The "research" began.
Charlotte Linlin's idea of research was simple, brutal, and filled with childlike cruel curiosity.
On the first day, she tied Kaizer to the mast and chopped off his left hand with a rusty cleaver.
"Mamama! Let's see how long it takes to grow back!"
Kaizer gritted his teeth through the agony. The severed wrist barely bled — his demi-human bloodline instantly sealed the vessels as black particles surged out, wrapping the stump.
He could feel bones regenerating, nerves stretching, and muscle fibers weaving together like living threads.
Three hours and forty-seven minutes later.
A complete new hand had grown back. The skin was slightly paler, but it functioned perfectly.
Linlin's eyes widened. She poked and squeezed the newborn hand with her massive fingers. "The temperature is lower than the other side… nerve response is a bit delayed… Mamama! So interesting!"
On the second day, she ground a small piece of Seastone into powder and mixed it into his food.
"Let's see if this works!"
After eating it, Kaizer felt his strength being drained — not the total weakness Devil Fruit users experienced, but a sluggish suppression of his life force. Regeneration slowed noticeably, and summoning IBM became extremely difficult.
But he could still regenerate. He could still summon.
"Resistance…" Linlin scribbled awkwardly in a notebook — she actually knew how to write. "Not complete immunity… just weakened… Mamama! So your power is more fundamental than Devil Fruits!"
On the third day, she tried to extract his soul.
It was the most painful session yet.
Purple light seeped into his body. Kaizer felt his consciousness being violently yanked, as if countless hands were tearing at his soul.
System warnings flashed wildly as his Soul Binding trait fought back with everything it had.
In the end, Linlin failed.
But she smiled brighter than ever.
"Soul and body completely bound… inseparable… Mamama! You are the most perfect being! You can't be killed, and your soul can't be taken!"
She slapped his shoulder so hard he nearly coughed up blood.
"From today on, you are my 'Immortal'!"
Between experiments, Linlin took Kaizer ashore.
Her goal was clear: collecting.
Giant children, long-armed craftsmen, fish-man dancers — anyone she found "interesting" or "useful" was taken without hesitation.
When the terrified children cried, Linlin would use her Soul-Soul Fruit to give life to their toys, making them dance until the kids laughed.
But Kaizer knew this wasn't kindness.
It was the attitude of a collector toward her possessions.
"Mamama! When I build my nation, all these people will be my citizens!" Linlin declared, carrying three exhausted, sleeping giant toddlers back to the ship. "Everyone will live together, eat together, and never be separated!"
Kaizer followed behind, carrying the ingredients he had bought — flour, sugar, cocoa powder, coffee liqueur.
He needed to raise Linlin's favorability.
And he knew her weaknesses: sweets… and stories.
That night, the ship anchored in the lee of a deserted island.
Linlin sat on the deck surrounded by her newly "collected" family — over a dozen children of different races huddled together, trembling.
She was trying to give a rock a soul with her Soul-Soul Fruit. The rock let out a high-pitched cry.
"Shut up!" Linlin smashed the rock with one slap, scratching her head in frustration. "Not fun! Not fun at all!"
The early signs of her hunger pangs were showing.
Kaizer took a deep breath and stepped out of the makeshift kitchen, holding a wooden plate.
On it was a brown-and-white dessert dusted with cocoa powder. Layers of coffee-soaked ladyfingers and cream were visible on the side.
"What is this?" Linlin's attention snapped to it instantly. "I've never seen this sweet before!"
"Tiramisu," Kaizer placed the plate in front of her. "In my homeland, it means 'take me away'."
Linlin's eyes widened. "Take me away?"
"Yes." Kaizer cut a piece and offered it with a fork. "Try it."
Linlin opened her mouth and swallowed it in one bite.
Then she froze.
The bitterness of coffee, the richness of cheese, the aroma of cocoa, and the slight kick of alcohol — a complex explosion of flavors she had never experienced.
Her chewing slowed, then stopped completely. A rare glint of moisture appeared in her enormous eyes.
"…It's so good," she whispered like a child tasting sugar for the first time. "Mamama… it's so good!"
She took another huge bite, then stared at him. "Where is your homeland?"
"Very far away," Kaizer said. "I can't go back."
"Then stay here!" Linlin decided immediately. "From now on, you have to make me new sweets every day! Otherwise, I'll take you apart and put you back together!"
Kaizer nodded. "Alright."
The next day, he made Black Forest cake.
After devouring an entire 8-inch cake, Linlin patted her belly in satisfaction. "Mamama! Kaizer, you're much better than those chefs!"
"Can you tell stories too?" she asked suddenly. "When I was little, Mother Carmel used to tell me stories."
Kaizer looked at her. The thirty-year-old Charlotte Linlin had a rare, childlike longing in her eyes.
"I can," he said.
That night, the children were allowed to sit on the deck.
Linlin sat cross-legged in the middle like a giant kindergarten teacher and urged him, "Hurry up!"
Kaizer thought for a moment and began an adapted version:
"Once upon a time, there was a little girl with a red hood. Everyone called her Little Red Riding Hood. One day, her mother asked her to deliver a special cake to her sick grandmother — not an ordinary cake, but a magical one made with a hundred kinds of honey and giant bee royal jelly…"
He deliberately made the food descriptions extremely tempting.
The Big Bad Wolf became a "candy werewolf suffering from hunger pangs." The hunter became a "pastry chef with Seastone traps." In the end, Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother opened a cake shop where all the animals came to buy sweets, and no one was ever hungry again.
Linlin listened, completely absorbed.
When she heard "no one was ever hungry again," she repeated softly, "No more hunger…"
"Yes," Kaizer said. "In my homeland, every fairy tale ends the same way: everyone sits together, eating endless sweets, and lives happily ever after."
