Hirt Lind

Blazing sunlight poured over the boundless sea. Amid the glittering waves, a battered little boat teetered under the fury of a storm.

Finally, with a deafening crash, a massive wave mercilessly swallowed the boat, leaving only scattered planks and foam drifting across the blue-and-gray sea.

Somewhere on that vast ocean, only a boy in ragged clothes remained. A hint of fear and resolve shone in his eyes as he curled up inside a wooden barrel, drifting with the current.

Gentle sunlight filtered through the dense canopy, dappling the ground. A boy slowly regained consciousness, bringing a faint touch of human life to the desolate little island.

"Uh, where am I?" Feeling the weakness and pain in his body, Lind realized he apparently wouldn't have to report to the King of Hell after all.

"I must be the disgrace of the fishing world. Not only did I catch nothing, I even slipped and fell into the water!"

"Next time I go fishing, I have to bring someone along. Thank goodness I got lucky, or I'd definitely have been a goner." Lind took a deep breath, grateful to be alive.

In his previous life, Lind had been a third-year agriculture student, tending crops at an experimental farm partnered with his university.

Over the weekend, he had gone fishing alone at a river near the farm. After catching nothing for hours, he had kept changing spots.

Finally, while moving to yet another spot, he had lost his footing and fallen into the river.

"Looking at this familiar blue sky, I must have washed ashore. The heavens really were watching over me this time."

Having narrowly escaped death, Lind had no idea of his actual circumstances. He simply assumed he had been lucky enough to wash ashore.

After all, he had little experience with falling into the water. He had seen plenty of people on television wash ashore afterward and assumed the same had happened to him.

"I wonder how long I was unconscious. I hope Professor Wang's doing all right. I need to hurry back."

Suddenly, Lind realized something was wrong. Had he been reborn? Or had he transmigrated?

He looked at his hands and arms, which had shrunk by who knew how much.

Lind knew Professor Wang probably wasn't doing all right at the moment.

As the person in charge of the farm, he was probably frantic over Lind's disappearance.

Fortunately, Lind had already joined the ranks of the "Qidian Orphanage" in his previous life, with no family ties to hold him back.

Apart from causing Professor Wang and the university a teensy mountain of trouble, his disappearance wouldn't have much impact.

He did feel bad for Professor Wang, though. The professor had treated him quite well lately, and his fishing accident was bound to cause the man considerable trouble.

"What a waste of my graduation thesis. I wonder which junior will get to reap the benefits."

"Or maybe the university will flag it as a cautionary example to warn future students."

Lind stretched his stiff body and soon put Professor Wang out of his mind, considering the other consequences of his disappearance. Its educational value, for instance?

After all, agriculture students often had to spend time at various agricultural facilities, which inevitably meant frequent contact with rivers and lakes.

Getting too reckless was bound to lead to trouble. Lind was a living example, a warning to any agriculture students entertaining similar ideas.

"Ah, I'd better think about how to stay alive." Lind sighed and spoke softly.

"This salty sea breeze and soft sand... this body probably got caught in a shipwreck." Lind scooped up a handful of sand beneath him, speculating about what had happened to this body.

"I just don't know where I washed up. Hopefully, this isn't a deserted island."

"Sure, I've read Robinson Crusoe, and I know my way around farming, but wilderness survival is still just a teensy bit too difficult!"

The thought of his possible circumstances gave Lind a headache.

"Ah, one step at a time! Let's check out the surroundings first."

Lind rubbed his head and was about to get up and explore the island.

Suddenly, a violent stab of pain shot through his brain, making him cry out involuntarily.

"Aaargh!"

A mass of jumbled memories churned, collided, and merged inside Lind's mind.

His body convulsed from the pain. Only after more than ten minutes did the agonizing headache gradually subside.

"This world feels a little familiar. No, very familiar!" Lind exclaimed as he sifted through the scattered memories in his mind.

"None of the original characters are in these memories, but the World Government, the Navy, pirates, the New World... this is probably that world. It's just a little early in the timeline."

"The year 1477, huh? It's a bit early, but that also gives me more time to grow stronger. The question is whether I can actually manage it."

Lind lay on the ground, slowly sorting through his memories while murmuring his thoughts aloud.

"Hirt Lind... another member of the Qidian Orphanage!"

"With no family anywhere, there's probably no one coming to save me. From here on out, I can only rely on myself!"

"This world doesn't really have continents. I just hope I've drifted onto an inhabited island."

"Then I can find a job, lie low for now, and slowly look for opportunities!"

After lying on the ground a while longer to recover, Lind endured the pain and stood up, ready to explore the island properly.

Time soon passed, and the sun lost the gentleness it had possessed when Lind first awoke, growing increasingly fierce.

Carrying some fruit, Lind emerged from the woods in the island's interior and returned to the shore where he had first awakened.

"What a mixed blessing my luck is!"

Lind sighed as he looked at the purple fruit in his hand, covered in spiraling arabesque patterns.

After spending two hours on a brief exploration, Lind had more or less concluded that this was a very small deserted island.

It was probably only about a kilometer across. He would most likely have to live like a wild man for a while.

Honestly, Lind had really hoped it would be a large, inhabited island where he could simply settle down and lie low.

He could have planned his future carefully and quietly built up his strength.

Although that wish hadn't come true, Lind's luck was still fairly decent.

The island was small, but it had plenty of fruit trees. Coconuts, bananas, durians, and other tropical fruits were all present in such abundance that Lind was a little astonished.

