That afternoon, Edie returned to the Beehive Research Institute, cradling Uta in his arms. As soon as he stepped inside, Momousagi approached with a curious expression, her eyes widening as she noticed the small child in Edie's grasp.
"Where did you find this little one?" Momousagi asked, her face full of surprise. "She's adorable when she's asleep."
Edie handed Uta over to her without much fanfare. "She's the red-haired Shanks' adopted daughter. You'll be taking care of her from now on," he said nonchalantly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Momousagi blinked in confusion, holding Uta carefully. "Wait, did you... kidnap Shanks' daughter?" Her voice carried a note of disbelief, and her brow furrowed.
Edie sighed. "Misunderstood again. No, I didn't kidnap her but i saved her." He shook his head in mild exasperation. If I didn't bring Uta here, in three years' time, Shanks would take her to Elegia. And then, well... the 'summoning of the ancient demon king' would destroy the entire country. She'd be abandoned, left alone in the ruins for ten years. Eventually, she'd turn evil and use the power of her Song-Song Fruit to plunge the world into an endless dream. In the end, she'd meet a tragic fate so although Edie would admit that he is asshole, He wouldn't say it was evil to kidnap her.
Momousagi looked down at Uta, her heart softening despite her lingering confusion. "Save her?" she echoed, still skeptical but unwilling to question Edie's intentions too deeply. The little girl in her arms looked perfectly healthy, after all. Whatever his methods, Momousagi trusted Edie.
"Where's Hancock?" Edie asked, shifting the topic.
"She's off training," Momousagi replied with a smile. "Kaido's daughter, Yamato, awakened her Conqueror's Haki recently. It seems to have sparked a competitive fire in Hancock—she's determined to master it as well."
Edie nodded thoughtfully. He had no idea when or how Boa Hancock originally awakened her Conqueror's Haki. In the original timeline, at 16 years old, she would have just escaped from the Holy Land Mariejois and returned to Amazon Lily. Two years later, she'd become the empress of the island, gain an 80-million bounty after a single expedition, and be recruited by the World Government as one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea.
But that was the old timeline. He had already changed so much.
Edie mused aloud, "By the way, wasn't it this year that Fisher Tiger, the fish-man adventurer, climbed Mariejois with his bare hands and freed all those slaves?"
Momousagi nodded. "Yeah, that happened three months ago. It caused quite the stir. How did you know?"
Edie smiled cryptically but didn't elaborate. His mind shifted to another problem—what to do with the Love-Love Fruit. In the original timeline, Hancock, with her unrivaled beauty, wielded this Paramecia-type Devil Fruit, which allowed her to petrify anyone captivated by her charm. The fruit was forcibly given to her during her enslavement, adding a cruel layer to her tragic past.
But now, with Hancock in a different trajectory, Edie found himself wondering. Without the Love-Love Fruit, Hancock wouldn't feel quite the same. It was like imagining Luffy without his Gum-Gum powers—unnatural. The fruit's powers were potent, capable of petrifying both those who desired her and those who came into direct contact with her attacks. Even Blackbeard, one of the future Four Emperors, had tried to steal her powers in the original timeline, resulting in the deaths of several of his subordinates.
"We need to find a way to locate this fruit..." Edie muttered, lost in thought. "If the Celestial Dragons fed it to some other slave, then we have a problem."
But then, a new idea struck him. "No matter. If I can get a sample of the blood from whoever possesses the ability, I can create an ability ring. No weaknesses, no vulnerabilities. It's perfect."
His mind churned with possibilities. But for now, the most pressing issue was finding the current user of the Love-Love Fruit. "Even Morgans might not have intel on something this specific..."
Edie suddenly smirked. "Looks like we'll need to set up an intelligence network. Heh, even a minor setback won't stop me!"
With that decision made, Edie turned to Momousagi. "Gion, go and—" He stopped, remembering that Chenlong and Chou were currently out hunting Sea Kings and had yet to return. He quickly adjusted his order. "Never mind. Go find Weiyang and have her buy all types of phone bugs on the market. Get them delivered to the lab."
Momousagi tilted her head. "How many do you need?"
"Ten of each kind," Edie said with a grin. His plans were already coming together. Soon, he'd have all the information he needed at his fingertips.
Soon after, in the depths of the underground laboratory, Edie began extracting and analyzing the lineage factors of various phone bugs, meticulously breaking down their structure.
In the world of One Piece, the phone bug serves as a primary communication tool, akin to telephones in Edie's previous life. However, unlike modern phones, these devices are living creatures—snails, to be precise. By capturing snails from natural forests and outfitting them with communication devices, they are turned into phones. Their functionality is deceptively simple: these creatures transform the images and sounds they perceive into thought waves, a unique form of electromagnetic transmission.
"This is a racial talent—thought waves are nothing more than electromagnetic signals," Edie muttered to himself, quickly unraveling the secret behind the phone bug's communication ability. In truth, it wasn't complicated; the entire process was something a middle schooler could grasp. Since these waves were electromagnetic, they could easily be intercepted and monitored with the right technology, though Edie saw no reason to pursue that avenue just yet.
He knew the limitations of these snails. Phone bugs fell into three primary categories: the small phone bug, which was portable but had weak radio waves, making inter-island communication impossible; the standard phone bug, which was bulkier but capable of transmitting strong signals over long distances, often enhanced with imaging or fax devices to handle visual communication; and finally, the black phone bug—a much rarer and illegal variant that was about the size of a child's hand and specialized in intercepting the radio waves of its counterparts, effectively making it a wiretap phone used by the World Government.
