Boom!
Then came a darkness without end, and a sensation of tearing pain that pierced straight into the marrow.
When I opened my eyes again, I was in a completely unfamiliar world. The salty, fishy sea breeze—carrying the wild, untamed scent of a primeval jungle—rushed violently into my nostrils.
Gigantic, alien trees stretched into the sky, casting deep shadows. Strange bird calls and beastly howls echoed through the air. Rough gravel beneath me dug into my back, causing sharp pain.
"What the hell is this place? Am I still in the world I know?" A childish and feeble voice escaped me. Kyle sat up in a panic, patting himself down.
Thankfully, arms, legs, kidneys... and little penis were all intact.
'Damn it! What kind of fucking joke is this—stranding a three-year-old kid on a deserted island?!'
The body's original memories were shattered like broken glass—impossible to reassemble. He could only vaguely recall a shipwreck.
As he tried to make sense of it all, the first signal came from his stomach: hunger. Then the chill, sea wind cut through his thin, tattered clothes made from some unknown material.
Then came the eerie, hair-raising noises from the jungle.
Kyle trembled. Survival instincts quickly drowned out his confusion and frustration. Rolling and crawling, he stumbled upon a small cave, half-eroded by ocean waves, barely enough to shelter from wind and rain.
The cave was damp and smelled awful, but Kyle didn't care.
He curled into the deepest corner, listening to waves crashing against rocks and the faint sounds of creatures gnawing in the forest beyond.
"System?"
The waves offered no reply, and Kyle finally calmed down.
Good news: I transmigrated.
Bad news: I don't even know where the hell I am.
He glanced at his reflection in a puddle. Black hair. Golden eyes. Though his face was tender and thin, you could tell he'd grow up to be just as handsome as you, the readers.
To avoid dying young, only one goal matters now: survive!
---
Three whole Years.
Do you know how I made it this far? His body had started growing at an incredible rate—faster, stronger, more flexible.
It far surpassed any child's body he remembered from his previous world. This made Kyle realize that this world was anything but normal.
Daily running, climbing, and fighting had made his muscles sleek, strong, and packed with explosive power.
"Heh heh, I got food again!" Kyle was busy skinning a rabbit as he muttered and chuckled weirdly to himself.
"Today's lunch—roast rabbit, some weird fruit, and a little crab. Let's eat."
"Ah—burp~" After devouring the unfortunate bunny, Kyle slumped against a rock and reached for a strange fruit.
It was pure white, with layered concentric circles across its skin.
"Huh~ I feel like I've seen this before… what is this? Never mind! If it's tasty, it's more than enough!" But the moment he swallowed the first bite, Kyle's face turned blue and pale, and his stomach twisted violently, as if ten thousand demons were breakdancing inside.
"Ugh~!" He had eaten some gross things before, but never something this horrendous. He spat and retched, trying to rid himself of the taste of pure despair.
"It tastes like… summer socks left unwashed for a month, mixed with a three-month-dead rat, then slow-cooked over hellfire until it radiates a stench that defies the known laws of physics."
Kyle gagged, face contorted, taste buds assaulted beyond repair. He shook his head like mad, trying to banish the image and taste of that cursed fruit.
But there was no time to dwell on that. The sun was still high, and today's daily training hadn't even begun.
This had been his life for three years. Now six years old, Kyle had a small frame, but his strength and agility were nothing like a child's.
A beautiful day starts with a naked run on the beach.
Kyle stepped barefoot onto the damp shoreline. Each stride sank into the wet sand and sprang back out with force at a stunning speed, leaving behind small footprints that were quickly washed away by the incoming tide.
Next came strength training. He had already mapped out the jungle and found the perfect "gym"—a clearing littered with rocks of all shapes and sizes, each one ideal for his routine.
Lifting, dragging, throwing, and slamming—these repetitive movements were now muscle memory. His physique, tighter and more defined than most children twice his age, had long adapted to the soreness and burning.
During workouts, he'd sometimes curse the so-called gods, and at other times, hum catchy songs buried deep in his memory.
