As expected, subordinates often reflected the nature of their leader.
Just as Matthew had predicted, the mont Neagley used the mory Fruit to read Deacon Frost's mories, Reacher imdiately developed an intense interest in vampires.
A supernatural race with such absurdly long lifespans had accumulated unimaginable wealth over countless years.
The scale of it was terrifying.
If all that wealth were gathered together, it would be enough to propel even a major nation through several explosive leaps in developnt.
And it wasn't rely dead assets like antiques, gold bars, or piles of coins. More importantly, vampires held shares and influence across countless corporate giants in every major industry.
Reacher wasn't so extre human supremacist.
But he had absolutely no goodwill toward vampires as a species.
In his eyes, those creatures were no different from the entrenched elites and ruling classes of the world. The only distinction was that ordinary elites drained people of wealth, labor, and freedom…
…while vampires drained all of that and then physically drained the people themselves.
After all, vampires survived not on ordinary food, but on blood.
Human blood.
That was why human trafficking existed within so many vampire-controlled industries. They operated enormous global smuggling networks, gathering people from all over the world through every imaginable thod of trade and abduction.
Especially girls.
Especially virgins.
The highest-ranking vampires—the nobles and royal bloodlines—indulged in the youngest and most "refined" products. Lower-tier vampires had fewer standards, but the scale of the system remained no less horrifying.
Pureblood vampires were not particularly nurous. However, once mixed-bloods, servants, and blood thralls were taken into account, their total population beca staggeringly large.
Across the world, there were at least tens of millions of them.
They had simply hidden themselves too well, seamlessly integrating into society and occupying the upper layers of power, preventing the public from ever discovering the truth.
In that regard, mutants were nowhere near comparable.
Part of it was history.
But vampires also possessed one overwhelming advantage.
Longevity.
Not only did they themselves live for centuries, they could also transform humans into vampires, granting them the sa unnaturally long lives.
For powerful politicians, wealthy businessn, and ruling elites, that temptation was nearly impossible to refuse.
So what if they had to avoid sunlight and drink blood afterward? Compared to eternal youth and extended life, what did those little inconveniences matter?
Because of that, vampires had taken root and flourished in nations all over the world—Arica, Britain, countries across Europe, and beyond.
As long as the vampire population remained controlled and didn't spread uncontrollably, the people in power had no reason to treat them as enemies.
After all, the ones being preyed upon were rely the lower classes.
What did that have to do with the "lords" sitting above them?
Sacrificing "just a tiny number" of commoners in exchange for freedom from mortality was, in the eyes of the elite, an extrely profitable deal.
And because of that, anyone who truly wanted to eradicate vampires as a species would inevitably fail.
After examining Deacon's mories, Reacher, Neagley, Natasha, and the others quickly grasped the core issue from a broader perspective.
People like Reacher had been born at the very bottom of society.
So what else was there to say?
To them, ten thousand nobles and elites still weren't worth the life of a single innocent civilian.
Before, they either didn't know the truth—or lacked the power to do anything about it.
Now they knew.
And now they possessed the strength to act.
Not only that, there was imnse value to be gained from it as well.
The gears in Reacher's mind imdiately began turning.
To people like him, the world had already rotted beyond repair.
Resources were distributed in an absurdly unfair manner. Ninety-nine percent of the population struggled and suffered rely to support the privileged one percent, and the imbalance only deepened with ti.
If that was the case…
Then perhaps this rotten system should simply be smashed apart and rebuilt from the ground up.
Of course, that thought had only just begun to take shape. The timing still wasn't right.
But Reacher and the others had already reached an unspoken understanding. Their ideals were beginning to align.
There was no need to rush.
If they truly intended to rebuild the order of the world, they would need ti.
And more importantly, they needed strength.
...
Completely unaware that his subordinates had already begun entertaining dangerously rebellious thoughts about draping him in an emperor's robe, Matthew was busy making decisions of his own.
After so consideration, he finally unlocked three Devil Fruits from the encyclopedia.
The Munch-Munch Fruit.
The Door-Door Fruit.
And the Heal-Heal Fruit.
These abilities had been unlocked from the souls of the three elental demons summoned by Blackheart after their deaths. Their soul quality wasn't particularly high, so the strongest Devil Fruits remained unavailable, but after sorting through the options, Matthew selected the three he considered the most practical and cost-effective.
The first was the Munch-Munch Fruit, a Paracia-type Devil Fruit.
Its original user had been the king of Drum Kingdom. Because of his absurd "doctor hunting" policy, the nation had declined into ruin before he was eventually defeated and exiled by Straw Hat Luffy. During his exile, however, he had used the fruit's power to consu scrap tal and create a shape-mory alloy known as Wapotal, which Franky later used in the construction of the Franky Shogun.
Relying on his alloy patents, the man had eventually beco filthy rich, rebuilt the Dark Drum Kingdom, and even regained recognition from the World Nobles before reclaiming his throne.
The fruit possessed another terrifying trait as well—it could consu other Devil Fruit users and obtain their powers. Even Blackbeard Teach had once coveted that ability.
But Matthew didn't care much about that aspect.
What truly interested him was the fruit's material synthesis capability.
A Munch-Munch user could eat tal and recombine it into entirely new substances, creating alloys that had never existed before. The implications of that ability were utterly monstrous. It was practically a holy relic for material science, the kind of power that would drive every scientist in the field into a frenzy.
Once soone ate this fruit, conventional physics might as well stop existing.
For combat, its usefulness wasn't especially overwhelming, but for engineering and scientific developnt? Its value was imasurable.
If a top-tier materials scientist acquired it, they could potentially manufacture all kinds of impossible tals—Adamantium, Vibranium, and perhaps even rarer substances from across the cosmos. After all, the universe was filled with divine tals and exotic materials. Uru tal alone was enough to make entire civilizations envious.
If the fruit user could consu such tals, morize their properties, and recreate them synthetically through other materials...
That would be true wealth.
Odin's spear Gungnir, Stormbreaker, the Destroyer Armor—countless legendary artifacts had been forged from Uru. The significance of such an ability hardly needed explanation.
Compared to the Munch-Munch Fruit, the Door-Door Fruit was no less practical.
This fruit allowed its user to create doors anywhere and pass freely through them. Doors could be opened in walls, in midair, on flas, even on the human body itself. No matter how solid—or intangible—the target was, a door could still be created.
The user could freely decide the type, size, and shape of the door: sliding doors, revolving doors, push doors—anything imaginable. The user could even transform their own body into a door.
But the true essence of the ability lay elsewhere.
Spatial movent.
By opening a door in the atmosphere itself, the user could access a vast green alternate dinsion. Other people could enter it as well, using it for transportation across space, while the dinsion itself could serve as an ergency shelter or hidden refuge.
Once the door closed, the original surface would return to normal without leaving the slightest trace behind.
If combined with magic and developed properly, the possibilities would beco absurd.
The combat applications alone were terrifying, but its strategic value was even greater. An entirely separate dinsional space—untouchable, unreachable, seemingly endless.
And if testing later proved that the Door-Door Fruit could still function even under spatial interference magic...
Then its strategic importance would rise to an entirely different level.
...
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