Chapter 3 – Leaping! Daily Life on the Island
Unknown seas—unknown island.
"Ice Dragon's... Iron Fist!"
A roar echoed through the forest canopy as a streak of blue light tore through the trees. The forest trembled from the impact, followed by a deep thud and the telltale crackle of ice seizing its prey.
Loya dropped from the sky, more than ten meters up. He touched down with practiced taps, boots skimming against the damp leaves before planting his heels firmly into the earth.
"Perfect. This wild boar should last me three days," he exhaled, surveying the frozen beast shattered before him like fractured stone petals.
This was no ordinary wild boar. Its exposed tusks were thick as Loya's arms, curling out from its jaw like ivory anchors. Its sheer mass made it resemble a mini Sea King beached on land just as massive and just as fierce. Even a single hind leg, which had rolled some distance away, stood taller than Loya himself.
Its weight couldn't be measured in kilograms anymore—it belonged in tons.
Even so, three days' worth of food was all he could expect from it. That was the price of a Dragon Slayer's metabolism.
The very day he accepted the Ice Dragon Slayer identity, Loya began scouring the island. For safety, he started small his first hunt was a creature resembling a rabbit, though its hide was plated with reptilian scales like an East Blue Armadillo. But now, the once-untouchable alpha predator of the island had officially entered his recipe book.
In just a few weeks, Loya made a sad discovery aside from a few clearly poisonous species and those exuding visible toxins like Smile Fruit mutations, nearly all the edible beasts on the island had ended up on his plate.
A Dragon Slayer's physiology demanded an astronomical intake of food. And not just for recovery he needed fuel to strengthen his own stats and push past his current stage.
At Tier 1, Level 0, all it took was a dozen coconuts to restore his energy value. But from Tier 1, Layer 3 onward, coconuts couldn't even tick the bar. Not a fraction.
He needed meat caloric, nutrient-dense, and preferably from powerful creatures.
And he discovered something critical: the stronger the prey, the more energy it restored. Their vitality translated directly into his leveling system.
Thus began his bizarre grind through the ecosystem: leveling up by eating stronger and stronger prey. In this way, Loya earned his first rare achievement in this world"Cleared: One Starvation Island."
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Brushing aside the shattered ice, Loya used a sliver of frost to form a makeshift skewer pole. With a few smooth gestures, he threaded the frozen pork chunks together until he'd formed a spit easily ten times his own size.
The physical enhancement from Dragon's Body was far beyond what he had showcased on the day of his awakening. Back then, his instincts combined with the brain's natural self-limiting response to prevent injury had throttled his true capabilities. But after weeks of battle and repetition, he'd gradually unlocked that limiter.
Now, he wielded strength comparable to a pre-time-skip Zoro able to hurl massive beasts without even using Haki.
Hauling the boar skewer across his shoulder, Loya made quick strides toward his home base: a cave that had once served as the den of a three-meter-tall bear, similar in temperament to the fighting bulls of Corrida Colosseum. He'd taken it over, eaten the original owner, and moved in.
Setting the skewer outside the cave entrance, Loya ducked inside and reemerged moments later with a bundle of dry kindling.
These fibrous bundles fashioned from dead leaves and soft bark were his go-to fire starters. A skill he'd picked up thanks to survival tutorials by two of the world's greatest wilderness mentors: Bear Grylls and that one Japanese guy who once lived solo on an island for a month with nothing but a pot and a GoPro.
Their videos, especially on primitive fire-making techniques, had taught him the basics of survival in wild terrain.
And for that, Loya was sincerely grateful.
He pulled the lighter from his bag. It rattled faintly when he shook it barely a trace of butane left. At most, a few more lights.
Squatting near the fire pit, he muttered, "Let's hope this goes the distance…"
With a flick of the thumb, a spark jumped.
Flame ignited.
Dinner was on its way.
After gathering dry branches from beneath a fallen sea pine, Loya struck the lighter and lit the clump of velvet he'd twisted from dead leaves. Soon, a controlled bonfire crackled to life. Thanks to his mastery of Ice Dragon Slayer Magic, he didn't have to worry about triggering a forest blaze and accidentally burning himself alive his ice naturally suppressed the ambient heat within a limited radius, much like Aokiji's "Ice Age" neutralized magma pockets at Punk Hazard.
He tore off a chunk of hind leg meat, then carried the slab of pork to a nearby stream. Using his hand-formed ice scalpel, Loya expertly cleaned it. The water, chilled but not frozen, ran down from the mountain like the snowmelt streams seen near Drum Island. After skewering the meat on a thick, stripped branch hardened over days of campfire exposure, he settled it above the fire. The remaining chunks of meat he froze solid, preserving them like meat blocks stored aboard a Marine battleship during long Grand Line voyages.
As the fire licked gently against the pork, Loya leaned back and stared at the dimming sky in silence, watching the last shafts of light fall between the trees. He wasn't really waiting just... lost in thought.
