c1: Thriller Bark
"Hiss! Hiss! Hiss! Buffon, after you finish this one, could you please sew up that new little guy that just arrived? Only your skills can handle such delicate work!" Hogback said, his round glasses reflecting the dim candlelight of the operating room deep within Thriller Bark's enormous haunted mansion.
"Okay!" Buffon looked up at Hogback, but his hands didn't falter in the slightest as he continued sewing the corpse on the operating table, the metallic scent of blood mixing with the antiseptic fluids that filled the laboratory where countless zombie bodies had been assembled for Gecko Moria's undead army.
With one hand he used the suture forceps to clamp the torn skin together, while the other hand quickly guided the surgical needle through the corpse's flesh, sewing the two ends of the skin together with the precise rhythm of someone who had repeated this same procedure hundreds of times since arriving on Thriller Bark.
In just a few seconds a wound was stitched up.
The stitches were as neat as if they had been made by a high-precision sewing machine, every thread evenly spaced and perfectly aligned, far cleaner than the crude stitches normally seen on the zombies wandering across Thriller Bark's fog-covered forests in the original One Piece manga.
He quickly gathered the thread and tied a knot, finishing the entire procedure in one smooth motion that displayed a level of surgical mastery that even the arrogant genius Doctor Hogback could not help but admire.
Hogback stared at the corpse Buffon had just stitched up, his expression filled with undisguised admiration and amazement: "Perfect! Buffon, you're a born artist! Even a corpse becomes a masterpiece in your hands. With skills like this, Lord Moria's zombie army will become even more perfect!"
A blank page quietly flipped inside Buffon's mental "Character Encyclopedia," the strange system that had appeared in his mind after his transmigration, and the identity of the corpse's former owner slowly materialized in clear text:
[Character: Kurozoi]
[Rank: T8]
[Faction: Pirate]
[Bounty: 500,000 Berries]
[Obsession: 93%]
[Current Gain: Physique +7 → 105 (Lieutenant Level 2)]
"Physique upgraded?"
Buffon slowly stood up from the operating table and looked toward the cracked mirror hanging on the wall of the laboratory, a sharp "snap" sound coming from beneath the thick muscles of his neck as his strengthened body adjusted to the sudden increase in physical capability granted by the system.
The person reflected in the mirror had deep blue eyes, a sharp high nose, and a thick full beard that framed his jawline a face that looked unmistakably European, something extremely unusual within the diverse world of pirates, marines, and strange races that populated the Grand Line.
Nearly two meters tall and possessing a broad muscular physique shaped by months of heavy labor moving corpses and surgical equipment inside Thriller Bark, this body now belonged to Lin Liang after his unexpected transmigration into the world of One Piece.
Casti Buffon, 19 years old. Lin Liang.
In this world he was a low-ranking member of the Thriller Bark Pirates and the assistant of the infamous Doctor Hogback the legendary surgeon who had once been praised across the seas before disappearing and eventually joining Gecko Moria, one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea.
His daily responsibility was assisting Hogback in converting corpses into zombies using the shadows stolen by Gecko Moria's Shadow-Shadow Fruit, thereby helping to expand the terrifying zombie army that guarded the massive ghost ship island drifting in the Florian Triangle.
Having thoroughly read countless online novels in his previous life, Lin Liang was strangely indifferent to the idea of transmigration, because he had already imagined such a scenario countless times while reading stories about protagonists traveling into fictional worlds.
Now it had actually happened.
This time it was simply a matter of living out the story he had already imagined many times before especially since this world was none other than the manga One Piece, a story he had followed for nearly twenty years in his previous life.
According to the timeline stored in his memory, the current year in this world was Pirate Calendar 1511 — which meant that Monkey D. Luffy had not even begun his journey yet and was probably still training somewhere on Dawn Island under the brutal supervision of Monkey D. Garp.
That meant there were still almost ten full years before the Straw Hat Pirates would arrive at Thriller Bark and challenge Gecko Moria.
Ten whole years.
Enough time for Buffon to quietly grow stronger.
Enough time to build something far beyond what the original Thriller Bark arc had shown in the manga.
In his mind a ridiculous but amusing idea appeared.
He could simply wait here for ten years, watch the Straw Hats finally sail into the Florian Triangle aboard the Thousand Sunny, then casually slap Luffy and his entire crew back across the sea toward Reverse Mountain.
Brook would reunite with Laboon earlier than in the original story.
And with the melody of "Binks' Sake" echoing across the Grand Line, the story could end right there.
But that thought only lasted for a brief moment.
If everything ended that easily, what would be the meaning of transmigrating into such a vast and dangerous world?
