Junkyard Overlord

Mekk was born in a famous shipbuilding kingdom called the Silas Kingdom, which is located in the West Blue. He was born in an abandoned ship junkyard.

The people living there survived by searching for usable parts on the ships or valuable things abandoned inside the ships.

He lost his father at birth, and when he was seven years old, his mother also passed away!

Fortunately, Mekk grew up in the junkyard and had a lot of experience in scavenging!

Although he was often bullied because of his small stature, he managed to get by with his excellent scavenging skills.

However, Mekk had a unique hobby that didn't fit in with the junkyard.

He loved reading books and inventing all kinds of things.

He often used the money he earned from scavenging to buy books and had many strange and useless inventions of his own.

Until one day.

While boiling water, he noticed that the boiling water lifted the lid of the kettle.

From then on, he secluded himself at home and never left, dedicating himself to the study of steam!

He even stopped scavenging garbage unless he was hungry or needed materials for his research.

Life became difficult.

The people around him thought Mekk had lost his mind!

He didn't even have food to eat, but he was still researching some strange things?

However, he paid no attention to others and wholeheartedly devoted himself to his research.

He seemed to have a special talent for the study of steam. At the age of fifteen, with his brilliant mind, he successfully invented the steam engine.

Afterwards, steam-powered items such as steam clocks and steam washing machines were born under his hands.

But soon, his research hit a bottleneck.

The resources in the junkyard were limited, and processing and materials were all problems.

He couldn't process anything and didn't have enough resources to create what he wanted.

The steam-powered mecha!

The steam-powered mecha was something he designed to compensate for his shortcomings.

But even though he designed it, he couldn't build it!

For a while, he was stuck, spending his days racked with thoughts in his room, but making no progress!

Until one day.

Mekk couldn't bear the hunger in his stomach, so he went out to scavenge for garbage.

He agilely moved through the junkyard and quickly filled a bag with valuable trash. Just as he was about to take it to exchange for money to buy food...

He discovered something that would change his life.

A spiral-shaped yellow fruit that looked like a pineapple.

At that moment, the fruit was wedged in a gap on the deck of an old ship. If he hadn't walked past the deck and caused it to collapse, he would never have noticed the fruit.

After picking up the fruit, he carefully examined it. It was in perfect condition, undamaged, and looked fresh!

He was hungry, and it had been a long time since he had eaten any fruit. The fruit appeared to be in good condition.

He recalled the sweet and sour taste of fruit and couldn't help but salivate.

After hesitating for a moment, he finally took a bite. After all, the fruit seemed to be in good condition and didn't appear to be poisonous or problematic!

That one bite immediately changed his expression.

It tasted terrible.

He thought the fruit might be poisonous and threw it far away after taking a bite.

Fortunately, he waited in the same spot for a while and his body didn't show any unusual symptoms.

Mekk thought the fruit had gone bad, so he didn't pay much attention to it and continued to go exchange for money.

When he finished exchanging the money, had a full meal, and returned to his house...

He slowly began to feel that something was wrong.

He seemed to have an invisible field around him.

Within this field, he could process anything!

He could directly transform raw materials and semi-finished products into the targets he needed.

Anything could be processed according to his ideas!

Of course, there are limitations. It must be something he could understand and has a certain logical structure!

Fortunately, Mekk had loved reading since childhood, and his brain was quite intelligent. As the Kingdom of Cyrus is a major shipbuilding nation with close connections to the outside world, he could purchase all kinds of books and has a rich knowledge base!

With this ability, he became unstoppable on the path of invention!

The steam-powered mech!

With this crazy and unrealistic idea, he actually achieved it with his Devil Fruit ability!

Soon, he invented the first mech, which he called the Iron Giant.

The first one was not as large as the current ones, only about five meters tall.

It was made entirely from junkyard scraps, and its power was not very strong, equivalent to the strength of a petty officer or a master sergeant.

Where there were people, there was competition.

As a junkyard for ships, there were different factions here, but after all, they made a living by scavenging junk. How strong could they be?

Once, when Mekk was out scavenging, he happened to be seen by members of a certain faction who directly robbed him.

In a fit of anger, Mekk rode his mech and crushed the entire faction!

