1511 (the year of the Sea Circle Calendar )
That year, Vic was troubled by something: time. Although the illusion could accelerate Rebecca and the others' cultivation, it would also affect their bodies and lifespans.
Because time is fair, there are gains and losses. You gained great power in a short time by taking advantage of the difference in the flow of time between reality and illusion, but in return, your body will lose that time!
The direct manifestation is a reduced lifespan and the marks of time left on the body. Vic didn't realize this at first, but when Mantis, the oldest person, began to show obvious changes in his body, Vic realized that using illusionary cultivation also comes at a price.
Therefore, Vic suspended everyone's illusionary cultivation and, after thinking for three days, came up with a solution: when Rebecca and the others were cultivating in the illusion, the electrical signal command output from their bodies in reality would be cut off.
When the brain is affected by the flow of time within the illusion, the body in reality will be influenced by the brain's instincts, continuously outputting various electrical signals and instructions, causing the body to undergo a series of changes in accordance with the flow of time within the illusion, in order to achieve a balance between time and the lifespan of the organism.
However, as long as one cuts off certain instructions from the brain's instinctive output while experiencing the illusion, the activities that cause aging and shorten lifespan, such as cell division and metabolism, will not occur in the body. In this way, one can achieve the goal of cheating and cultivating quickly without causing the real body to lose vitality.
Although a solution had been devised, it couldn't be implemented immediately. Vic not only had to create illusions to arrange Rebecca and the others' training, but also had to use the power of the Rumble-Rumble Fruit to help their real bodies cut off the output of those commands.
Moreover, before doing all this, he needs to find out which commands are causing the body to age slowly. Once he figures this out, theoretically, Vic could achieve immortality and even help those around him live longer.
Of course, this is only theoretical. The human body is very complex. To achieve true immortality, we can only start from two aspects: one is to make the cells always active and never age or die, and the other is to allow the cells to divide indefinitely.
Either of these two methods can achieve immortality, Vic certainly cannot do now. The Rumble-Rumble Fruit's power is very strong; it can extend the lifespan of cells by interrupting certain commands, but it cannot make cells immortal!
However, those who break through to the God Realm can live for more than two thousand years. Their bodies must have undergone some changes. Vic believes that as long as he has experienced those changes, he will definitely be able to find the changes that prolong the lifespan of living beings and achieve true immortality!
It took Vic a week of human trials to fully discover the instructions that govern the various biological and chemical reactions inside the cells.
Finding these instructions alone couldn't realize the previous plan. Just constructing the various scenes and rules within the illusion consumed a lot of Vic's energy. Although Vic was intelligent, he couldn't compare to the Matrix in the Matrix.
That's a virtual world capable of accommodating countless human batteries, where there's no phenomenon of some parts being intact while others are blurred. This isn't like a game where you just need to ensure the colors and scenery of the area where the character is located are intact. In the Matrix, everyone is their own protagonist, which requires infinite computing power to guarantee.
However, Vic doesn't need to do it like the Matrix. Vic only needs to target Rebecca and a few others. It works similarly to the game's operating mechanism, both being ways to save computing power.
Fortunately, Vic possessed the Soul Fruit, which could enhance his mental strength, indirectly boosting his brain's processing power. Even so, it took Vic three consecutive months of consuming the Soul Fruit to be able to selectively interrupt the cellular aging signals within Rebecca and the others' bodies while constructing the illusion.
This solved the problem that using illusions to accelerate cultivation would affect one's lifespan. With this problem solved, the illusion cultivation, which was held every two months, resumed.
This year brought more than just this one piece of good news. After three or four years of searching, the people arranged by the class finally found traces of the giant lanternfish, which had surfaced in a certain sea area of New World.
The giant lanternfish was attracted by the gold, a method taught to it by Vic. Ban reported this to Vic as soon as he received the news. This lanternfish was not easy to find, as it was a creature that lived in the sea, and if it left that area, who knows where it would go!
So, as soon as Vic received the news, he took Rebecca and Fisher Tiger and flew to that area of the sea. Fisher Tiger was there just in case; to get the Pure Gold, they had to go inside the lanternfish's belly.
Once inside the lanternfish's belly, the large fish will definitely sink to the bottom of the sea, which will be quite dangerous. Even with Vic's current strength, he cannot completely escape the influence of seawater. If he drowns, it will be a real disaster.
Rebecca was brought along to be the driver. Vic's speed was fine, but Fisher Tiger's wasn't, so Rebecca had to use her Float-Float Fruit powers to control a small boat and travel quickly through the air.
When Vic and his two companions arrived at that area of water, they naturally couldn't find the lanternfish anymore. This lanternfish was lucky to surface once a year, so they had to find a way to make it surface again.
Since this lanternfish likes Pure Gold, let's use Pure Gold to fish for it.
With the metallurgical abilities of the Vic -Rumble-Rumble Fruit, refining Pure Gold would be no problem at all, achieving 100% purity and truly making it Pure Gold in the literal sense.
However, the Pure Gold refined by Vic did not have the effect of slowing down growth or extending lifespan. At that time, Vic knew that the Pure Gold in Olga's hands was definitely not what it seemed to mean. Otherwise, wouldn't the Devil Fruit User be able to live forever?
How could the Celestial Dragons possibly let him go? They would have locked him up long ago to serve Celestial Dragons. Moreover, that Pure Gold was researched by Olga's parents. The fact that it was researched rather than refined speaks volumes. This is why Pure Gold is so rare. Vic can only rely on this giant lanternfish to find Pure Gold.
Vic used his smelting technique to refine three large golden orbs. Fisher Tiger took the orbs and went into the sea. Vic and Rebecca flew through the air with two special fishing rods, the ends of which were not hooks but instead held the golden orbs, pulling them in the sea.
The fact that the three of them split up left the intelligence agents staking out the area speechless. They never imagined they were working for that important person. What an honor! He was a huge backer, and the way he flew around so freely was enough to demonstrate his immense power.
Although Pure Gold is very bright, it does not have the brilliance of the sun and moon. Therefore, the three of them traveled at sea for several days before Vic finally sensed the giant lanternfish with his Observation Haki.
The lanternfish was chasing after Fisher Tiger, trying to swallow Fisher Tiger and the golden ball in his arms whole, but Vic was quick. He flicked his fishing rod and blocked the golden ball at the end of the line between Fisher Tiger and the lanternfish.
The lanternfish, with its limited intelligence, was quickly attracted by Vic's golden ball. However, Vic wasn't about to let the ball be eaten so easily; he quickly reeled in the line and lured the lanternfish to the surface.