I am the Bandit King of the East Sea.

"But after the Devil Fruits appeared, the ancient kingdoms discovered other uses for them."

"For example, as weapons of war, the pursuit is to enhance an individual's physical functions and combat capabilities; examples of this are various Zoan-type Devil Fruits."

"Another important direction is to extend lifespan, to achieve longevity and good eyesight..."

"Besides these, there are some Devil Fruits that are being explored for scientific research purposes, and no clear application scenario has yet been found..."

"The Star Research Institute is spread across the branches of the World Tree, and each laboratory represents a Devil Fruit."

Sieg pondered for a moment, and suddenly realized a flaw.

"If Devil Fruits are man-made products, then they must be mass-produced."

"But the problem is... there aren't two Devil Fruits that are exactly the same in the world?"

“Perhaps it’s not that they don’t want to, but that they can’t,” Vegapunk explained after a moment’s hesitation.

"This coincides with my guess, which is the correspondence between the key and the house."

Vegapunk once explained the uniqueness of Devil Fruits to Higuma on Punk Hazard.

A Devil Fruit is like a genetic key; when a user eats the fruit, their genes are shaped like a key, and the fruit's power is a house.

Each key corresponds to a house.

However, the counterfeit key cannot allow two people to enter the same one-bedroom apartment.

If Vegapunk was a copy of the key, then the ancestors of the Great Kingdom were creating a completely new key from scratch.

As for the blue and white cat's artificial time-space fruit....

That was an unrepeatable accident. Vegapunk's original goal was the Time-Time Fruit, but due to a mishap, he created a blue and white cat that could travel through worlds.

Seeing this, Sigmund, Vegapunk, and the others unconsciously looked up at the monitor screen in front of them, at the riot of the experimental subjects.

"According to the research institute's data, these people exist as experimental subjects for research on Devil Fruit abilities."

Vegapunk said in a low voice:

"An incomplete Devil Fruit, like Caesar's SMILE Fruit, may have various side effects, or it may be a deadly poison."

"And once the Devil Fruit's power is perfected and scientists have developed a complete version of it, these experimental subjects will be destroyed."

"Because there can only be one true ability user."

Strictly speaking, Vegapunk, born in the future, did not completely reject human experimentation. Among those he personally conducted experiments on were his own clones, Kuma's pacifist modifications, and Sigurd's human modification experiments.

Vegapunk also harbored some resentment towards Caesar's actions, or rather, the actions of these early scientists.

As long as one still regards these experimental subjects as fellow human beings, there will always be a sense of unease.

"As crazy as Caesar?" Sieg said.

“He should be even crazier than Caesar.” Vegapunk shook his head.

"We are currently in the final years of this vast kingdom. In the next 100 years, a world government will be established... This is a piece of history that has been erased, but it may be recorded in the history books."

"Throughout history, the end of a dynasty is always full of turmoil, and it is likely to be the time when internal and external conflicts are most acute over hundreds or thousands of years."

The calendar used by the ancient kingdoms was not the Haiyuan calendar.

Therefore, Sieg and the others only knew the approximate time period they were in, but not the specific time.

Sig and the others flipped through the documents and rummaged through boxes and cabinets.

Sig originally intended to use a relatively amicable method to knock out and hypnotize the two elderly people, in order to obtain the necessary information in the fastest and simplest way.

But now they don't have so many concerns.

Anything or information that Vegapunk thought might be useful was put into Sieg's inventory in an attempt to take it away.

With a 300KG inventory limit, Sig's inventory was completely full in just a few minutes.

"Use my abilities."

Stussy opened an air door and casually placed a device on the table, the purpose of which was unclear, inside.

Inside the air door is an alternate space that is almost identical to the outside world, like two sides of a mirror.

The only difference is that the alternate dimension inside the air door has an extra layer of green underworld filter.

At this moment, Stussy directly sent the items in the laboratory into the inner space, using the Door-Door Fruit as a spatial warehouse.

The four of them worked together and, based on the memories of the two comatose elderly men, quickly ransacked almost all the important laboratories in the vicinity.

At that moment, a sharp intelligence voice rang out from the corridor.

The anomaly deep within the research institute had clearly been noticed by others, who were approaching.

"It's time to go."

Stussy opened another air door and stepped inside.

Sieg was about to walk through the door when he glanced at the monitor screen out of the corner of his eye.

On the screen, the experimental subjects dressed in lab coats were already in dire straits under the increasing siege of lab security personnel.

