Dawn tore through the deep blue night sky, smearing cold light across the rugged coastline.
Adams stood at the edge of the wet beach like a silent reef.
He removed the rapier from his waist and set it beside his feet on the rough sand, along with a huge burlap backpack nearly as tall as he was.
The backpack hit the ground, kicking up a small cloud of dust. Adams took a deep breath, sank his consciousness into his body, and an indescribable power instantly surged forth, violently reshaping every corner of him.
His bones warped with teeth-grinding cracks, while strange, rapidly growing tissue stretched his skin and covered it in a hard substance.
In the blink of an eye, an aberrant creature that defied common sense had replaced his original form.
Where Adams's eyes should have been, there were now only lifeless oval yellow patches.
His nose extended straight downward, his lips became thick, and two fangs grew from his mouth.
Brown ring-shaped markings covered his entire body, like tree rings brutally carved deep into ancient wood by time.
His limbs had completely lost the shape of human hands and feet, turning into otter-like webbed claws covered in coarse, short fur.
(PS: After giving it much thought, the author decided to change the protagonist's transformed appearance through shifts in faith. The previous chapter mentioned that Baas's exact appearance came from the faith of the Sky People, but faith can be changed later on.
Since many readers thought it was ugly, the author can reveal in advance that after the faith changes, the beast form will later become the protagonist himself. Also, this most primitive beast form will only appear twice, and there will only be two such transformations in the entire novel.)
Adams pulled a round mirror from the huge backpack. Its cold surface faithfully reflected that grotesque image capable of freezing one's soul.
"Tch, this look is seriously ugly. Looks like I'll need a Rumble Ball makeover later."
He knew what Baas's statue looked like and had long prepared himself mentally for a strange transformation, but seeing it for real was still hard to accept. Without much thought, he decided to make some alterations in the future.
"Hopefully this Mythical Zoan ability is actually good, or I really got screwed over this time."
He casually tossed the mirror back into the backpack, his movement carrying a trace of barely noticeable irritation.
The instant the round mirror fell into the burlap folds, a small hand formed in the wet sand several steps behind Adams. Its palm faced upward, with an eerily embedded eyeball turning nimbly in its center.
Far away, at the edge of the dark, damp forest beyond the shoreline, an extremely small figure crouched behind a thick tree root.
Robin tightly covered her mouth, her tiny body trembling slightly with excitement. There was none of the shock or disgust an ordinary person would have shown on her childish face. Instead, pure delight gleamed in her clear blue eyes.
"So... cute..."
A tiny cry of amazement, filled with childlike delight, barely slipped through the gaps between her fingers.
Unlike normal people, she found things this weird-looking cute instead.
Adams had no idea that an eye behind him was watching from the sand.
His attention was wholly immersed in his first exploration of this body. His webbed claw gripped the hilt of the rapier resting beside him. The blade slid free, drawing a cold arc beneath the newborn sunlight as it slashed without hesitation at his ring-marked forearm.
Clang—!
A piercing metallic crash rang out as though the blade had struck tempered steel, violently bouncing upward.
The bark-like scaly skin on Adams's arm did not even show the faintest white mark.
Only the intense recoil transmitted through the blade traveled up from his webbed claw to his shoulder, leaving a distinct numb ache.
"Huh, this defense is pretty damn strong."
It felt as if this defensive boost was nearly on par with the dragon scales of the Azure Dragon Fruit. After all, as far as he remembered, other Zoans did not seem to enhance defense.
The beast form's defense was off the charts. Then... what about the hybrid form?
Adams shifted his thoughts again. The Devil Fruit power flowing through him, like tamed lava, began to consciously contract and adjust.
His lips, nose, and teeth returned to normal, while his webbed claws shrank back into human fingers.
Only the dark brown tree-ring markings remained coiled like living things across his chest and the outer sides of his arms. His eyes were still two oval yellow patches embedded in a face whose handsome contours had returned, adding several hints of inhuman eeriness.
Adams took out the mirror and looked at his current appearance before letting out a breath.
"Good thing the hybrid form only has weird eyes. I can barely accept that."
He slashed himself again and got the same result as before, leading him to conclude that the hybrid form and beast form had no difference in defensive power.
He canceled his transformation. Picking up the rapier from the ground again, he flashed the blade and mercilessly slashed at his left arm.
A clear red mark instantly appeared on his skin, slightly raised as its edges quickly reddened and swelled. A burning pain shot along his nerve endings straight into his brain.
"Looks like the defense boost only comes after transforming, but my normal defense has improved quite a bit too."
Adams looked at the red mark and calmly analyzed it. He clearly remembered that before eating the fruit, a blade could still cut him until he bled.
Next came testing the Mythical Zoan abilities.
Adams turned his gaze toward the smooth pebbles polished by the waves on the beach. He reached out and casually grabbed a handful.
