Brain storage area ( ).
A boy in tattered clothes lay quietly on the beach, seawater washing over the cuffs of his trousers and rippling gently.
"Where is this?"
The boy's fingers twitched, and his eyelids fluttered slightly. The moment he opened his eyes, the dazzling sunlight forced him to squint for quite a while before he could open them wide.
What greeted him was a blue sky, white clouds, and circling seagulls.
"Did I make it to heaven?" the boy muttered to himself.
"Figures. A good person like me was always helping others while I was alive. Reminding teachers to assign homework when class ended, helping old ladies cross the road, fixing computers for widows who lived alone-all a piece of cake. My good deeds were practically immeasurable."
"Of course I'd go to heaven after dying."
The boy shifted his body slightly, trying to get up.
"Hiss!"
"Ow, ow, ow!"
"What's going on? Why can I still feel pain when I'm already in heaven?"
The boy couldn't understand it.
"Could it be that I didn't die? Then where am I?"
The boy gently raised his right hand, then lowered his head to look at his body.
"Holy shit! How did I turn into a kid? Even if I reincarnated, shouldn't I be a baby?"
Immediately afterward, a wave of dizziness swept through his head, and a flood of memories poured into his mind.
"I transmigrated? Into the world of One Piece, no less? And my soul ended up in someone else's body? Wait, your name was Lott too?"
Lott stared at the sky and roared, "You bastard heavens! I only said it offhand, and you actually sent me to the pirate world? Come on! I was only a hundred thousand short of getting Ru Hua to agree to be my girlfriend!"
Lott had originally been from China on Blue Star and worked in the software department of a publicly listed Fortune 500 company.
He was a code monkey, spending every day writing bugs and fixing bugs.
Endless work, endless overtime, a female boss who lusted after his good looks, a virtually nonexistent social life, and no friends.
Apart from bugs, the manga One Piece had kept him company more than anything else each day.
After finishing overtime on Lunar New Year's Eve, Lott had been heading home late at night, still complaining about why he had to work on New Year's Eve this year too.
He had also been fantasizing about how, if he transmigrated into the world of One Piece, he wouldn't have to go to work every day and would have anime waifus to keep him company.
But while crossing an intersection, he had been hit by a speeding dump truck and sent flying more than ten meters.
Crimson had blurred Lott's vision, and as his consciousness faded, he had actually transmigrated into the world of One Piece.
"I was really just talking! Don't take it seriously! Ru Hua is still waiting for me on Blue Star."
Ru Hua was a new sales representative at their company, and its only woman apart from his female boss.
After pondering for quite a while, Lott finally came back to his senses and began going through the original owner's memories.
"So the original owner was a poor bastard too."
The town where this body had lived had been captured by pirates, and his parents had risked their lives to send him out to sea.
But another pirate crew had discovered him and forcibly taken him aboard, making him a cabin boy.
And he had stayed there for more than three years.
Cabin boys had no standing on a pirate ship. Everyone ordered them around, and even the ship's dog ranked above them.
Cabin boys ate leftovers and were often beaten. Being beaten to death aboard the ship was perfectly normal.
There had actually been two cabin boys before; the other had been an old man.
But the old man had broken one of Captain Feide Xiangzhu's wineglasses and been beaten to death for it.
Yesterday, Lott had forgotten to knock before going in to clean the toilet and walked in on First Mate Joseph and one of the captain's women playing "poker" inside.
The first mate had beaten him half to death and thrown him into the sea.
Fortunately, the original owner had been lucky enough not to get eaten by sharks and had instead drifted onto the beach with the waves.
"You had it way too rough. All I got was a daily scolding from my boss."
[Ding. Host detected to have successfully transmigrated into the pirate world. System activation in progress.]
Hearing the mechanical voice ring out in his head, Lott forced himself upright. "What? I get a cheat too?"
A progress bar was loading in Lott's mind.
Before long, the progress bar filled up.
[Choice System activation complete. Received starter pack ×1.]
"Oh? There's a starter pack too? Hurry up and open it!"
[Ding. Starter pack successfully opened. Received: Wahaha purified water ×1 case, Nami photo album ×1, Paramecia Devil Fruit ×1, beginner physical combat card ×1, system storage 3×3.]
As the mechanical voice sounded in his head, Lott couldn't help complaining, "I'm already in the pirate world. What do I need a Nami photo album for?"
Still, he was incredibly excited.
In his previous life, Lott had been worked to the bone every day, but watching an episode or two of One Piece after work had left him feeling full of energy.
One Piece had been Lott's spiritual sustenance in his previous life.
With a thought, Lott opened the storage space and took out a strange fruit that looked like a pineapple.
"So this is a Devil Fruit? Why does it look so ugly?"
Looking at the Devil Fruit in his hand, Lott felt inexplicably nauseated. "Just looking at it is already disgusting enough. How am I supposed to take a bite?"
"And this is only a Paramecia Devil Fruit. Wouldn't eating it now be a waste? I might run into a Logia Devil Fruit someday."
"Whatever. Anything from the system has to be top quality. Screw it!"
Lott lifted the Devil Fruit and sniffed it. "It doesn't seem to have any strange smell. Hopefully, it only tastes awful to people from the pirate world."
After a moment's hesitation, he bit into it.
Crunch...
Bleurgh~
"It really does taste awful. I've never eaten shit, but I'm sure this thing tastes no better!"
Gulp~
Fighting back his nausea, Lott swallowed the piece of fruit in his mouth.
"Get lost!"
Using almost all his strength, he hurled the remaining Devil Fruit two meters away.
Only as he watched the waves slowly drag the Devil Fruit into the sea did Lott's nausea gradually subside.
After eating the Devil Fruit, Lott also learned that it was the Paramecia-type Electromagnetic Fruit.
If the bones in his body hadn't been beaten into four hundred pieces, Lott would have jumped up and shouted.
"The Electromagnetic Fruit! It might not be much use if someone from the world of One Piece ate it, but who am I? Lan City's top scorer in physics on the college entrance exam!"
"This is absolutely the strongest Paramecia Devil Fruit! Even the Tremor-Tremor Fruit can step aside."
"Gahahaha! World of One Piece, here I come! Waifus, here I come!!!"
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