The following days, Ars added exploration to his daily routine.
Everyday for a few hours he went out exploring the surroundings of his new city.
He found a lot of interesting stuff, from new strange animals to familiar looking plants that were completely different from the ones he knew. The strangest of all, he found akuma no mi in the new world.
Ars had no idea of the akuma no mi abilities, or how it got there.
He started to think about it and reached the conclusion that it appeared like any other akuma no mi, but on the new planet. And that made him realize that from the moment the new planet started existing, the possibility of akuma no mi appearing on this planet also existed.
After a few days of several people deciding that they didn't want to rely on the fruit and passing it on to someone else, Ars decided to talk with his queens about it.
After much discussion, Kina got the fruit and was going to eat it, but got stopped by one of her female followers. The follower reasoning was simple, and decided to call for Ars, to explain it to him too, while confirming her thoughts.
"I think someone else should eat the fruit, because his majesty clearly has several abilities, and that means, in the future we might also have several abilities, without the drawbacks."
Then she looked at Ars for confirmation, and he smiled and nodded, before commenting amused.
"So that's why you called me here! But yes, it's true, in a few years or months that will indeed be possible by accumulating points from missions acquired in the mission hall or mission guild, whatever you want to call it."
Everyone's eyes lit up, then the previous female added.
"In this case I think it's more worthwhile to give the fruit to someone with actual difficulties in completing missions, or someone with a weak body but that wants to train and become strong."
All of them nodded. In the end, the fruit was given to be eaten to a 18 year old female that had a weak and sickly physique but wanted to join the female soldiers, since she arrived on the island.
This female had been a slave from birth and had just arrived with the latest refugee group. She got rescued by Kina and the female knights, along with a few others. So for her, they were her idols, and she wanted to follow in their footsteps.
Since then she wanted to become a soldier herself, joining the kingdom soldiers, dedicating herself to the protection of the kingdom. She wasn't the only one, but other than her, everyone else started recovering properly after arriving, and the ones who wanted to join had already joined the morning training exercises.
And the others who didn't want to join had already started to find jobs that they wanted to do.
Only this girl was having a horrible time.
She wanted to train and join, but thanks to years of being malnourished and having a weak physique from the start, she wasn't able to train and join the knights. All of the female soldiers wanted to help her, but couldn't find a way to do it until now. Ars nodded, and they all smiled and went to call her.
Ars was very happy and proud, with how his followers and citizens chose to act towards each other. Even though the number of residents had skyrocketed and he expected some trouble, until now there was no such thing, there were indeed different ideas and discussions, but nothing that actually caused problems that required force, everyone had quickly integrated into the population without causing problems.
With the population of around 50000 thousand inhabitants, with half on one planet and another half on the other, Ars had expected a few problems at the very least at the start. But he was pleasantly surprised when no such thing happened.
Now, around 50% of his total population joined the usual training almost daily, and knew how to fight if needed. And close to half of those were pure soldiers, with the remaining ones not being soldiers but knowing how to fight in case they were attacked. The other 50% did train from time to time but just physical training, with no combat training.
Ars did want to make that first 50% become 100%, so everyone in the kingdom knew how to fight, so they could protect themselves in case there wasn't anyone else to protect them, but 50% was already pretty good.
The young female arrived, and greeted everyone the same way, except for Kuina who she already knew was one of the queens, so he greeted her extra politely. Everyone could still see that she was a bit nervous, but every female soldier in the kingdom had taken a liking to this girl, so they all started comforting her.
On the other hand, Ars was suddenly feeling very interested, not because of her being super attractive, but because she didn't know who he was.
Kuina noticed this, and before Ars could have fun playing around, she used both of her hands to grab his face, looked him in the eyes, and with a very serious expression warned him.
"No… No, you won't… Understood?"
Ars was not happy but couldn't help but nod with an unpleased expression.
Everyone who saw this finally remembered his personality when not in a work mode, it was better to introduce him as soon as possible, before he had the time to start to plan something stupid. Kuina was the one who introduced him.
"This idiot here is my dear husband, in other words the king, and make no mistake, he was already planning to do something playful to you. He isn't a bad person, but he likes to surprise people and see their different reactions."
The young female suddenly wanted to hide, she did not greet her king properly. Kuina just hugged her and said warmly to her.
"Don't worry about it… Pretty sure he didn't intend to inform you to see what kind of reaction you would have when you discovered it."
Everyone around her nodded at her. Ars wasn't exactly thrilled, but he was happy enough with her shocked reaction.
They gave her the fruit and Kina explained.
"We decided that this fruit would help you realize your dream, so we brought you here so you could eat it."
She looked confused about the strange fruit, but since they gave it to her, she didn't want to disappoint them, and she took a large bite.
