Behind Eliana nodded, she understood that, but following it straight away would be hard, since she arrived on the island, she basically had been calling Ars big brother.
Elia and Ars knew that the first few days would be hard for her.
Since Elia was a couple with Ars, Eliana calling Ars big brother wasn't wrong, he was her brother in law, but at the same time she was going to work for them as a maid, so… She couldn't call them big brother and big sister when she was working.
After playing and joking a bit with her Elia smiled at her and said seriously.
"Welcome to the palace, hope you find it comfortable working here."
Then she went back with Eliana to start her training.
Ars training kept increasing in difficulty, and his strength even with nothing else, like akuma no mi and haki, was already enough to match the average giant.
One day, while he was training Reiju approached him.
She had been trying different things around the island, from working with animals in the farms, to helping on the clinic.
Everyone had helped experience their craft, the one who she felt at home the most… Soldier and being a doctor.
But somehow she felt that it was missing something, she couldn't tell what, but when she was speaking with Koral, while helping her around the clinic while Koral took care of her little girl, Koral commented on her previous position, as a princess, maybe what she was missing was not something in the job…
But something in how people interacted with her.
And the more she thought about it the more she realized that Koral was probably right. While people here treated her well and her previous position as a princess was different from the usual princesses, people still treated her differently. Now she was just one of many others.
And while she didn't realize it until now, it was messing with her head.
Now she approached Ars after already having talked with his queens.They all spoke a lot, and before this talk they asked all sorts of questions about the world, and the more they heard from her, the more stelled their resolve to become stronger became.
The more they listened, the more they understood Ars' endless desire for strength and his insane training regimes.
So when Reiju approached her about her problematic mentality, asking for ideas to resolve it, instead of helping her with ideas of how to get rid of that mentality, they told her to embrace it, and the moment they all looked at each other, Olivia asked her.
"Instead of letting go of that mentality, why not embrace it and take a position that matches it? The role of the queen in charge of medicine is still available, and the queen in charge of foreign connections is also missing, they both fit you and we would all welcome you happily, and Ars won't care after all is another beautiful wife, why would he complain."
Since the day Olivia said that and all of the other 3 queens nodded at her with a smile, she had been thinking about that option.
The more she thought about it, the more she accepted it in her head, and finally today she had come to Ars to talk about it.
"I don't know how to start this conversation… So I'm just gonna say it… I would like to become the queen in charge of the medical department… I hope it's not a problem."
Ars looked at her, and asked calmly, but hopefully, after all, who wouldn't want beauty as a wife, even though he already had a few.
"Are you sure? This isn't something you can change your mind about later. And have you asked the queens?"
She just smiled a bit shy about the situation, this was a completely new feeling for her, but then she replied while blushing.
"Yes and they were the ones who recommended me for the position…"
Somehow Ars could see that happening. He smiled and looked at her before asking seriously.
"Is there anything you would like to change about yourself externally or internally, and I mean genetically, not personality wise."
She had heard about his capabilities for changing people's genes to increase their potential or to correct problems in their bodies, so she was looking forward to this question, that according to what she heard from Kuina and the others, would definitely come.
She was super excited, because if he was as good as they had said he could remove the forced obedience to her father, which currently was her biggest concern. She started explaining to Ars what she wanted.
"To me, the current most important thing is to get rid of the forced obedience ingrained in my genetics, put there by my father, to make sure we couldn't rebel against him."
Ars nodded and then asked for more.
"Anything else? Appearance wise. And before anything else I should just warn you I will elevate your potential to the same level as the other queens, but I won't be removing the genetic modifications, and later on, after I improve them and remove the drawbacks from it, I will enhance you and the other queens with them… I will also enhance myself, just so you know. So you won't be losing any abilities, I'm just removing what needs to be removed, and enhancing what I can."
She looked at Ars curiously, her eyes were shining, if he really could do that it would be the best for her. She had already thought that she would lose her current abilities, and become weaker, but now he was saying that shouldn't be the case. She, after a few seconds of silent excitement, finally asked about it.
"Are you sure, it's possible? And if it's possible, can I also change my appearance?"
Ars smiled at her excitement and nodded, before explaining.
"To be precise, I already had a sample of your DNA from when i was saving your life, and already removed the dangerous and negative components from it, now i just need to change your DNA to match it, while i also increase your potential, and in the future i may even give you more abilities. And yes you can change your appearance to almost anything you like."
