In terms of physical build, Caesar and Yamato’s heights were hardly a perfect match.
Fortunately, as his physical strength grew, Caesar naturally mastered the Six Powers he had learned previously without the slightest difficulty—it was far easier than Haki.
And Caesar had even received the achievement reward for mastering the Six Powers—Return of Life!
This ability was quite interesting.
The underlying principle involved concentrating one’s focus and infusing consciousness into specific body parts, thereby gaining absolute control over one’s bodily organs and functions.
While its raw combat power boost was not on par with Haki, its practical utility was by no means inferior.
First was rapid absorption—the most frequent and practical application seen in the original story, which essentially appeared after every meal Luffy ate to digest his food instantly.
In essence, it enhanced digestive capacity, rapidly replenishing the body’s cells with energy.
This process carried no side effects; on the contrary, it converted food directly into vitality.
Caesar had already verified this.
The nutrient absorption through Return of Life produced an effect identical to his previous absorption of life force, only less pronounced in magnitude.
In other words, it was a skill that allowed even ordinary people to replenish their vitality to a certain degree!
Second was complete mastery over the body.
It felt as though every single cell responded smoothly to his will, allowing him to alter his physical features and appearance at whim.
Kumadori of CP9 used this ability to manipulate his hair in battle.
Similarly, fingernails could be controlled as well, and if one wasn’t bothered by the gross factor, hair on other parts of the body could be used too.
Rob Lucci, also of CP9, used this technique to alter his overall bodily form, shrinking his Beast Form from its massive height down to that of an average human, thereby boosting his speed and conserving stamina.
And when this ability appeared on Caesar—who already possessed the immense stamina of a Zoan type along with the capacity to absorb life force—the compatibility reached absolute perfection!
Caesar stood at one hundred and ninety centimeters tall.
Compared to those freaks who easily reached three, four, five, or six meters, he certainly didn’t look huge, though he was still a few centimeters taller than Zoro or Sanji.
Normally, the limit for changing one’s size using Return of Life was thirty centimeters.
But backed by his life force, Caesar could more than double that figure, bringing him to roughly the exact same height as Yamato.
However, Caesar had no interest in changing his overall build.
After all, Return of Life didn’t just alter the whole body; individual parts could be adjusted on their own.
So in his view, a height of one hundred and ninety centimeters was just right—tall, muscular, yet well-proportioned and balanced.
Caesar’s ultimate goal was to become the sole Emperor of these seas, and an Emperor naturally needed to look the part.
What people ought to look up to was a spirit of supreme elegance, noble grace, effortless swagger, and world-conquering grandeur—not some foolishly oversized meathead flexer.
All in all, there was absolutely no need to worry about the physical harmony of Caesar and Yamato’s living arrangements.
The core of the Vampire Fruit’s ability was mastery over blood and vitality.
Even without Return of Life, he could manipulate life force directly to stimulate or inhibit cell division and growth, thereby altering his body shape.
It was worth mentioning that although this Daylight Vampire Fruit was a branch of the Human-Human Fruit, it had been upgraded from the Bat-Bat Fruit, so its original abilities had not been erased.
For instance, in his transformed state, his eyes could see the vitality contained within people’s bodies like thermal imaging, and he possessed the ability to hypnotize.
(Bat vision isn’t bad; large bats generally have great vision, with certain species even able to detect infrared and ultraviolet light.
Even small bats with degraded vision possess basic light sensitivity and can distinguish shapes—don’t flame me, guys.) His sense of smell became far sharper; his ears could hear ultra-high-frequency sounds, his throat could emit ultrasonic waves, and he could pinpoint his surroundings with precision based on echoes.
His canines turned into sharp fangs dripping with paralytic venom, which also granted Caesar a certain degree of poison resistance.
Caesar reckoned he definitely couldn’t withstand Magellan’s Venom-Venom Fruit, but he might be able to take on someone at Reiju’s level…
Besides these bat traits, Caesar possessed the power to create darkness.
Unlike the Dark-Dark Fruit, what Caesar created was an environment of pitch blackness, not a black hole.
This was a purely auxiliary ability.
Combined with the blood mist that blocked Observation Haki, it was tailored specifically to build a home-field advantage.
Overall, the fruit’s abilities showed no stark deviations from before the upgrade; if it were merely a boost in power and a change in appearance, it hardly deserved to be called an upgraded version.
However, the Daylight Fruit offered two distinct advantages.
First, it lacked a self-awareness of its own.
As long as he continued to develop his abilities and physique, awakening would happen naturally at a certain stage.
As mentioned earlier, Devil Fruits possessed a will of their own—some even deliberately chose their hosts and influenced the host’s mind upon awakening.
For Zoan users, this influence was even more dangerous.
Without careful control, the demon’s will residing within the fruit would overrun their mind, turning them into mindless beasts, just like the Jailer Beasts of Impel Down.
The upgraded fruit carried no such danger.
Furthermore, its power had completely fused with Caesar; even if he died, it would not separate from him.
In other words, present-day Caesar was less a Vampire Fruit user and more a vampire in the truest sense!
The second benefit was that because there was no demon’s will inside the fruit, there would be no conflict of wills, meaning Caesar could consume another Devil Fruit.
