Ian nodded. Indeed, research on Devil Fruits and the application of technologies like Sea-Prism Stone are advancements the Navy has only made in recent years. If Vegapunk had been studying these things from the beginning, they might have emerged much earlier.

This indirectly proved that Vegapunk’s initial research had a different direction. Drake wasn’t lying about this, and he wouldn’t have been able to make up such a story anyway.

“Since you worked as security in the research base, you must have had contact with Vegapunk. Do you think he was voluntarily researching these things?” Ian asked Drake.

“No!” Drake responded firmly. “I did have a few one-on-one encounters with Vegapunk. He seemed to enjoy researching Devil Fruits and Sea-Prism Stone. However, when I tentatively brought up the incident from years ago, I noticed Vegapunk was very reluctant to talk about it. I could sense that his aversion wasn’t due to the experiment’s failure, but rather a deep-seated disgust towards human experimentation!”

Drake explained to Ian, “You might not know this, but in the research base on Punk Hazard, there is a huge freezer room where a significant number of corpses are stored. These bodies belong to various races. Judging by their appearances, some were prisoners in prison uniforms, while others were slaves with collars. There were thousands of them…”

As he spoke, Drake seemed to recall the scenes he had witnessed, and shivered slightly, saying, “Every one of those corpses had a horrifying expression on their faces. To be honest, the first time I saw them, I was so scared that I fell over.”

Ian asked him, “Could these frozen bodies be related to Kaido’s experiment back then?”

“Ninety percent sure,” Drake nodded. “Dr. Vegapunk never wanted to go near that freezer room and designated it as a forbidden area, prohibiting anyone from approaching. However, that scientist named Caesar never listened. I saw him coming out of that freezer room several times…”

Ian understood. From all the signs Drake described, it seemed that Dr. Vegapunk was actually opposed to such human experiments. Ian even speculated that Vegapunk might have been forced to stay with the Navy’s scientific unit.

No matter how well the Navy and the World Government treated him, giving him titles like “Navy’s top scientist” or “a genius 500 years ahead of humanity,” it couldn’t erase the fact that Vegapunk was forcibly taken by the Navy back then.

Varua and Judge, both of whom had once been Vegapunk’s colleagues in the same research institute, managed to escape when the Navy declared their research illegal and raided their lab. Only Vegapunk was captured, showing that the Navy and the World Government’s primary focus was always on him.

Piecing together these clues, Ian thought that Vegapunk was likely in a very delicate situation. Although the World Government hailed this genius scientist as a treasure of humanity, he had never appeared before the public. Could this mean that he was actually under house arrest by the Navy and the World Government?

In Ian’s view, even if the Navy and the World Government had enough financial resources to provide materials and research funding for Vegapunk, people still yearn for freedom. For someone as intelligent as Vegapunk, it was even less likely that he would willingly accept being under house arrest.

Ian suspected that the failure and subsequent escape of Kaido’s human experiment might have been intentional on Vegapunk’s part. It could have been a way for him to vent his frustration over being imprisoned. After all, as the discoverer of the lineage factor, it was hard to believe that Vegapunk personally overseeing the research would fail. The odds of that happening were almost unbelievable.

However, if Vegapunk opposed such unethical human experiments, why would he later initiate the Pacifista project? Even if Kuma volunteered his body for the experiments, if Vegapunk truly detested such work, he could have refused.

There were too many questions. Uncle Kuma, once one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea and a high-ranking officer in the Revolutionary Army, willingly gave up his life and consciousness to cooperate with Vegapunk’s research. This was inherently illogical, so Ian preferred to believe that Vegapunk did this intentionally. Perhaps he and Kuma had reached some kind of agreement and were secretly plotting something…

Calming himself, Ian asked Drake, “And then?”

“You can imagine how shocked I was when I found out that Kaido, one of the Four Emperors, was actually created by the Navy’s science division!” Drake said. “I even suspected that there might be some secret agreement between Kaido and the World Government, because in my memory, this self-destructive madman had never been attacked by the Navy…”

Although Ian only learned about Kaido being an experimental subject from Drake’s brief words, he also understood that such human biochemical experiments were never gentle. One could imagine the torment Kaido must have suffered at Punk Hazard.

A person’s character is often shaped by their experiences. Doflamingo, who fell from the heights of being a Celestial Dragon to nearly being burned alive and personally killing his father and brother, had his personality twisted by these experiences. Similarly, Kaido’s insane self-destructive tendencies must have been influenced by the inhuman and cruel treatment he endured during the experiments. He not only had a penchant for suicide but also declared his desire to drag the whole world into a massive war to destroy this boring world…

And such a madman who wanted to destroy the world was actually created by the World Government and the Navy…

Ian somewhat understood Drake’s shock after revealing the truth. It wasn’t just Drake; Ian also felt a lingering fear. Fortunately, Vegapunk had failed back then. If he had succeeded, what kind of existence would Kaido have become?

“I think my father might have been like me back then. After discovering these shocking truths during his time in the Navy’s science division, his personality drastically changed, leading him to defect from the Navy and become a pirate!” Drake sighed. “When I realized this, I found that I no longer hated my father. He was such an upright Navy officer back then. I can understand how he felt after his beliefs collapsed.”

“And the irony is, I ended up on the same path as my father!” Drake said with a glimmer in his eyes. “I always felt that the World Government’s experiment on Kaido might be hiding an even bigger secret. So during my time on the island, I tried to delve deeper into the plan. However, when I discovered the code name of this plan from a fragmentary document, I was caught!”

“Code name? Kaido’s experiment had a code name?” Ian asked.

“Yes! The code name for this plan was called the RT Plan!” Drake said. “I don’t understand what this code name signifies, but at that point, my prying had already caught the attention of CP0. Realizing the danger, I had to create an incident on the island and use the chaos to escape from Punk Hazard!”

“From the moment I escaped, I knew I could never return to the Navy!” Drake said calmly. “I initially thought that discovering such a big secret would bring a death sentence upon me, but to my surprise, after I escaped, there weren’t many Navy soldiers sent to hunt me down…”

“What’s going on?” Ian asked, puzzled. “If I were the World Government’s top brass and knew about your actions, I would make sure you disappeared from the face of the earth!”

“Exactly!” Drake nodded. “I couldn’t understand it at first either, but over time, I think I began to grasp the situation. Even though prying into secrets can vary in severity, investigating the RT Plan would definitely bring me immense trouble. However, if I were investigating other insignificant secrets, I might be able to escape unscathed.”

“You mean someone within the Navy’s science division helped cover up the nature of the secrets you were investigating?”

“That seems to be the only explanation!” Drake nodded. “The Navy officers who came after me had ranks no higher than Vice Admiral, and after I escaped, they didn’t relentlessly pursue me but quickly returned… However, when I encountered Kizaru on Sabaody Archipelago, he said something to me: ‘The more truth you know, the more despair you feel’… So, I suspect the Navy eventually discovered something…”

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