23 Chapter 22: Hail to the king baby

It's been three years now that Rick was placed under Tsuru's command.

He was stunned at first with the difference of leadership between Garp and her.

She was a lot stricter than Garp, if he was ever strict.

There was no talking back orders or anything.

What she said, went. It was as simple as that.

There was no funny business on her ship.

'So this is the real marine experience. I would never have known that had I stayed with Garp.'

Even though Rick missed the antics of his former crew, he enjoyed his new one.

The camaraderie was still present. What he liked the most was the order on the ship.

They were on their way back to Marineford. Have been there for 18 months. He was longing for time with Sengoku and his lesson about strategy. He still didn't get one single win from him at chess.

His return at HQ was not the only reason Rick was excited.

After trying his best and hardest he finally got the 50K karma points needed to by the imperfect body V 2.0. Actually, thanks to his last mission he now had 65K Karma points.

Meaning, he will live!

It was not easy though. He only had two months left of life.

Since he didn't really know how the system changed his body, he waited to be in his room and at night to make the change.

Rick opened the system store and searched for what he wanted.

[Imperfect body V2] 50 000 Karma points

He bought it but wanted to look for something else first.

He opened the devil fruit tab and started scrolling then stopped.

'The description of the imperfect body said that it allowed the user to use multiple devil fruit but never specified how many.'

Not wanting to test it as the failure would mean death, he was thinking about just buying it and keeping it when he'll know more about it.

"Still he doesn't hurt to take a look."

He filtered his search for devil fruit under 15k Karma points, and read the list.

'The Mini Mini no mi has not been eaten by anyone yet ?That would be useful for Shiraoshi, her giant size makes her an easy target. Let's take it.'

After buying the devil fruit, Rick was left with 3k Karma points.

He switched to his status window.

There wasn't any stat here. On one panel he could see his good deeds he did and the Karma points he earned for it. A second one indicated what he bought in the store and hasn't used yet.

The last one was showing his actual status.

-[Imperfect body V 1]

-[Zushi Zushi no mi]

-[Me Me no mi]

-[Imperfect body V 0]

'Imperfect body V0 ? What is that?

Even though the name was greyed out, meaning not active anymore, Rick could still see the description.

[Imperfect body V 0]

Description:

Originally named "Enhanced body".

First tentative of Doctor Vegapunk to create a body enabling the use of multiple devil fruits.

Normal human body modified by Doctor Vegapunk.

Faster growth and lowest rank of regeneration.

Can use Haki

Life expectancy 15 years.

Because it needed too many test subjects, Doctor Vegapunk chose to create himself the bodies.

That gave birth to the Imperfect boddy series.

Since the Enhanced body was the foundation of the Imperfect body series, Doctor Vegapunk renamed it Imperfect body V 0.

'So my original body was a failed project of Vegapunk? And It can use Haki? How come the Imperfect body series can't use it anymore then?

Does it come from the possibility of using multiple devil fruits?'

Rick thought about it for a while but then gave up.

'Unless I ask Vegapunk himself or get to read his research I won't know.'

Then had a stupid idea.

He opened the store and started a search under the term "Vegapunk".

'The store has everything the world of One Piece has. So maybe I can find Vegapunk's research.'

And he did.

[Imperfect body series research] 2000 Karma Points

'Good I have enough.'

He bought the item and started reading.

The research was quite detailed and answered the two questions Rick had.

First the reason why the imperfect body allowed the use of two devil fruits at the maximum.

'So , there is a limit, good thing I didn't bought and ate a third'

'So basically every living being has a soul contained in a vessel, the body. When someone eats a devil fruit they fill their body with a part of the devil of seas' soul since apparently the soul does not take all the space.. Eating a second devil fruit makes the vessel "overflow" meaning: explode.

Since the imperfect bodies are not naturally but artificially made, they have no soul, they can house two parts of the sea devil's soul.

Vegapunk discovered that fact when he tried to breed the artificial bodies. He impregnated a normal woman with the seed of an artificial male and impregnated an artificial female with the seed of a normal man.

Both children could use Haki and only eat one devil fruit.

When he tried to breed artificial bodies together, they could not use Haki but could eat two devil fruits.

This discovery helped him understand why his creations could not use Haki.

Haki is born from will power that exists because of the Ego.

According to vegapunk the Ego is the proof of existence of a living being itself; in other words: the "soul".

Since the artificial bodies were mindless dolls and had no will, Vegapunk theorized that they could not use Haki because they had no will and had no will because they had no Ego /soul.

Descartes was right : Cogito, ergo sum. I think therefore I am.'

Since the children born of one artificial parent could use Haki it meant they had a soul. So a soul creates soul(s).'

Rick stopped his train of thought.

'Damn Vegapunk is a nasty bastard. What he did is completely amoral, unethical and totally against nature. I'll have to take care of him, the karma I would get would be enormous I bet.'

Even though he had found the answers he looked for, two questions popped in his mind.

'Why can I use two devil fruits? I mean when the goddess sends me into a world she's actually sending my soul. I should have exploded when I ate the Me Me no mi. And why can't I use Haki?'

Despite the description from imperfect body V1 stating that the body could not use Haki Rick did still try without any success.

'Is it because my soul does not originate from the One Piece world? It can use the body but is not completely tuned to it or something like that?

That would prevent me from using Haki?'

Rick read the last part of the research.

'So Vegapunk is theorizing that by either strengthening or expanding the vessel it would be possible to eat a third devil fruit? Maybe even more?

And he's been trying to create an artificial soul to allow Haki to be used ?

That's insane!'

He had enough; he needed to rest, this was too much complex information at once.

He used the imperfect body V2. and went to sleep

'At least now I have 20 more years to live.'

~~~~~~

While Rick was sleeping soundly.

In East blue a common event was happening.

A young woman was holding in her arms a new born baby boy and had a tired smile.

" Dear, did you already think of a name for him ?" she said to the man by her side.

"Of course I did." and went to whisper it in her ear.

"What do you think?"

"I love it!"

She looked at her sleeping son. She was rocking him gently.

"Welcome to the family Monkey D. Luffy."