The bald giant with the girl sitting on his shoulder was covered in wounds. He was in a bloodthirsty frenzy, but the roars in his throat were getting weaker and weaker, and blood was gushing out like a fountain. He was clearly about to die.

“Sigurd, are you thinking…” Vegapunk seemed to have figured something out.

“Vegapunk, since everything we do will become part of history, then of course we can do whatever we want.”

Sieg said:

"They were experimental subjects from an ancient kingdom, and we've just obtained firsthand experimental data. Aren't you interested?"

.................

Amidst the broken walls and ruins.

The bald giant knelt on the ground, panting heavily, with blood flowing everywhere.

Beside him, a group of expressionless, sunglasses-wearing soldiers, who looked like they were cut from the same mold, had completely blocked his way.

The girl on the shoulder gently stroked a deep, bone-revealing wound on the bald giant's shoulder, her eyes filled with sorrow:

"Heart....."

The bald giant, however, curled the corners of his mouth into a weak smile:

"Sister, live on in my place and fulfill my ambition..."

Just as the siblings were putting on a tearful performance, bidding each other a heartfelt final farewell.

An air portal quietly opened from a corner of the battlefield.

Boom!Boom!

A terrifying sense of oppression erupted in an instant, as if the entire laboratory had been struck by a heavy hammer. The hundreds of soldiers collapsed like wheat fields swept by a whirlwind the moment the figure stepped out of the air door.

The dying bald giant didn't notice the air door opening, but after seeing the soldiers falling to the ground, he suddenly felt a chilling sense of danger.

It was like a rabbit encountering a predator at the top of the food chain; the intense sense of danger made his heart skip a beat for a moment.

"Ah ah ah ah ah ah!"

He roared and mustered his last bit of strength, his fist, bigger than a casserole dish, whistling like the wind as it slammed down on Sieg.

boom!

The ground cracked with countless tiny fissures.

The man remained standing still, and the scene froze at that moment.

Click, click.

This was not the sound of the ground cracking, but a clear sound of bones breaking coming from the giant's hands.

"this..."

The bald giant gritted his teeth and withdrew his hands, a deep sense of powerlessness welling up inside him... Why were they so hard?

Despite being a small man, less than two meters tall, he felt as if he had hit a city wall; his hand was so painful that it split open on the spot.

"Hurry up and take them all."

Sig didn't even glance at the bald giant who was utterly shocked; he seemed to be talking to thin air.

The next moment, an air door opened, and Stussy and the others walked out.

They moved swiftly, checked the experimental subjects still breathing in the pool of blood at the scene, and dragged them directly into the alternate dimension behind the air door.

"You...are also ability users?" The bald giant's eyes suddenly lost their previous coldness.

The other test subjects breathed a sigh of relief, but the girl on the bald giant's shoulder still looked wary.

Despite their vigilance, they knew they were powerless to resist, so they gave up their resistance in the face of the semi-coercive actions of Sig and his men.

All the surviving test subjects were taken into another dimension, leaving behind only a scene of devastation and the piercing sound of alarms.

Minutes later, the entire city of Elbaf seemed to be awakened. Amidst the shrill sirens, a dense swarm of airships, each a hundred meters long, arrived to inspect the Star Labs, which had been rioted and attacked.

Under the cover of night, in the wilderness far from the city.

The injured test subjects emerged one by one from the air door and sat around the campfire to rest under the pale moonlight.

There were approximately one hundred participants in these experiments, and almost all of them were injured.

Stussy moved through the crowd, providing them with basic first aid.

Although she is not a professional doctor, as a former CP0, she has a lot of skills.

The faint firelight illuminated the pale faces of the experimenters, who unconsciously revealed fear as they listened to the faint alarms coming from the distant city.

Only when he looked at Sieg, Stussy and the others did the fear on their faces gradually fade.

Now it's clear to everyone that Sieg and the others are helping them escape the lab.

These people are experimental subjects cultivated in the laboratory, so their minds are relatively simple.

They seemed not to have considered the possibility that Sieg and others had ulterior motives, and soon, under the persuasive guidance of former CP0 member Stussy, they lowered their guard.

The bald giant was very resilient. After Stussy's simple treatment, his condition had improved and he was no longer on the verge of death.

At this moment, he sat by the fire with his knees drawn up to his chest, glancing at Stussy, Sieg and the others from time to time with a look of awe.

"Big brother, are you also ability users?"