Punk Hazard, the largest testing hall at that time.
The six figures stood here again, looking completely different from when they were first created.
S-Snake has grown slightly taller by half a head, and his eyes are as cold as ice.
The long sword behind S-Hawk was replaced by a third one. The sword's spikes were worn with hair, and he stood up straight.
S-Crocodile leaned against the wall, eyes half lowered, looking at everyone as if they were wasting time.
S-Xiong stood quietly in the corner, his broad shoulders almost blocking half of the window.
S-Azure Dragon folded his arms across his chest, rubbed his feet impatiently against the ground, and had the word "impatient" engraved on his forehead.
Finally, there was S-Queen, sitting cross-legged on the experimental table, squinting at Vegapunk while nibbling on dessert, to see when he would finish talking nonsense.
Vegapunk lowered his head and flipped through the thick evaluation report, muttering, "Physical maturity, qualified."
"Haki developed, qualified."
"Personality stability, qualified."
"Ability to judge independently..."
He raised his head and glanced at S-Azure Dragon, who immediately frowned. "What are you looking at me for?"
"It's considered qualified."
"What do you mean it counts?!"
Vegapunk ignored him and closed the last document with a snap.
"From today on, you no longer belong to Seraphim Project."
After the words fell, the hall was quiet for a few seconds.
There was no cheering and no one was particularly excited.
In fact, everyone started making their own decisions a long time ago.
Today is more like going through a process and completing the last official formalities.
Vegapunk first looked at S-Snake: "What are you going to do?"
S-Snake didn't even think about it, "Return to Bilca."
"What to do?"
"Looking for Master Rock."
S-Queen next to him asked casually with a spoon in his mouth, "Is there any other sister Hancock?"
S-Snake's face instantly darkened. "Don't mention her."
"Why?"
"No reason!"
Vegapunk silently added two lines to the report.
[Stable personality.]
[The sense of competition is still evident.]
S-Snake's eyes turned cold. "What are you writing?"
"Nothing."
He immediately turned the page.
"S-Hawk."
S-Hawk raised his head. "Continue to follow Mihawk."
Vegapunk raised his eyebrows. "Do you want to be the second Hawk-Eye?"
"No."
S-Hawk looked down at the hilt of his sword. "I followed him because his sword went the farthest. But I didn't do it to become him."
He paused and said in a very soft voice, "I want to see where my sword can go in the end."
Vegapunk nodded, not kidding this time.
"S-Crocodile?"
"Crocodile over there."
"Reason?"
"Highly efficient."
"No more?"
"That's enough."
Vegapunk looked at him, and S-Crocodile looked at Vegapunk.
Two seconds later, Vegapunk lowered his head and wrote, "Okay."
No need to ask any more questions, it's obvious that they are the same species as that crocodile.
Then he looked at the S-Bear in the corner.
"What about you?"
S-Xiong didn't answer right away. Bonney next to him had been waiting impatiently for a long time and jumped over to him. "Big man! Didn't you say you wanted to tell me your name this time?"
Kuma and Ginny were also standing not far away, looking over with smiles.
Over the years, everyone has called him S-Bear, but that has never been his own name.
S-Xiong was silent for a moment and finally said, "I've thought about it."
Bonney's eyes lit up. "What's it called?"
"Nova."
"Nova?"
He nodded. "I have read a book before, called "Nova Goes to See the Sea". The man in it didn't even know what was outside his own door at first. Later, he walked very far."
Bonney was stunned for a moment, then laughed loudly, "Okay! Finally it's not a S-bear anymore!"
Ginny immediately clapped his hands. "Nova! It sounds good!"
Kuma just looked at him quietly and nodded slowly. "Very good."
Nova also smiled, it was very shallow, but it was an expression that was entirely his own.
S-Azure Dragon was waiting nearby and stamped his feet. "Have you come to me yet?"
"Where are you going?"
"High-Risk Sea."
"What to do?"
"Catch sea beasts."
"..."
"Extra large!"
S-Azure Dragon grinned, showing his white teeth. "The bigger, the better."
Vegapunk's eyes twitched. "Are you planning to join Long-Distance Exploration System?"
