Chapter 272: Time Bubble, Training and Locating Allies

Chapter 272: Time Bubble, Training and Locating Allies

_________ POV Narration _________

The next time Luffy opened his eyes, he was already on his bed.

Wires were connected to him, beeping machines that he didn't know a lot about. Luffy just knew they belonged to Vegapunk.

"Oh, looks like you're up!" Stella, Vegapunk's main body was the one to greet him first.

The Straw Hat captain craned his neck to the side and noticed that Chopper was still asleep by his side.

The reindeer doctor was always doing his best to treat others, especially his comrades, but oftentimes he forgot to take care of himself...

Seeing him asleep always managed to put a smile on Luffy's lips, it was almost as heartwarming as seeing a juicy piece of meat in front of him.

"Wasn't I in the temple or something?" Luffy immediately slipped out of the bed, the cables/wires connected to him came off easily.

"You certainly were. Robin made a rather concerning discovery regarding the island, which prompted everyone to evacuate it for now.

We decided to monitor your vitals to ensure that nothing too concerning happens to you. After all, a human containing two different devil fruits is rather unheard of..."

Vegapunk spoke and immediately started going through his notes. They were surprisingly full, as he seemingly observed a lot of strange phenomena during Luffy's sleep.

Although it had not lasted a full day, Luffy's body had undergone a lot of changes, his skin becoming a lot stretchier and healthier. He had gained a glow of youthfulness that Vegapunk hadn't even thought possible.

A human aging backward wasn't exactly an everyday occurrence, at least not without the interference of some devil fruits. But Luffy had technically not aged previously either, only his vitality had consumed by his devil fruit usage and adventures.

As an effect, he had started looking a bit older, but his body had technically not aged at all.

The fruit that the incarnation of Nika had eaten seemed to have a simple yet miraculous effect to increase someone's vitality endlessly.

Vegapunk proceeded to make some rather important tests as soon as Luffy woke up. For one, he tried testing whether or not the Straw Hat Captain's powers were affected.

They were quickly able to find, through his testimony, that Luffy's body had reached an entirely new level of stretchiness.

Rubber he was previously, but he could technically still harm himself by stretching a bit too much, at the very least it would put a strain on his body.

But now? Luffy's body could inflate to much greater proportions than before without even using his awakened form. All of the moves within his arsenal seemed to suddenly gain a 'long' variant.

They took a bit longer to stretch out fully, but they dealt a lot more damage. That was both thanks to the boost in elasticity and the one in overall strength.

Every aspect of Luffy's body was improved to inhuman levels, not that he was in any way average to begin with. But now he was really worthy of the Sun God title...

At least he would've been if he had full control over his newfound strength.

"Luffy, I would appreciate it if you stopped breaking the doors around the ship... It's getting more and more annoying to fix them." Franky seemed a bit annoyed at the extra work that Luffy kept giving him.

Shaka and some of the Vegapunks did offer to help, but Franky refused them almost immediately. The Thousand Sunny was his baby, he was not letting anyone else work on it, at least not while he was still on it and alive.

"The door's too weak! I'm not even gripping the handle that hard!" Luffy seemed half apologetic, half deflecting. On one hand, he did feel bad about wrecking his ship each time he tried to do anything. On the other, he felt that it wasn't his fault at all.

"It can't be helped. It may take a few weeks for Luffy to get used to his new strength, his change was quite substantial after all." Shaka, Vegapunk's number 1 satellite was always near Luffy by that point, constantly documenting any other changes that could occur.

It was just a basic safety precaution, Chopper was going to take his place as soon as he rested enough.

But that didn't mean Vegapunk's work was over.Điscover new chapters at novelhall.com

He was quite fascinated by Devil Fruits after all. And now, within the island, he had a 'branch' that was said to be a fragment of the tree that had first materialized devil fruits.

Human desire manifested, it was something that Vegapunk had been studying closely. Hell, he had even managed to copy the effects of some devil fruits and create proper artificial ones.

Now, he could study what was essentially the source of it all.

Of course, studying the field around the island was the first priority.

Testing started almost immediately. He did the sensible thing and sent in some robots to set foot in the time bubble.

One of them was set to dance in a special sequence, each sequence was documented and numbered.