Her face went completely pale at the horrible taste, but she forced herself to swallow it. She took a deep breath and was going to take another bite but Kuina stopped her.
Everyone was confused except Ars, who started pouting, looking at the ground and drawing circles with his eyes.
She explained.
"You only need one bite for it to take effect."
They all looked at Ars for confirmation, but when they saw him pouting they simply laughed and chose to believe Kuina.
Kuina then told the young female.
"Try to feel the changes caused by the fruit."
The female nodded and after a few minutes managed to pop out a pair of horns.
Ars had recovered and commented.
"A zoan type, from the cow family."
Everyone thought so too, until the female tried to correct them.
"Minaur…"
Everyone looked at her confused. So she forced herself to calm down and this time she managed to say it properly.
"Minotaur, it's not a cow but a minotaur…"
Ars decided to take a sample, and then he remembered and asked.
"By the way, what's your name?"
Her head dropped, and said afraid.
"I don't have one…"
All the females there, with the exception of the girl in question, looked at him angrily.
Ars ignored them and said.
"We can't have that, you need to choose a name."
She nodded and started looking around for help, and everyone started trying to help her choose one. Kina then said calmly, and hopeful.
"Mina, the minotaur."
The female liked it and nodded.
Then Ars left to train.
A few days later Ars called all of his queens, who also called all of their friends and families.
Ars had finally managed to create a sculpture out of ice, that actually looked like a humming bird. So he called them to show his skills.
Everyone invited, gathered to see what he was doing. Everyone was a bit impressed with his ability to make a life-like ice sculpture of the tiny bird, but they were sure Ars wouldn't call them just for that.
Ars was still doing something else. They waited a bit longer, and suddenly Ars fell on the ground exhausted. Everyone was confused and worried until the sculpture moved. Everyone froze looking at the little humming bird starting to fly around Ars.
His queens looked at the little bird and quickly approached it. The little bird landed on the finger of Reiju, who was shocked to discover that the bird was actually warm.
She looked at the bird, then at Ars and couldn't help but say.
"It's actually alive… It even emanates heat… But how is this possible? it 's ice…"
Ars was feeling very pleased, everyone's reactions pleased him very much. And when he heard Reiju's question he answered.
"Not only it's alive but it also can use ice abilities, not strong but they are there, and it doesn't really need to eat, I'm not good enough to actually create a completely living bird. And it's actually quite smart, and it absorbs a very small amount of energy from me for a few minutes, and that allows it to live up to a month without any more energy. And it isn't warm, that just a ilusion… It simply absorbs cold, and that makes it feel warm."
Everyone was shocked and approached the bird to see it. A few hours later when everyone was done interacting with the little bird and were starting to leave, Ars noticed someone unknown, and approached them curiously. And he asked her full of curiosity.
"Who are you?"
There were people he didn't know on the island, but he was feeling confused because he knew everyone who had come to watch him create the little bird…
She looked at him confused and replied.
"It's me, your majesty, Mina."
Kuina, seeing this laughed, she understood Ars reaction. She was also shocked when she saw her from day to day, until she stopped changing.
She went from 1,40 meters to nearly 3 meters, her face stopped being just skin and bones, and finally she had gotten quite a few curves in the right places. In short she went from being a bit bigger than a child and looking like a malnourished one, to an attractive giantess.
Kuina then remembered the few first days after she started to transform. Thanks to the fruit, her breasts grew enormous the first day after eating the fruit. They had quickly grown to their current size, that still looked huge but now but at least she was huge too so it matched.
At the start her breasts had grown bigger than her whole torso, and even more strange they discovered that if she wanted, she could produce large amounts of milk, the first day she couldn't even get up from the bed and the female knights had to help her but after that her body kept increasing in size and in weight, until her current self, that looked good and healthy.
When she transformed her size duplicated and her strength increased to ridiculous levels. And her weapon of choice was a great double sided war axe.
After being shocked, Ars went back to train, but then he remembered something and went to search for Gluppy to talk to her.
When he found her, started informing her.
"I intend to go to fishman island soon."
She looked shocked and confused, so she asked.
"Why, didn't you say that it was hard and it would take too long?"
He nodded and quickly explained.
"On the other side, I remembered that I can fly, and much faster than I expected, so I intend to go quickly and return as quickly, not by boat but actually soaring through the skies, directly to Sabaody without following the usual route."
She understood. On the other side while exploring he discovered he could fly, so now he intended to fly over the calm belt, going directly to sabaody archipelago, and from there to fishman island.
She nodded and said happily.
"I will go write my letter then."
He smirked and shook his head.
She looked at him confusedly. He swiftly explained with a smile on his face.
"You are going to come along."