The Emergence of the Mind (Part Two)

"Luo Han, why aren't you eating yet? It's pretty tasty. Huh! Luo Han, is this your Scale Fruit?" Little Fatty Cole asked Luo Han curiously.

Luo Han said, "Yes. Although it's a little strange... Hmm! The taste might also be a little unbelievable! Probably..."

After saying that, Luo Han picked it up. If it really was a Devil Fruit, it should taste awful, right?

Strange! Why was he feeling a little expectant and a little afraid? Luo Han thought.

Its shape didn't resemble the banana shape of a Zoan type, nor the pineapple shape of a Logia type. Then it should be a Paramecia type.

Luo Han took a bite. The taste was indescribable; one look at his ashen face was enough to tell.

But Luo Han was still excited. This meant that this unusual Scale Fruit was a Devil Fruit!

The next second, Luo Han was no longer excited.

"Little Luo Han, don't waste it. Hurry up and finish the rest." Uncle Kate's booming voice made Luo Han's face seem even greener.

What else could he do? He had to finish it even through tears. Luo Han shut his eyes and ate the rest of the Devil Fruit. Tears streamed from his eyes, leaving his face covered in them.

"How is it, Little Luo Han? Did it work? Looking at you, the effects must be pretty good!!! Ha! Hahaha!" Uncle Kate said, trembling as he looked at Luo Han.

Uncle Kate! Which eye of yours saw that? Was it my green face? Or my tear-streaked face?! What the hell! This Devil Fruit was truly disgusting. Luo Han was suffering inside!!

Luo Han said, "It was all right! What do you think, Uncle Kate?"

Uncle Kate chuckled. "Haha! As long as it worked!"

Afterward, Uncle Kate gathered all the adult men and women on the island.

Uncle Kate said, "Listen up, everyone! You all know what comes next, right?"

Everyone replied, "We know..."

Uncle Kate said, "Our once-every-four-years Scale Fruit Festival, also called the Harvest Festival, is here. So grab your harpoons and come down into the water with me to collect fish!"

"Alright! Captain, let's begin! We can't wait any longer!" everyone answered happily, then climbed down to the lake one after another. Only a few elderly people remained in the square.

Along with Luo Han and the others, who had just finished eating their Scale Fruits.

"Alright, everyone, sit down quickly and carefully feel how the Scale Fruit is changing your bodies. It will help with your future training." At that moment, the older Rein spoke to everyone.

"Little Fatty and Little Han, sit down too. You're both ten years old, so you can eat one again in four years. Feel it out more carefully now, and it'll benefit your next improvement even more."

Rein lowered his head and spoke to Luo Han and Cole.

"Okay."

"Right away."

Luo Han and Little Fatty answered in turn.

Once he heard that it would help improve his future training, even the boisterous Little Fatty Cole hurriedly sat down. After all, he still had to stop his parents from fighting...

Luo Han did not sit down. After all, he had eaten a Devil Fruit. Instead, he walked to the edge of the square and looked down through the gaps between the Divine Tree's roots.

The scene he had seen once before came into view again.

All across Ring Island Lake floated countless powerless sea fish of all sizes, as well as some small Sea Kings over a hundred meters long.

Whenever the Scale Fruits ripened, the Divine Tree released a unique scent into the water. The scent lasted until the sun set in the evening.

Before then, the scent drew all kinds of marine creatures through the Underwater Cave and into Ring Island Lake.

However, because the Divine Tree naturally desalinated seawater, the closer the water was to the lake's surface, the fresher it became.

As marine creatures accustomed to salty seawater gradually approached the surface, the fish near the surface slowly passed out, unable to adapt to the freshwater and deprived of oxygen by the dense mass of marine life.

And so, the islanders' harvest naturally arrived.

Thus, the Divine Tree and the islanders formed a tacit symbiotic relationship. The Scale Fruits borne by the Divine Tree gave the islanders strength, while the islanders regularly helped the Divine Tree clean up. (That was, the fish it attracted.)

"Little Han, you train here. Grandma will go home and prepare the meals and boil water while waiting for you to come back," Grandma Mo said to Luo Han with a smile.

"Mm! Grandma, go back and rest first! Once we get our fish tonight, I'll come home!" Luo Han said to Grandma Mo, who had been watching him from nearby.

Grandma Mo said, "Alright! Alright! Then be careful, Little Han! I'm going home now." With that, she turned around and slowly made her way home on her cane.

"I will! Hehe!" Luo Han said with a smile to Grandma Mo's slightly hunched back. Sigh! Luo Han's relationship with Grandma Mo was anything but ordinary.

Not long after Luo Han was born, his parents had died of illness. No one knew what illness it had been. That was simply how this era was—if your body could endure it, you lived; if not, you could only wait to die.

After his parents died, Luo Han had been raised under Grandma Mo's care. Though they were not related by blood, Grandma Mo had always treated him very well. Luo Han was also deeply grateful. After all, he had transmigrated here, and from a young age, he had understood Grandma Mo's hardships.

After thinking about this, he glanced at Little Fatty, who had already completely immersed himself in sensing the effects.

Luo Han sat down as well and calmed himself as he tried to sense what ability the Devil Fruit he had eaten had given him.

Luo Han closed his eyes and quietly sensed it for several minutes. When he opened his eyes, he somehow understood the Devil Fruit's ability. It was probably an ability related to the mind.

As for what forms it could take, that depended entirely on the user's imagination and development. At the beginning, there was no obvious manifestation of its power. He could only develop it later.

Luo Han thought, That must also be why this Devil Fruit's previous owner died!

After all, cultivation related to the mind required imagination.

And under the imaginations of Earthlings, the mind had been played with in countless ways.

For example, the strongest genjutsu in the Naruto World, "Amaterasu," could permanently alter a person's thoughts and will. It was like turning the person who killed your father into the father you loved most, while making you believe from the bottom of your heart that this was how things had always been.

Then there was the ability of "Illusion" in the Bleach World to control the six senses. An ability that could even control the sixth sense was terrifying just to think about, not to mention Divine Sense, which was similar to Observation Haki.

At that thought, Luo Han felt as though some kind of power in his mind was about to burst forth.

Bang! It felt as though a long time had passed, yet also as though it had happened in an instant. Luo Han closed his eyes and felt the world become different. In the dark world, there were now unfamiliar lights and many more sounds of breathing.

Those lights should be the islanders and the sea fish.

"This one's huge! Get another person over here to help!"

"This Sea King will be enough to nourish those little brats, hehe!"

All kinds of voices rang out one after another. There was no mistake—I had awakened Observation Haki. This range could probably cover the entire Ring Tree Island!

Sure enough, this Mind Fruit required conceptual imagination. It could not be mere fantasy; it had to be an idea based on a certain concept. Take Divine Sense, for example. Anyone on Earth who enjoyed cultivation novels had a rough understanding of it. Divine Sense was spiritual power extending outward to sense the surrounding environment, forming an image as though it were your own hand touching something, like radar.

Once you had such a concept, the Mind Fruit's power would activate, forming a controllable ability: "Observation Haki."

After carefully sensing Observation Haki's ability for a while longer, Luo Han continued to feel the changes brought by the Mind Fruit.

Time passed as Luo Han studied his Devil Fruit ability.

In the blink of an eye, night arrived, and the sun quietly sank beneath the horizon. The islanders who had gone down into the lake to collect fish also came back up one after another. The fish they had collected piled up across the first-level square below.

Aside from the fish everyone would take home to eat that night, the rest would be salted by the Hunting Squad and stored in a stone cave on Ring Island.

This stone cave was also quite special. It could preserve salted fish for three or four years.