Linlin stared at him, then grinned widely.
"Mamama! I like your homeland!"
[System Notification: Charlotte Linlin Favorability +15]
[Current Favorability: Curiosity → Friendly]
The following days fell into a strange routine.
In the mornings, Linlin continued her "research" — testing the limits of Kaizer's regeneration, his tolerance to Seastone, and IBM's performance in rain.
In the afternoons, she took Kaizer and the children ashore to collect more "family members" and ingredients.
At night, Kaizer baked desserts and told stories.
He made soufflés, macarons, and Napoleon mille-feuille. He adapted Hansel and Gretel, The Three Little Pigs, and The Little Mermaid — turning every tale into a food-themed story where the ending was always "everyone ate happily together."
Linlin's favorability rose steadily.
She began allowing Kaizer more freedom. She even let him teach the children basic reading and arithmetic — though she herself scoffed at it.
"What's the point of learning that?" she said. "If you're strong enough, you can just take whatever you want!"
But Kaizer noticed that when she thought no one was watching, she would secretly flip through the literacy cards he used with the children.
Three weeks later, on a stormy rainy night.
The ship rocked violently in the gale as Linlin's hunger pangs struck hard.
This time was especially severe.
She smashed half the cabin. Two long-armed children nearly got thrown into the sea.
Kaizer used IBM to stop her — the black ghosts struggled to maintain form in the rain. The bandages were soaked, and the particles dissipated three times faster than normal.
"Cake… I want cake…" Linlin's eyes had turned chaotic red, drool dripping from her mouth. "I want it now!"
"I'll make it right away," Kaizer said. "But you need to calm down first."
"Calm down?! Mamama! I want it now!"
She threw a punch at him.
Kaizer didn't dodge. The fist slammed into his chest with a sickening crack of breaking ribs.
He flew backward, crashed into the railing, and spat out a mouthful of blood.
But the next moment, he stood up and wiped his mouth.
"Tomato sauce," he said, pulling out a jar from his coat. "For the Black Forest cake. See? It spilled."
Linlin froze.
She stared at the "blood" on his chest, then at the tomato sauce jar in his hand, and tilted her head.
"Tomato… sauce?"
"Yes." Kaizer headed toward the kitchen. "So wait a bit. It'll be ready soon."
As he turned, he sent a mental command to IBM: [Tell her a story.]
The IBM began transmitting via electromagnetic waves — Kaizer's adapted version of Sleeping Beauty. In this telling, the princess wasn't pricked by a spindle but had eaten a "hundred-year sleep cake" and could only wake with the taste of true love's kiss.
Linlin listened. The red in her eyes gradually faded.
Twenty minutes later, Kaizer brought out a freshly baked chocolate lava cake.
Linlin grabbed it and ate, not caring that the molten chocolate burned her tongue.
When she finished, she grew quiet.
"…Sorry," she said suddenly, her voice small. "Sometimes… I can't control myself."
Kaizer looked at her.
In that moment, Linlin was no longer the future Emperor. She was just a young woman tormented by hunger and childhood trauma.
"I know," he replied.
Linlin stared at him for a long time, then reached out and gently patted his head with her massive hand — the first time she had used such light force.
"Kaizer," she said. "You're the first person who isn't afraid of me."
"Because you won't kill me."
"Mamama! That's true!" Linlin laughed, but the laughter quickly faded. "But it's not just that. The way you look at me… it's different from them."
She pointed at the children huddled in the corner.
"They fear me. You fear me too, but your fear is different." She struggled to find the words. "You're afraid, yet you still look at me… you make me sweets, tell me stories… and when I go crazy, you say it's just tomato sauce."
Kaizer stayed silent.
"So," Linlin declared. "From today on, you are no longer an experiment."
She grinned, baring her sharp white teeth.
"You are my family. My real family."
[System Notification: Charlotte Linlin Favorability +30]
[Current Favorability: Friendly → Trust]
[Relationship Updated: Test Subject → Family]
[Long-term Mission Progress: Father the first child with Charlotte Linlin (Minimum favorability requirement met)]
Kaizer looked at her.
Outside the cabin, the storm was dying down.
Moonlight broke through the clouds, laying a silver path across the sea.
Linlin had fallen asleep, her massive body curled up on the deck, hugging a cloth doll she had given a soul.
The doll softly hummed a lullaby Mother Carmel had once taught her.
The children were also asleep.
Kaizer walked to the railing. The system interface opened silently.
[Demi-human Bloodline Fusion: 27% (+7%)]
[IBM Enhancement: Can now maintain two IBMs simultaneously (requires double vitality consumption)]
[Current Mission: Survive 30 days under Charlotte Linlin's "research" — Completed]
[New Mission: Assist Linlin in establishing the first base]
[Reward: Bloodline Optimization Function Unlocked]
He looked at the sleeping Linlin.
Trust.
This crazy, cruel, lonely woman had actually begun to trust him.
And his mission was to make her give birth to his child within two years.
Kaizer closed his eyes, feeling the flow of his demi-human bloodline. The new bones had fully healed, and his broken ribs were being reshaped under the black particles.
He still had time.
One year and ten months.
Enough to grow stronger. Enough to influence Linlin. Enough to…
build a real family.
Under the moonlight, Kaizer raised his hand and summoned IBM.
Two black ghosts materialized behind him, their bandages fluttering in the night wind. They were more solid and stable than three weeks ago.
"Go," Kaizer whispered.
The two IBMs dissolved into black particles and flew toward the island in different directions — scouting terrain and searching for a suitable location for a base.
He turned back to the sleeping Linlin.
"We will build a nation," he said softly. "But not the kind you imagine."
Linlin smacked her lips in her sleep and mumbled, "Cake…"