A first test

Dawn tore through the curtain of night, casting the first rays of morning light onto the island.

Like living tendrils, the light crept cautiously into the rocky hollow where Boer had taken shelter, dappling his curled-up body and dispelling the bone-chilling cold left behind by the night.

That warmth finally roused Boer from his deep unconsciousness.

He slowly sat up, his movements carrying a lightness he had never felt before.

Last night's exhaustion and frailty seemed to have vanished completely, replaced by abundant vitality that almost overflowed.

He walked to the edge of the hollow and looked up. The sky was a clear azure after the rain, deep and vast.

The sea before him had reined in its fury, turning a gentle indigo in the morning light. Its waves softly caressed the beach with soothing whispers.

Never had the whole world felt so vivid, so alive to his senses.

He drew a deep breath, as though to take this brand-new world entirely into his lungs, then exhaled at length, releasing the gloom and stale air pent up inside him.

"Reborn..." Boer murmured, brushing his fingertips over his cheek to wipe away the dried, dark-red blood crusts that made him uncomfortable.

An indescribable instinct was awakening and surging deep in his blood, like a dormant dragon opening its eyes.

Without instruction or practice, a slight shift of thought sent an invisible force silently spreading outward from him.

It was neither a sound nor an impact, but more like a ripple that merged with the frequencies of all things.

This magnetic fluctuation ignored physical barriers, easily penetrating thick rock and deep seawater, laying bare the world within a radius of nearly a kilometer before his "eyes" in an entirely new way.

"Extrasensory Vision!"

A real world composed of energy lines and the fluctuations of life.

"Heh, what did Kid know about the Magnet-Magnet Fruit?"

In his perception, the island beneath his feet was no longer silent earth and stone, but emitted steady, warm Magnetic Lines.

The nearby forest was a swaying sea of Jade Green halos. Every tree and every blade of grass gave off faint electromagnetic whispers as it photosynthesized.

Seabirds soaring through the sky traced swift cyan trails; schools of fish swimming through the shallows gathered and scattered into shifting clouds of silver-blue.

His attention returned to the ground at his feet. The dagger that had accompanied him and witnessed his transformation took on a unique form in his Extrasensory Vision.

It was an energy outline composed mainly of flowing silver, interspersed with unstable black spots representing impurities and structural weaknesses.

I can control it. The thought arose as naturally as instinct.

At his thought, the dagger suddenly rose from the sand as though drawn by invisible threads and hovered in the air.

It was no longer a cold, lifeless object, but an extension of his limbs.

The dagger began to roam through the air, sometimes thrusting as swiftly as a hunting falcon, tearing through the air with a shrill whistle; sometimes fluttering as lightly as a butterfly, tracing slow, uncanny arcs around him.

The sensation was utterly wondrous, like receiving the first toy in his life that truly belonged to him. Boer immersed himself in it, almost unable to put it down.

He soon discovered that moving such a small weight of metal consumed negligible stamina. It was as natural as breathing, an instinct rooted deep in his genes.

"The Magnet-Magnet Fruit..." he murmured. Then uncontrollable elation surged through him. "The Magnet-Magnet Fruit! Hahahaha!" He laughed out loud toward the sea.

His laughter echoed across the empty beach. "This is... this is my pass into the ranks of the strongest across the Four Seas! The stepping stone to knocking on the doors of the emperors' thrones in the New World! It's... it's a direct ticket to that supreme divine throne!"

After the elation came a deeper desire to explore. Was manipulating its form all he could do?

"Then... how about this?"

The hovering dagger moved at his words.

In his Extrasensory Vision, the flowing cyan energy outline seemed to be kneaded and molded by an invisible hand, rapidly gathering toward his palm.

The physical dagger disintegrated in turn. Its metal molecules rearranged under the magnetic field, transforming into a thin layer of constantly flowing liquid metal.

Like a living stream of black water, it instantly covered his right hand, forming a perfectly fitted metal glove that gleamed with a cold, dark luster.

Sharp metal spikes naturally extended from the ends of his five fingers, becoming deadly blade tips.

He casually raised his hand and slashed at the hard rock wall beside him.

This fifteen-year-old body had limited strength. With arm strength alone, the blades on his fingertips left only pale, shallow scratches in the rock, no deeper than the thickness of a fingernail.

