"El-sama, this is the raw material used to produce artificial Devil Fruits—SAD."

  Inside a spacious boratory, massive gss tainers brimmed with an eerie, bubbling liquid. El and Afar, led by Ryan and other researchers, stepped into the facility.

  "SAD? So you use this tate your artificial Devil Fruit trees and make them bloom and bear fruit?" Afar asked in amazement.

  "That's right, more or less," said Dr. Tsukimi with a smile. "But because of its severe side effects, it's already sidered outdated. Thanks to Vegapunk, our research team has been developing eiques. We've made signifit progress, and soon, even if an artificial fruit fails to grant abilities, it won't turn the user into a grinning 'monster' anymore."

  "Sihese are for export, they don't o be perfect," El replied with a smirk. "Let's stick with using SAD as the base material for cultivation. Otherwise, outsiders might suspect we're withholding superior teology and stronger products."

  He paused before adding, "By the way, you reduce the success rate for acquiring powers from these artificial fruits? A one-in-five ce is too high. Make it one in ten."

  The researchers exged surprised gnces.

  "One in ten?" Vegapunk's eyes widened as he stared at El, dumbfounded. "Isn't that a bit… cruel?"

  El ughed lightly. "They're enemies, after all. How could I miss the ce to pull a fast one on them?"

  Rya out his signature snicker. "Uood. If that's what you want, we easily tweak the numbers."

  Soon, El and Afar were led to a grove of peculiar apple trees. The trees bore strange, pattern-covered fruits.

  "These are the artificial Devil Fruit trees," Ryan expined, gesturing toward the pnts. "The apples with fully formed patterns are the successful products, while those with inplete patterns are failures."

  He picked up tles—oh plete spiral patterns and another with inplete ones—showing them to El and Afar. "Eating a successful fruit gives the user a one-in-five ce of gaining powers. L it to one in ten would require adjusting the trees and the SAD formu."

  El examihe bizarre apple in his hand. Without hesitation, he grabbed a bucket of SAD and poured it onto the roots of one of the trees.

  Swish—

  The tree’s branches rapidly grew, sprouting neles. Before their eyes, the fresh fruits developed spiral patterns—some plete and others inplete.

  "What’s this?" Afar murmured, watg the process in awe.

  "With El's Quetzalcoatl form, even half-finished cultivatiohods yield extraordinary results," Ryan remarked. "At this rate, produg a rge batch of artificial fruits won't take long. But remember, l the success rate to one in ten will also affect the overall yield."

  El, holding one of the newly grown fruits, chuckled. "The fewer successes, the more desperate they'll be to try. That desperation is what will bring them to ruin—and us, immense profit."

  "Eh? The success rate for plete fruits is this high? Let me check!"

  Ryan and the others were taken aback. They hadn't expected that El’s use of his Quetzalcoatl ability—g pnt growth—would result in such a high yield of plete artificial Devil Fruits.

  Taking a few fruits, they examihem and firmed that these were indistinguishable from artificially cultivated Devil Fruits.

  "Incredible…"

  "The yield is eveer thaontatta Tribe’s rumored ability to nurture pnts!"

  "It seems we uimated the pnt-g power of the Mythical Zoazalcoatl form!"

  For a moment, Ryan, Vegapunk, and Dr. Tsukimi were all astonished and deeply impressed.

  "Do you have more seeds for the Devil Fruit trees?" El asked.

  "Yes, don't worry, lenty," Lane responded.

  "With your ability, El-sama, these half-finished artificial Devil Fruits absolutely be mass-produced," Vegapunk chimed in, his i piqued. While the thought of selling fwed products might seem dubious, the prospect of increased research funding took prece.

  "Good," El said with a smile.

  "Ma ma ma ma, so these are the Devil Fruit trees?"

  Two figures—oall and one short—approached. It was Linlin and Gerd, both sp slightly rounded abdomens from their pregnahey were the first to plete the Lineage Faodifications on their unborn children; the others were still in the process.

  "Unbelievable," Gerd said, curiously pig up one of the artificial Devil Fruits to exami. She and Linlin had heard about this project before but had never seen the finished product.

  "Teically, it's only a semi-finished product with signifit side effects. I pn to sell them in bulk," El said with a chuckle.

  "Sell them? To whom?" Linlin and Gerd were surprised. "Won’t that strengthen our enemies?"

  "Not really," Vegapunk interjected. "These crude, semi-finished artificial Devil Fruits have a low success rate, and those who fail lose all facial expressions except for a stant smile. Even those who succeed won't see a major boost in power—it’s nowhere he level of a real Devil Fruit.

  "Additionally, anyone who es these artificial fruits will be vulnerable to the Paramecia Dango-Dango Fruit’s ability. Feeding them the special dumplings will make them as obedient as tamed animals, turning them into absolute sves incapable of disobedience."

  "Ah, I see," Linlin grinned, showieeth. "Then there's o worry."

  "So, El, how much are you pnning to sell each fruit ferd asked with a sly smile.

  "With enough SAD produ and my pnt-g ability, roduce thousands of these fruits in no time," El replied. "Even if we sell them for just a few million berries each, it’ll be a massive profit.

  "But while we want them to sell, we don’t want them to be cheap. Let’s start with a high price—five million berries per fruit as the minimum."

  "Ma ma ma ma, at that price, ten thousand fruits would bring in fifty billion berries!" Linlin excimed, her grin widening. "And it’s not just the Rocks Pirates who would be ied. Nations, underground fas, even the Wover—plenty of parties would jump at the ce to buy these!"

  "servatively, we could sell tens of thousands of fruits a year," Gerd said, calg. "This really is a massive business opportunity!"

  Bleam