The pebbles felt cold and hard in his palm. He focused his mind, and a heavy power like the earth itself spread from his hand, gently wrapping around them.
A miracle appeared in his palm. The handful of pebbles instantly broke free from gravity's restraints and, as though lifted by an invisible hand, steadily floated several inches above his open palm, quietly rotating and glinting in the morning light.
Adams looked past the floating stones and locked onto a black reef ten meters away, riddled with holes carved by the waves.
The floating stones turned into several blurry gray streaks, tearing through the air with sharp, brief shrieks! Puff! Puff! Puff! Puff!
A series of dull, heavy impacts exploded almost simultaneously. Several clouds of stone dust burst across the hard black reef's surface. When the dust settled, seven or eight smooth-edged, bottomless holes had appeared in it, as though invisible drills had pierced through it in an instant.
Adams nodded slightly, a flash of satisfaction passing through his eyes. It truly possessed the Float-Float Fruit's ability.
Records were only records. He would not feel at ease without personally testing it.
Next was creating Baas—the enhanced version of the Clay-Clay Fruit's ability.
Adams held his palm downward and spread his five fingers. Countless grains of sand surged forth, and within only a few breaths, a soldier roughly two meters tall, entirely made of dark brown soil and sand, rose from the ground and stood before him.
It had no facial features, only a crudely simulated head and torso. Its limbs were simple columns, though its ten fingers were clearly defined.
Adams stepped back, flicked his wrist, and the rapier became a swift streak of silver lightning, precisely cutting toward the clay soldier's neck.
Dirt splattered as the soldier's head fell at once, smashing onto the beach and breaking into a puddle of mud.
Yet the headless clay body did not fall. At the severed neck, fresh earth surged upward like living black asphalt, stretching and taking shape...
In less than two seconds, an identical head reappeared intact atop that crude body.
"Just as expected, soldiers created by the Clay-Clay Fruit are immortal too."
Adams spoke with a delighted expression. Immortal soldiers meant no military pay or pensions, and likewise meant workers who could truly work twenty-four hours a day.
Just as he was getting excited, hunger came over him like a belated tide, accompanied by a deep sense of exhaustion.
Adams understood that repeatedly activating his abilities had drained his stamina. It was perfectly normal for this body, which had never trained before, to react this way.
He pulled out a cold rice ball wrapped in oiled paper from his backpack, sat down where he was, and began chewing in large bites. He had anticipated this situation beforehand.
As he swallowed food to replenish his strength, he stared unblinkingly at the clay soldier. At the same time, he pulled an alarm clock from his backpack and placed it on the sand beside him. The ticking of its second hand became the only rhythm at that moment.
He wanted to determine how long the soldier could last.
He looked at the color beneath the soldier's feet, which was completely identical to the beach.
His thoughts could not help but wander.
The soldier created on a beach was a mixture of soil and sand. Then what would one created on ordinary ground be like?
Thinking of this, Adams did not hesitate. He ran to a patch of normal earth nearby and created another soldier, discovering that its surface color was exactly the same as the ground beneath his feet.
His eyes lit up. Based on what he was seeing, he believed that on Drum Island, he could create snowman soldiers, while at the North or South Pole, he could create ice soldiers.
So his ability to create Baas was actually conceptual? It depended entirely on what the ground beneath his feet was made of.
The thought made him smack his lips in secret amazement.
When the second hand tirelessly completed its final circuit and a clear, urgent ring-ring-ring— sounded from within the alarm clock, the first soldier he had created collapsed completely like a sandcastle stripped of all support. It returned to an ordinary pile of soil and sand mixed into the beach, leaving no trace behind.
Adams's gaze swept over the alarm clock.
"...One hour."
He repeated it softly, stuffing the last bit of rice ball into his mouth and chewing hard.
"I hope further development can extend the duration. Otherwise, it can't be used as a laborer at all."
Next, Adams tested Earth Assimilation and the ability to travel through the ground, discovering that they were indeed consistent with the records.
After finishing that, he stopped testing, because he had discovered through last night's reading that gravity and earthquakes were Awakening abilities, things he could not accomplish yet.
The ability tests came to an end. There was not the slightest hint of relaxation on Adams's face. He picked up the cold rapier again and steadied his stance.
Having both the Float-Float and Heavy-Heavy "templates," he naturally had to become a swordsman.
He assumed the most basic slashing stance.
Whoosh—!
The blade cut through the air with a sharp, powerful sound.
Whoosh—! Whoosh—!
Once, then again.
There were no flashy techniques, only the most primitive and pure mechanical repetition. Slash, withdraw, slash again.
Meanwhile, beneath the dense shadows at the edge of the forest.
A trace of pure amusement quietly bloomed across Robin's little face like a flower bud opening for the first time.
TO BE CONTINUED