"Whatever, as long as you can fight."
At this point, he added another sentence, viciously. "Also. Whoever calls me little Kaido from now on, I will throw him into the sea first."
The hall fell silent for a moment.
Vegapunk lowered his head and silently crossed out the line "Kaido type combat tendency" on the report.
Finally, S-Queen licked the plate clean and raised his hand proactively. "I want to form Adventure Group."
"Oh?"
Vegapunk became interested. "Why?"
"Find a partner."
"Then what?"
"Partners are family."
Vegapunk stared at her and suddenly asked, "What if your partner wants to leave in the future?"
S-Queen looked strange, as if he was looking at a fool. "You can leave if you want."
"Why?"
"Why? If you don't want to stay, why should you force others?"
Vegapunk said nothing, but raised the corner of his mouth slightly.
If Charlotte Linlin were still here, it would probably be very unpleasant to hear.
But precisely because of this, the child in front of her is not her.
Vegapunk walked up to the six people and finally asked a question.
"What about these previous numbers? S-Snake, S-Hawk, S-bear, S-Crocodile, S-Azure Dragon, S-Queen... do you still want them?"
S-Azure Dragon was the first to speak, "Sooner or later it will be replaced."
S-Hawk It doesn't matter. "It's okay to just scream for now."
S-Queen thought for a while, "Let my partners help me think about it in the future."
S-Snake looked down at his file and looked up with an arrogant look on his face. "I'll ask Mr. Rock to give me a name when I get back!"
Nova reached out and turned over the information that belonged to him, placing the numbered page at the bottom.
S-Crocodile glanced at the others and said calmly, "You can call me whatever you want."
"Anyway, we are not them."
The whole place was quiet.
S-Hawk nodded lightly. "Yeah."
Just when Vegapunk rarely felt that today's evaluation finally had a serious ending.
There was a sudden roar outside the laboratory, making the glass buzz.
"Vegapunk--!!"
Everyone turned back together.
Bang!
The door was knocked open.
Moria rushed in holding a thick stack of engineering reports, followed by Perona floating in the air, and Hogback carrying a toolbox.
"My zombies have broken down again by 300!!"
"???"
Vegapunk veins jumped on his forehead. "Why are you here again?"
Moria slapped the report on the table, "Fix the corpse!"
The solemn and sad atmosphere just now was instantly shattered.
Half an hour later, a group of people stood near Large-Scale World Sea Route Construction Zone and fell into collective silence.
In the distance, hundreds of zombies were lining up to move rocks.
Dozens of people on the left were digging tunnels, a group on the right was carrying steel beams, and a dozen more were holding giant hammers, laying foundations as neatly as an assembly line.
The most exaggerated thing is the farthest point.
Rumble--
A huge shadow walked slowly, carrying a whole hill on its shoulders.
Ancient Giants Zombie, Oars.
S-Azure Dragon raised his head sharply. "What the hell is this?"
Moria stood aside with a look of despair. "I was planning to beat him up Kaido before."
S-Azure Dragon turned to look at him. "Huh???"
The engineering officer in front was holding Loudspeaker Den Den Mushi and shouting, "Oars! Left!"
Oars slowly moved to the left. "Here?"
"More!"
"Here?"
"Yes!"
Boom!
The huge mountain fell and it accurately stuck into the reserved area.
The engineering officer immediately gave a thumbs up. "Beautiful!"
Moria covered his face. "Why on earth did I behave like this..."
Perona was floating in the air, suppressing laughter until his shoulders were shaking. "Because you are now a construction contractor."
"Shut up!"
S-Hawk looked at Moria and seemed to have thought of something, and suddenly asked, "By the way, I heard that you have a very powerful swordsman corpse?"
Perona smiled and nodded, "You are talking about Mr. Ryuma's body. He refused to move after being defeated by a green-haired swordsman one time, so we sent him back."
"Those who deserve to sleep should sleep well."
Moria pouted. "That swordsman's corpse is obviously very useful..."
Judicial Officer, who was passing by, immediately turned back. "What did you say?"
"Nothing!"