"The problem with all of these," Edie mused, "is that they're flawed."
He didn't just need a phone bug—he needed something smaller, more discreet, and far more efficient. "What I need is a phone bug the size of a mosquito, with strong enough radio waves to transmit both images and sounds."
Of course, such a creature didn't exist—yet. But Edie, who had long mastered the theory of bloodline factors, was determined to create one. In a sense, he considered himself a creator, someone who could transcend natural limitations. Without hesitation, he ordered Zishu to capture a few mosquitoes from Beehive Island. His plan was simple: extract the mosquitoes' blood factors and fuse them with the phone bug's DNA using advanced cloning technology.
Two days later, the first cloning attempt failed. The mosquito's bloodline factor was simply too weak. "If the phone bug's lineage factor is like a tree," Edie reasoned, "the mosquito is nothing more than a blade of grass."
With his current technology, it was impossible to stabilize the fusion. Unperturbed, Edie shifted his focus. "We need something more robust. Let's try a fly."
The flies on Beehive Island were larger than typical mosquitoes, but still small enough to potentially meet his criteria. For three days, Edie toiled over the cloning process. However, once again, the experiment ended in failure. The fly's lineage factor couldn't handle the fusion and collapsed into a pool of black, gelatinous matter inside the petri dish.
Edie clenched his fists in frustration but refused to be deterred. "I don't believe in failure! We'll use a larger creature!"
With renewed determination, Edie instructed his Earthly Branches to capture bees from the island. These bees were slightly larger than flies, but a few smaller, more tenacious specimens were selected for the next round of experiments.
Edie began the process anew, this time more carefully than before, pouring his expertise and focus into making this experiment succeed.
Finally, after half a month of tireless effort, Edie stood in his laboratory, watching with satisfaction as several newly created bees flapped their wings in the petri dish. A triumphant smile spread across his face.
"It worked. Not that it was a challenge for me," he mused. "Why does communication have to rely on phone bugs anyway? Guess that's just how things are. But no more." He paused briefly, considering a name for his new invention. "Let's call them 'Bee Scouts.'"
The Bee Scout bugs were a new breed, designed from the ground up. They retained most of the abilities of the phone bugs, including transmitting the images they saw and the sounds they heard via electromagnetic waves. However, unlike their snail counterparts, their signals were immune to interception. The World Government's black phone bugs, notorious for eavesdropping, wouldn't be able to decrypt the Bee Scouts' transmissions.
Edie still faced one last hurdle. "We'll need a 'Queen Bee' to receive and coordinate all the signals from these scouts. But that's easy enough."
With that, Edie set to work on two final tasks. First, he mass-produced the Bee Scouts. Given their small size, the resources needed were minimal, especially compared to human cloning. Second, he created a Queen Bee, a central monitoring system designed to receive the Bee Scouts' signals. In a matter of days, his efforts paid off.
Within a week, Edie had successfully cloned 100,000 Bee Scouts, all for the relatively modest cost of 1 billion Berries. Compared to his other projects, this was incredibly affordable. He also renovated the monitoring room in the underground lab, connecting the Queen Bee system to a modern TV setup. He even invented a remote control to switch between different "channels"—Mariejois, Marineford, Wano, Whole Cake Island, and several other key locations.
"It's almost easier than copying the AK-47," Edie chuckled to himself. "Of course, that requires steel smelting, but this—this is my domain. Bloodline factors and a bit of tech from my past life."
Feeling quite pleased with himself, Edie emerged from the underground lab after more than 20 days, carrying a cage of Bee Scouts. At the entrance, Shenhou was waiting. He immediately knelt down on one knee upon seeing Edie.
"Lord Heavenly Father!" Shenhou greeted respectfully.
"Perfect timing," Edie said, handing him the cage. "Take this to the Holy Land, Mariejois. There are about 1,000 Bee Scouts in here. Be sure to remain concealed—operate at night and use your Clone-Clone Fruit power to blend in as a random Marine."
He patted Shenhou on the shoulder with a smile. "This mission is dangerous, but I trust you can handle it."
Shenhou, a lunarian clone of Oden, nodded without hesitation. He was perfectly capable of flying away at incredible speeds, making it difficult for anyone to track him, let alone capture him. Even if only 1% of the Bee Scouts survived the journey, it would be enough.
Edie knew the scouts weren't completely undetectable. They could be spotted by the naked eye, and their buzzing wings could be heard. If someone with powerful Observation Haki took the time, they could hunt them down one by one. But no one would ever expect these bees to be anything more than a new species of insect—let alone a surveillance tool.
"I can't exactly picture Imu or the Five Elders running around Mariejois catching bees," Edie thought with amusement.
The Bee Scouts were a groundbreaking creation. They had a wide monitoring range, high radio wave intensity, and were immune to eavesdropping by black phone bugs. However, they weren't without flaws. Their short lifespan—only six months—was a limitation, but Edie wasn't concerned. With their low production cost, replacing them was hardly an issue.
"As you command!" Shenhou responded firmly, taking the cage of Bee Scouts and flying off to carry out his mission. For him, danger was inconsequential. He would complete any task, even at the cost of his life.
Edie watched Shenhou disappear into the sky, content with his progress. Beyond the Bee Scouts and the Queen Bee system, his Hive Research Institute had also developed several types of "Bee Soldiers." These were basic clones of Rob Lucci, a project that had yielded 100 units so far. Edie checked the timeline in his mind—they were nearing the final stages of maturity.
"Everything is falling into place," Edie thought with satisfaction, his gaze lingering on the sky where Shenhou had flown.