Sig looked at the unconscious Miss Buckingham and rubbed his hands together expectantly.
Sig hadn't been particularly interested in the old lady; his interest lay with Whitey Bay, who possessed the "artificial Paramecia Devil Fruit," and secondly with Ain, who had the "Return-Return Fruit" ability...
As for Miss Buckingham, Sig's only interest was in gossiping about her relationship with Whitebeard.
However, Sig now realizes he was wrong. After witnessing the birth of the Whitey Bay, the little old lady's appeal to Sig skyrocketed!
The reason is simple: judging from the memories of the Whitey Bay, Miss Buckingham also once "worked" in Vegapunk's research lab, so... Sig should be able to directly access Vegapunk's research materials through her.
Compared to Queen and Gage, Miss Buckingham worked with Vegapunk later, but probably earlier than Caesar Courland.
Queen and Gage were Vegapunk's earliest collaborators. Before Vegapunk served the World Government, they conducted research together. During this time, Vegapunk came to know about the existence of the Lineage Factor and became the person closest to the truth about Devil Fruit.
Later, their research institute was destroyed by the World Government, and Vegapunk was captured.
Miss Buckingham was likely working in Vegapunk's laboratory for over a decade after the Rocks Pirates disbanded, and it seems that this period coincided with Vegapunk's research into "artificial Paramecia Devil Fruits"!
As for Caesar Clown, he also served the World Government after that, but was expelled by Vegapunk a few years ago for conducting large-scale human experiments. During that time, Vegapunk's research focused on "artificial Zoan Devil Fruit"...
Sig's only worry now is whether Miss Buckingham, because she wasn't a direct researcher, hadn't paid enough attention to the research data and process.
With this trepidation, Sig entered Miss Buckingham's Dream Infiltration, starting by going back to the time when the Rocks Pirates disbanded—as for the gossip about Whitebeard and her, Sig thought they could put it aside for later!
In his dream, Sig roughly pieced together Miss Buckingham's actions after the Rocks Pirates disbanded...
Miss Buckingham was the Ship Doctor on the Rocks. Although she was mean, selfish, and only interested in profit, her medical skills were still quite good.
After the Rocks Pirates disbanded, she wanted to join Whitebeard's crew, but Whitebeard refused. Afterward, she took the Whitebeard blood she had collected and joined the World Government's secret research institution.
When Sieg saw only blood, Sig interest in gossiping about Miss Buckingham and Whitebeard vanished considerably...
The Rocks Pirates, or rather the Rocks Grand Fleet, had Ship Doctor in each division and affiliated pirate crew, so Miss Buckingham wasn't the only one. The strongest "wounded" person Miss Buckingham could come into contact with was Whitebeard.
With Whitebeard's Lineage Factor and Miss Buckingham's considerable professional abilities, she was quickly accepted by the World Government and became a member of the secret research institute, where she also participated in Vegapunk's experiments.
Sig also realized that Miss Buckingham's actions in the original work, where she used Whitey Bay to hunt down Whitebeard's sons after Whitebeard's death, were probably driven not only by greed but also by jealousy—"So you're Marco? You're Whitebeard's Ship Doctor? We'll get you..."
Miss Buckingham worked in the secret research institute for nearly ten years, roughly from two years after the Battle of God Valley to two years before Roger's execution.
Oldest One, Miss Buckingham did not immediately gain trust, but over the next ten years, she gradually came into contact with some confidential research materials, and indeed, Miss Buckingham was conscious of secretly reviewing some of the materials herself!
This greatly encouraged Sig!
Although she was more inclined to be a "doctor" than a research member, and therefore the information she came into contact with was more "practical," she still read through a lot of the information, even if she herself hadn't looked at it in detail. However, in the dream, Sig pulled it all out of her subconscious.
Even documents that were only glanced at were Sig reproduced by Zieg, who read every single word...
As expected, Vegapunk had big ambitions. Initially, he set his sights on "Paramecia Fruits," but due to some side effects, he later turned to researching "Zoan Devil Fruit."
The two are very different in principle, especially in terms of Paramecia Fruits. Vegapunk's research is not yet complete. However, with Vegapunk's research data as a supplement, Sig combined his own existing research and greatly advanced the research progress!
Now it's basically just a matter of waiting for the fruit to ripen... To be precise, Sig has now realized that he needs to plant a new batch of fruit. The previous version by Caesar Clown is obviously not as good as Vegapunk's version. Moreover, Sig has his own ideas—in terms of research ability alone, Sig is now comparable to Gage and Queen.
In other words, he's at a level where he can "clearly copy Vegapunk's work," slightly better than Caesar Clown...
In addition, Sig also gained some understanding of Vegapunk and other researchers at the institute through Miss Buckingham's perspective—although the information was more than a decade outdated, it was better than nothing.
Vegapunk himself was not the "mad scientist" character Sig had envisioned; in fact, he possessed a certain idealism. Although he had absolute rationality, he fundamentally believed that science would bring dawn to humanity, yet he was not rigid in his beliefs...
Whether it was stopping Miss Buckingham or expelling Caesar Courland, it was indeed because their madness displeased Vegapunk.
As for Vegapunk's assistants, most of them were just tools, hardly able to help Vegapunk at all; instead, they served more of a surveillance role.
Even so, with Vegapunk's intellect, he always managed to complete some of his experiments undetected—such as the Artificial Devil Fruit experiment. Vegapunk felt that the side effects were too severe, but he knew that the World Government might not think so, so... he deliberately tampered with the experimental parameters, making the side effects even more severe, and the World Government had no choice but to cancel the project!
Even Miss Buckingham didn't notice this, but Sig noticed it from her perspective.
Another researcher who could be considered Vegapunk's "confidante" was the female researcher who had exchanged a few blows with Weevil after he had just escaped...
She joined the research institute not much earlier than Miss Buckingham; in fact, she was not even twenty years old when Miss Buckingham first joined.
Although Miss Buckingham and she didn't get along, they had known each other for ten years, and he knew some things about her.
She wasn't Oldest One a researcher, but was chosen by Vegapunk and directly selected for the research institute. At Oldest One... she seemed to be an "experimental subject" born into slavery, but she became Vegapunk's assistant. She learned most of her knowledge later in the research institute.
With her carefree personality and a childhood trauma that fuels her passion for food, she stands out from the other researchers. However, she is also the only one Vegapunk truly trusts.
Sig had also considered whether she might be a spy planted by the World Government. No matter how plausible her identity might be, from Hispero's perspective, there was still a super spy possibly anywhere. And someone like Vegapunk, even if he was already under their control, still deserved to have a super spy by his side!
However, judging solely from Miss Buckingham's perspective and observing micro-expressions, Sig did not notice anything unusual.
Furthermore, Sig also discovered the location of Vegapunk's research institute...
Even without looking, Sig knew they must have moved long ago. After all, the research institute Caesar Clown blew up a few years ago was in Punk Hazard, so they must have moved more than once!
Dongdong: Two more chapters will be updated this afternoon.