Since then, no one dared to provoke him.

Later, some people, in order to avoid being bullied by those factions, started paying tribute to Mekk every month, requesting his protection to prevent others from taking their belongings.

As a result, he smoothly became the ruler of the junkyard.

He even had his own exclusive title, the Junkyard Overlord!

He could earn several hundred thousand berry without doing anything in a month and several million berry in a year.

With this income, he no longer had to worry about his life.

So he became more devoted to the development of the Iron Giant!

However, new problems gradually emerged.

His money was not enough!

The more he researched, the more he realized his poverty.

Although he had the ability to process the Devil Fruit, he still needed to purchase various expensive raw materials!

The Devil Fruit could not magically produce things for him!

Several million berry were simply not enough to support his research and development.

For more than ten years, he continued his research while searching for people who could support his research.

The wealthy nobles, starting with the king, were his first targets.

Unfortunately, the nobles and kings he found who could support his research did not understand the results of his research!

In their eyes, it was better to recruit a few stronger guards with the money for researching mechs than to carry around such a huge thing every day.

At that time, he saw a talent recruitment notice in the West Blue Newspaper!

So he brought his strongest mech and came over.

...

"Isn't this a tech geek?"

That was Arthur's first thought!

"Don't worry, Master Mekk, you could research whatever you want here!" Arthur said cheerfully.

"Really?" Mekk couldn't help asking.

"Of course, no problem. I'll give you one billion Saint Martin coins as research funding every year!" Arthur said with a smile.

"Saint Martin coins? How much is that in berry?" Mekk asked, puzzled.

"1 Billion!"

"1 billion?!!!" Mekk exclaimed in delight.

He supported his forehead and suddenly felt a bit unstable.

It felt like a pie had fallen from the sky and hit him on the head. He felt dizzy all over!

"Exactly!" Arthur nodded affirmatively, then changed the topic and looked at the mech, unable to help but ask, "By the way, Master Mekk, what fuel do you use for this steam-powered mech?"

Arthur was quite curious about what kind of fuel could drive such a large machine when burned.

If possible, he even wanted some of this fuel to use on the Conqueror, so that they wouldn't have to carry a large amount of coal every time they set sail to start the steam engine!

"This is the super coal I processed using my Devil Fruit ability!" Mekk proudly replied.

"Super coal?" Arthur was puzzled.

"It's the result of merging several hundred pieces of coal together using my ability. This reduces its volume and extends the burning time, providing enough power to start this giant!" Mekk explained.

Upon hearing this, Arthur was a little disappointed. If that was the case, they couldn't mass-produce it, right?

However, he quickly brushed off his disappointment and looked at Mekk. He was satisfied as long as they had such a talented person now!

"By the way, Master Mekk, why are there two swords on this mech? Why not just equip it with cannons or something?" Arthur asked, confused.

"Cannons?" Mekk's eyes lit up upon hearing that, excitedly saying, "That's a great idea! Why didn't I think of that? With cannons installed, the Iron Giant will have long-range attack capabilities!"

"Well... it turned out he hadn't thought of that!"

Arthur was speechless for a moment.

However, he still enthusiastically discussed it with Mekk.

"Master Mekk, look at this seat, there's no protection on it at all. If I were an enemy, I would just shoot the operator, rendering the mech useless, right? I think it would be best to add a layer of protection here!"

"I've thought about that, but it won't work! Once there's protection, visibility will be compromised!"

"Master Mekk, have you heard of bulletproof glass?"

...

The two of them discussed enthusiastically.

Although Arthur didn't understand how to make mechs or even the principles inside them!

But he had creativity and imagination!

After hearing his ideas, Mekk couldn't help but be drawn in. Although many things were not feasible, it didn't prevent him from absorbing the parts of these ideas that could be implemented!

Soon, through their conversation, a war machine in the form of a steam-powered mech emerged in their minds.

Mekk couldn't wait to continue the discussion, urging Arthur to prepare a laboratory for him. He wanted to create this war machine.

Arthur didn't hold back either, directly taking Mekk back to St. Martin Island from the undersea train. After settling him down, he even gave him 100 million St. Martin coins.