(Hee hee hee, I am the user of the Brain-Brain Fruit. Hand over your brain obediently!)
His consciousness froze on the cold front of the hundred-ton truck before him.
Who could even understand this?
He thought he heard the distinct electronic sound of a Cybertronian, and damn it, it was a loli voice!
"I thought it was a speed bump."
"Tell it to my insurance."
"We're all just trying our best to live."
Crap, this sucks. I still have 512GB of "study materials" on my USB drive...
Then, there was only endless darkness and a tearing sensation that pierced his bones.
When he opened his eyes again, it was a completely unfamiliar world.
The salty, fishy sea breeze, carrying the savage scent of a primeval jungle, violently flooded his nostrils.
Giant, unfamiliar trees blotted out the sun, and the strange calls of birds and beasts rose and fell.
Beneath him was coarse sand that hurt to lie on.
"What the hell, where did you send me? Is this still my country?"
A childish and weak voice came out. Kyle sat up in a panic, fumbling all over himself.
Okay, good, little arms, little legs, kidneys, and... everything else were all intact...
Intact my ass! A three-year-old kid stranded on a deserted island didn't seem very promising!
Memories of his past life were like shattered mirror fragments, unable to form a complete picture. The original body's memories were also a chaotic mess; he only vaguely remembered being shipwrecked.
Amidst the confusion, hunger was the first to sound the alarm.
Then came the cold. The sea wind blew through his thin, tattered clothes, made of some unknown material.
And then there were the hair-raising sounds coming from the forest.
Kyle shivered. The instinct for survival overrode all confusion and resentment.
He scrambled to find a low cave, half-hollowed out by the waves, that could barely provide shelter from the wind and rain.
The cave reeked of a foul, fishy stench and dampness, but Kyle couldn't care less.
He huddled in the deepest part of the cave, listening to the roar of the waves crashing against the reefs outside and the faint chewing sounds coming from the jungle.
"Ring Grandpa?" he tentatively called out, his voice drowned by the sound of the waves.
Kyle completely calmed down.
Good news: I've been transported to another world!
Bad news: It's a hellish start!
"I'm Kyle Grylls (not really), and I'm going to show you how to survive in some of the most extreme and dangerous places on Earth!"
Dun-dun-dundun~
As a city dweller from a peaceful era, the most Kyle had ever done was talk big in the comments of survival videos, claiming, "I could do that too!" But now, the only tough thing about him was his mouth.
Using a puddle in the cave, Kyle examined himself. Black hair, golden eyes. Though his small face was thin and childish, he could vaguely see the handsome features that would one day rival the esteemed readers of this story.
To avoid the bad ending of a premature death, there was only one goal now—survive!
For three whole years, do you have any idea what I've been through?
His body grew at an incredible rate, becoming stronger and more agile. It far surpassed the physical capabilities of a child from his previous life's memories, which made Kyle realize this world was not ordinary.
Years of running, climbing, and fighting had made his muscles lean and solid, filled with explosive power.
"Heh heh heh, got some food again, bros!"
Kyle chattered to himself as he skillfully dressed a wild rabbit, letting out a cackling laugh from time to time.
"Today's lunch is roasted bunny, some unknown little fruits. Let's dig in, bros!"
"Ah, delicious, burp~" After devouring the cute bunny, Kyle sat on a rock, preparing to enjoy an unknown fruit he had picked from the island.
The fruit was entirely white, its surface covered in concentric, circular patterns.
"Hiss~ I feel like I've seen this somewhere before. What is this again? Whatever, your big bro Kyle will know if it's good or bad with one bite!"
The moment the first bite entered his stomach, Kyle's face turned green, then pale. His stomach churned violently, as if ten thousand goblins were having a rave inside.
Even with his broad experience in eating strange things, Kyle had never tasted anything so disgusting. He spat repeatedly, trying to expel the despairing flavor.
"It tastes like fermented, stinky socks that haven't been washed for a month in summer, stewed with a rotten rat that's been dead for three months over a large fire for forty-nine days. I'd rate it 'quantifiably foul'."
Kyle grimaced, feeling as if his taste buds had been brutally violated.
He shook his head forcefully, trying to fling the demonic taste and the fruit's bizarre appearance from his mind.
There were more important things to do—the sun was still high, and his daily "required courses" had not yet begun.
For three years, this was how he had lived. Now six years old, Kyle's small body contained strength and agility that were completely disproportionate to his age.
A beautiful day begins with a naked run on the beach.
Kyle ran barefoot on the damp sand. Each step sank deep before powerfully launching him forward. His speed was astonishing, leaving a trail of small footprints that were quickly smoothed over by the incoming tide.
Next was strength training. He had long since explored the jungle and found an ideal "gym"—a place scattered with rocks of various sizes and relatively convenient shapes.
Lifting, carrying, throwing—these monotonous actions were repeated day after day. His muscles, far surpassing those of his peers, were tight and well-defined, long accustomed to this burning, aching sensation.
During training, he would occasionally curse in his mother tongue from his past life. Sometimes, when the mood struck, he would hum a few lines of a pop song he'd dredged up from some corner of his memory.
