Olivia was the first to ask.
"Sweetheart, what did you guys do today?"
Risa looked a bit confused about what this was all about, but answered nonetheless.
"We went to play everywhere, we flew from there to there, and then to there."
Olivia smiled awkwardly, she got nothing from that other than the fact that they went everywhere flying, something she already knew.
Bell-mere tried a different approach.
"After leaving flying for the first time, what did you eat for breakfast?"
Risa's eyes shone and animatedly started to talk about the breakfast.
"We went to this round shop where they sold donuts with milk! It was super tasty! The lady had a strange face though!"
Ars laughed his ass off, so that's how Risa saw that interaction. She did indeed make a strange face…
Everyone looked at Ars who started laughing, but Kuina tried to follow the question to get more answers.
"What did you do after that?"
She told her of her visit to the inhabited islands.
"...I visited Miss Butterfly! And mister raccoon!"
Kuina was a bit disappointed but nodded and smiled at her, but Reiju elaborated.
"In the same place?"
"No, the previous place had a lot of people and houses, this one had a lot of trees!"
Reiju quickly realized they were on the move, and asked directly.
"Did you go to a lot of places today?"
Risa nodded happily. And added.
"There was a place with clothes, the sea shells, mister crab… There was also a place where people kneeled and started chanting something weird…"
Everyone looked at Ars who just elaborated with a strange face.
"Some very remote places with little outside contact… They saw me flying and decided I was a messenger…"
Everyone there laughed a bit, they could see that happen easily, there were some remote places in this world that didn't know about akuma no mi, so everytime someone with a special ability appeared, they were either demons, gods, messengers, wizards, evil creatures between other interesting titles.
Rachel was quite curious about where Ars had taken Risa, so she asked a bit more trying to discover it. She could ask Ars directly, but where was the fun in that… That applied to everyone there.
"What did you have for lunch?"
Risa's eyes looked at her a bit confused, why everyone had so many questions…
"Why are moms having so many questions?"
They all laughed awkwardly, and Bell-mere replied.
"We just want to know how amazing your day was and what you did while you were outside!"
Risa thought about it… For her it made sense, they probably wanted to go but got up too late, so they couldn't come. Rachel looked at her and asked once more.
"Was your lunch good?"
Risa nodded and described the name she heard from Ars when he requested it.
"Some salted butter crab, it was good too, but the donuts with the milk were better."
They kept asking a few more questions. Then Bell-mere asked curiously.
"So, how did you meet your new friend!?"
Other than Ars, Bell-mere and Risa herself nobody had any idea who she was talking about. But Risa replied joyfully.
"When we were coming back we went to a new place, and i started hearing a sad sound, then i went to find the sad sound, and i met my new friend, all alone and scared, so i asked dad if we could keep it and he said yes."
Everyone looked at him for further explanation. Ars smiled a bit at how to explain it. After a few seconds trying to find a good way to explain and failing to do so, he decided to directly tell them what they wanted to know.
"We found a baby whale completely lost. I went around and searched the nearby area, with haki, flying around and even using the wind powers to collect extra sounds from the surroundings, but there were no calls from the mother, or the mother in general… So I assumed that the baby whale either got lost or worse…"
He looked at Risa's smile and finished his words there, but he raised a finger to his neck and moved it horizontally across it.
No more words needed to be said, that was a universal language for death.
They sighed. Ars then continued.
"I wanted to help the little whale but I didn't really want to bring it as a pet at the start… But Risa used a cheat, and I instantly lost… So now we have a baby whale as a pet!"
Everyone laughed, and they decided to ask him for the rest of the information, they realized they wouldn't get anymore useful information from Risa, and without more information, they couldn't discover where he went without asking him. Kuina looked at him directly after confirming with the other queens, and asked.
"So, where did you actually go with her?"
Ars decided to give a brief explanation.
"First we went to a neighboring Kingdom to get breakfast, then we started flying towards the west blue with stops in nearly every island, we shopped for a few things and played a bit too, and this is for you guys."
He took a large amount of bags from his laboratory. The results of him going with Risa to buy local clothes, and deciding the clothes were nice and buying some for his lovely wives and 2 daughters.
He then continued.
"After that we arrived in a city on the West blue where we ate a rare type of crab that was very tasty. After that i went to collect a sample to help Rachel and Otojoō with a problem, still not 100% solved but this will help. Finally we started coming back and you can guess the rest easily."
They inspected the clothes and nodded, they were pretty nice clothes. They looked at each other and said all at the same time.
"Thank you for the clothes!"
Rachel added another question.
"Is the problem, the one where we were incapable of letting Otojoō go to fishman island frequently?"
Ars nodded.
Rachel explained to the others and they all nodded.
Rachel was gonna thank Ars but Olivia realized something and questioned him.
"So was the sample acquisition peaceful!?"
Ars nodded, but Olivia decided to clarify.
"I mean, there was no violence involved…"
Ars flinched, then replied very carefully.
"Maybe there was a little bit, to ensure a pleasant cooperation from the other side… Don't worry he is a criminal…"
Olivia approached him and grabbed his cheeks and started to pull, then said.
