The next day, dawn broke.
Kyle woke up with an indescribable excitement. He, Kyle, an utterly ordinary person in his past life, had actually set foot on this land full of miracles and adventure!
"Holy crap! I've actually become a Devil Fruit user!" He pinched his thigh hard, the sharp pain making him wince, but he grinned like a three-hundred-pound kid.
After the excitement passed, a more urgent thought occupied his mind—setting sail!
To see those legendary figures who only existed in his memories, to witness those magnificent islands and oceans with his own eyes!
Monkey D. Luffy, Roronoa Zoro... just thinking about them made Kyle feel like all the blood in his body was boiling.
However, reality quickly doused him with cold water. He looked around—besides this crude cave and endless jungle and beach, he couldn't even find a decent piece of wood, let alone build a ship.
"I can't possibly be expected to build a ship myself, right? What if the quality's subpar and I sink? That'd be game over!" Kyle deflated, plopping back down on his bed of dried leaves.
Looks like he could only wait and pray for ships to pass by this godforsaken, deserted island.
But this waiting period couldn't be wasted either.
"Devil Fruit..." Kyle stared at his hands with burning eyes.
What kind of power had that white Devil Fruit, which tasted like a biochemical weapon, granted him?
His past life memories contained no specific information about this fruit.
"I need to figure out how to use this fruit ASAP!"
The following days saw Kyle completely immerse himself in researching his fruit ability. He tried mimicking the actions of various fruit users from his memories, but got no response whatsoever.
"Could it be the wrong approach?" Kyle scratched his head, somewhat frustrated.
For several days straight, he tried almost every method he could think of, even including roaring at the sea, which only earned him contemptuous looks from a few seabirds.
Damn it, other people who transmigrated to One Piece got starter packages with three types of Haki plus swordsmanship, plus fruit manuals—how come he got absolutely nothing?
This day, Kyle was conducting his usual strength training. He picked up a massive rock, preparing to hurl it as usual, but due to his distraction from days of fruitless research, he stumbled, and the rock slipped from his hands toward the ground.
Just as the rock was about to hit the ground, Kyle felt an inexplicable surge of irritation and instinctively gave a pushing motion toward the rock's direction.
"Hum—"
An invisible wave spread out from his palm as the center!
The massive rock, upon contact with this wave, didn't crash to the ground with a dull thud as expected, but instead... began violently trembling from within, then with a "poof," turned into a pile of rubble!
Kyle stared dumbfounded at the scene before him, then at his own palm, his heart beating uncontrollably.
"Just... just now that was..."
He tried to recall the feeling from moments before, extending his hand again toward a large tree not far away, concentrating his mind, attempting to recreate that state.
"Hum!"
Another invisible wave was released. The tree, thick as his waist, first shook violently several times, then countless fine cracks appeared on its trunk, followed by a teeth-grinding "crack" as it thunderously snapped, its upper canopy crashing heavily to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.
"Awesome!" Kyle excitedly jumped three feet high on the spot. "This is my ability!"
Not causing physical vibrations, but... controlling a more fundamental "wave"? Shock waves? Oscillating waves?
Kyle took a deep breath and started analyzing the situation.
Though he was just an ordinary person in his past life, he was still a modern youth educated through nine years of compulsory education and higher learning. The definitions, types, and characteristics of waves from physics textbooks now flooded his mind like a tide.
Transverse waves, longitudinal waves, mechanical waves, electromagnetic waves...
"If it were simple shock waves or oscillating waves, the effect should lean more toward overall destruction and knockback, rather than this bizarre phenomenon of internal disintegration." Kyle furrowed his brow, struggling to recall that wonderful feeling from before.
It was like... frequency? Resonance?
In the One Piece world, where nearly everyone was illiterate and knowing a few characters made you an intellectual, Kyle, backed by his past life's physics knowledge, felt like Einstein had descended upon this era.
Those seemingly mysterious Devil Fruit abilities now seemed to have some scientific traces he could follow.
In his past life, Kyle had read plenty of forum posts where various experts gave bizarre explanations and serious-sounding nonsense about "two-dimensional physics." At the time, he just found it interesting, never imagining that one day, this weird knowledge base might become his livelihood.
