Eight hundred years ago, this world was far more closed off than it is today.
Navigation technology was even more primitive, the natural environment just as harsh, and the various kingdoms were far more impoverished. All of this made communication across the seas incredibly difficult.
Most nations could only establish contact with nearby countries within the same waters.
Anyone brave enough to set sail and explore distant seas was considered a hero among heroes.
In most cases, overseas exploration was strictly forbidden by every kingdom.
After all, such journeys consumed time and resources, rarely yielded results, and often ended in complete failure.
Even in Birka, where people possessed technology surpassing that of the rest of the world, exploring beyond their borders was not something they were enthusiastic about.
They were outsiders to this world, and for the peaceful Birkan people, making contact with foreign nations without caution could easily lead to conflict.
And back then, the world truly was a dark forest.
It was under such circumstances that Joy Boy was born in Birka.
He was not a human, but a giant—more precisely, a descendant of giant immigrants who had settled in Birka.
When Ian said this, Solem and Himir were both stunned.
"A giant?"
Solem's jaw dropped. "The great man who led the Ancient Kingdom against the World Government eight hundred years ago was actually a giant? I've never heard of that!"
Giants lived more than two hundred years on average, and the longest-lived could easily reach over three hundred.
Eight hundred years was an unimaginably long time for ordinary humans—roughly forty generations if counted by twenty years per generation.
But for giants, it wasn't the same.
It was entirely possible that a giant's grandfather's grandfather had lived through that earth-shaking era.
"Don't rush," Ian said with a smile. "There's something even more exciting coming."
Joy Boy had never been the type to sit still.
Even as a child, he ran all over Birka, yearning for freedom, for adventure, for anything new and thrilling.
So when he grew up, of course, he set sail.
Descending from the Red Line, he took command of a ship and began his own journey.
It was something that had never happened before.
Because Joy Boy wasn't merely exploring the surrounding seas, what he wanted was the entire world.
How many hardships and dangers he faced along the way, Joy Boy never said. In the historical records, he simply stated it with a proud tone:
"Ultimately, I traveled across the entire world and held feasts on every island!"
Gol D. Roger, the Pirate King, was the second man in history to circumnavigate the world.
The first was Joy Boy.
He wasn't just the first to travel around the world—he was also the very first pirate in history.
Because he truly was a man unwilling to be bound by anything, his arrival on any island often sparked chaos.
Naturally, this would lead to pursuit by the local rulers.
Over time, the title of "pirate" naturally came into existence.
However, the greatest upheaval Joy Boy caused in the world over eight hundred years ago was not these incidents.
The world eight hundred years ago lagged far behind the current one—not in technology, but in systems and governance.
At that time, concepts like the "Island of the Future" didn't exist. Except for a few islands so isolated they remained in a primitive state, most islands were under slave societies.
Slaves were not treated as human. They had no rights, their status no better than livestock.
Strictly speaking, although Joy Boy came from the Birka, he wasn't particularly interested in systems or governance.
But, he did love making friends.
And, coincidentally, the slave population was vast.
This meant Joy Boy frequently made friends among the slaves.
And for the sake of his friends, Joy Boy often caused massive uproar.
Eventually, this escalated to outright freeing the slaves.
And this man was absurdly strong; there was simply no one on the seas who could stop him.
At this point, Joy Boy digressed for a moment.
About why he was so strong.
The reason was simple: he not only inherited the terrifying strength of the Giants but also mastered the Haki used among humans.
Even more crucial, he was a Devil Fruit user.
Before the Birka people arrived in this world, there were no Devil Fruit users on the seas.
The Devil Fruits were an invention of the Birka.
When Ian translated this part, Queen was so excited he could barely contain himself:
"Mwahahaha! As expected! Devil Fruits are also a product of technology! Science and technology are the most fearsome forces in this world!"
"Truly beyond imagination," Ian agreed.
Law couldn't help but sigh.
No one understood better than him just how incredible the Devil Fruit power he possessed truly was.
But could such a wondrous ability really have been created by some people back then?
How advanced was the technology of Birkans at that time?
It was truly beyond imagination.
Strictly speaking, Devil Fruits weren't entirely artificially made.
When Birkans descended upon the Blue Sea, they brought with them a special plant.
The depletion of the Moon's resources was largely due to that very plant.
This plant was a tree, named Eden.
It was said that the ancestors of the Birka discovered it while exploring the stars. At first, it was just a tiny sapling, and only after consuming an enormous amount of resources did it gradually grow.
Vast stretches of lunar land had their nutrients taken by that one tree.
After it was brought to the Blue Sea and planted on the Red Line, it finally bore fruit.
Those fruits seemed to connect to another dimension. They appeared ordinary at first glance, yet within them lay extraordinary powers.
Most astonishingly, when someone ate these fruits, the energies inside would change according to the user's will.
At the very beginning, however, those energies couldn't be harnessed at all.
Birkans, in a sense, modified the fruits, giving those energies a tangible form that could alter the human body.
That was how Devil Fruits came to be.
As for why their users couldn't swim, it was likely because the tree's very method of growth was inherently rejected by the world.
And Joy Boy was among the first Devil Fruit users.
His ability was to make his body stretch freely, like rubber.
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