Sixth Realm

Cables with hooks on the ends of them were lowered into position from the sky island Weatheria to be fastened into place on the submarine in order to raise it back up.

Once that was finished, Nami watched in abject horror and grotesque fascination as the massive kraken that Cherry lovingly called Takako seemed to squeeze into her body through her hand.

"What…? How…? Nevermind." Nami decided not to ask and tried not to think about where all that flesh could have possibly gone to.

"Are you interested, Nami? Well, I'm afraid to say that a sea king would be quite impossible for you, especially one as ginormous as my beautiful Takako. You might be able to manage a small bird or a rodent though." Cherry said, patting her stomach as if she had eaten a hearty meal.

The exact mechanics of how it worked were quite complicated, but simply put it worked by converting the physical body of the contracted beast into either vital energy or celestial energy, while preserving the spirit of the beast inside the cultivator's body so that it would not perish from the conversion process. If one did not possess enough vital or celestial energy themselves, however, the energy from the beast would overwhelm the cultivator and most likely lead to a rather gruesome and very messy death.

If Cherry had attempted to contract Takako during her 5th cultivation realm it would not have succeeded, though she would have at least survived.

In any case, even ordinary people like Nami could manage small, ordinary animals. Provided they possessed the talent to perform the ritual properly. Cherry figured that Nami was smart enough to do so, though she would need to be taught the basics of vital energy manipulation first.

"I'll think about it…" Nami replied. She'd be lying if she had said she wasn't interested, but she would rather die than find out what it felt like to have an octopus crawl into your body.

"Well, make sure you never tell Luffy about it. That doofus is the worst kind of student when it comes to technical skills, but that won't stop him from relentlessly hounding me to teach him. I really don't envy Rayleigh, the poor old man." Cherry said.

The submarine started to be hoisted upwards after signaling the weather wizards up above.

Once they were back up top, the dozens of robed old men were throwing a fit, accusing Nami of being a naughty and ungrateful child.

Nami managed to calm them down when she explained that it was an emergency, that she needed to save her friend from drowning. She conveniently left out the fact that it turned out that Cherry was perfectly fine and in no danger whatsoever.

That seemed to satisfy them so they didn't nag her anymore, though it didn't stop some of them from grumbling to themselves about her erratic behavior.

"I'm glad that you're all alright. I was a tad worried that Nami wouldn't come back with the submarine though." Haredas said.

"What kind of girl do you think that I am?" Nami said, acting like she was offended.

"The epithet the world government gave you is 'Cat Burglar'." Haredas answered with a straight face.

Nami responded by sticking out her tongue in a childish taunt.

They were shown to a room where they could stay temporarily on account of being Nami's friends. It was a fairly simple building, though it was quaint and cozy.

Cherry settled down into a meditative pose to finish stabilizing her cultivation realm.

The sixth body cultivation realm was known as the Perfect Form Realm. In this realm, a body cultivator would slowly convert their entire body into a source of their vital energy, like the heart, as well as completely spiritualizing the body in the same way the nervous system had in the fourth realm. In doing so, the heart and brain cease to be weaknesses that, if destroyed, would result in the death of the cultivator.

In addition, it also vastly increases the speed at which one can restore used up energy reserves, to the extent that one could do so while in the midst of battle if they aren't too strained.

With that finished, Cherry turned her eyes to her sword and revolver. First she started with her sword, as it needed a name worthy of its eloquence and might.

"Sakura Tengoku." Cherry stated clearly.

The blade released a tiny arc of pink lightning in acceptance. Though Cherry could swear it was telling her 'It's about damn time.'

Next she picked up the revolver and took it outside.

She observed the physical changes that it underwent and had an idea of what sort of power it had obtained.

"Man, Franky is going to be so jealous." Cherry thought aloud.

"Why do you think so?" Robin asked curiously. She was curious what sort of power the devil fruit bestowed upon the gun as well, so she had decided to watch.

"Well, let's see with our own eyes, shall we?" Cherry said, holding the revolver in her outstretched hand.

Cherry pulled the trigger and a gentle stream of a dark and fizzy liquid poured out from the muzzle.

"Is that…?" Robin asked.

"Soda, yes." Cherry smiled, thinking about how Franky would react when he found out his ideal devil fruit had fallen into her hands.

The body of the revolver had changed shape to appear as a glass bottle made from dark brown, opaque glass. Though it looked and felt like glass, Cherry could tell that it had lost none of its durability as a result.

"I hope this isn't all it can do though. I'd hate it if my favorite gun became useless as a weapon." Cherry said.

Cherry started to experiment with the revolver, activating different aspects of its devil fruit inscription.

She found that she could produce a wide variety of flavors, though they were all carbonated drinks. Sadly she couldn't make it produce sparkling water, but she supposed that made sense seeing as water was the enemy of devil fruit users.

"What if I do this?" Cherry pondered aloud.

Cherry shook the revolver in a fierce fashion before aiming it once more and pulling the trigger.

*PSSSSH*

A pressurized beam of soda shot out ripped a hole in the simple target she had set up.

"Now that's just silly, hehehe!" Cherry finally felt that perhaps she hadn't lost her favorite toy after all.

"Still, this will require some experimentation, but I think it will all work out just fine. I bet Big Mom will probably be really pissed off that I have a sweet related devil fruit." Cherry said.

"No doubt about that." Robin concurred. "Especially since we took it out from under the noses of her own children."

"I have just the name for you. You shall be called 'Fizzy Pop'!" Cherry said proudly, feeling Sakura Tengoku zapping her on the hip.

"All I have left in the spear now, huh? Perhaps I should make a suit of armor as well, just to have an option if the next fruit isn't a good fit?" Cherry said.

"You don't know how to share, do you?" Robin asked with a smile and a raised eyebrow.

"Maybe I'll go down in history as the world's biggest devil fruit hoarder, hm?" Cherry joked. "Perhaps I should conquer the world and make sure that I do?"

Robin only shook her head at her in exasperation.