"So you mean, you got into a fight with the girl by your side?"
Ars looked a bit frustrated and replied.
"When you put it like that it sounds worse than it actually was… They were as dangerous to her as a gentle spring breeze."
Her face went to a darker shade and warned him.
"Be more careful next time, what if something unexpected happens? You could have brought one of us to take care of her while you collected the sample."
She let go of him and sat back down, and thought of their day. At first they were all really angry at Ars, but then they remembered that he would definitely be careful, and the girl would be 100% safe and have a good time. So while they were still angry about Ars actions, they forgave him.
After that they went to eat dinner. The dinner as usual was quite silent as usual, but Rachel was on night duty today, after reviving, it would be the first time with Ars, so she was feeling a bit nervous, Olivia noticed it and after dinner called her to talk.
She had dodged until now for several different reasons, but she was nervous, yes, but she was also excited.
They all gathered in the living room after dinner, with Olivia and Rachel joining later, and they talked about their day, and random stuff.
After that they went to the bedrooms, the majority of them to sleep.
The next day Elia got out of the machine and quickly looked at herself, then she looked at Ars and asked.
"Other than the physical aspect I feel nothing different… Is this normal or did the machine fail?"
Ars smiled and explained.
"That's the biggest disadvantage compared to the akuma no mi, with the akuma no mi, normally you get a basic knowledge of what the fruit gave you, in this case you need to practice hard to even get started and discovered your abilities even thought you already know them since I told you what powers you would get."
She nodded and commented.
"It's indeed a strange feeling, any trick?"
Ars thought about it and replied.
"Not much of a trick and more like the basics and one of the two ways to start, you need to meditate and try to discover the power in you, or you can try to use it over and over until you grasp something."
She complained lightly.
"Great, just what the doctor ordered, more walking with blinds on…"
Ars smiled and replied playfully.
"That sounds like a skill issue to me!"
She smiled and hugged him, before provoking him.
"In that case how about a few private lessons, to help discover my powers!?"
Ars smiled excitedly.
"How about, a lesson right now, we can discover how tight you can get with the powers… I mean how much stronger your inner muscles got…"
She nodded and they went to have some fun.
After that they left the laboratory, and Olivia went next. They kept going until all of them were done. And they all had the same initial question.
"Is it supposed to not be noticeable?"
Ars had to patiently explain everytime, but after they were all done the new year arrived. They made a simple celebration, and after that Ars started preparing to evolve himself a bit further.
To start with he needed to sort all documents that didn't belong to the queen's areas, which weren't that many anymore, then he needed to go around the kingdom talking with the representatives of the villages and the second city. Finally he wanted to know if any of his friends needed something, before he started his evolution.
After a few days everything was ready, and he quickly went to his laboratory and started to choose his upgrades.
Besides the basic enhancements to the mind and body, he started with the ability to gigantify himself, so he quickly chose the hito hito no mi model giant, following that he wanted one of the abilities of the hito hito no mi: model: minotaur, the ability in question was super strength another ability he wanted was from vegapunk fruit the Nomi Nomi no Mi, the super intelligence, the last 2 were the ability from the noro noro no mi and the energy energy no mi.
He confirmed his choices on the computer and entered the first tank.
As usual, the machine put him in a very deep sleep. And he woke up 3 days later.
His Body and mind went from their previous values to 28.4 and 16.9 respectively, which already would make him stronger than 99% of all life on the planet with the exception of the giants and the sea kings even if he did not train. Even before, because he trained, he was already stronger than some of the members of those races, with just physical strength, now only a few could match him. The only thing he could say they were way ahead of him was in mass. Another thing he realized recently was that his lifespan increased by a lot, we were talking about easily living for over a 1000 years without any problem, and that limit would only grow.
He looked at his new skills.
Gigantification from the hito hito no mi model giant, then surprising the enhanced physique from germa 66 fused with the superhuman physical attributes from the hito hito no mi model minotaur, Ars only realized now that the minotaur didn't just have super strength but all physical aspects were enhanced. After fusing a new skill appeared, superhuman physique enhanced all his physical attributes by 30 times when active.
When Ars saw this he had to take a break, that was an insane number especially considering he could gigantify and increase it even more, Ars was thinking.
'I need to be super careful about not colliding with people I want to protect when this ability is active… Or they might die accidentally… I could lift around 10 tons without any difficulty, with just one arm… Now I probably could relocate mountains when I feel like changing the scenario.'
He forced himself to calm down and kept going.
The Nomi Nomi no mi ability was super intelligence, it had been nerfed a bit… The fruit gave practically infinite memory storage and superior intelligence that allowed him to quickly understand things that normally would take an entire lifespan.
But the skill only gave a 5 times multiplier, but in exchange his head wouldn't grow. So Ars considered this a win. Finally he got slow world, that could emit energy blasts that slowed on contact or infuse the skill in physical attacks, the second was a bit strange, you would hit someone and that area would slow down, but they wouldn't feel pain for 30 seconds after that they would return to normal but feel all accumulated damage that hit that place… But you could make the 30 seconds longer by hitting it again.
Finally he got energy control from the energy energy no mi, that allowed him to control neutral/natural energies.