Ten days later, on an uninhabited island somewhere in the West Blue.
The campfire on the beach had long since burned out, leaving only a wisp of smoke curling into the sky.
Above the ashes was the massive skeleton of a sea beast, its charred bones evidence of a recent feast.
Yes, after ten days of drifting with the currents, Ashen had finally found a place to land.
It was a small, isolated island, marked only by two modest hills and a dense forest stretching across most of its interior.
After scouring the terrain, Ashen confirmed there wasn't a single trace of human presence.
With no better option, he caught a sizable fish and satisfied his hunger first.
"Ah~ finally full. My poor stomach's been suffering these last few days," Ashen muttered, leaning against a rock and patting his belly.
"I'll make do for tonight," he said to himself.
"But starting tomorrow, I need to build shelter. Judging by this island, it's unlikely anyone will show up anytime soon.
That gives me the perfect chance to train my body, swordsmanship, Haki, and Devil Fruit abilities."
Glug..
Ashen took another sip of wine and frowned slightly.
"It took Brook decades to unlock even a handful of abilities. Just goes to show how difficult soul-type powers are to develop."
He thought of Big Mom's Soul-Soul Fruit, how powerful it had become.
"She's got the talent, sure, but the real boost came from consuming Mother Carmel. She inherited her powers and experience."
Ashen shifted his focus inward, analyzing his current strength.
"My body's in its prime, and thanks to my Devil Fruit, I'm a revived human, like Brook. That probably means I won't age, or if I do, it'll be at a snail's pace.
"My physical abilities… roughly equivalent to a prime Marine Vice Admiral.
"Armament Haki? I can cover both arms fully at max output. My Observation Haki has just awakened. Conqueror's Haki… hasn't awakened yet, and I don't even know if it ever will.
"As for the Devil Fruit… zero development so far. That's the toughest part."
He gazed at the ocean.
"There are still sixteen years until Roger's execution, the beginning of the Great Pirate Era.
I have to raise my strength as fast as possible. If I want to stand alongside the monsters of that age… I'm nowhere near ready yet."
His expression hardened.
'In this world, power rules all. If I don't want to repeat Rocks' fate, I'll need overwhelming strength,' Ashen vowed silently.
...
So, from the very next day, Ashen began his grueling training regimen on the deserted island.
He crafted a brutal plan tailored to his unique situation.
Each morning, before the sun rose, Ashen was already up, sweat pouring from his body as he ran around the oval-shaped island, carrying an enormous boulder on his back.
After breakfast, he'd set the boulder down on the beach and unleash a barrage of punches, his fists coated in Armament Haki.
Blackened hands blurred through the air, cracking loudly, crack… crack… crack.. with each blow.
By afternoon, he moved into the island's dense central forest, wielding his sword, and practicing slash after slash, thousands of times without pause.
Soon, the area became a no-go zone for the island's wildlife.
Any beast foolish enough to wander in risked being torn apart by the chaotic waves of sword aura, becoming Ashen's next meal.
At night, Ashen would sit cross-legged inside a makeshift wooden hut and enter deep meditation, channeling his energy to enhance his soul and explore the powers of his fruit.
The Devil Fruit's description leaned heavily toward soul-based abilities. With no prior experience, Ashen decided meditation was the most logical starting point.
At first, his focus wavered easily. But as time passed, he adapted. Eventually, he could even replace sleep with meditation and still wake refreshed and alert the next day.
...
Time passed slowly. But with each day, Ashen's strength steadily climbed.
By the end of his first year on the island, his Armament Haki could now extend from his arms to his shoulders and neck.
Observation Haki had stabilized, letting him sense movement within a 10-meter radius.
More importantly, Ashen could feel a dramatic increase in his soul's strength, by more than half.
By year five, traditional training in body and Haki had begun to plateau. With no significant gains in sight, Ashen altered his plan to focus almost entirely on developing his Devil Fruit abilities.
That shift marked the most significant breakthrough in his time on the island, he unlocked three core powers of the Netherworld Fruit.
First: Ghost Aura.
Ashen could now emit a chilling cold air from the underworld, he called it Ghost Aura.
He could release the icy aura directly from his body, or channel it through weapons like Brook did.
In one experiment, he used the aura on island animals and discovered something remarkable, it behaved similarly to Aokiji's Ice-Ice Fruit. Anything caught in the aura was instantly frozen.
But unlike Aokiji's ice, Ashen's was pitch black.
And animals frozen by it suffered deep soul fatigue upon thawing, some lost all thought during the freeze. Creatures with weaker souls even died outright from spiritual collapse.
Second: Soul Manipulation.
After building significant soul strength, Ashen could now project it over a range and influence elemental substances like fire, similar to Mother Carmel's feats.
However, unlike Carmel, he still couldn't split his soul or create sentient elemental constructs like Pandora.
Third: Soul Intimidation.
By vibrating his soul at high frequency, Ashen could emit waves of raw spiritual pressure, similar to the effects of Conqueror's Haki.
Whenever he unleashed this soul-shockwave, the animals on the island would tremble as if in the presence of a natural predator.
...
Another five years passed. Ashen had now spent a full decade training on the island.
To his dismay, not a single ship had passed by in all that time. The only exception was in year eight, when the currents brought the wreckage of a merchant vessel to shore.
There were no bodies aboard, but the wreck held a treasure trove of supplies, enough for Ashen to finally stop living like a caveman.
Now, his body had become a sculpture of dense, coiled muscle, tall, imposing, a walking force of nature. His short black hair had grown wild and unruly.
In these last five years, Ashen poured all his effort into mastering his Fruit.
His soul strength had doubled again. His originally black irises had turned a strange, hypnotic violet, eyes so unnerving, a single glance could pull someone into their depths.
It was the result of a new skill he awakened six months ago, and the only one developed in this second half of his training:
Nether Eye.
With these eyes, Ashen could see souls, not just disembodied ones like Brook, but even those residing inside living bodies.
Through this vision, he could now communicate with both detached and intact souls, even those of animals.
And because this was a direct link on the soul level, it was far smoother than spoken language.
If the soul was weaker than Ashen's, a glance from his Nether Eye would exert pressure powerful enough to cause instinctive submission.
That day, Ashen stood once again on the beach, staring at the endless ocean before him.
'I have to leave this place,' he decided. 'My Devil Fruit development has hit a bottleneck. Staying here serves no purpose anymore.'