Moria immediately changed his tune. "I said the current system is very good!"
Green hair? S-Hawk didn't ask again, just looked back.
Vegapunk pointed at the zombies and said, "What you see is different from the ones Thriller Bark had before."
Nova looked at him. "What's the difference?"
"Shadow Source."
"You can't arrest ordinary people. They can only come from serious violent criminals, murderous pirates, human trafficking leaders, and war criminals who have been formally tried."
"Each zombie has a number and judicial record. A portion of the project proceeds will be allocated to victim compensation, disaster area reconstruction and Sea Gate maintenance."
Moria's face grew darker and darker as he listened, and finally couldn't help but burst out. "I used to just cut a shadow! Why does a zombie have to fill out nineteen forms now?!"
Judicial Officer turned over a page without expression and recorded. "Last month, you had seventeen engineering zombies used overtime."
Moria shrinks his neck. "Just a little."
"A maximum of six hours and twenty-three minutes."
"That's because it didn't stop on its own. What does it have to do with me?!"
"Fine."
Moria:"..."
Perona laughed so much that he fell out of the air, holding his stomach and rolling. "You deserve it!"
"Shut up!!"
Nova looked at the zombies moving mountains and rocks in the distance, and suddenly asked, "So, are they all tools?"
Vegapunk paused.
This time, he didn't joke, but explained to them seriously, "Yes. They have no independent personality, no self-awareness, and only execute the given action logic."
Then, he turned around and looked at the six children in front of him who had also been numbered, manufactured, and trained as war weapons.
"But you are not."
S-Azure Dragon frowned and said in a harsh tone, "Whoever dares to use me as a tool, I will kill him."
S-Hawk said calmly, "No need to say it a second time."
S-Snake was more direct. "Rock Master has said it a long time ago."
S-Queen tilted his head. "I am not a tool in the first place."
S-Crocodile doesn't seem to think it's worth discussing at all, "It's enough if you can decide for yourself what to do."
Vegapunk smiled.
"Yes. It's that simple."
In the past, Seraphim Project's most troublesome issue has never been power, but whether these beings with flesh and blood, thoughts, memories and emotions can be considered "human beings".
Now, no experimental conclusions are needed.
Because the answer is standing right in front of me.
That evening, the six people began to leave separately.
S-Snake is the first to go, the destination is clear.
S-Hawk continued to return to Mihawk, and the sword at his waist was replaced with a new dark sword tassel.
S-Crocodile went directly to Crocodile, and the two of them stayed in a room that day to study the commercial development value of a new route.
Nova, Kuma, Ginny, and Bonney chose to continue traveling. He wanted to see the coasts painted in "Nova Goes to See the Sea".
S-Azure Dragon took on the Long-Range Exploration Department's highest-risk sea monster subjugation mission on the same day. Before departure, he wrote a line on the mission registration form: [Note: It is forbidden to call "little Kaido".]
S-Queen went to the Adventure Guild to register, and the first sentence he said was, "I want to recruit family members."
The staff member was obviously shocked when she heard this. She thought about it and quickly changed her words: "We are looking for partners, the kind who are willing to stay."
On the other side, the construction zone is still busy.
"Oars!! That mountain is not there! Right! Right--!!"
Oars stopped and lowered his head. "This way?"
"The other side!"
"Oh."
Boom!
The entire mountain fell into the wrong position, and the ground shook violently.
The engineering officer held his head and wailed. "We have to move it again!"
Perona screamed on the spot, "This month's bonus is gone again!!"
Moria is also crazy. "Oars--!!"
Vegapunk turned around and left, walking faster and faster.
"It has nothing to do with me!"
Hogback became anxious and chased after him shouting, "Hey! You haven't signed the maintenance order yet!!"
"Didn't see it!"
"You obviously saw it!"
"No!"
The children who were once manufactured as weapons have truly moved on to the lives of their own choosing.
And Kozuki·Moria, who once dreamed of conquering the sea by relying on the dead, is leading a group of zombies to build bridges and pave roads.
In the Age of Adventure, everyone seems to have found their own new direction.
As for whether it was what I wanted in the first place.
That's not necessarily the case.