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Somewhere on the first half of the Grand Line, the Merry Go sailed forward proudly with the Straw Hat skull flag flapping in the wind.
Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper were all sprawled across the railings on the second deck, looking totally wiped out.
It had been a while since they left Alabasta.
In that time, they'd already been through a few new adventures—nothing too huge, but still exciting.
Like that one time the Merry Go drifted into a thick fog, and they accidentally picked up a young apprentice chef from the sea.
After hearing the kid's story, Sanji encouraged him with tales of his own journey, and the kid ended up making a curry that even Sanji praised.
Of course, once the fog cleared...They realized they were surrounded by a squad of Marine ships that had also gotten lost in the mist.
Thanks to Nami's quick thinking—and Bai Ye's Qimen Dunjia skills—they managed to get the hell out of there in a hurry.
From that incident, Bai Ye figured out that his Qimen techniques had grown several times more powerful than before.
During that time, they also discovered a bunch of strange and fun islands...
There was even this one island where they ran into all sorts of weird animals—like, truly bizarre creatures. One of them looked a lot like Luffy, and that ended up being a whole comedy routine on its own.
All in all, after sailing for a while, the crew had finally shaken off the sadness from Vivi not coming aboard.
At the same time, Robin had gradually blended into their goofy little group.
She was actually really happy with how things were going. After spending over a decade wrapped up in all kinds of schemes and manipulation, she could finally relax for once.
That alone was something worth celebrating.
And it's worth mentioning that during this time, Bai Ye and Chopper had been doing some research on the Rumble Ball.
Chopper had developed it on his own—it's a drug that lets him alter the transformation wavelengths of his Devil Fruit powers.
To be honest, once Bai Ye found out that Devil Fruits were essentially projections or manifestations of laws of nature, he was seriously impressed by Chopper.
After all, even the weakest transformation-based laws aren't something you can just mess around with.
And yet, Chopper had managed to do it with the Rumble Ball. It was basically a cheat code.
That got Bai Ye thinking.
What if he combined his own alchemy with Chopper's Rumble Ball, and used his understanding of Devil Fruit laws?
Would it be possible to create an upgraded version—a Deluxe Rumble Ball?
Because honestly, the regular Rumble Ball has a lot of limitations.
First of all, the effect only lasts for three minutes. Same kind of temporary power-up as Bai Ye's own Blood Demon Pill.
Second, if Chopper takes a second Rumble Ball within a short time, he loses control of his transformations. A third one, and he goes berserk.
So yeah, even though the Rumble Ball's effects are insane, the side effects and restrictions are pretty brutal.
In the original story, after a lot of training, Chopper managed to add one more transformation and gained some control over his rampage mode—but that's about it.
Eventually though, after the two-year time skip, Chopper could alter his forms without needing Rumble Balls at all.
That led Bai Ye to a theory: maybe Devil Fruit wavelengths can be consciously controlled by the user under certain conditions.
That's what he's really hoping to get out of the Deluxe Rumble Ball.
He doesn't care about slightly reducing side effects or making it a bit stronger.
After all, Chopper's Fruit is just the Human-Human Fruit from the Zoan category—pretty average stuff.
What Bai Ye really wants… is to create something that could affect Luffy.
Luffy's Fruit is a Mythical Zoan.
Even if it doesn't directly power up Luffy's abilities, maybe it could help him awaken sooner. That alone would be worth it.
And there are more Devil Fruit users in the Straw Hat crew too.
Besides Luffy, Chopper, and Robin, there's also Brook later on, and Frankie, who Bai Ye plans to give the Swallow-Swallow Fruit.
Plus, Bai Ye has his eyes on two more Fruits they'll find later in the journey—he's already picked out the perfect users for them.
Especially one of those Fruits—Bai Ye's seriously hyped for it.
Thinking about all this while lounging on deck, Bai Ye couldn't help but smile a little.
But the next second—
BOOM!!!
A loud explosion rocked the ship, like a cannon blast straight from the Navy! The Going Merry shook so hard that Bai Ye almost fell off his lounge chair.
"LUFFY!!!"
Before Bai Ye could even get up, Nami's voice rang out:
"How many times have I told you not to mess with Bai Ye's talismans?!"
"What if you blow up the Merry, huh?!"
"Use your damn brain for once, you idiot!!!"
WHACK!!!
Luffy: "I'm so so sorry~"
Luffy bowed with his classic "I know I screwed up" face, and Nami let out a long sigh.
"If Bai Ye hadn't reinforced the Merry's defenses, and if Usopp weren't constantly doing maintenance, this idiot would've sunk the ship ages ago."
Bai Ye walked up beside Nami and said to Luffy:
"If you want to use talismans to fish with explosions next time, just throw them further away, okay?"
Luffy's eyes lit up with excitement and he grinned wide.
You could practically see the next plan forming in his "brilliant" brain.
Nami just gave Bai Ye a helpless look.
You're really spoiling him, huh.
At that moment, Robin walked over.
"I've seen Bai Ye's talismans before," she said. "But the one Luffy just used… that explosion felt way too strong."
She bent down to look at Luffy. "Mind showing me how you did it, Luffy?"
Bai Ye was just about to say something when—
Luffy sprang up like a rocket, proud as could be:
"Usopp taught me this!"
He pulled out two talismans—one fire-type, one lightning-type.
Still grinning, Luffy held them up for everyone to see:
"You just use these two together, and BOOM, more fish!"
Then he got ready to toss them off the Merry again.
But this time, he hesitated—then threw them way farther away.
BOOOOOOMMMMM!!!!
Lightning cracked through the sky, fire exploded outward—Bai Ye could swear he saw a mushroom cloud in the distance.
Luffy turned around, beaming:
"Bai Ye's talismans are so awesome! Hahaha!"
But no one was looking at him—they were all staring past him, eyes fixed on the sky.
Luffy looked confused, turned around, and his jaw dropped. His eyes almost popped out of his head.
"WHAT IS THAT?!"
Right above him, a massive unidentified object was plummeting from the sky.
THUMP~
Thankfully, Luffy reacted fast and inflated like a balloon, cushioning the fall.
No need to guess—it was clearly something that had been blasted up during his little fishing experiment.
All the noise and chaos had drawn everyone else on deck.
"....."