The past few weeks had transformed him. Once a loud, cheerful game nerd who could spend hours debating stats on an RPG forum, he'd become a silent, efficient hunter, much like how Luffy had adapted during his survival training on Rusukaina. During the first three days, Loya had been overwhelmed sleeping curled up on the cold beach sand, terrified he'd miss a passing ship or log raft. His ears had constantly strained for anything: footsteps, ship bells, or Den Den Mushi chimes.
But time dragged on, and those hopes eroded into a quiet despair. He'd screamed at the sky, wept into the surf, and cursed whatever god or system dropped him here but none of it changed the situation. In the end, he realized it was better to spend that energy finding more leaves to stuff into his makeshift bedding than shouting into the wind.
Once he accepted the silence, Loya composed himself. He carved out giant ice letters "SOS"—on the tallest cliff near the beach and above the forest line. Even if the people of this world didn't recognize the code, seeing shaped writing on a supposedly deserted island would at least draw attention. He even tried to etch it in reverse, in case any sky-based observers passed overhead, similar to how Weatheria spotted currents and clouds from above Skypiea.
Then began the long wait...
His only consistent source of salt came from the faint white residue left behind by evaporated seawater on sun-baked stones. He knew from survival videos and from One Piece knowledge of sea salt as a mild poison in excess that this wasn't ideal. Too much of it could hurt his kidneys or cause dehydration. But if he didn't supplement salt, he wouldn't even have the strength to go hunting, let alone wield magic.
He took the fire-roasted pork skewer and rubbed its surface lightly against the salt film before biting in with a satisfying crunch. The meat, thick and fatty, was nearly the width of his torso and it slid into his stomach like butter dropped into a furnace.
Without pause, he grabbed another slab and set it up to roast.
His stomach was full but that didn't mean his energy bar was.
He closed his eyes and whispered, "Goldfinger."
A blue-transparent panel blinked into his vision.
Name: Christopher Loya (autocorrected by world system)
Energy Stage: First Realm, Tenth Layer
Energy Value: 85 / 100
Mana: 1000 / 1000
Mana Recovery Rate: 100 / second
Because he had been practicing Ice Dragon Slayer Magic relentlessly during these weeks, his Dragon Physique Synchronization originally 10% had climbed to 12%. The feared side effect he was wary of, Dragonification Surge, hadn't changed. It remained stable at 1%.
Beyond that, the most dramatic shifts were in his mana-related stats. His total mana capacity had doubled compared to the day he arrived, and his recovery rate matched it indicating a stable feedback loop, similar to the kind of training seen when Enel trained his Mantra on Skypiea.
His energy stage had finally hit the First Realm, Tenth Layer. According to his game knowledge and based on how One Piece characters tend to leap between thresholds of power in key moments it was time for a stage breakthrough.
He ate several more hunks of roasted pork, feeling the energy surge through his body. With the last bite, his energy gauge finally read:
Energy Value: 100 / 100.
Licking the grease from his fingers, he pressed his hand over the glowing arrow on the panel.
He selected "Advance."
Hum!
That familiar resonance filled the air. A soft blue magic circle appeared at his feet, like those seen under spell users in the Grand Line. Streams of blue energy burst out, quickly wrapping around his body.
But this time, something was different.
The quantity, density, and scale of the energy far exceeded anything he'd felt before. In an instant, countless spirals of magical force converged, spinning around him like a vortex. A cocoon of pure blue light enveloped him, pulsing like a heartbeat.
Then silence.
The forest went still.
Even the insects stopped chirping. The birds held their breath. The wind died. It was as though the entire ecosystem had been placed under Observation Haki Suppression. Time itself seemed to halt.
Trees froze, streams paused mid-trickle, and the clouds above became immobile. The only motion that remained was the flicker of the blue cocoon of light, undulating with rising energy.
It felt like centuries passed... or maybe just a second.
Then movement returned.
The breeze fluttered leaves again. The stream resumed its path. Birds called. Life resumed.
Crack!
A faint fracture ran across the darkened blue cocoon.
Crack... crack-crack!
Fractures spread like spiderwebs. Within the gaps, a deeper, luminous blue glow emerged.
BOOM!
The cocoon exploded outward in a shockwave of frigid air, instantly flash-freezing a significant portion of the forest floor. Leaves crystallized. Branches turned brittle. The blast radius resembled the aftermath of an Admiral-class ability reminiscent of Kuzan's display during the Marineford War.
From within the white mist, a new figure stepped forward.
Loya's original face was almost unrecognizable. His frame was ten centimeters taller, and his physique had hardened. Light-blue dragon scales, no larger than fingernails, covered his skin in a dense pattern. To anyone with trypophobia, it would have been nightmarish.
His eyes were no longer human. Golden, slit-pupil irises stared out from beneath his brows, glowing dimly with cold resolve.
But this terrifying transformation was temporary.
As the last of the upgrade energy faded, the scales receded. His claws shortened. His frame returned to its human state.
Loya stood there, breathing calmly.
He closed his eyes, feeling the raw mana swirling inside his core.
Then he looked down at the diamond sigil now glowing on the back of his hand.
His mouth curved.
"Finally," he muttered, voice steady, "it's time to open the next path."
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