"The squid of that day~ The squid rises!"
With a low shout, the veins on his arms bulged slightly as he easily lifted a rock nearly twice his height, then hurled it into the distance. It landed on the sand with a dull thud.
Agility training relied more on the jungle itself. This dangerous, primeval forest was his natural obstacle course.
Kyle leaped between fallen giant trees, swung through the forest on thick vines, and nimbly dodged small predators that darted out from the shadows to ambush him.
His senses had been honed like the sharpest blade. The rustle of wind through the grass, every slight friction of leaves, would quickly form a judgment in his mind.
As for combat skills, he had no refined techniques, just life-or-death survival skills learned from countless struggles on the brink—simple, direct, and deadly.
He would practice stabbing, chopping, and sweeping with a self-made spear against thick tree trunks, striving for speed, accuracy, and ruthlessness with every move.
"Taste my 'Monkey Steals the Peach'... Pfft, what am I even practicing! Be serious, Kyle, you're going to be a man who can beat Bear Grylls and stomp Ed Stafford!"
He would occasionally stop, panting heavily, wiping the sweat from his forehead. A flash of cunning unsuited for his age would flicker in his eyes, then he would put on a stern face and continue his tedious training.
As the setting sun began to plate the sky and sea with a layer of light and shadow, Kyle sat on his exclusive "viewing platform"—the edge of a high cliff, overlooking the boundless blue waves.
The fatigue from the intense exercise arrived as expected, a strange satisfaction mixed with the soreness.
It meant he had survived another day, pushing his limits just a little further.
Kyle subconsciously flexed his arm, revealing a solid bicep that completely mismatched his slender frame. This muscle was earned through hard work, not something some pointy-headed guy could claim!
"Homelander? No, no, I don't eat beef," Kyle muttered. "Tragic news from the fitness world, a six-year-old superman is lifting iron with the power of nine dragons!"
These slightly dark fantasies were his medicine against loneliness. In the monotonous daily grind of survival, you had to find some fun for yourself, right?
But beneath these jokes lay confusion about his own body. His growth rate, his strength, his recovery ability—none of it seemed normal for a human child.
Even if the island's diet was "unique" and the environment "survival of the fittest," it shouldn't have catalyzed him into what he was now, right?
The last ray of the setting sun sank completely below the horizon, and scattered, cold stars began to twinkle in the night sky.
Kyle stretched and prepared to return to his simple but safe cave.
As night deepened, the waves lapped gently against the beach, making a rhythmic "swish-swash" sound, occasionally interspersed with the chirping of some unknown nocturnal insects.
Kyle lay in the depths of the cave, on a "bed" made of several layers of dried, broad leaves.
Usually, after a full day of high-intensity physical exertion, he would be dead asleep the moment his head hit the "pillow." But tonight was different.
His chaotic thoughts were like a beach after the tide receded, with all sorts of miscellaneous ideas and images washing up.
The shadows of the jungle, the vastness of the ocean, those bizarre yet real creatures... and that damned white fruit, which tasted like a biohazard.
That taste... Kyle couldn't help but shudder at the thought, and his stomach started to act up again.
But what tormented him wasn't just the torturous flavor, but also the patterns on the fruit's skin. Circle after circle, like concentric spiral patterns rippling in water.
This unique pattern, he seemed to have seen it somewhere before.
It was like a missing piece of a puzzle, the most crucial part always hidden behind the fog of memory, appearing and disappearing, making him itch with curiosity and inexplicably irritable.
Spiral patterns? Unbelievably disgusting taste?
A bolt of lightning struck his mind without warning, dispelling all the fog!
A long-buried, yet incredibly vivid memory surged forth like a floodgate opening.
It was a memory from his past life, of a bizarre and fantastical world filled with passionate adventures, fierce battles, pirates with diverse personalities, marines who swore to defend justice, and... a type of fruit that granted magical powers.
Those fruits usually had unique spiral patterns. They could grant their eaters incredible superpowers, but as a price, the eater would be rejected by the sea and become unable to swim. And the most well-known and impressive point—they tasted as if all the most disgusting things in the world were mixed together and concentrated eighty-one times over!
Kyle shot up as if from his deathbed, his eyes wide in the dark cave.
Spiral patterns... an outrageously foul taste... and his own body, which had shown superhuman strength and recovery speed even before eating that suspected "Devil Fruit"... all of this, when viewed through the lens of the "Devil Fruit" concept, seemed so... logical, yet so unbelievable!
Countless clues were strung together like scattered pearls.
The huge, strangely behaved creatures on this island; this seemingly endless ocean; and the subtle sense of incongruity he had always felt—this world seemed to follow a set of physical laws and power systems completely different from what he knew.
He recalled the scene when he had just crossed over, the sudden shipwreck, the original body's blurry memory fragments... a world full of endless oceans and countless islands...
"Fuck... it's a Devil Fruit!" The words were squeezed through his teeth, filled with an irrepressible tremor and a hint of excitement he himself hadn't noticed.
"This place..." His voice was as faint as a mosquito's buzz, yet it carried the absurdity of "destiny."
"This place... is the world of One Piece!"
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