Ten thousand meters in the sky, at the source of the Silence Field.
Boer hovered quietly, like a hunter suspended at the center of a web, or a composed observer standing outside a vast experiment.
The Golden Superconducting Ring in his chest, fused with the essence of the Rumble-Rumble Fruit, operated steadily. It efficiently converted the nearly limitless electric charge and magnetic energy in nature into surging yet absolutely controlled power, channeling it into his body of interwoven deep blue and pallid white.
His power was growing, his control becoming more refined, but neither was the focus of his contemplation.
His consciousness turned inward. Like the most precise scalpel, his Extrasensory Vision repeatedly "dissected" his peculiar physical state-half magnetic skeleton, half flesh and blood.
His left side was a profound blue, its energy-based magnetic skeleton structure circulating steadily. It was the outward manifestation of the Magnet-Magnet Fruit's awakened power, the result of matter being assimilated by a magnetic field.
His right side, however, remained pale but living human flesh-fragile, yet also his final anchor as the living being called "Aaron Ball."
"Because there's no phantom of the Devil Fruit's rules to support and guide it..." Boer murmured, the light of rational analysis flickering in his eyes.
The lack of guidance from a phantom of the Devil Fruit's rules had caused a "discontinuity" or "mutation" in his awakening process. He could neither fully turn into an element like a Logia nor completely assimilate himself into his ability's substance like certain awakened Paramecia users. He could only remain stuck in this intermediate state.
And yet...
Boer looked down at Mary Geoise, which he had forcibly silenced, its internal chaos and decay gradually coming to light. A bold hypothesis, approaching the problem in reverse, slowly took shape in his mind.
"Since a body