That night, to celebrate the Snake Maiden's birth, Link's crew held a grand banquet.
No one treated Hancock's clone as a tool; she was regarded as family.
To Link, a perfect clone, though born with the original's memories and part of her strength, was an independent being with self-awareness and potential.
The Snake Maiden was both a clone and a living person with feelings.
Neither Karina and the others nor Hancock would see her as merely a clone, but as a new member of their big family.
Link felt the same.
Although he had mastered the method for creating perfect clones, he made only one—the Snake Maiden—without any plan to mass-produce them.
If he hadn't been unable to find a suitable person to eat the Float-Float Fruit, he wouldn't have created even this "wing."
The Float-Float Fruit was too important.
In Link's eyes, this Devil Fruit ranked even higher than the Tremor-Tremor Fruit.
He was a transmigrant and stood above others at the narrative level.
From the original story he knew the world would one day face a cataclysm that could submerge everything beneath the sea.
That calamity might be the greatest trial for the child of destiny and would surely be resolved in the end.
But Link never pinned hope on others; he planned ahead.
As long as the Float-Float Fruit was on his side, even if the world sank, it would not concern him.
After the banquet ended, Link sat in a redwood chair, holding the Snake Maiden in her off-shoulder kimono. He handed her a fruit patterned with special spirals and said, "I'm counting on you, little Hancock."
The Snake Maiden accepted the Float-Float Fruit, bigger than her head. Her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkled. "It is this one's honor to share Link's burdens."
She bit into the fruit without hesitation.
Its indescribable taste didn't make her frown; instead her face glowed with happiness.
Within the group, the original was the most important second-in-command, and now the clone was also crucial.
Though a clone, the Snake Maiden felt no jealousy toward the original. Her devotion to Link matched Hancock's, and she occupied an important place in Link's heart.
Now, she had succeeded.
After swallowing the pulp, the Snake Maiden tossed the rest aside, leaned into Link's arms, and shyly said, "Link, may this one serve together with the original tonight?"
"Ahem… when you're a little older. A little older."
Cold sweat beaded on Link's face. He could sense several gazes on him as if he were some beast.
Though he had been in this world two years and shed the shackles of his previous one—his Haki awakening and rise had changed him, and he'd adapted to local ways—
He wasn't a pervert.
The equally pure Snake Maiden failed to grasp his meaning. She lowered her head to look at her figure and said regretfully, "Indeed, this one's body cannot take a beating like the original."
Seeing she didn't insist, Link exhaled in relief, and the Observation Haki locking onto those gazes faded.
He had almost been stripped of his human rights and branded a beast and a deviant.
How dare they look down on him—unforgivable.
That night, Link let Karina and the others experience the captain's majesty.
A few days later, the gifted prodigy whose talent and potential matched Hancock's—who inherited the original's mastery of all three colors of Haki—fully grasped the Float-Float Fruit's power.
She could heave up sea and land at will, like a creator.
Lifting an island was even easier than lifting a mountain.
With the core of his development plan secured, and the confidence to face the Mother Flame without fear, Link no longer intended to remain in that desolate special sea.
Thus, the Snake Maiden raised Amazon Lily and the neighboring Sleepy Ancient Town into the sky, guiding them out of that special sea where only one merchant ship dared enter each month.
Soon, news that the Impaler Pirates had stirred again after half a year spread across the New World.
Two floating islands drew all eyes.
No flame clouds supported them, a clear announcement that a new Float-Float Fruit user had been born.
Upon receiving this, the World Government, Marine Headquarters, and all powers in the New World tensed.
Link's wager with Charlotte Linlin had somehow leaked.
Among Link's stakes back then was the Float-Float Fruit.
But the one he took away was Charlotte Pudding, a Memory-Memory Fruit user without other abilities.
So who was the new Float-Float Fruit user?
An ordinary person, or a mutated Kuja warrior? A mysterious figure of unknown identity?
A weakling, a powerhouse?
Or… a super-powerhouse?
All sides mobilized their intelligence networks to learn the identity of the new user.
The World Government, especially, dispatched the ever-present CP units with orders to uncover the mystery.
If the person was weak, they would decapitate at once.
If strong, they would have to reassess the Impaler Pirates' threat level and avoid casually provoking an Emperor of the Sea.
Such was the Float-Float Fruit's deterrence.
Link paid little heed to these small maneuvers.
At present, aside from the World Government and Marine Headquarters together, or a coalition of Emperors, no single great power could threaten him.
As his title declared, Link was the strongest in the world.
Just as with Whitebeard and his crew—if the captain is the world's strongest, the crew naturally stands at the summit.
Since late last year, Link had gone from challenger to challenged.
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