens of millions, it was not a problem to pull out a hundred or so death row inmates.

The only problem is that Devil Fruits are hard to find—the Rumble-Rumble Fruit Cloud Shell is currently being used by Nami, and the other Devil Fruit users all belong to Alabasta, and some of them are even subordinates of Uchiha Touyu. With his current skills, he doesn't want any Devil Fruit user to become an idiot.

Fortunately, he later remembered that he also had a Magnet Fruit, or more accurately, a prisoner named Kid.

The Magnet-Magnet Fruit has great potential and is considered top-tier among Paramecia-type Devil Fruits. However, since it's just a Devil Fruit experiment, there's no need to care about the host.

It took about half a month for Uchiha Hiyu to finally extract the Devil Fruit power from the Devil Fruit user's body without damage. At most, it would make the user slightly weak and have a headache for a day or two before they could fully recover.

Of course, a side effect of this was that strange rumors began to circulate in the area where he lived. This king, who was already regarded as the incarnation of an evil god, was also rumored to have a penchant for torturing others, and that the palace was filled with incessant screams.

Uchiha Touyu didn't care; in fact, he hoped the rumors would spread even more. Respect is a belief, and so is fear. In the early stages of the spread of these beliefs, their effects far outweighed positive emotions.

Otherwise, the image of the one God in the old version of the Bible wouldn't be so terrifying. In the Old Testament, whenever people were killed, it was basically done according to race, region, or even the entire world.

Although the Vampire Fruit has not undergone a qualitative change yet, its rate of progress has indeed accelerated significantly. At least in terms of basic stat boosts, it has improved considerably, and various abilities have been enhanced.

However, there is still no sign of what Uchiha Touyu has been pursuing, such as blood transformation, the River of Death, and the Wrathful Flame.

However, Fei Yu could also sense that, along with his expectations, Devil Fruits did indeed have the potential to evolve in that direction. The Dead River Devil Fruit, being too abnormal, would definitely not have a complete version, but the Blood Transformation Devil Fruit, which was close to elementalization, and the Flame Devil Fruit, which simply enhanced special attacks, were absolutely possible to evolve.

Let's put the matter of strengthening faith aside for now. We can take it slowly and there's no need to rush. Given some more time, things will naturally fall into place.

"You can change Devil Fruits! I didn't even know there was such a terrifying ability... Most importantly, Fei Yu, you actually developed this ability."

"While your ability to forcibly seize the power of Devil Fruits was already outrageous enough, this current behavior is even more unacceptable!"

The one who spoke was Robin, who had been frequently by Uchiha Tou's side during this time. Even Nami would stay far away when Uchiha Tou was conducting human experiments. After all, this little thief was kind-hearted; even though she knew these people were death row inmates, she didn't want to see their struggles and pain.

Only Robin, who had faced enough darkness, could remain unfazed by it, and even helped Uchiha Touyu deal with some of the experimental subjects after the experiments were completed, and was also very concerned about the results of Uchiha Touyu's experiments.

"You don't want the Flower-Flower Fruit anymore? Do you want to get a different Devil Fruit, or do you want to have your Devil Fruit powers removed altogether?"

Uchiha Touyu only glanced at Robin before understanding her thoughts. Robin's wanted poster from back then featured a photo of her when she was eight years old. After more than a decade, it was difficult to connect that eight-year-old girl with the Robin of today.

However, Devil Fruits are different. Once the Flower-Flower Fruit's power is used, Robin's identity can basically be locked. If the Devil Fruit's power is eliminated or replaced, then Robin can truly escape the sight of the Navy and the World Government.

"Can I get a different Devil Fruit ability? I think the Rumble-Rumble Fruit would be pretty good."

"Keep dreaming at night. Do you really think you can unleash the full power of the Rumble-Rumble Fruit?"

Uchiha Touya twitched his lips and immediately refused Robin's request.

Unfortunately, Robin is not worthy of eating the Rumble-Rumble Fruit, whether in terms of compatibility or potential. Furthermore, she hasn't even cultivated the Future Life Sutra yet. If she were to obtain the Rumble-Rumble Fruit, she would probably only be able to unleash its most basic fighting power.

Robin was just testing the waters. Even if the potential of the Rumble-Rumble Fruit is not fully developed, the basic abilities of this Devil Fruit, once mastered, can give an ordinary person the combat power of a Marine Vice Admiral.

This is a Devil Fruit with an astonishingly high lower and upper limit. To put it bluntly, most Devil Fruits, even when developed to their limit, probably wouldn't reach the lower limit of the Rumble-Rumble Fruit. So even though Robin knew this Devil Fruit wasn't suitable for her, she still had to try it out.

"Then forget it, I'll keep my Flower-Flower Fruit ability for now!"

Seeing that the Rumble-Rumble Fruit was out of the question, Robin stopped talking. Now, the only Devil Fruits she had left were the Rumble-Rumble Fruit and the Magnet-Magnet Fruit.

The potential of the Magnet-Magnet Fruit may not be lower than that of the Rumble-Rumble Fruit, but its lower limit is far lower. Even with Nico Robin's talent, she might not be able to develop the Magnet-Magnet Fruit to a level stronger than the Flower-Flower Fruit.

