I am the Bandit King of the East Sea.

In a sense... this isn't too far off the mark.

Wang Xige is from the future to Tenzuki, but from the past to Vegapunk.

However, when King Sig and Sig became the same person, Vegapunk noticed something amiss.

“Dr. Vegapunk.” Sengoku frowned as he flipped through the documents.

“We have encountered an inexplicable anomaly, which may fall within the scope of your research.”

"There are some clues between the mysterious pirate king Higuma who was active in the old era and the Higuma who is active in the present."

"For example, Dracula piercing the body."

“Dr. Vegapunk, you should also remember the name Dracula.”

"He was an extremely ruthless pirate, like Rocks and his ilk, whose influence was so egregious that he was deliberately erased from history, but he remains in the memories of those of us who lived through that era..."

“Yes, I do remember.” Vegapunk affirmed.

There are actually quite a few big pirates of this type.

Including Dracula the Impaler, Rocks the Overlord, and the prisoners in Impel Down's Infinite Hell, many of these great pirates were so ruthless that their existence was erased.

Vegapunk knew little about these figures who were not worthy of being remembered in history.

It was because he traveled from the future to the present that he learned of the existence of Wang Xige, Lox, and others.

"But that's precisely the problem." Sengoku's expression was grave.

"We should have realized this as early as when Sig was reborn from the ancient coffin and used Piercing Master's signature move, Flying Thunder God, for the first time."

"It's normal for the younger generation of naval personnel not to know Dracula."

"But including Zephyr who participated in the battle, our generation of the Navy did not think of Dracula because of the Flying Thunder God. We only recently realized this."

"What Sig said back then was... that the seven emperors, including Dracula, were all figures who had been erased from history."

"Another suspicious point is that we have absolutely no clue about the other six people, not even in the internal files..."

"Similar things haven't just happened to Dracula; all these unusual events, big and small, are connected to Wang Xige..."

"..."

"..."

"Dr. Vegapunk, why aren't you saying anything?"

"...I'm thinking." Vegapunk on the other end of the phone pinched his thigh hard, barely managing to maintain his composure and prevent his voice from sounding abnormal.

But his expression changed drastically, and he became increasingly agitated.

This excited him even more than when he first heard that Sieg and Wang Sieg were the same person.

"Marshal of the Warring States Period, based on your description, this is probably a kind of group memory bias phenomenon, a psychological phenomenon that is widespread in groups, which some people call the Mandela Effect."

Vegapunk carefully considered his words and explained:

"For example, in people's general perception, there is a white 'ice sheet' in the Arctic on the world map."

Vegapunk paused deliberately at this point.

"Is there a problem with this?" Marshal Zhan Guo asked, puzzled.

"The problem is... there is no land in the Arctic, so there is no ice cap."

“Antarctica contains a large landmass known as the Ice Continent, while the Arctic consists of only an ocean.”

"Huh? Really?" Sengoku was also taken aback.

Vegaponk explained, "This is the phenomenon of collective memory bias, also known as the Mandela effect, which refers to the discrepancy between a group's collective memory of history and the facts."

"Fleet Admiral Sengoku, if you have time, you can ask the other naval personnel around you. If nothing unexpected happens, this kind of memory bias is also widespread in the memories of other naval personnel."

"...Please wait a moment."

Sengoku seemed quite curious about this matter, and he got excited, immediately hanging up the phone to inquire about it.

During this time, Vegapunk waited quietly on the Den Den Mushi.

"I need more time, much more time to think of countermeasures, to come up with arguments..."

Vegapunk pondered for a moment, then activated his time-travel ability.

.......

A moment later, the voice of the Warring States period rang out again, this time with a more solemn tone.

"It's just as you said. I questioned 14 navy personnel, and 10 of them had the same memory discrepancy as me."

“Dr. Vegapunk, what’s going on? Is there something wrong with our memories?” Sengoku asked.

Sengoku is known as a wise general, but this refers to his outstanding strategic and tactical skills among his contemporaries, such as Garp.

Even the strategist was baffled by this strange phenomenon.

“This is not an isolated case,” Vegapunk continued.

"Marshal of the Warring States Period, in your opinion, which of the human internal organs is larger, the liver or the stomach?"

"Is it the stomach?"

"The answer is the liver. The liver is the largest organ in the human body."

Is the human heart located on the left or right side?

"I know the answer to this question; it's on the left," Zhan Guo said confidently.

"The answer is in the middle of the chest cavity, only the tip of the heart points to the left."

"..."

Next, Vegapunk asked many different questions, which confused Sengoku and made him start to doubt his existence.

In the end, he finally came to a conclusion:

"Human memory is not as reliable as we imagine. This is a psychological effect that has been prevalent throughout history, and it's not a serious matter..."

In this way, he successfully cleared up the doubts of the Warring States Marshal.

After hanging up the phone, Vegapunk slumped into his chair and let out a long sigh.

The so-called group memory bias effect does indeed exist.

But this was just an excuse he used to appease the Warring States period.

He already had a vague idea of ​​what the truth of the matter was.

“No wonder I couldn’t get Wang Xige to cooperate no matter what I tried.” Vegapunk’s eyes dimmed slightly.

"It turns out that the thing I've been pursuing all my life—changing history—can be done without my cooperation."

Chapter 860 Identity Exposed

The Time Fruit and the Reverse Time Fruit are opposites, and both are unidirectional time travel abilities.

As Vegapunk originally anticipated, as long as the two cooperated, they could travel back and forth on the timeline and thus arbitrarily change historical events.

But Wang Xige rejected him at the time.

"I don't know if I made the wrong bet."

Vegapunk shook his head.

The World Government is the ruling force in the world, and undoubtedly the most powerful force.

As a scientist, joining the World Government was the best option for him.

But Sig’s existence was an anomaly, causing him to waver.

This ability to influence history is not without its flaws.

Once history changes, subsequent events will also change, leading to a relatively reasonable reconstruction.

However, it left a clue in the timeline that could be noticed by people like Sengoku and Vegapunk.

"The historical Pirate King Gol D. Roger did indeed die."

"And I've never heard of any Roger Wang. Either Roger Wang is just an imposter who doesn't deserve to be recorded in history books... or the history I know has been altered."

Vegapunk felt a surge of annoyance.

He deduced the existence of the Time Fruit from his own Reverse Time Fruit.

However, the abilities of Devil Fruits are entirely dependent on imagination, and Vegapunk doesn't know if Higuma can develop such an ability.

After being interrupted by Sengoku, Vegapunk also sorted out his understanding of Sig.

He suddenly recalled the time when he met Sieg more than 20 years ago.

"He is a user of the Time-Time Fruit, and has developed the ability to see the future and change historical events."

"During the time when Sig or Wang Sig faked his death and disappeared, he was likely not on this planet and had gone on interstellar travel."

"Most recently, Sig returned to Earth from the depths of space in a spaceship shaped like a coffin."

"Conversely from this... when Wang Xige disappeared at sea, he may have been on an interstellar journey."

"Wait...did he say he was an alien back then?"

Vegapunk rubbed his temples, looking somewhat tired.

Now, he's not quite sure which of Sieg's words were jokes and which weren't.

"Is Sig not only a time traveler, but also a space traveler who has undertaken interstellar-scale travel?"

"If he was born in ancient times and possessed ancient technology to create things, then that makes sense."

Ancient technology in this world may not be inferior to future technology.

After all, the legendary ancient weapons were creations of ancient technology.

However, there are gaps in history, and Vegapunk may not have known much more about this than people do today.

"So... um? Where's my cat?"

Vegapunk stood in the opened cat carrier, lost in thought.