However, this ability had its limits.
Due to lineage factor conflicts, the second fruit could not be of the same type; he could only choose between Paramecia and Logia.
By the same token, if the second fruit was also a Daylight Fruit, he could eat a third one.
But even if all were Daylight Fruits, three was his absolute maximum.
Three Devil Fruits, three different branches…
To be honest, Caesar didn’t hold out too much hope for this.
To him, Devil Fruits weren’t expensive.
A mere hundred million Berries…
Forget him—even a small-town wealthy kid like Kaya could pull that out with ease.
Using the original storyline as a reference, a light sailing ship of the Going Merry’s caliber generally sold for twenty to thirty million Berries depending on the materials used, and the Going Merry was initially just a hobby project built by Merry the butler!
There was no shortage of rich people on these seas, but Devil Fruits were genuinely scarce!
Scarcity aside, every time one surfaced, it triggered a fierce scramble among various factions—a total state of too many wolves and too little meat.
Doflamingo, the biggest broker in the Underground, had a crew full of oddball users.
Kaidou, one of the Four Emperors, couldn’t even put together ten decent Zoan users under his command.
On top of that, the World Government was actively reclaiming powerful Devil Fruits, and the Navy snapped up anything like wild dogs with zero pickiness.
Aside from a few lucky individuals, most Devil Fruit users in this world served as the backbone of major factions.
After all these years of the original story, there were only a little over a hundred fruit users in total.
Compared to the vastness of the entire sea, that number was practically legendary.
Want to buy one?
You’d need the right channels first…
Anyone who had attended an auction understood that when an extraordinarily precious item appeared and hype was generated well before the event, the item was very likely pre-arranged for specific powerful players.
As for everyone else, they were just there to set the atmosphere.
Everyone was a person of status; networking, trading resources, establishing partnerships—that was the real reason ordinary wealthy merchants attended auctions.
If someone actually bought a Devil Fruit with great fanfare, pirates would instantly catch the scent and hunt them down.
Case in point: Ulti’s father—the former All-Star, the future Warlord of the Sea Hanafuda who would later be defeated by Ace—was currently wielding a blade and hunting all over the world to gather Zoan fruits for Kaidou!
It was pure luck that a Vampire Fruit genuinely existed in this world, and pure luck that Redfield was still rotting in an Impel Down cell, allowing Caesar to intercept it.
Finding another fruit, however, would depend entirely on fortune.
Fortunately, with his present strength, Caesar no longer had to worry about safety.
He could simply throw money around openly.
A Logia or Mythical Zoan might be hard to guarantee, but he could probably gather a few ordinary Devil Fruits.
Yet Caesar had no concrete target for his second fruit for now.
Among Logia types, he favored the Glint-Glint Fruit and the Rumble-Rumble Fruit the most, but both already had owners, one of whom was a Navy Admiral.
Otherwise, the most suitable choice would be the Dark-Dark Fruit.
If he could obtain that, he would never lack Devil Fruits again, allowing him to rapidly expand his forces.
And if he got a second Masterpiece Upgrade, he could freely choose his target for the third fruit.
Of course, that was just the ideal scenario.
The Collection System’s power wasn’t overwhelmingly broken.
The storage cap watered down its infinite duplication ability significantly, meaning its main value lay in resources and achievement rewards.
In the past, most achievement rewards Caesar received were talents and skills; special items rarely appeared, making the system quite stingy.
When he collected Nico Robin earlier, he had wondered if collecting a Devil Fruit user would yield any special collection reward.
Turns out, it didn’t…
That Flower-Flower Fruit user—a woman capable of influencing the destiny of the world—failed to stir even the slightest ripple in the system.
And the first Devil Fruit he collected hadn’t granted Caesar any extra rewards just because it was a special Mythical Zoan, nor had it even lit up a related achievement.
So looking at it this way, the Masterpiece Upgrade used on the Vampire Fruit might very well be the only one he would ever get.
“We both reincarnated…
So why do other guys get stronger just by signing in and checking in every day?” A soft sigh echoed softly in the quiet traditional room.
With one hand, Caesar stroked the long, slender, yet powerful leg Yamato had draped over his stomach, while his other hand gently caressed the pair of massive breasts he found so irresistible.
The girl in his arms was fast asleep, a sweet smile lingering on her face.
“Caesar…” “Hmm?” “Love you…” The girl muttered unconsciously, letting out a silly chuckle as her cheek rubbed gently against Caesar’s shoulder.
And then Caesar’s face got jabbed by her oni horn…
“I’m honestly terrified that one of these days you’ll gouge my eye out with a headbutt…” Looking down at her delicate sleeping face, a touch of softness flashed in Caesar’s eyes.
When meat was served right to his mouth, Caesar naturally saw no reason to refrain.
A full day had passed since that earlier kiss.
In that single day, everything that should and shouldn’t have happened had already taken place.
To Caesar’s surprise, this usually loud and boisterous girl turned out to be extraordinarily shy when it came to intimacy.
That subtle contrast drove Caesar nearly mad with passion, to the point where he almost ended up drawing on the reserve energy he had absorbed from the Oniwabanshu earlier.
How should he put it…?
Incredibly exquisite!