Encountering Doflamingo

Zhu Mang leaped into the air.

He had originally planned to catch something to eat on this little island first, but he discovered that the island he had landed on was incredibly small, about the size of an ordinary village. Aside from a few gnarled trees and bare rocks, there was basically nothing there.

With no other choice, he could only go into the sea and catch some fish.

Zhu Mang took off the battle suit he was wearing and placed it on a nearby rock.

This was an internal benefit of the Frieza Force. It possessed considerable defensive power and flexibility, and it would not be damaged even after expanding several dozen times over. It was the most suitable outfit for Saiyans.

After transmigrating, Zhu Mang had learned that scouters contained surveillance devices, so he rarely wore one. The battle suit, however, did not come with that concern.

He wished he could wear several more suits at once.

Unfortunately, he was only a low-class warrior and was not qualified to receive that many.

Before long, he fished several bizarre-looking fish out of the sea.

"What a shame. If I'd known I was going to transmigrate into One Piece, I should've brought my scouter," Zhu Mang said, now somewhat regretful.

So what if the scouter had a surveillance device?

Could it possibly monitor him all the way into the One Piece World?

He had mainly thought of this because catching fish underwater just now had been tremendously inconvenient.

It was genuinely difficult to find large fish with the naked eye beneath the water.

And the scouter could also help him identify the strength of enemies and allies, preventing him from getting overturned in a ditch.

He controlled the ki within his body, preparing to cook the fish.

He aimed his hand at the pile of dry branches on the ground.

Boom!

The branches turned to ash, and a crater appeared in the ground.

Zhu Mang: ...

Again.

Boom!

Another crater.

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

After more than a dozen craters appeared in the ground one after another, Zhu Mang chose to give up.

His ki only possessed destructive power; it could not ignite firewood.

Still, if he remembered correctly, ki could directly cook things too, right?

Little Goku had used a Kamehameha to grill octopus, hadn't he?

Zhu Mang thought for a moment, then aimed his hand at the fish beside him.

And so...

The first fish was reduced straight to ashes.

Again.

Boom!

The second fish was still burnt far too badly.

Again.

Again...

After a while, Zhu Mang stared speechlessly at the sole surviving fish in his hand, blackened beyond recognition.

"Damn it, couldn't I have gone to Earth or Yardrat first to study fine ki control before transmigrating?"

Though Saiyans also had what was known as "early childhood education," it was really nothing more than brutal combat training.

In fact, it was not just Saiyans. In Dragon Ball, aside from a very small number of races such as Earthlings, Namekians, and Yardratians, most people's use of ki was limited to simply "using" it.

It could not be considered technique at all.

There were many reasons for this phenomenon.

One particularly important reason was that the people of the universe possessed too much ki within their bodies.

Take Saiyans, for example.

Among Saiyans, warriors were divided into "low-class warriors" and "elite warriors" based on their battle power at birth.

One criterion for being classified as a low-class warrior was having extremely low battle power at birth.

Yet this so-called "extremely low" actually meant a battle power below 100 at birth.

What did that mean?

According to Dragon Ball's original power system—

When the protagonist Son Goku first met Bulma, his battle power was only 10. It was not until he entered the 21st World Martial Arts Tournament that it exceeded 100.

By then, he had undergone considerable harsh training and was already one of Earth's foremost experts.

Yet among Saiyans, that merely meant being judged at birth as a low-class warrior with "poor talent."

They existed as attendants, or even cannon fodder and disposable grunts.

Not to mention those with battle powers in the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even hundreds of millions.

The amount of ki contained within their bodies had already reached an unimaginably enormous level.

When you had plenty, you would not think about conserving it.

Earthlings, on the other hand, had little ki in their bodies, so they tried every possible way to maximize every last bit of it.

"Ugh!"

Zhu Mang brooded for a while, then sighed and stuffed the charred fish into his mouth.

He had originally wanted to imitate Gohan and grill meat with ki.

Forget it. He would make do, fill his stomach a little, and find an inhabited island for a proper meal.

He wolfed down a few bites, hoping to fool the hunger in his belly.

Yet unexpectedly, perhaps because he had become a Saiyan, his appetite had also grown incredibly, ridiculously large.

Just one fish? What kind of Saiyan would that satisfy? It was not even enough to fill the gaps between his teeth!

But looking at the pile of grilled fish on the ground that he truly could not bring himself to eat, Zhu Mang was struck speechless.

"No, I have to find an inhabited island first! At worst, I can find a pirate ship!" Zhu Mang immediately lost all desire to remain on this island.

The more he thought about it, the angrier he became!

He did not even want beef anymore, and he was stuck here eating this garbage?

Boom!

Zhu Mang put on his battle suit, casually grabbed the stack of bounty posters beside him, and shot into the sky. In the blink of an eye, he had left the island.

"Was it this way just now?"

After flying ahead aimlessly for some distance like a headless fly, Zhu Mang suddenly stopped in midair.

Scratching his head, he looked around at the endless sea in every direction, feeling troubled.

"Damn, I'm an idiot. I should've asked to 'borrow' a Log Pose or something. At the very least, I should've asked whether this was one of the Four Blues, the Grand Line, or the New World... Well, great. Now I'm completely in the dark."

Though he could fly quickly and might reach his destination before long if he knew its exact location, the problem was the One Piece World's unusual geographical structure.

He remembered that Oda had mentioned in an SBS that land in the One Piece World was distributed extremely unevenly. That meant the islands were not lined up in straight lines, but scattered in a chaotic, arbitrary fashion.

If his flight path happened to pass through the space between the routes connecting two islands, he might spend his entire life flying through the sky...

Huh?

No, that was not right.

The Red Line stood ten thousand meters high, so it had to be extremely conspicuous. It also intersected the Grand Line perpendicularly. Together with the Calm Belt, which had its own unusual environment, they divided the world into the East, West, South, and North Blues.

So long as he found the ten-thousand-meter Red Line or the windless Calm Belt, he could at least confirm his approximate location... probably.

Damn it!

He really should have kept it back then.

Zhu Mang rubbed his stomach.

For someone with such a huge appetite, the feeling of hunger was truly unbearable.

Should he go down and catch another fish first?

Just as Zhu Mang looked down at the seawater, considering whether to continue traveling or eat first, he caught sight of a figure from the corner of his eye.

The man wore a pink feathered coat, had short blond hair, and sported sunglasses with red lenses. He kept extending his hands, firing nearly transparent threads from them. The threads landed on clouds, supporting his body as he continuously sped through the air.

What a bizarre way to travel.

But to Zhu Mang, it was an unexpected delight.

It was like seeing an oasis just as he was about to starve to death in the desert!

Such distinctive clothing, such an obvious Devil Fruit ability!

Anyone who had so much as seen the New World arc of One Piece could identify him at a glance.

One of the Shichibukai, the Heavenly Yaksha, the villainous boss of the Dressrosa arc in the original story: Donquixote Doflamingo!

"Hmm?"

Just as Zhu Mang spotted him, Doflamingo had evidently also noticed Zhu Mang, the strangely behaving man floating in the air.

"Fufufufu~ Not a Marine, not a pirate, and you can float in the air without any outside aid. Did you eat Golden Lion's Float-Float Fruit?"