But the next moment, his thoughts shifted again. The metal glove covering his hand instantly began vibrating at high frequency, while a powerful magnetic thrust burst from his arm.

Pfft.

With a soft sound, his hand sank easily into the hard rock all the way to his wrist, as though plunging into a thick, springy sponge!

He slowly rotated his arm, feeling the resistance as the rock was forcibly pushed aside by the magnetic field and vibrating metal, then easily pulled it free.

A neat circular hole with smooth edges remained in the rock.

The rising sun emerged fully above the horizon, spilling golden light across the beach without reserve and illuminating Boer's youthful yet utterly transformed face.

The sunlight dispelled the last trace of despair and gloom lingering in his heart.

Ease, pleasure, and even the confidence that he controlled his own destiny shone from the depths of his eyes. Their corners unconsciously curved as a heartfelt smile appeared on his face.

He strolled across the fine sand like a young monarch inspecting his kingdom.

And on a level ordinary people could not perceive, a silent conquest was unfolding.

His Extrasensory Vision penetrated the sand, clearly "seeing" countless faint silver points buried beneath it-the iron contained in the soil.

Now, as though they had heard their king's summons, these sleeping metal particles began vibrating at high frequency, breaking free of the sand and becoming countless slender silver streams that converged on him from every direction.

Like living black threads, the iron sand flowed toward his body, impatiently competing to reach him first.

It hovered, wove, and assembled around him, finally forming light black-sand armor that covered all the vital parts of his body.

A deep-blue magnetic glow flickered across the armor's surface.

He walked to the shore to test the limits of his ability further. With a thought, an invisible force marked a distant reef rock.

He could sense precisely that, within fifty meters, his control over metal was as natural as moving his own fingers, accurate and powerful.

Beyond that distance, his control began to decline linearly, as though the signal were suffering interference.

When the distance reached a hundred meters, the connection abruptly broke, and the marked rock no longer responded. This was the absolute range of his current ability.

His survival instinct drove him to put it into practice. In his Extrasensory Vision, the life signals in the shallows were displayed as clearly as goods on supermarket shelves.

Schools of fish were lively clusters of silver light, sea crabs were slowly moving orange points, and sea snakes lurking in reef crevices appeared a cold, dark green.

While continuing to draw iron from the beach and rock layers to refine his light armor and replenish his "ammunition," he used a metal straw to enjoy coconut juice gathered from a tree.

Then the hunt began.

With a slight shift of thought, a steel needle formed from iron sand appeared out of thin air, then shot away as a streak of gray lightning too fast for the naked eye to follow.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Utterly precise. A huge lobster waving its claws on a reef rock was instantly pierced by the steel needle and brought back.

Like living nanobots, the iron rapidly covered the lobster's shell, then peeled it off perfectly in a way that defied the laws of physics, revealing translucent flesh.

An iron plate he had formed in advance appeared in the air at just the right moment. Magnetic energy converted into heat, precisely regulated to the ideal temperature.

In his Extrasensory Vision, the lobster meat's heating process seemed to have an invisible "progress bar." The degree of protein denaturation and moisture retention were both perfectly controlled.

Soon, a rich, savory aroma spread. Tasting the grilled lobster, perfectly cooked in its own natural juices, Boer narrowed his eyes in satisfaction.

This was no longer a struggle to survive on raw flesh and blood, but an elegant art of survival filled with technical sophistication.

Once he had filled his stomach, a larger plan took shape in his mind.

Explore the entire island and search for possible survivors-if any pirates were alive, he would not mind using them to test the lethality of his new abilities;

Find a suitable location and build a sturdy, comfortable shelter;

Keep gathering metal, whether from the island's mineral veins or shipwreck remains, all of it valuable resources;

Systematically develop and train the Magnet-Magnet Fruit's abilities, tapping into its deeper potential...

He even thought of further applications. "Perhaps I could build a large electromagnetic heating device to evaporate seawater efficiently, obtaining sea salt and distilled fresh water at the same time."

"I should be able to find wild spices and fruit in the woods to diversify my diet."

"Maybe... this seemingly primitive island even has prehistoric creatures, such as... dinosaurs, saber-toothed tigers, or mammoths? They would make good opponents to test my combat strength."

Swallowing the last mouthful of delicious lobster meat, Boer stood and looked toward the island's interior.

Sunlight gilded his silhouette, the flowing black-sand armor around him complementing the ambition gleaming in his eyes.