"Besides, it's not like we can only sit around and wait. We can work on some other small projects!"
Vegapunk's words made perfect sense, and Mousse recalled the bulky training equipment his younger sister had worn before. He immediately asked, "Then could we begin researching artificial gravity simulation first?"
However, Vegapunk shook his head. Even he needed a Mane Mane no Mi user's cooperation for that research, which left Mousse deeply disappointed.
Even when he had been far away in the Flower Kingdom, Mousse had kept track of Marine Headquarters Marineford through his eldest brother, Perospero. Naturally, he knew that Issho had joined Marine Headquarters.
However, according to the investigation by Totto Land's intelligence agents, the man was merely a swordsman with decent talent, not a Devil Fruit user. In other words, he had not yet eaten that Mane Mane no Mi.
And since his life trajectory had already undergone such a major change, the odds that Issho, having joined the Marines early, would still obtain the same Devil Fruit in the future were not negligible—but they certainly were not high.
Without that lead, how could they possibly find that specific Devil Fruit, or its user, in the vast sea?
Still, Mousse was not so easily discouraged. He immediately turned to his backup plan and asked Vegapunk, "Then, sir, is there a way to safely separate a Devil Fruit ability from its user?"
Vegapunk answered at once, but his response fell far short of Mousse's expectations. "Once the host dies, the devil leaves on its own. So the key is determining how the devil judges whether its host has died. There are two possibilities: physical death, or the disappearance of the soul."
"I once conducted an experiment in which I rendered a Devil Fruit user brain-dead while maintaining their bodily