Her eyes started to get wet with tears, and Ars seeing this actually felt a bit lost, then a bit panicked about what he should do.
Suddenly she looked sad, so he urgently asked.
"What 's wrong?"
She looked at him in tears and explained.
"Can I really be free? Can I really become better? All this time I didn't dare to dream of it… Unlike my brothers who my father considered superior but the fact that they lost their emotions hurt my mother so much, so all this time i was afraid that in the future if i had children they might be missing their emotions… And now you said you can remove all the drawbacks…"
Ars relaxed a bit realizing it wasn't something he did or said, and answered.
"First, I'm not exactly sure if I'm getting this right, but in my opinion you are the most successful of your father's genetic experiments, after all you were the one who gained the most out of them without losing as much. Second, yes, that is easily solvable and you don't need to worry about it."
He stopped talking for a bit, letting his words sink in, and after a while he continued.
"Now, let's go back to what we were doing before… About your appearance, What would you like to change?"
She had already decided a while ago what she wanted to change, so she quickly summarized her desired changes.
"First I would like to make my hair multi-colored, with my current pink in the upper part and a clean and clear blond on the sides, but can I choose the blond coloration to my desires?"
He nodded and she added one more request.
"I would like to remove the curly eyebrows…"
He nodded and asked.
"Anything else you would like to change?"
She shook her head intending to stay silent about the rest. But then she decided to reply.
"You can change the rest as you see fit…"
He nodded and was preparing to take her to the lab when his 4 queens passed behind them running, while wearing different training suits.
Why was he so sure they were different from the usual? The previous ones were decorated by them as they pleased and these ones looked brand new. To be precise, other than a few people, who actually kept changing their training suits to get better training results, everyone else had decorated theirs. From small metal adornments to flowers to tribal images… There were all sort of decorations normally. They still changed the suits from time to time but it was quite rare.
Ars then finally looked around properly and noticed most people training had new training suits, he looked confused, then looked at Reiju and asked.
"Do you have any idea why everyone changed their training suits?"
She smiled and replied, but clearly dodged his question.
"Maybe the weather made them train harder…"
The reality was that with Reiju stories about her past, the stories about the outside world and the incident on the last mission where they didn't manage to crush the pirates, as easily as they thought they would, everyone had decided that they all should train to have even more combat strength, so they increased the intensity of their training. Especially the queens, who served as an example for others.
Either way, for Ars, it was a good thing.
He finally took Reiju to his laboratory once more, where he explained what each machine did, and Reiju chose the blond coloration for the side hair.
"You should choose a different family name, even if in the future you will use mine. By the way with the machine help and the contract. Your age will be permanently put to 21 years old."
She looked surprised but nodded. After a few seconds she replied with a name.
"Sora Reiju!"
Ars smiled at her and pointed at the machine that would change her appearance first.
After she entered, he let the machine do its thing and went back to train for a short while.
After he returned he took her to the machine to change the potential and remove her genetic problems. He could have used the previous one to remove the problems, but chose to do it on this one, since it wasn't painful on this one and they could do it in a single process.
Previously when he was examining the sample from Reiju, he realized the Germa 66 genetic modifications acted more like amplifiers or multipliers to the base body. It increased almost all statistics in the human body, from superior strength to faster healing, between other things. Combined with the exoskeleton, it was quite strong compared to normal humans.
Ars had changed those genetic augments from always active to only active when the user chose to use them, and he also had removed all the negative parts. Well to be precise the machines from his ability did, but those were details.
Since this was gonna take a while he went back to his normal life, while he waited for Reiju changes to be completed.
The next day, early in the morning, his breakfast was interrupted by a soldier, who came to inform him of a possible problem.
"Your majesty, a ship is moving towards the island!"
Ars looked at the rest of his breakfast, and weighed his options. Should he finish eating fast, and risk having his port damaged or go now and not finish his breakfast…
It was a hard decision but he decided that the port took priority. With an annoyed sight he went to the port.
When he arrived, he realized that he should have finished his breakfast, it was guests he knew from before and meant no harm. He sighted again, before greeting them.
"Hi, it's been a while, has everything been alright? Ginny, Kuma."
He also looked around until he saw a smaller figure descending from the ship.
"I'm also happy to see you, Bonney."
They all laughed and Ginny greeted Ars back.
"Hello, your majesty Ars, we have been fine. We are sorry to interrupt your morning, but we came here hoping that your shipwrights could build a few ships for us, of course we will pay for it."