Devil Fruit?

The island was so full of life that after searching all morning, he had not found even a few strands of dry grass suitable for starting a fire.

The lush greenery covering the mountains and fields had lost all color in Gato's eyes. This boundless vitality brought him nothing but the threat of death.

In truth, even in the most vibrant forest, dry tinder was not hard to find—rough old tree bark, dry moss that could be found everywhere.

But Gato did not know that. His memories from his previous life regarding survival only covered the basics of what was needed for wilderness survival. As for how to actually do it, he was completely clueless.

It was already pretty good that he knew making fire by friction was not just about rubbing wood together and required tinder as well. After all, not everyone was Bear Grylls.

"Right, dung!"

He did not know how to survive in the wild, but Gato suddenly remembered that dung could be burned too. Its loose structure seemed quite suitable for tinder.

Dried herbivore dung was highly combustible, and the animal droppings he had found earlier might be suitable.

Those nauseating piles of excrement became his lifeline once again. He had found the campsite earlier by following those droppings.

After returning to the campsite, Gato began searching the area for dung.

He quickly gathered enough dry dung and prepared to start a fire.

With his first ample experience of failure, his movements were much more practiced.

When he saw a flame rise from the filthy dung, emotion flooded his chest.

But it was not time to celebrate yet. He hurriedly added more dry dung to feed the fire and make the flames bigger.

His morning search had yielded results after all. Shrubs were everywhere in this forest.

Those branches were unsuitable as kindling, but once the flames were large enough, they could serve as firewood.

"Hahaha, not bad at all, Mr. Gato. Didn't I succeed?"

With a fire burning, Gato's hopes were no longer limited to survival. He began looking farther ahead and thinking of more things, such as being rescued.

"Haha, forget all that for now. I've decided—today, I'll treat myself to grilled oysters!"

He did not know whether those shellfish were actually oysters, but the joy of successfully making fire made Gato feel particularly indulgent.

Returning to his "birthplace," Gato suddenly felt an inexplicable sense of happiness, a feeling of having survived a disaster echoing through his heart.

It was here that his journey into this new world had begun.

Whoosh!

Several large oysters were tossed directly into the fire, making the campfire leap violently before it gradually settled down again.

"Seriously, there's nothing more worth looking forward to than this!"

Watching the fire crackle before him, Gato found himself looking forward to the word "life" more than ever.

After a few minutes, Gato vaguely heard a soft pop as the oyster shells opened. He quickly used branches to pull them out.

The moment he pried open the shells with a thin stone shard, wisps of steam suddenly rose up, seeming to carry a refreshing fragrance.

But the oysters were not cooked yet; they had merely been killed by the heat. Gato resisted the temptation and continued using the stone shard to scrape the oyster meat out before placing it back into the shells.

He carried these "dead oysters" to the river, washed them one by one, and left a little water in each shell.

The fire had been burning for a long time. Gato raked out some embers and nearly charred pieces of wood from around the fire to grill the oysters.

The oyster meat in the shells kept bouncing as the water boiled. Once the liquid inside had thickened enough, Gato received the signal that it was time to eat.

"Then I won't hold back."

He carefully blew on them, bit down hard on the oyster meat, eagerly stuffed it into his mouth, then drank every last drop of juice from the shells.

For the first time in dozens of hours, eating cooked food reawakened Gato's taste buds.

There were no seasonings at all, but the sweetness of the river water paired with the seafood's natural freshness, along with the happiness brought by fire that raw food could never provide, nearly made him cry.

After three hours of fussing about, Gato had finally eaten enough to fill his stomach. Grilling oysters was simply too much work for him.

The stone shard was far too dull, and scraping out the oyster meat took tremendous effort. While grilling it, he also had to keep an eye on the fire to keep it from going out.

But it was worth it.

The sky was beginning to darken. With fire, night no longer filled Gato with overwhelming fear, and everything seemed to be moving in a better direction.

But the weather at sea was unpredictable. In the blink of an eye, nature might put on a different face.

"Boom!!" After a flash of lightning, thunder arrived right on cue.

"Damn it, how did I not think of that?"

When building his shelter, all he had thought about was how he could not sleep on the ground. That would have been too terrifying.

Naturally, he had forgotten about the threat from the sky and had not built even a crude rain shelter.

More importantly, he had not considered it at all when starting the fire. As soon as it rained, this flame of life would be extinguished.

"It's over. It's all over." Gato's face instantly turned pale.

He had already experienced the horror of a first night without fire. Mosquito bites had kept him tossing and turning, and it had taken him a long time to finally fall asleep.

Setting aside the other dangers, he had no idea how many nights like this he could endure.

What's more, the hope he had finally managed to build was about to be snuffed out. The feeling was simply too crushing.

The heavy rain ignored Gato's prayers and fell as it pleased, extinguishing the flickering flames and plunging Gato into despair.

The rain would also continuously draw heat from his body. Before long, he would be in danger of hypothermia.

If this rain lasted through the night, he probably would not live to see tomorrow's sun.

"How ridiculous. How could I die here in such obscurity?!" Gato roared unwillingly in his heart.

The dark clouds slowly gathered, and it seemed the rain would not end anytime soon.

The amassed clouds seemed to contain even greater energy as a bolt of lightning descended upon the island.

Gato was thoroughly startled. The lightning was as thick as a boa constrictor, and it struck not far from the camp, only a few hundred meters away.

The lightning flashed with blinding brightness. Even from several hundred meters away, Gato felt his body go numb, while the tree it struck turned into a mass of flames.

Yet what surprised him even more was that the burning tree had not been extinguished by the downpour. Ten minutes passed, and it was still ablaze, utterly out of place with its surroundings.

"Damn, this world is insane."

Thanks to that tree, he now knew where he could find a way to survive.

Working up his courage, he made his way to the tree and discovered that the flames seemed to give off no heat at all. Nor could he see any rain falling beneath it.

This unscientific, almost cultivation-like scene made his heart race.

"It seems I've come to an incredible world!"

He saw it—a vividly colored fruit covered in intricate patterns hanging from the crown of the tree.

He saw a storm.

"A Devil Fruit? Is this the world of One Piece?!"