The Shackles

At that moment, Ye Mu found himself caught up in a very famous philosophical question: which came first, the chicken or the egg?

The question seemed simple, but to Ye Mu, it involved two entirely different worldviews: Evolutionism and Creationism.

If the chicken came first, then that represented Evolutionism.

Through the endless process of evolution, the first chicken capable of laying eggs had been born!

If the egg came first, then that represented Creationism.

That meant God had created the first egg capable of incubating a chicken, and only then had chickens appeared in this world.

Of course, this explanation was not entirely accurate. Reversing it would essentially work as well, but it had conveyed the general idea.

In this world, however, that question might lead to another one: what exactly were Devil Fruits?

Take this Gum-Gum Fruit, for example.

If the Gum-Gum Fruit had been created specifically to produce rubber, then it meant that these Devil Fruits were very likely man-made, created for some particular purpose.

But if the Gum-Gum Fruit had not originally been intended to produce rubber, then there were two possibilities.

First, Devil Fruits might still have been artificially created, but the ability they had produced had not actually been rubber. It had merely resembled rubber, which was why it had been given the wrong name.

That raised another question: what had the Gum-Gum Fruit's original ability been?

Second, Devil Fruits might not have been man-made at all, but had grown naturally, like demons, elves, and similar creatures. It was simply that, because of one of their traits, later generations had given them the name rubber.

The secrets hidden within that possibility were even greater—so great that Ye Mu had no clue where to begin.

Could that be possible?

Thus, he asked what he thought was