After returning to the Dodo Advance, Sherwin finally opened the package Whitebeard had thrown to him.
Then he discovered that, besides an unremarkable Devil Fruit with no obvious distinguishing features, there was also a piece of Vivre Card inside, with a phone number written on it…
"Heh… a stubborn old man with a soft heart…"
Sherwin rubbed his nose, feeling more than a little surprised.
Because in the world of pirates, handing over one Vivre Card was no trivial matter. On this sea of bizarre and unpredictable climates, aside from Log Poses, only Vivre Cards could accurately point the way.
In some situations, a Vivre Card was even more reliable than a Log Pose.
Especially for someone of Whitebeard status—his Vivre Card was something he would never casually give to others.
After all, if this thing fell into the hands of the World Government, who knew what kind of plans they might devise against Whitebeard.
With this, if something happened on Whitebeard side in the future, Sherwin wouldn't be able to just ignore it…
Though Sherwin could be thick-skinned, he wasn't the type to take benefits and then disappear when trouble came.
Oh well… Blackbeard had already set his sights on his cats anyway. They were bound to clash sooner or later. In the worst case, it would just mean participating in the Summit War.
Shaking his head, Sherwin put the Vivre Card away, deciding to worry about the future when it arrived. Then he turned his attention to the Devil Fruit Whitebeard had given him.
Judging from the shape of the fruit, Sherwin had no impression of it at all. It was most likely a Devil Fruit that never appeared in the original story, or one with very little screen time, so there was basically no hope of getting any summon-ticket fragments from it.
And even if fragments did appear, they wouldn't be of much use to Sherwin. Both the Paramecia and Zoan pools had already been heavily summoned to get Suika Meow and Kaido Meow, those two alcoholics, so there wasn't a single fragment left now.
As for the Logia type…
No matter how sweet the daydream, Sherwin didn't believe Whitebeard would be generous enough to give him a Logia-type Devil Fruit.
He decisively took out the Hunter Handbook. As expected, he didn't see that familiar milky-white glow at all.
With no ripples in his heart, Sherwin flipped to the Devil Fruit Compendium page and quickly found the information on that fruit—
[Zoan · Bat-Bat Fruit · White Bat Form]
Mm, what followed was not "Mythical Zoan · Vampire Form."
"Tsk… what a pity…"
Sherwin shook his head in regret. Although he hadn't had much hope to begin with, when he saw "Bat-Bat Fruit" at the start, he still felt a moment of excitement.
Unfortunately, the words "White Bat Form" that followed instantly cooled him back down.
And as for white bats…
Sherwin remembered that thing looking like a custard bun, and in terms of size, it wasn't even as big as a tennis ball.
Even if measured by wingspan, at most it was only slightly larger than an adult palm.
If compared by original species, this thing might not even beat Dodo original form .
But for Sherwin—more precisely, for Haibara Meow—this didn't really matter. The axolotl original form wasn't large either, yet sherry size could still become enormous, couldn't it?
Instead, the fact that the white bat could fly was actually more in line with Haibara Meow requirements for creating a "medicinal slime army."
Even though Haibara Meow still had the Giraffe Fruit and the Tiger Fruit, both Zoan types, she had never turned them into gaseous aggregate forms like sherry.
The little schemer reasoning was that she didn't need them to participate in combat anyway, so even an old Tiger Fruit that might have a bit of combat power would still be no different in Haibara Meow hands than it was with sherry.
Therefore, what she needed more was a Zoan Fruit with abilities different from sherry…
For example, flight.
Thinking of this, Sherwin turned his head and glanced at Haibara Meow beside him.
As soon as the little milk cat learned that it was a White Bat Fruit, she immediately stared eagerly at the fruit in his hand, looking like she was coiled and ready to pounce at any moment.
He had originally planned to tease her a bit with the White Bat Fruit, but when he thought about what had happened last night, Sherwin felt it was better not to provoke this little schemer again for the time being…
"Here, take it, take it." Sherwin pushed the White Bat Fruit in front of Haibara Meow. "Don't make it look like I'm bullying you."
"Hmph~"
(=`=)
Haibara Meow let out an aloof snort, yet she still leaned in and rubbed her head against the back of Sherwin hand.
Sherwin turned his hand over and stroked and scratched her little head for a while.
Only then did the little milk cat put on a show of swatting his hand away, then hugged the White Bat Fruit tightly and ran excitedly into the laboratory.
[Brother Sherwin, where are we going next, meow?]