The other one was a simple clock that was stationary. Fully digital and powered by a cable that ran outside of the bubble.

Both robots had only stayed there for one minute in the real world, but by the time Vegapunk sent another robot to retrieve them, the dancing robot was already a statue.

To be clearer, it seemed that the dancing robot had become frozen in time after around one month within the bubble.

Thankfully, the robot started dancing once more after being taken out of the bubble, it only took a few seconds really for it to readjust to normal time.

"No need to be too pressed about it. Everyone at this table has already achieved enough to leave their names in history..." Whitebeard sighed as he looked at all of the people that had gathered underneath Enel's wings.

It was fascinating, generations upon generations of pirates, marines and revolutionaries all banding together to crush the oppressive regime that had been established centuries before their time.

Every person at that admittedly large table was either a legendary figure already or had the potential to become one.

"Bah, some rookie pirates like you folk were never going to get the One Piece anyway~! If I was to wager a guess, Enel likely could have gotten his hands on it easily even without the Poneglyphs." Big Mom was not quite as welcoming, she had always had a nasty mouth though, so that was not news for anyone.

"Maybe, with his speed and observation haki, he can scour every corner of the New World until he finds it..." Akainu murmured as he tried to calculate how much time Enel would need to find the One Piece in his mind.

"That's nice and all... But he may have to do just that in all honesty. We can't find it normally without the missing piece." Dragon spoke out as he looked over some reports from his research department.

Larthy had done her best to study the Road Poneglyphs that they had on hand, but without the last one in the possession of the Straw Hats, they didn't have a lot to go off of.

It was as if they were missing their most crucial piece.

"... Yeah, I will head out to find it. It shouldn't take me too long hopefully." Enel sighed and vanished as soon as he spoke, his body turning into lightning and travelling to another edge of the island.

He clapped his hands and flashed further into the distance, his eyes closing as he awakened immediately.

'I'm sure I felt something around these parts a while back...'

Within his consciousness, he couldn't quite feel it. But he could feel the lack of something where the island should have been.

For some reason, the presence of the island had become slightly stronger, the mist that had been previously shrowding it dissipating slightly.

But that didn't mean they were close to it already.

Rather, the entire island of Raftel seemed to be moving. Shifting and slithering. The only way to concretely reach it by ship would be to follow some strange cloud formations that also shifted along with it.

There were other landmarks, but for the most part, there wasn't much else. With a quick radar scan, Enel was able to find it a mere hour away.

He didn't feel anything special on the island, just that the Straw Hats and Vegapunk had set up shop on the island already.

To save his energy, he quickly turned off his Awakened state and returned to his seat, surprising everyone.

"What? Already?!" Kidd shouted as he immediately stood up, the anger in his tone palpable.

"Yeah, I'm redirecting the islands towards it now. As we assumed already, Straw Hats are already there." Enel rubbed the back of his neck, before his eyes shifted to his side as he noticed a strange exchange.

Shiki blinked a few times before sighing and reaching into his pocket, taking out a fat stack of bills and handing it over to Francisco, who smiled and immediately started counting them.

"... Did you bastards place bets on this?" Enel was immediately annoyed.

"Of course we did! Only a hopeful fucker like Francisco would predict that you'd be back in a few minutes..." Big Mom scowled as she also took out a sack of money and sweets and threw it over to Francisco.

Enel just gave them a disappointed glance. More and more people forked out money for their bets.

The List included most of the pirates present, dragon, and surprisingly... Fujitora?

Enel looked at him with quite a lot more disappointment than the rest, expecting a bit better from a marine.

Alas, his expectations were dashed once again as Francisco split the money with Sengoku, who had apparently also bet for Enel to return quickly.

His excuse for participating in such juvenile behaviour? 'It is only natural to place a bet when you know you are winning?'

Meanwhile, Fujitora had no such grand aspirations or excuses, as he was just a gambler at heart.

Garp was also mad that he had been asleep through the whole exchange, as he would've gotten some money as well had he not.

All in all, it made Enel question quite a few things about their group's dynamics and if the Pirates were starting to somehow influence the Marines...

'What even is happening to this group...'

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Hope you liked the chapter!

Sorry for missing yesterday's upload, had an issue and couldn't write much during the day. At least I managed to finish the chapter today :))

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