As for removing the Flower-Flower Fruit directly... sorry, although exposing her identity is dangerous, being powerless is even more dangerous! Robin's years of experience in the underworld have long made her understand the importance of power.

With the Flower-Flower Fruit, Robin could even fight against an ordinary Marine Vice Admiral. Without it, she might not be able to defeat a Marine Senior Officer. Comparatively, Robin felt that having a Devil Fruit was safer.

"Whatever you want... So all that's left is to wait."

Uchiha Touya stretched and smiled.

"Waiting for a great storm, for a new era to begin... Perhaps during this time, I can also do something else."

Since his haul in Alabasta, Uchiha Tou hadn't made much money lately. Before the big meals of the Marineford War and Impel Down, he planned to go somewhere else for a snack.

Anyway, there aren't many other things in the Grand Line, but there are the most pirates. Baroque Works used to be bounty hunters and also information brokers, so they had a lot of information about pirates.

Only after truly reading information about pirates can one understand just how chaotic the world has become—in the first half of the Grand Line alone, there are at least hundreds of thousands of pirates active, and many non-World Government member states are themselves nations where everyone is a pirate.

Even among the member states of the World Government, most have some connection with pirates, and some countries' regular armies are even composed of pirate crews.

For example, the Eight Treasures Navy of a certain Green Pepper is actually the regular army of the Flower Country, while the pirate crew is just a side job.

In short, after reviewing the intelligence, Uchiha Tou felt that at least half of the countries on the Grand Line had armies that could be wiped out directly, and of the remaining half, most of them were the kind of countries that could be wiped out without much problem—for example, Amazon Lily, which was a country where everyone was a pirate.

"However, if we go too far, we might provoke the World Government... Let's start by taking action against the pirates roaming the Grand Line!"

Compared to pirate crews that stay in one place and have a base of operations, these pirate crews that roam around and head to the New World are the ones who are truly capable of any evil.

After all, bandits are always much more ruthless than stationary bandits. Pirates with their own bases naturally have to consider the safety of their bases and dare not really provoke the World Government and the Navy. But those bandit-type pirates don't think so much. They follow the principle of having fun and then dying, grabbing and running away. Many pirates even implement a complete "scorched earth" policy.

Frankly speaking, if it weren't for the unique geographical environment of this world, coupled with the existence of extraordinary powers, and the vast difference in strength between ordinary people and the strong, the world government would probably have been overthrown long ago.

Uchiha Touyu also spent 20 years in the extraordinary world of Naruto. Although there were many lunatics and the order in Naruto was not very good, most of the time and in most places, basic order could still be maintained.

Unlike the world of One Piece, where most people live a life of uncertainty, if they are lucky enough to become citizens of a relatively safe country, they still have to endure the exploitation of the "heavenly gold" (a term used to describe those who exploit others), and if they are unlucky, they are just pitiful cannon fodder.

Looking at the Straw Hat Pirates' journey, it can be seen that, apart from certain technologically advanced countries (Water 7) or countries with special geographical locations (Skypiea, Fishman Island), the rest of the countries they encountered were either impoverished or dark and chaotic.

Countries suffering from poverty are often exploited by foreign powers. For example, in Alabasta, foreign powers account for at least 60% of the national income each year, which is the root cause of its poverty.

There are also countries like Dressrosa, or the Sabaody Archipelago, that appear prosperous but actually harbor immense darkness and chaos, and who knows when they might become toys or be captured and enslaved.

"Looking across the world, there is no one I cannot kill... Tsk, I felt a little guilty when I slaughtered those soldiers and ninjas in the Naruto world, but in the Grand Line, I feel that even if I kill 90% of these pirates, there will probably still be some who escape."

After reviewing the intelligence, Uchiha Hiyu transformed into a streak of blood-red light and flew into the sky, quickly disappearing from Alabasta.

From that day on, legends of vampire demons began to circulate along the Grand Line.

……

The first half of the Grand Line, Water Seven.

As the most famous shipyard in the entire Grand Line, even the Navy once placed orders here to build warships. Coupled with the incredibly convenient and extensive sea train, Water Seven can be considered the central location of the first half of the Grand Line.

Besides having the protection of the Navy, even pirates rarely cause trouble in Water 7. After all, they are men of the sea who sail on the high seas, and offending the shipbuilders is not a wise move.

At the same time, just as the Navy often turns a blind eye to pirates in places like Reverse Mountain and the Sabaody Archipelago, conflicts between the Navy and pirates are rare in a special location like Water 7.

Although the Navy frequently hunts down pirates, in reality, their grand strategy is more about driving those pirates into the New World rather than engaging them in direct combat—mainly because they can't win the fight.

The Navy may have a huge advantage in overall combat strength, but the key is that pirates can replenish their ranks too quickly!

The Navy might be able to wipe out all these pirates by risking the lives of a generation of Marines, but as long as the world continues to be chaotic, powerful new pirates will emerge in just two or three years, replacing the old ones. And by then, how will the Navy, having exhausted all its elite forces, deal with these new generation pirates?

Although Water Seven is not like other key locations, most pirates who enter the Grand Line will choose to build new ships here, making it a new unspoken agreement to avoid battle.

(End of this chapter)