Heir Joseph

"Open the descriptions for the Art-Art Fruit and the Change-Change Fruit."

Just from the names, Carl could tell what most Devil Fruits did. These were the only two he knew nothing about.

"Art-Art Fruit: It can turn anything drawn into a real object, but the creations have no souls. After Devil Fruit Awakening, it can give objects souls and seal some inanimate objects inside paintings.

Change-Change Fruit: It can transform the user into any animal, plant, or other shaped object they have seen, but the user does not gain its traits or power. After Devil Fruit Awakening, the user can perfectly inherit the strength of whatever they transform into."

If he understood the Art-Art Fruit correctly, it could store things, just like Ma Liang's magic brush.

The Change-Change Fruit should let its user turn into all kinds of animals, and even plants. Could they become Zunesha, too? Too bad they wouldn't gain the transformed creature's strength until the fruit was fully awakened.

Wait, he could look at it this way: if the Change-Change Fruit user brought along the Art-Art Fruit user to sneak into the God Valley Battle, wouldn't they be able to slip in without a sound?

That made these two Devil Fruits much more valuable. He had to keep them safe.

Carl then stored the Devil Fruits one by one in his system inventory.

The trip back to Hachinosu was quick, and they didn't run into any trouble along the way. After all, no pirate in their right mind would pick a fight with the Rocks Pirates.

By the time they returned to the island, John, Ochoku, and the others had also come back with their spoils.

After handing over seventy percent of the Beli, Carl's system balance reached 5.9 billion Beli. However, this time, the Devil Fruits from the Giant Warrior Pirates weren't included in the split.

That made sense. The Giant Warrior Pirates hadn't gone with them, so the rest of the spoils should be with Rocks.

At the same time, Rocks decided to hold a grand banquet that night.

"AwOOO!"

"Lord Carl, you're back!"

As soon as Carl returned to the base, he saw White Tiger running toward him.

Long Yi and Long Er hurried after him.

Carl first patted White Tiger's fluffy head, then looked down at the two boys.

"How's it going? Have you been practicing?"

"Of course, Lord Carl. Look!"

Long Er held out his right hand. A ball of lightning flickered over his palm—he had clearly made a start on the Lightning Method.

"Good. You two are making progress pretty quickly."

"By the way, Lord Carl, we did something bad today."

Long Yi said awkwardly.

"Oh? What happened? Tell me about it."

Carl walked over and sat on a boulder.

It turned out that after the others set out that day, Long Yi and Long Er had gotten into an argument with some pirates stationed on the island. But they were clever enough not to fight the pirates hand-to-hand. They were still young, and even though they'd trained for a long time, they were no match for them.

Instead, they settled things with a duel. Hachinosu had an arena, after all.

Pirates didn't exactly have many other ways to entertain themselves.

The rules were simple: each side bought a slave and had them fight to the death in the arena. The loser had to kneel before the winner, kowtow, and call him "Grandpa."

Sure enough, the two of them had fallen for the trick. They bought a slave, only to realize that the pirate they'd challenged had chosen a giant as his fighter.

Naturally, they lost the duel.

But they refused to accept defeat and went straight after the pirate. They hadn't expected him to be so weak; he died after just a few blows.

Afraid the truth would come out, they brought the giant slave back to their base and hadn't dared leave since.

Carl chuckled when he heard the story.

"Don't worry. In the Rocks Pirates, you don't have to be polite to the other pirates. We're not on the same side."

"Besides, the captains in the Rocks Pirates won't interfere with the killing. There's nothing to worry about."

Carl patiently explained how the Rocks Pirates worked so they wouldn't be afraid.

After hearing him out, they immediately relaxed. The incident had scared them so badly that they hadn't even dared leave the base, worried they might cause trouble for Carl.

"A giant? Take me to see him."

Carl was looking forward to it. He wasn't some collector, but having a giant on his ship would be pretty impressive.

"He's over here, Lord Carl."

Long Yi led the way.

There was a huge cave behind their base. Heir Joseph was inside.

The giant was so large that they hadn't had time to build him a house, so he had to make do with the cave for now.

"What's your name?"

Carl walked up to the cave and saw the giant sitting inside. The darkness did nothing to hinder his vision.

"Heir Joseph."

A deep voice echoed from within the cave.

"Do you want to join the Rocks Pirates?"

"As long as I don't have to be a slave, I'll do anything."

Joseph didn't want to be a slave ever again.

"All right. Come out."

"Thud! Thud! Thud!"

With each heavy footstep, the giant Joseph emerged from the cave.

"You're pretty tall."

As Joseph came out, Carl estimated that he was at least twenty meters tall.

Joseph had a long beard and a huge collar around his neck. He looked utterly dejected.

"Join my crew. I'll protect you from now on. As long as you sail the seas under Carl's name, no one will treat you like a slave again."

"T-Thank you, Lord Carl."

The giant Joseph was overcome with tears as he spoke to Carl.

Giants were straightforward by nature. They remembered who treated them well and who treated them badly. To Joseph, Carl was the man who had saved him from a life of misery.

"All right. Lower your head and stay still. I'll take that collar off."

As Joseph lowered his head, Carl stepped forward and snapped the collar apart with his Armament Haki-covered hand. He coated both ends of the collar in Armament Haki and hurled them far out to sea.

"BOOM!"

A massive splash erupted as Joseph touched his neck.

"It's gone! It's gone! That's wonderful—it's really gone!"

Joseph looked at Carl with tear-filled eyes.

At last, he was free of that symbol of slavery.

"Ha ha ha ha! I'm free!"

Joseph stood up and laughed loudly.

Carl felt a little gratified. He hadn't expected one of his subordinates to recruit a giant someday.

"All right. From now on, you'll follow Clay."

"Clay, I'll leave him in your hands."

Carl looked at Clay beside him. Clay was now effectively Carl's personal steward, mainly handling the troublesome things Carl didn't want to deal with himself.

"Leave it to me, Lord Carl."

Clay understood what Carl meant. They hadn't known each other long, but he had already gotten a good idea of what Carl was like.

Since Lord Carl had said this, he was clearly asking Clay to teach Joseph the Five Elements Fist.

"All right, now that we're done here, come to the banquet with me tonight."

"After all, this is a momentous occasion for our Rocks Pirates—we've reached the far half of the Grand Line together."

"As you command, Lord Carl."