"The day has finally come... The last experiment was relatively successful. Hopefully, nothing goes wrong this time!"
Watching the purple light pillar slowly condense and concentrate, Vegapunk's face showed a hint of nervousness. Standing beside him were Hancock and Nico Robin.
After a moment, the purple light finally stabilized, transforming into a vortex-like light portal. Vegapunk breathed a long sigh of relief.
"Alright, next we'll have to gamble on our luck!"
He had no choice but to gamble; the Ryuumyaku energy was almost depleted. If they didn't cross over this time, then relying solely on imitation Ryuumyaku energy would likely take seven or eight years of research before they had any possibility of returning to the One Piece World.
As for returning after they arrived, that would be much easier. After all, Vegapunk had already created coordinates and reception devices on the moons of the Naruto World and its Parallel World. In the One Piece World, he had his base of operations, the Dream Star, so he wouldn't need Ryuumyaku energy by then.
Having a connection in both worlds was equivalent to setting up bridges on both sides of a river, making travel back and forth much easier.
However, if one wanted to go directly from one world to another from only one side, the difficulty was basically like performing a trapeze act. Even though Vegapunk had tried his best to make the space-time portal perfect, he still only had an eighty percent certainty.
Fortunately, even if they failed, they wouldn't be in mortal danger thanks to Hancock's Amenominaka Space; at most, they might drift to some other unknown world.
The three slowly walked into the purple vortex. Before leaving, Vegapunk handed over this world's chakra genjutsu network to Ōtsutsuki Kaguya. Of course, before that, Vegapunk didn't forget to install a "human bomb" inside her.
In the future, Vegapunk would need Ōtsutsuki Kaguya's help to return to the Naruto World. To prevent her from having any ill intentions, the bomb was set to explode automatically after ten years, and only he could disarm it. Therefore, Ōtsutsuki Kaguya certainly wouldn't dare to pull any tricks when Vegapunk returned.
As for what would happen to Ōtsutsuki Kaguya if something went wrong with Vegapunk? Then she could just die!
In any case, Vegapunk felt that if he was finished, Ōtsutsuki Kaguya certainly wouldn't be very obedient. She might even prepare to play the game of having everyone go up into the tree again. At that time, he would be considered as eliminating a scourge for the people... The light flashed, and Vegapunk looked around with some surprise. It was a space formed of steel, with a faint white light glowing around them.
"Is this... the Dream Star? I remember we left from here!"
"That's right... that should be where the quantum brain is located!"
Nico Robin looked toward the central pit. Powerful crimson energy flickered at the bottom of the pit; that was the pure energy provided by the nuclear fusion solar chamber. In the beginning, the quantum brain was placed on top of it to absorb energy for calculations.
"It feels like quite a bit of time has passed. We spent four or five years in the Ninja World; I wonder how much time has passed in this world?"
While speaking, Vegapunk looked at Hancock.
"Hancock, put the quantum brain back in! To return directly to the place we left is truly a stroke of luck!"
Hancock nodded, opened the Amenominaka Space, took out the quantum brain directly, and placed it back in its original position.
Just as the quantum brain was returned to its place, the entire head suddenly flickered with a circuit-board-like glow, eventually transforming into a sphere of white light as the radiance grew stronger.
At the same time, the entire Dream Star seemed to come alive. Even the light reflected in the surrounding metal became more vibrant.
With a casual swipe in the air, a light screen projection immediately appeared in the void. Vegapunk rubbed his chin, looked through it carefully, and finally felt at ease.
"It seems that the absence of the quantum brain didn't have much of an impact on the Dream Star... At least the internal self-diagnostic and maintenance systems still exist. Also, the experimental subjects preserved before are still fine!"
As Vegapunk's home base, the Dream Star possessed some electronic program sub-brains in addition to the quantum brain acting as the primary brain. Although they were only at the level of artificial idiocy, they were more than sufficient for mechanical self-diagnostic repairs and functional maintenance.
As for the so-called experimental subjects... those were cell and blood samples from Devil Fruit Users Vegapunk had collected in the past, or even the ability users themselves placed in hibernation chambers.
This was also a point Vegapunk was quite worried about—fearing that during the time he was gone, those ability users might have escaped or died.
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