Letting out a low roar, his arm veins bulged as he effortlessly lifted a rock several times taller than himself and hurled it into the distance, landing on the sand with a dull thud.
Agility training relied more on the jungle itself. This primal, dangerous wilderness was his natural obstacle course.
Kyle leaped over fallen logs, swung between branches using thick vines, and dodged small beasts that sprang out of the shadows to ambush him.
His senses had become as sharp as blades—he could interpret every rustle of grass, every faint brush of leaves, with frightening accuracy.
As for combat skills, there were no fancy techniques. Just desperate, hard-won instincts carved from the edge of death. Simple, brutal, efficient.
He practiced stabbing, slashing, and sweeping motions with a handmade spear, striking thick tree trunks with focused precision—each move aimed to be faster, fiercer, and deadlier.
He'd pause occasionally, panting as he wiped sweat from his brow. A cunning gleam, far too mature for his age, would flash in his eyes—then he'd put on a grim expression and dive back into the training.
As the sun dipped low, casting streaks of golden light across the sky and sea, Kyle sat on his private 'observation deck'—the edge of a tall cliff, gazing at the boundless ocean.
The post-training fatigue arrived on cue, but within the ache was a strange satisfaction.
It meant he'd survived another day—pushed his limits a little further.
Kyle flexed his arms by instinct, revealing biceps far too sculpted for his thin frame. These weren't just 'drawn on' muscles—this was earned, lived-in strength.
His growth rate, his power, even his recovery, was beyond human, even in a place like this. Sure, the island's food was 'exotic,' and the survival pressure was intense—but even so, this kind of evolution was unnatural.
The sun dipped completely beneath the horizon, and cold stars scattered across the sky like shimmering dust.
Kyle stretched and made his way back to his modest but secure cave. As night deepened, the waves brushed the shore with rhythmic 'swish' sounds, occasionally punctuated by the chirping of some unknown nocturnal insect.
He lay curled up deep in the cave on a makeshift bed of dried leaves. It was rough, but it worked.
Usually, after a full day of exertion, sleep came instantly. But tonight was different. His mind was a tide pool of messy thoughts, random, jumbled images rushed in like shells after the tide.
The shadows of the jungle, the infinite stretch of ocean, those bizarre but real creatures… and that damned fruit that tasted worse than anything.
Just recalling the smell made Kyle gag again.
But it wasn't just the horrific taste that haunted him—it was the pattern on the fruit's skin. Ring after ring of spiral grooves, spreading out like ripples in water.
Spiral patterns...
Where had he seen that before? Like a jigsaw with its final piece forever missing, the answer hovered just beyond the fog of memory, close enough but too distant to catch.
Wait! Spiral pattern? Inhumanly disgusting? A bolt of lightning seemed to rip through his brain, tearing away the haze.
A forgotten but vivid memory came flooding back—one from his previous life. A wild, imaginative world full of heated battles, wild adventures, pirates of every kind, righteous marines, and… devil fruits with incredible powers.
Fruits that always had those distinct spiral patterns—Devil Fruits.
They granted supernatural abilities but cursed the eater to become powerless in water, rejected by the sea. And more than anything else, they tasted like hell itself, concentrated and multiplied a hundredfold.
Devil Fruit! Kyle sat up like a corpse returning to life, eyes wide in the pitch-dark cave.
That spiral, that nightmarish flavor, his absurd strength and rapid recovery—even before eating that fruit, he had already been different.
But now it's all connected. The clues lined up like beads on a string.
The enormous beasts with bizarre features, the endless ocean horizon, the faint dissonance he'd always felt… This world followed laws and systems that were totally alien to Earth.
He recalled his arrival—shipwreck, hazy fragments, the strange body he woke up in, a world of sea and islands…
"Holy shit… It's a Devil Fruit!" The words squeezed out from between clenched teeth, carrying tremors he couldn't contain and a flicker of excitement he didn't even notice in himself.
"This place..." he whispered, voice thin as a mosquito's, but echoing with something fatefully absurd.
"This… is the One Piece world!"