One piece : Celestial Rose

Mark aggressively ran towards Saturn; although Saturn was shocked when Mark ignored his attack, he decided to try and attack him once more.

He was pretty sure Mark hadn't used Haki but still managed to tank his attack somehow; he wanted to know how Mark did it.

_Boom_

_Boom_

_Boom!_

Saturn hit Mark's head three times back to back, and after each attack, Mark paused for a second before he kept moving forward.

_Rush_

Saturn stepped back instinctively; Mark was fast, and he had appeared before him quickly.

"Have a taste of this!"

Mark exclaimed and jumped up high; he pulled his fist back and prepared for a powerful punch.

"Attacks of that level do not work on me; you need Haki to do any damage."

Saturn commented slowly and got ready to catch Mark's attack.

But just as his palm was about to connect with the punch, Mark smiled internally.

'Life return, muscle balloon!'

_Puff_

Mark's hand abnormally bulged and became full of muscles; his arm was five times its previous size with this technique.

"How!"

Saturn didn't see this coming and was hit with way more strength than he was prepared to block.

_Skid_

His giant body skidded back from the large amount of force; his spider legs stabilized him but left deep cuts into the ground.

"What was that…?"

Saint Saturn asked with confusion; this looked like a devil fruit ability, and he wasn't sure how Mark was doing this.

'Mark definitely didn't eat a devil fruit; is this an inherent ability he unlocked due to his mutation?'

Saint Saturn thought silently.

Mark soon landed back on the ground and looked at his hand with a smile.

"This? It's something I learned to do a while ago; this is also why I could ignore your attack before."

_Puff_

Changing his hand back to normal Mark lied with a straight face; he was not going to tell Imu's puppets that he did it with life return; there was no need to make his enemies stronger.

Still, he had to tell Saturn how he blocked his technique before.

_Knock_

Knocking on his forehead, Mark told Saturn.

"I made the bones of my skull significantly harder when you attacked; your attack did hit me, but it couldn't break through my skull."

"That's why it looked like I was ignoring your attacks."

Having a strong skull was an easy way to ignore Saint Saturn's ability; other people before Mark had survived this attack because of this.

Durable races like the buccaneer race, for instance, should be able to ignore Saint Saturn's ability using their tough bodies; they had the blood of the giants flowing inside them after all.

One piece had a lot of such hardy races.

Mark, on the other hand, artificially made his skull durable enough to survive this attack; life return was one hell of a skill.

"You made your skull harder? Amazing, I assume you bulked up your muscles the same way."

"Your inherent ability has a lot of potential; you could give Saint Garling a run for his money. At your age he wasn't as good as you."

Saint Saturn said something cryptic, which only a celestial dragon like Mark could understand.

'Garling? He's Shank's father and the man who gave Whitebeard his scars. He is comparing me to him?'

Mark frowned a bit. While Garling was strong, really, really strong, strong enough to stand against the entire Rocks crew without losing his cool and picking a fight with Whitebeard, that didn't mean Mark liked the guy.

Garling had gained his fame in God Valley during the slave hunting tournament; he even killed Saint Mjosgard in cold blood because Mjosgard was a good man.

Mark was not very fond of this man, to say the least.

"I am honored to receive such praise, Saint Saturn."

But Mark knew his position well; he was a celestial dragon and a smart one at that. He would not show dissatisfaction until he was capable enough to do so.

"You deserve it; I could grant you a temporary elder authority right now, but I assume you have other plans?"

Saint Saturn transformed back into his human form and tapped his cane on the ground.

"I heard you wanted to visit Marine headquarters before you accept Vegapunk's knowledge."

"What are you going to the lower realm for?"

Saturn asked with a soft voice. Mark rolled his eyes, he knew he couldn't hide his decision from the elders; CP agents were everywhere and must have ratted him out.

"I want to roam around the lower realm a little, take over some kingdoms that aren't affiliated with the world government."

"Maybe fight a few strong men, get some capable people for entertainment; that's about it."

Mark shrugged and said his plan in a very careless way, but in reality he was going to do none of that.

His plan was actually to build his own power and fight against him Im particular.

The kingdoms he wanted to take over were going to be his base of operations; the men he would recruit weren't going to be for entertainment but would be his personal guards and crew.

He had a very different plan from what he was telling Saint Saturn.

"You want to take over kingdoms, huh? We expected this from the owner of Conqueror's Haki, such as you."

"Go ahead, we allow it; as you know, we hold a tournament every 3 years to kill an island's population with some problematic slaves; we usually take over the island after that."

"The islands you conquer during your time at the lower realm will be put under your command. Go ahead, conquer them in the name of the world government."

Saint Saturn gave Mark the go-ahead; he acted as if he had already expected Mark to make such claims.

Which made Mark vigilant, but he didn't show anything out of the ordinary.

"Thank you, Saint Saturn."

Mark nodded with a smile; Saint Saturn nodded back and continued to speak.

"You aren't the first one to think of going down to the lower realm; in fact, many others have done so before you."

"All of us elders back in the day individually went down to the lower realm; we fought, we killed, and we experienced everything we needed to experience."

Touching the scar on his forehead, Saturn looked as if he was remembering the old days.

"I got this scar from someone back then; all of us elders have our battle scars. Experiencing the lower realm is an important part of becoming an elder."

"You can't rule the world correctly if you haven't experienced it personally."

Saturn said with calmness, then he tapped his cane on the ground, and a magic circle appeared below him.

"If you are looking for a fight in the lower realm, I suggest hiding your identity as a celestial dragon; no strong man would fight you if they knew your identity."

"This is how we Elders did it back in the day: we went down, we started from scratch, and we made a name for ourselves. When we had enough, we came back, and our name was erased from the world."

"You can decide to act any way you want; the world is our playground; go ahead and play as much as you want."

Saturn muttered softly, then he vanished into a burst of fire and electricity.

Only Mark was left alone on the battleground, thinking about what he should do.

He was given a free pass to do whatever the hell he wanted; when his journey was over, he could come back and take the elder position, and his adventures would be erased from the world's history.

'The world government is hardcore.'

In the end that's all Mark could think, for now he had a much more important decision to make.

What side should he choose for his adventures? Marine, pirate, bounty hunter, or revolutionary army?