"I never thought I'd get the Tremor-Tremor Fruit before Whitebeard. What will it bring me? Death, like it brought its previous owners? Or the power to destroy the world, like Whitebeard?" Zesi said, looking at the Devil Fruit in his hand as he sat in the carriage.
Without the slightest worry, Zesi picked up the Tremor-Tremor Fruit and bit into it.
"It really does taste just like the legends say. Absolutely disgusting!"
Zesi nearly threw up.
"So this is the power of the Tremor-Tremor Fruit?"
Not long after eating the Devil Fruit, Zesi felt the changes the Tremor-Tremor Fruit had brought him.
As its name suggested, the Tremor-Tremor Fruit granted the ability to cause vibrations.
Zesi now felt like a source of vibrations, able to produce them with ease.
Zesi raised his hand, and a faint white glow enveloped his fist.
With anticipation in his eyes, Zesi punched to the side.
He did not shatter the air as Whitebeard did, but a powerful vibration still erupted.
Then an invisible force easily tore the entire carriage apart.
"Young master, what is this?" Yuri, the butler driving the carriage, looked at Zesi in alarm.
At that moment, a trickle of blood ran from the corner of Zesi's mouth.
"Looks like I'll have to train like mad starting tomorrow. Until my body can adapt to the Tremor-Tremor Fruit, I'll seal its power away."
"I'm fine. Let's go home. Starting today, I'm going to train my body!" Zesi said.
Since transmigrating to this world, he had known he had arrived too early to benefit from his knowledge of the plot.
His aptitude was also ordinary, and he lacked the monstrous physique of those out on the seas.
On top of that, his family was fairly well-off in this life, so he had never intended to set sail and contend for supremacy.
But ever since obtaining this Devil Fruit, his ambition had gradually begun to emerge.
This was a Devil Fruit destined to shake the seas.
Because if you lacked the strength to shake the seas, the only thing awaiting you was death.
The moment Zesi ate this Devil Fruit, he no longer had a choice about the road ahead!
Starting the next day, Zesi sought guidance from the captain of his family's guards, asking him to teach him how to train.
Before long, however, Zesi stopped learning from the guard captain and began training alone.
Zesi discovered a training method better suited to him.
That was to train using his Devil Fruit.
The Tremor-Tremor Fruit's ability was to cause vibrations.
Its drawback was that these vibrations were somewhat indiscriminate. When attacking an enemy, they also produced recoil that struck the user, which was why it was called a Devil Fruit that brought death to its owners.
After eating the Tremor-Tremor Fruit, Zesi often pondered how he could better withstand its recoil.
Training his body and improving his constitution was, of course, one method.
But Zesi did not think his constitution could compare to that of a monster like Whitebeard.
Even a monster like Whitebeard had ended up riddled with injuries from years of using the Tremor-Tremor Fruit, let alone him.
The only person who could be completely immune to the Tremor-Tremor Fruit's recoil was Blackbeard, who had also eaten the Dark-Dark Fruit.
Using the Dark-Dark Fruit's ability, he could completely absorb the damage from the Tremor-Tremor Fruit's recoil.
The Tremor-Tremor Fruit and the Dark-Dark Fruit could be called a perfect pair.
But that was setting aside whether he possessed an abnormal constitution capable of consuming two Devil Fruits.
Even if he had such a constitution, he had no way to find the Dark-Dark Fruit wherever it was now.
After pondering for some time, Zesi felt that, aside from training desperately to improve his constitution so he could better withstand the Tremor-Tremor Fruit's recoil...
The only other method was to find a way to adapt to it!
The human body was a marvelous thing, or perhaps living organisms were marvelous things.
To survive and adapt to their environment, humans and other organisms would often force themselves to change or even evolve until they met the conditions necessary for survival.
This was natural selection. This was evolution.
Zesi's method was to constantly use the Tremor-Tremor Fruit to produce small vibrations in his body.
The recoil from powerful vibrations would injure him, but he could still withstand some small vibrations.
Once he adapted to those vibrations, he would increase their intensity and frequency.
He would keep increasing them step by step until he could withstand using his Devil Fruit at full power.
While letting his body adapt to the vibrations, this would also train his control over the Tremor-Tremor Fruit.
In Zesi's view, control over the Tremor-Tremor Fruit was also very important.
Because of the differences in constitution and strength.
Zesi felt he was destined to be unable to use his Devil Fruit ability in the same sweeping, unrestrained way as Whitebeard.
Zesi also felt that Whitebeard's way of using the Tremor-Tremor Fruit took too much effort for too little return.
It looked immensely powerful and imposing, but the destruction it caused was not as great as one might imagine!
For that reason, Zesi felt he should use his Devil Fruit ability with greater finesse.
So he thought improving his control over the Tremor-Tremor Fruit was essential.
But he had not expected that the training originally meant to help him adapt to the Tremor-Tremor Fruit...
Would greatly improve his body's strength before showing any results in adapting him to the Devil Fruit.
Constantly subjecting his body to vibrations actually produced extraordinarily effective training results.
Controlling his Devil Fruit to constantly vibrate his entire body for several hours each day was several times more effective than training desperately for an entire day.
If he disregarded the effects on his body and trained in an even more intense manner, the results would be better still.
But the most likely consequence of that would be an early death.
Three years passed in the blink of an eye!
During those three years, besides using vibrations to train...
Zesi also frequently ventured into the primeval mountains, seeking out wild beasts, ferocious beasts, and even prehistoric monsters to fight.
He used this to develop his combat skills.
That day, Zesi had just finished training and was about to head home.
"Huh? I remember that pirate flag. It's Big Mom's. Why would her pirate ship be here? Could it be...?"
On his way home, Zesi suddenly spotted a pirate ship docked in the distant harbor.
Flying above the pirate ship was none other than the flag of the great pirate Big Mom.
Although Big Mom was not yet one of the Four Emperors standing at the pinnacle of the New World...
She was already one of the New World's foremost pirates.
Why would her pirate ship be here?
Something suddenly occurred to Zesi, and his expression changed.
The next instant, his feet moved, and he vanished from the spot.
As mentioned before, Zesi's father was a wealthy merchant.
His business dealt in ingredients for desserts, primarily flour.
The city where Zesi lived was not particularly famous.
Perhaps the only thing in this city that could draw the Big Mom Pirates here was...