(=ΦωΦ=)
When Dodo Advance, who was sprawled on top of Sherwin head, saw that he was done with his business, it immediately spoke up to ask.
[Are we going to look for that moving island from before, meow?]
"Yeah. No need to rush over there. We'll just wander slowly in the direction where it is."
After all, it wasn't anything particularly urgent, so Sherwin wasn't in a hurry to travel.
As for the location of the Red-Haired Pirates that Morgans had given him, it was also quite far from here, and they had most likely already left and gone elsewhere. Sherwin had no intention of searching in that direction at all.
[Got it, meow~]
Dodo Advance flicked its tail and guided its main body toward the nearest island.
As for the Log Pose pointing to that island, Sherwin had already gotten one from Marco before leaving.
...
For the next stretch of time, Sherwin and the other journey was extremely peaceful.
Aside from daily training and sparring, their usual activities were nothing more than petting cats, basking in the sun, telling stories, reading newspapers, listening to Shermie Meow play the piano, and the like…
Their days couldn't have been more leisurely.
And in the midst of such relaxed days, Haibara Meow second pharmaceutical aggregate was finally completed.
"Meow hahahaha! I finally finished it!"
(=`=)＞
The little kitten kicked open the laboratory door with one foot, one hand on her hip and the other held high, clutching a half-transparent, silvery white little bat, as she strutted proudly into view before Sherwin and the others.
Perched lazily atop her head was Sherry.
Normally, if it were just about making an aggregate like Sherry, it wouldn't have taken this long at all.
With Suika Meow around, the most troublesome step—gathering and compression—was actually the easiest part for Haibara Meow.
But the little kitten felt that in every battle, having Sherry constantly split off clones and then inject medicines was far too troublesome, so she had always wanted to create an aggregate that could autonomously switch the medicines inside its body.
"So… you succeeded?"
Sherwin leaned in curiously toward the little bat, examining it as he asked.
"Ji~" "Bao."
The little bat, round like a dumpling, slightly spread its wings and let out a soft, babyish cry at him, while Sherry on Haibara Meow head echoed with a call of her own.
"You could say… I succeeded, meow."
Haibara Meow wrinkled her nose, nodded, then shook her head. Without waiting for Sherwin to ask further, she continued explaining on her own.
"At first, I wanted it to be able to freely switch between all kinds of medicines.
But if I did that, I'd have to prepare a core for it, one strong enough to store different medicinal concentrates, and it would need to be refilled after they were used up, meow.
Most importantly, the existence of a core can't be 'elementalized,' so the aggregate 'Logia' abilities would end up with an obvious weak point.
That really isn't worth the trade, so I had no choice but to change my approach, meow…"
"You should also know that many medicines have different effects depending on the dosage—sometimes they can even be completely opposite…
A poison, if used properly, can save people, while a tonic, if used wrongly, can harm them.
My second idea came from this, meow—by adjusting the proportions of my own components to achieve different medicinal effects."
"Hm? If it just that, shouldn't Sherry be able to do it as well?"
Sherwin raised an eyebrow.
"It not the same, meow." Haibara Meow shook her head.
"What Sherry changes is only the concentration—the function itself doesn't change.
A poison is still a poison only the degree of harm to the body changes.
The same goes for demon drug or armor drug—at best, it just the difference between demon drug and demon drug G, meow…"
"But now it different, meow!"
＜(=`=)＞
The little kitten proudly lifted her small head. "Based on the Satan drug, I developed an adjustable potion. Under different temperatures and levels of medicinal activity, it can switch between three different medicines—potion, Satan drug, and an Angel drug that I discovered by accident during development, meow!"
The moment he heard the name "Satan drug," Sherwin subconsciously took a few steps away from the cute little bat, while asking curiously, "Angel drug? What does it do? Bring the dead back to life?"
"You're dreaming, meow!" Haibara Meow shot him a glare.
"A revival potion—that kind of legendary thing—how could it possibly be made… um… though in this world, it might not be completely impossible, since you can directly see souls here, meow… It a pity that skeleton didn't stay behind. Otherwise, I really could've tried researching a revival potion, meow…"
"Ai, you still haven't answered my question."
Sherwin poked the research kitten cat who had sunk into her own little world.
Having her train of thought interrupted, Haibara Meow decisively bit Sherwin finger, then hummed and continued,
"You can tell just from the name, right? Angel Potion—opposite of the Satan Potion. Its defining feature is obviously that it tastes really good, meow!"
Sherwin: "..."