Many people had said that Devil Fruits, these unreasonable things, were practically wasted on those brutes who didn't understand physics and fought purely on instinct.
Take a certain kindergarten principal—clearly possessing light speed, but only knew straightforward kicks and laser shots, completely disgracing photons. If it were a physicist instead, they might pull off gravitational lensing, energy conversion, or even time dilation tricks.
But Kyle held a neutral stance on this view. After all, combat and research were two different things. Still, he couldn't deny that deeply understanding the scientific explanation of fruit abilities would definitely help with in-depth development and creative applications.
"Wonder if it's Logia-type or Paramecia-type?" Kyle's heart burned with anticipation.
If it was Logia-type... turning his body into vibration waves, immunity to physical attacks, plus controlling various waves—this would be top-tier Logia-type level!
"Let's try elementalization!" Kyle took a deep breath, concentrated, and imagined his body decomposing into countless vibration waves.
At first, no reaction. But he didn't get discouraged, trying over and over.
Finally, during one highly concentrated attempt, he felt his body becoming light and airy, as if losing substance.
Looking down, his arm had actually become somewhat transparent, like shimmering air with ripple-like wave patterns around the edges!
He picked up a small stone and threw it at his arm.
"Whoosh!"
The stone passed through his arm without any obstruction, as if nothing was there at all!
"Logia-type! It really is Logia-type!" Kyle was so excited he nearly cried.
The following days saw Kyle throw himself wholeheartedly into developing his fruit ability.
First, he practiced "elementalization." Initially, he could only barely transform part of his body into shockwave form, and it was extremely unstable, like annoying pixelation in adult videos.
But with continuous practice, he gradually managed to convert his entire body into invisible shock waves. Though he still couldn't control the form at will, immunity to physical attacks was already enough to safeguard his early development.
Next was "directional impact." He learned to compress vibration waves, then suddenly release them, creating an "air cannon" effect.
Kyle continuously adjusted compression levels and release methods, with power steadily improving from breaking tree branches to shattering rocks, then to creating several-meter-high waves on the sea surface.
Development of "high-frequency oscillation" went quite smoothly, too. He discovered he could imbue objects with specific vibration frequencies, causing their internal structures to resonate and collapse.
Initially, he could only turn small pebbles to powder, but later he could make man-sized boulders crumble to pieces within seconds.
"Against those tin-can Navy warships or ability users' weapons, this is practically a god-tier skill!" Kyle fantasized about scenes where he'd wave his hand and enemy swords and armor would shatter, his mouth corners gradually becoming unstoppable.
Time quietly slipped by through Kyle's day-after-day diligent training and ability development. Like a sponge, he frantically absorbed knowledge from his past life and practical experience from this life, gradually excavating his fruit ability bit by bit.
He gave the fruit a preliminary name—Logia-type Wave-Wave Fruit.
This day, Kyle was conducting his usual training at a cliff edge on the island's highest point.
Shirtless, his bronze skin gleamed in the sunlight, his smooth muscle lines full of explosive power.
He first performed a series of elementalization evasion training, simulating enemies attacking from all directions, his body rapidly switching between solid and shock wave form, stirring up gusts of wind.
Then he took a deep breath and pushed both palms forward.
"BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!"
Three solid shock waves shot out in succession, precisely hitting three floating wooden stakes he'd preset dozens of meters away on the sea surface, blasting them to smithereens with wood chips flying everywhere.
"The power still isn't concentrated enough. Still far from a 'Planet Crusher Cannon.'" Kyle wiped sweat from his forehead, muttering to himself.
Just as he prepared to continue practicing "high-frequency oscillation," attempting to decompose a bizarrely shaped metal ore he'd found, the corner of his eye suddenly caught a small black dot appearing on the distant horizon.
Kyle's heart stirred, and he immediately concentrated, pushing his vibration-sensing ability to its limit.
Moments later, his pupils suddenly contracted!
It was the outline of a ship! The flag hanging from its bow flapped loudly in the sea breeze—it was a fierce skull with two crossed curved blades below!
A pirate ship!
Kyle's heart jumped violently, an irrepressible excitement surging through him.
Hehehe, the three-year term is up—welcome the Dragon King to the sea!