"How do you feel?" Edmond asked curiously after Gin had taken a bite of the Devil Fruit.
Gin put down the half-eaten fruit, staring at his hands with a peculiar expression. After a moment, he finally spoke, "I feel... like my body has become lighter, almost weightless."
"What?" Edmond's eyes widened. "Did you just eat a weight-loss fruit?"
"No," Gin replied instinctively as he continued to sense the strange reactions in his body after consuming the fruit. "It's... 'kilos'."
Gin clenched his fists gradually. "I can control my own weight."
"Isn't that still 'weight loss'?" Edmond scoffed. "This fruit should've been given to a woman."
"It's not the same," Gin murmured softly before suddenly turning to Edmond. "Punch me."
Edmond frowned slightly but, seeing that Gin wasn't joking, quickly realized that Gin wanted to test the Devil Fruit's abilities.
Edmond also knew that, given Gin's strength, it wouldn't be easy to hurt him with bare hands.
"I'm coming at you!" Edmond warned before immediately striking. However, instead of throwing a punch as Gin had requested, he used a technique inspired by the Rokushiki move Shigan (Finger Pistol), shaping his hand like a blade to mimic a thrust from Isshin-Ryū swordsmanship, aiming directly at Gin's chest.
The two were standing very close, and Edmond's hand blade reached Gin in an instant. Yet Gin didn't dodge or move; he simply steadied himself, taking a deep breath. With a dull "thud," Edmond's hand struck Gin's chest, but it felt as though it had hit a steel plate.
"Tekkai (Iron Body)?" Edmond questioned.
Although he hadn't fully mastered Shigan, Edmond's strength was sufficient to pierce through stone. Yet his strike didn't even budge Gin.
"Again!" Gin exhaled deeply and urged.
Edmond grew serious. This time, he swung his hand again, but instead of a thrust, he slashed diagonally. The force of his swing cracked the air, producing a sharp sound. To an uninformed observer, it might have seemed as though the two were in a serious fight.
As Edmond's hand blade slashed toward Gin, the latter didn't remain stationary this time. His body moved with the air currents created by Edmond's swing, becoming as light as a feather, seemingly weightless, and he effortlessly dodged the attack.
"Kamie (Paper Art)!?" Edmond exclaimed in surprise. "Last time you reported back, you said you had mastered Soru (Shave) and Geppo (Moonwalk). How have you already learned Tekkai and Kamie so quickly? You're practically mastering all of Rokushiki!"
Gin shook his head. He hadn't fully mastered Tekkai or Kamie before. However, with his long and arduous training, combined with his natural talent, he had already been on the verge of breaking through. The ability granted by the Devil Fruit had become the key to shattering that final barrier.
The fruit Gin had consumed was, in fact, the Kilo-Kilo Fruit, originally eaten by Miss Valentine, a member of the Baroque Works organization founded by Sir Crocodile, one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea.
The Kilo-Kilo Fruit allowed its user to freely manipulate their body weight, becoming as light as a feather or as heavy as a mountain. Furthermore, the user's body structure adapted to handle extreme weight changes.
The fruit's ability to reduce weight aligned perfectly with the principles of Kamie, while increasing weight—enhancing mass and density without changing body volume—resonated with the essence of Tekkai.
Perhaps it was Gin's innate talent, or perhaps it was the natural compatibility between the techniques of Rokushiki and the fruit's abilities. Compared to Miss Valentine, who only used the fruit to crush enemies with her weight, Gin, with his mastery of Rokushiki and Isshin-Ryū Swordsmanship, was far more capable of unlocking the fruit's potential.
Despite having just gained his new powers, Gin had already used the fruit's abilities to master the two Rokushiki techniques he had previously struggled with.
...
While Edmond's expedition team, funded by the Flash Gold Bank, was settling into Water 7, they had almost forgotten the source of their vast funds. Back in the East Blue, someone was racking their brains to cover the financial hole created by this large expenditure.
In the garden of the royal palace in Kalmar City, Antonio, the middle-aged client manager of the Flash Gold Bank who had previously dealt with Arlong and his crew of fish-man pirates, was following closely behind William, reporting on the status of the ransom payments from the Arlong Pirates.
William had shown no mercy in extorting Arlong, demanding a staggering ransom of over ten billion Beli. Although Arlong had amassed his wealth by plundering the villages under his control, he couldn't gather such a vast sum in a short amount of time. He could only pay the ransom in installments, all the while cursing William to meet a terrible fate.
This ransom formed the bulk of the funds carried by Edmond's expedition team.
The five billion Beli "protection fee" required to remove the Arlong Pirates from the Flash Gold Bank's blacklist had just barely been paid. However, the ransom for Arlong's subordinates had yet to be fully settled. Three of Arlong's top officers, along with a group of crew members, were still under William's custody.
True to his word, once Arlong paid the five billion, William ceased blocking trade in the areas controlled by the Arlong Pirates and even allowed commerce to resume. When Arlong requested assistance in constructing a "palace" at his base, William sent personnel from the Four Seas Trading Company to assist.
However, to maintain his reputation, William had the transactions go through multiple intermediaries. Antonio, due to his outstanding performance and initial success in dealing with the Arlong Pirates, was now responsible for managing all business dealings with them.
"Those fish-men must be getting desperate," Antonio reported. "To quickly ransom his subordinates and pay for the construction of his palace, Arlong has been sending his pirates on frequent raids, taking over several villages recently."
Compared to his original storyline, Arlong's journey in the East Blue had been far more tumultuous and miserable. In the original timeline, his initial progress in the East Blue had been smooth. But now, shortly after arriving in what he considered a weak sea, he had crossed paths with William, the dominant figure of the region.
Currently, Arlong was struggling on multiple fronts. On one hand, he was eager to complete the map of the East Blue's waters. On the other hand, half of his crew and officers were detained by William, and he was forced to scrape together ransom money, leaving him severely short-handed and in dire straits.
"The places he's taken over—those are mostly territories of the Faraise Kingdom, correct?" William asked.
Antonio nodded in confirmation. William then turned to Captain Nezumi of the Marines, who was accompanying him. "How is the Faraise Kingdom responding? Have they requested aid from the Marines?"
"When it was just one or two villages, they turned a blind eye. But now that more areas have been occupied, they're starting to panic," Nezumi replied with a sneer. "They've been bombarding the Marines with requests for help every day."
🔥 Want to read the next 20 chapters RIGHT NOW?
💎 Patreon members get instant access!
⚡ Limited-time offer currently running...
👉 [Join on - patreon.com/GoldenLong]