Seeing the rare serious expression on Lily's face, Carl asked,
"This group… do they have anything special? Are there people among them like Joy Boy?"
Lily shook her head and said,
"They're not crazy like Joy Boy. If anything, they're more like a bunch of lunatics."
"What do you mean?"
"They're true force-oriented people, almost entirely devoid of emotion. What they pursue is endless power. Among them, some were even stronger than Joy Boy would later become."
"So the reason they didn't choose to come to our planet back then… is because they looked down on it?"
"You could put it that way. They did experiment with it, but our planet's lands were too scattered. It couldn't even let the Tree of Devils produce a perfect fruit. Even when a fruit finally grew, aside from a few select ones, most were useless defects to them."
"Wait, Tree of Devils??"
Carl raised his eyebrows. He had always thought the first Devil Fruits were artificially created, but hearing Lily's explanation, it seemed they were actually completely natural.
Lily nodded and explained,
"That's right. The tree itself can produce Devil Fruits. The first experimental subject chosen was Joy Boy, though at the time he only ate a regular Gum-Gum Fruit. So when they saw powers like the ones resembling a clown's, they were extremely disappointed. After all, waiting for the Tree of Devils to bear fruit had already wasted a huge amount of their time. One of them got so angry that he destroyed the Tree of Devils. From that moment on, Devil Fruits completely scattered across the world."
Hearing this entirely new version of the Devil Fruit origin, Carl was deeply shocked. This version completely deviated from his memories of Earth. He asked,
"So when Joy Boy later awakened his fruit, they didn't know? Or did they just not care about the awakened Nika Fruit's power?"
"No, they didn't know that Devil Fruits could awaken. At the time, the Tree of Devils was the latest crystallization of their biotech. Their first thought was that this technology was highly flawed and needed constant improvement. If they had seen the powers continuously developed when Devil Fruits merged with humans, they might have made our planet their first base after leaving the moon."
"...Scientists, though… shouldn't you first observe the experiment to get accurate data? Why destroy the experimental material right away?"
"The moon was about to become a dead planet. Time was extremely limited. There was no room to observe a lunatic like Joy Boy. They were already prepared to move on if the experiment failed."
Carl thought for a moment, then shook his head and laughed,
"In that case… we really have to thank that furious guy. If it weren't for him, I probably wouldn't even exist."
"Not necessarily. Even if they had stayed, your ancestor Cassilius wouldn't have been weak compared to them. You probably don't know much about him, do you?"
"Hmm… I only met him once. He seemed like a good man."
"That's because he was one of them at the start, and among the most gifted. But compared to them, he wasn't as cold-blooded. After coming down from the moon, he even enjoyed some aspects of local life."
"Ah… so that's why my ancestor didn't leave with the others and stayed behind?"
"No! The main factor that kept Cassilius here was the Dark-Dark Fruit."
"...You've got me confused. If Devil Fruits were already considered defective, the locals wouldn't mind, but why would my ancestor choose to eat a Devil Fruit?"
"Because he was one of the lead researchers of the Tree of Devils. He didn't believe the fruit of his painstaking work could be a failure. He thought the inability to produce a perfect fruit might not be due to poor nutrients, but possibly because the nutrients were unexpectedly abundant, so a single fruit couldn't contain them all, which is why so many fruits were produced instead."
Hearing this, Carl was shocked once again. Good grief—his ancestor was a scientist, and his research skills might have even surpassed Vegapunk. After all, Cassilius' work truly went from zero to one!
This also explained why among the Five Elders, only Saturn possessed scientific capability. Saturn once said he was Cassilius' disciple, though an unremarkable one. Whether in research or personal power, he fell far short of his master.
Carl silently digested this enormous information he had just received from Lily, then asked,
"So why did my ancestor choose the Dark-Dark Fruit in the end? What's so special about it?"
"Simple. According to Cassilius' observation, the later the fruit was produced, the more nutrients it absorbed, and naturally the stronger its power. The Dark-Dark Fruit was the last fruit produced by the Tree of Devils."
"How can you be sure it was the last one?"
"Because when the Dark-Dark Fruit appeared, the Tree of Devils' underground roots also broke through the surface. This was exactly what they had expected—the final step of the tree's maturation, transitioning from plant to animal."
"...Wait, why does this feel so familiar?"
Lily assumed Carl was speaking casually and continued,
"Perhaps your Figarland family records mention it. In any case, before the Tree of Devils was destroyed, Cassilius ensured the Dark-Dark Fruit remained. Once the others left, he immediately ate it and became the first Dark-Dark Fruit user."
"Didn't they suspect why my ancestor left it behind?"
"Cassilius told them he left the Dark-Dark Fruit to preserve an experiment result, since he was one of the lead researchers. They didn't question it. As for whether he would leave with them, they didn't care—they only cared about themselves."
Lily suddenly sighed and said,
"Cassilius miscalculated one thing—Joy Boy. He ate the Gum-Gum Fruit long before Cassilius did. Although mentally unstable, his talent was top-tier. Since Devil Fruits were made based on lunar physiology, he quickly developed the true power of Devil Fruits. While Cassilius studied the Dark-Dark Fruit, Joy Boy occupied the Lunar people's Sky Marks used to control the planet, throwing the world into chaos."
-----------
+110 chapters on p@treon/tambeerg