Buffon walked toward Hogback and took the miniature coffin — only about thirty centimeters long from his gloved hands, the coffin carved from dark wood and sealed with thin iron nails.
He glanced at the small container and silently murmured to himself:
"The Tontatta tribe!"
Hogback pushed his glasses up his nose and leaned forward excitedly.
"Buffon, I want to give Perona a gift , a special zombie she can keep beside her when she gets bored inside the castle. Only someone with your surgical talent can make something like this perfect."
He pointed proudly at the tiny coffin.
"This is the corpse of a Tontatta captain that one of our pirate crews found drifting in the New World. Come, let me see your necromancy again."
"Hmm." Buffon simply nodded.
Opening the coffin and placing it gently on the operating table, Buffon finally saw the corpse clearly under the dim yellow surgical lamp.
The corpse was extremely small — only about twenty centimeters tall, its head disproportionately large compared to its tiny body, almost occupying half of its entire height.
Behind it extended a fluffy light gray tail, one of the distinctive physical traits of the mysterious Tontatta tribe, a race of tiny but incredibly strong dwarves that inhabited the island of Green Bit in the New World.
Its body was covered in numerous wounds inflicted by sharp weapons, some so deep that the bone beneath the flesh was clearly visible, and one of its thin arms had been completely severed near the shoulder.
The cuts were clean and smooth, almost surgical in their precision, which meant the weapon that had inflicted them must have been extremely sharp.
"A sword user..."
Buffon narrowed his eyes slightly.
In the original One Piece storyline, the Tontatta tribe was enslaved by the Donquixote Family on Dressrosa, and their warriors were known for their incredible strength despite their tiny size.
"This was Doflamingo's doing!" Buffon concluded silently.
He skillfully replaced the IV bag hanging above the operating table, inserted a thin needle into the tiny corpse's arm, and began the infusion process used by Hogback during zombie preparation.
One of the two IV solutions contained a special preservative developed by Hogback that could prevent a corpse from decomposing indefinitely while preserving the flexibility of its muscles and joints.
The other solution was a strengthening fluid.
At the moment Hogback had only perfected the formula that enhanced the durability of skin tissue one of the reasons why many Thriller Bark zombies could survive injuries that would normally destroy a human body.
Buffon quickly cut open the corpse's clothing with a scalpel and exposed the damaged bones beneath.
Using tweezers he carefully lifted the tiny arm bone barely thicker than a wooden toothpick and examined the fracture line with the calm focus of a professional surgeon.
"Without the small steel fixation nails Hogback normally uses, I can only secure it temporarily with surgical adhesive."
He paused briefly before continuing the operation.
"I'll redo the entire bone structure once Hogback completes the bone-strengthening fluid."
Thinking this, Buffon calmly began his work…
The curved surgical needles moved rapidly up and down across the corpse's paper-thin skin, their speed completely unaffected by the fragile structure of the tiny body that belonged to the warrior of the Tontatta tribe, a race famous in the New World for their unbelievable strength despite their small size.
Buffon's hands remained steady and precise, his movements almost mechanical as the needle pierced the delicate skin again and again, sealing the wounds that had once been inflicted by a blade sharp enough to slice through bone, a type of weapon commonly used by the elite officers of the Donquixote Family who ruled Dressrosa.
A dozen minutes later Buffon's mental "Character Encyclopedia" flipped through its invisible pages again, the mysterious system that had accompanied his transmigration projecting new information directly into his mind as if it were a living database connected to the world itself.
The corpse's information slowly appeared once again:
[Character: Rem]
[Rank: T6]
[Faction: Pirates]
[Bounty: 3.2 million Berries]
[Obsession: 86%]
[Repair Participation: 100%]
[Current Gain: Sharpness +75 → 127 (Level 2 Swiftness)]
[Can Copy Devil Fruit Ability: Stitch-Stitch Fruit]
[Can Obtain Skill: Advanced Stitching - Rainbow Patchwork]
[Acquire Gain?]
A Devil Fruit? It was bound to happen!
Ever since Buffon discovered that the Character Encyclopedia occasionally allowed him to replicate abilities tied to the individuals whose corpses he repaired, he had already guessed that one day a Devil Fruit power might appear among the rewards.
"Judging from the name it's obviously a Paramecia type ability," Buffon murmured to himself quietly while examining the tiny corpse on the operating table.
"And from the description it doesn't sound like the kind of overwhelmingly destructive power that someone like Whitebeard or Kaido possesses."
He paused for a moment.
"It doesn't seem very useful in direct combat either."
"So should I copy it?"