While exploring, he had even spotted small animals resembling squirrels and rabbits, so food was essentially nothing to worry about.

As for water, Lind had found quite a few small ponds on the island.

They might not be particularly clean, but humans in this world weren't as physically frail as the humans of his previous life.

Drinking that water should be perfectly fine. If necessary, he could always boil it first.

In short, surviving on this island shouldn't be much of a problem for Lind.

The fruit in his hand, in particular, gave him ample confidence.

"I've been awake this long without discovering any cheat ability, so I probably don't have one. This Devil Fruit might be my only hope of changing my fate."

"After all, this body's natural potential is probably only average. Without a Devil Fruit, I'll likely spend my whole life struggling at the bottom."

Holding the Devil Fruit, Lind spoke to himself.

"I'll leave it to fate! Only by seizing the present can I have a future! Those Devil Fruits from the original story are too far out of reach!"

"I finally got a second chance at life and came to this world. I refuse to spend my whole life struggling at the bottom!"

With that, Lind's gaze hardened. Without any further hesitation, he took a bite.

"Fuck, this Devil Fruit really tastes as bad as they say." The resolve in Lind's eyes vanished the instant he bit into it, and he cursed aloud.

The taste in his mouth was almost more than Lind could bear.

But remembering the "rumors" he had read online in his previous life, he fought down his nausea and ate the entire Devil Fruit.

Better safe than sorry. Perhaps he really did have to eat the whole fruit to fully develop its powers.

With his eyes closed and his face contorted in pain, he finished the entire Devil Fruit.

Lind immediately grabbed a coconut he had picked during his exploration and gulped down its water, trying to drown out the Devil Fruit's taste.

"Good thing I had the foresight to open a coconut ahead of time. Otherwise, I'd have thrown up every bit of food I just ate."

As he drank the coconut water, Lind kept grumbling about the Devil Fruit's taste.

Only after draining the entire coconut did Lind feel alive again.

Sitting casually on the ground, Lind ate the remaining coconut flesh while examining the fruit power he had acquired.

"Damn, this fruit's pretty badass!" Lind exclaimed.

"Was this fruit in the original story? It actually grants mutation powers. If I develop it well, it might even rival a miniature Devil Fruit Tree!"

The Mutation Fruit's power thrilled Lind, but he soon discovered its shortcomings.

The mutations were uncontrollable, their effects were weak, and those effects were difficult to develop.

Those three statements summed up the fruit's flaws.

First, the mutations were uncontrollable, which immediately ruled out the possibility of Lind mutating himself.

A beneficial mutation would be fine, but what if it was harmful?

He might turn straight into a mindless zombie or a sexless freak. The mere thought made him shudder.

Perhaps the future Kaido and Golden Lion would really like this thing. They could have a loyal subordinate eat it, then play the odds.

With a large enough pool of subjects, they would eventually create a powerful mutant army, one not much worse than Kaido's Beasts Pirates or Golden Lion's army of beasts in the original story.

Unfortunately, Lind's goal was to improve his own strength, so that approach was out of the question.

Next, the mutation effects were weak. Even if a mutation succeeded and proved beneficial, that problem remained.

For the same sort of animal-related power, a Zoan Devil Fruit could improve physical abilities across the board and could certainly be developed far beyond the animal's own limits.

A mutation, however, was simply a mutation: a cheetah's speed, a tiger's strength, or a wolf's sharp claws, for example.

That sounded decent, but in this world, even a few technological advances could far surpass those effects.

If he mutated a wolf's claws, for instance, that would indeed count as beneficial, but what use would they be? He might be better off just hacking away with a kitchen knife.

Finally, the mutation effects were difficult to develop. "Difficult" was putting it mildly; essentially, they couldn't be developed at all.

If he grew wolf claws, they would most likely remain ordinary wolf claws forever.

Unless a scientist like Vegapunk modified him, he would never become Wolverine.

But if he was already getting modified by Vegapunk, those previously mutated wolf claws might not only be useless, but actually get in the way.

"Until I find a way to control the direction of mutation, I absolutely cannot use it on myself!" Lind declared fiercely.

After understanding the shortcomings of his fruit, Lind gave up hope of directly mutating into the Hulk, Magneto, or other American comic-book characters.

To grow stronger, he would probably have to follow the conventional paths of physical combat and swordsmanship. For the foreseeable future, the Mutation Fruit could only help him grow stronger by mutating external things.

"Counting on mutations to directly give me powerful abilities isn't reliable. I have to find another way!"

"In this situation, I can only return to my old trade. Hopefully, the plants on this island can mutate into something good."

"After all, this body's natural potential is what it is. Without outside help, ordinary training might only get me to the level of a pirate with a bounty of a few million."

Lind considered how to use the Mutation Fruit and soon rallied his spirits. His knowledge from his previous life gave him plenty of ideas for developing his Devil Fruit.

Based on Lind's years of experience reading novels, the best solution in this situation was farming.

Then he could slowly mutate all kinds of special plants, some flashy and others plain and unassuming, and use them to improve his strength.

With generations of improvements in the future, perhaps even a grain of rice that extended life by ten thousand years or a peach that let someone ascend to immortality wouldn't be impossible.

"The road may be winding, but the future is bright. I'll lie low until I'm invincible, then make my debut!"

Lind swallowed the last piece of coconut flesh, stood up, and declared loudly.

He gazed at the sea before him, a different light shining in his eyes.

"So next, I'll stockpile food, build high walls, and focus on growing stronger. After that, I'll make my voice heard in this world!"