Analysis

The unconscious Charlie was also covered in a layer of camouflage coloring, though it had not been activated yet.

Once the Clone Plant Person had been created, Samael removed the Seastone Shackles from Charlie's wrists and put them on the Clone Plant Person.

Their camouflage coloring instantly shifted. Charlie vanished from the cell, replaced by the Clone Plant Person.

Taking the unconscious Charlie with him, Samael casually put the Seastone Shackles back on him. He had swiped these Seastone Shackles from Impel Down.

However, Samael did not dare steal too many, so he had only taken five pairs.

As he returned to Level 5.5, he casually filled in part of the tunnel he had excavated with Camouflage Rock. This both improved security and made it convenient to use the tunnel again next time.

The guards in Hunger Hell had no idea that a prisoner in one of the cells had been secretly replaced.

After capturing Charlie, Samael used a Transport Bug Train, something similar to a railway train, to send Charlie—sealed inside a Life Support Capsule—to the Camel Island Base 810 kilometers away.

At the same time, he continued selecting suitable Devil Fruit users, waiting for opportunities to secretly replace them.

Seven hours later, the Transport Bug Train delivered Charlie to the Camel Island Base.

In the Underground Laboratory, Wang Gao stared at Charlie, who was soaking in Nutrient Solution before him. His eyes looked as though he had found some peerless treasure.

"Let me see the secrets of Devil Fruits!" Wang Gao immediately released his Atomic-level Observation Haki and carefully observed Charlie's body.

Using brainwaves, his hands entered observation data into the Bio-Computer.

Twenty-four pairs of chromosomes—this matched his own chromosome count. However, Lucifer, Leviathan, and Samael, the three artificial humans, had only twenty-three pairs of chromosomes.

One had to remember that the gene templates of those three artificial humans had come from Wang Gao.

Wang Gao had twenty-four pairs of chromosomes, while Lucifer and the other two had only twenty-three. The difference between his body and those of the artificial humans was the Devil Fruit.

He casually drew a test tube of blood and collected some skin and flesh cells from Charlie. After thirty minutes of continuous observation, the chromosome count in those cells degraded from twenty-four pairs to twenty-three pairs.

Around the seventh minute after the cells had been separated from the body, the twenty-fourth pair of chromosomes entered a state of collapse.

He drew his own blood and cell samples and obtained the same result.

But when he injected the blood and cell tissue back into his body, he discovered that the twenty-fourth pair of chromosomes reappeared in those cells.

"This looks a little familiar!"

Wang Gao found it familiar because the Bio-Suit Core he had developed possessed a similar mechanism after being implanted into a user's body, mainly to prevent enemies from obtaining cell samples and reverse-engineering anything from them.

The manifestation of Devil Fruit abilities in a user's body was more like a special weapon fitted with a foolproof self-destruct program that activated upon separation from the body.

Then he thought of the Lineage Factor, artificial Devil Fruits, and the blueprints of life studied by Vegapunk, Judge, Caesar, Queen, and the others.

Wang Gao could basically confirm that Devil Fruits were a type of special artificial weapon. The various restrictions on these special weapons were either due to incomplete technology or deliberately imposed by their creators.

Devil Fruits manifested in users as the twenty-fourth pair of chromosomes, but Wang Gao did not believe that was the root of it. They appeared to be bound to the user's genes, but that was not actually the case.

Because if they were bound to the user's genes, then some special Devil Fruits could not be obtained by humans.

For example, after the user of the Revive-Revive Fruit died, the fruit's ability allowed them to be reborn. But Brook's skeleton had no cells at all.

Another example was Logia Devil Fruits. Once the body was completely transformed into an element, it was clearly in a cell-less state.

If Devil Fruits were merely bound to genes, then these special Devil Fruits would be unusable.

Therefore, the core of Devil Fruits was actually hidden within the soul. Wang Gao, who possessed a Quantum Soul, observed his own soul and compared it with Charlie's, discovering Devil Fruit information inserted into the soul sequence.

That was also why, after a user died, the Devil Fruit escaped the body, became a special Space-Time Wave, and then randomly reincarnated in a fruit.

In Wang Gao's view, so-called Devil Fruits should more properly be called "Rule Information Weapons." The ancient civilization of this world was truly terrifying.

Having uncovered part of the secret behind Devil Fruit abilities, Wang Gao became increasingly wary of the World Government, which had ruled the world for eight hundred years, as well as the shadow upon that throne.

It seemed he needed to develop discreetly. Before he had sufficient strength, he absolutely could not reveal himself openly.

He had conducted an assessment of his overall strength. At present, Wang Gao's own combat power was roughly comparable to that of some veteran Marine vice admirals, excluding Garp. Even with his other methods factored in, escaping unscathed from an Admiral was still somewhat difficult.

Although Bio-Suit Technology and the Chain-Chain Fruit ability possessed extremely bizarre methods, they lacked decisive power capable of settling a battle in one blow.

In Wang Gao's view, even reaching Admiral-level strength would not make it suitable to reveal himself openly. After all, the World Government had ruled the world for eight hundred years. How many trump cards it had hidden remained unknown.

Although he despised the World Government's conduct, that did not mean he would underestimate it.

At the very least, before he possessed Star Destroyer Level power, he did not want to reveal himself openly. Not everyone was the protagonist Monkey D. Luffy, able to activate plot armor and escape disaster every time.

If an ordinary person acted that recklessly, the grass on their grave would already be three meters tall.

The experiments continued.

Before he knew it, time had reached November 2.

The weather on Camel Island had become slightly cooler. The incessant rain had also paused for a rare spell, and the sky had remained brilliantly sunny for several consecutive days.

Clearly, Camel Island's tropical rainforest climate had entered its annual dry season.

During this time, Samael in Impel Down had also worked very diligently, secretly replacing four more Devil Fruit user prisoners.

To verify some of his hypotheses, he had not exclusively demanded Paramecia users. Of the four prisoners captured, two were Zoan users, one was a Paramecia user, and one was a Logia user.

That Logia Devil Fruit user was also the only Logia Devil Fruit user currently in Impel Down. He was a Nitrogen-Nitrogen Fruit User.

This Logia Devil Fruit should have been one of the inferior fruits of the Gas-Gas Fruit. It was originally quite a powerful Devil Fruit, but unfortunately, its user was a complete idiot.

After gaining the fruit's ability, he had believed himself invincible. He destroyed several Marine branch bases in the West Blue, and then he got himself taken down.

After being lured into an ambush by Tsuru, Wang Gao was knocked back to his original form by a single punch from Zephyr and successfully sent into the fifth level of Impel Down, Scorching Hell, to burn firewood.

The remaining two Zoan types were both ordinary Zoans: the Bug-Bug Fruit, Model: Dragonfly, and the Ox-Ox Fruit, Model: Water Buffalo.

The final Paramecia was the Mask-Mask Fruit Devil Fruit Ability.

With samples from all three major categories of Devil Fruits, Wang Gao's research into Devil Fruits grew increasingly in-depth.

Zoan-type Devil Fruit Abilities in particular might seem less promising than Paramecias, but the existence of Zoan Devil Fruits naturally meant they possessed their own secrets and value.

If developed well, even an ordinary Zoan could still be an extremely powerful Devil Fruit Ability.

Thank you all for your support (ω｀)