Thinking this Buffon began to recall the original storyline of the One Piece manga that he had followed for nearly twenty years in his previous life, searching through his memory for any Devil Fruit ability related to sewing or stitching.
After a brief moment Buffon's eyes suddenly narrowed slightly.
Wasn't this ability extremely similar to the power used by Leo, the captain of the Tontatta tribe who later joined the Straw Hat Grand Fleet during the Dressrosa arc?
In the original story Leo possessed a Paramecia-type Devil Fruit called the Nui Nui no Mi, commonly translated as the Stitch-Stitch Fruit, which allowed him to sew objects together without causing damage to them.
Considering the name Rem written in the Character Encyclopedia, Buffon quickly reached a logical conclusion.
This corpse must belong to someone related to Leo.
Most likely his father.
After analyzing the information carefully Buffon understood the ability completely.
The power of this Paramecia-type Devil Fruit allowed the user to generate extremely strong threads capable of stitching together almost any object flesh, cloth, wood, even metal without harming the materials being sewn.
However the ability required a needle as a medium to guide the threads, which was why Leo in the manga always carried a sewing needle when using his powers.
Looking at it from this perspective copying this ability would basically provide a natural enhancement to Buffon's existing surgical talents and his strange Character Encyclopedia system.
For someone whose entire role within Thriller Bark revolved around repairing corpses and constructing zombies, this ability was practically tailor-made.
As for the weakness shared by all Devil Fruit users — the inability to swim — Buffon didn't care at all.
After all he had never actually seen a Devil Fruit user drown in the manga.
In most cases characters like Luffy, Buggy, or even the powerful warlords simply became immobilized in seawater rather than instantly dying.
In Buffon's opinion this setting mostly existed to give the Navy's Seastone weapons and prison chains a unique advantage against pirates.
It wasn't something worth worrying about right now.
Without hesitating much longer Buffon made his decision.
Gain the benefit!
Copy the ability!
The moment he accepted the reward a strange sensation spread through his hands, especially in his fingers, as if the nerves within them had suddenly become far more sensitive and precise.
Buffon could feel something new forming at his fingertips.
Thin threads.
Threads so fine they were almost invisible.
Each strand was thinner than a human hair yet incredibly resilient.
Buffon gently pulled on one of the threads to test its durability.
The result surprised even him.
There wasn't the slightest sign that it would snap.
According to the knowledge stored in his memory these threads were strong enough to restrain even Devil Fruit users if used correctly, something Leo had demonstrated during the Dressrosa arc when he immobilized enemies far larger than himself.
Now that he had obtained this ability Buffon's curiosity immediately took over.
He decided to conduct a quick experiment.
Without hesitation he completely disassembled the corpse that he had just carefully stitched together moments earlier, separating the repaired limbs and bones with calm surgical precision.
Then he activated his new skill.
Buffon activated his Seven-Colored Patchwork skill!
Using the power of the Stitch-Stitch Fruit together with the advanced stitching technique granted by the Character Encyclopedia, Buffon began reconstructing the tiny body piece by piece.
With the assistance of the Devil Fruit threads he was able to perfectly reconnect the fractured bone that had previously been held together only by adhesive glue.
The result was astonishing.
There was no visible seam.
No uneven surface.
The bone structure looked completely natural as if it had never been broken in the first place.
Next came the muscle fibers and the skin.
Buffon's fingers moved even faster now as the invisible threads danced through the air like silk controlled by an invisible puppeteer.
Not only had his precision improved dramatically, but the speed of the stitching process had increased by another level entirely.
The entire procedure took less than ten minutes.
Moreover the aesthetic quality of the wound stitching had improved once again.
Previously the sutures were already extremely neat and orderly, but if someone looked closely they could still notice the lines of thread and the slight raised texture along the seams.
Now however the repaired wounds appeared perfectly smooth.
The skin looked as if it had been carefully pressed flat with a hot iron.
It was almost impossible to tell that the body had ever been cut open.
At that moment the Character Guide appeared once more inside Buffon's mind:
[Character: Rem]
[Rank: T6]
[Faction: Pirates]
[Bounty: 3.2 million Berries]
[Obsession: 93%]
[Current Gain: Agility +8 → 135 (Level 2 Swiftness)]
Buffon stared at the number in disbelief.
"So perfect… how come it's still only ninety-three percent?"
He clenched his fist slightly in frustration.
"Character Guide! Can't you even understand the suffering of a perfectionist?!"
"I've already transformed those ugly zombie stitches that appeared in the original Thriller Bark arc into something worthy of being displayed as artwork!"
"And you still only give me ninety-three percent?"
....