"Then you'll have to watch my back, Rocks!"
"In the future, if I make requests, I hope you can help out. I'll exchange them for more information."
Ignis swallowed his food and directly accepted Rocks's invitation, becoming crew member number 001 of the Rocks Pirates.
He even started negotiating terms with Rocks.
"Vohahaha! Fine! A mutual exchange of interests works too!"
Rocks laughed wildly, his ambition swelling even more. In high spirits, he led Ignis and the group of soldiers out of the dark hold prison.
"The free wind, the warm sunshine..."
"You only know how precious it is once you've lost it..."
Standing at the bow, Ignis embraced all this beauty, his gaze growing sharper by the moment.
He swore he would never become a prisoner again!
Seastone handcuffs and shackles, explosive collars... they were truly despair-inducing!
And also, he would avenge the kind elderly couple of Gu Yue Village!
Just then.
As his physical strength and spirit recovered, clusters of small, white soul-fire insects began to materialize around Ignis, hovering over his shoulders, almost like an awakened Devil Fruit ability.
"Hey, kid! Is this your ability?"
Rocks was extremely interested in Ignis's future-predicting power.
His powerful Observation Haki continuously scanned these small, white, flame-like insects that had suddenly appeared around Ignis.
"You could say that."
The faint deep blue crescent mark on Ignis's forehead suddenly transformed into a crystal-clear, small blue crystal insect, curved like the moon.
One blue, eight white, nine small insects now hovered around Ignis.
Ignis gently clasped the small blue crystal insect in his hand.
This little blue bug felt almost weightless.
The plump, translucent little creature was quite adorable.
It was only the size of a small pendant. Looking through its crystal-clear body, Ignis could even see the palm lines on his own hand.
"What is this?"
Rocks looked on with curiosity.
"My ability. My Gu worms."
Ignis spoke calmly, a sharp light gleaming in his eyes.
This was his soul mutation after traveling to this world.
Soul Worms!
Clusters of plump, chaotic soul masses, each with a nose and eyes...
As Ignis manipulated the blue Gu worm, a small crescent blade materialized.
The deep blue crescent blade was over a meter long, resembling a crescent moon in the night sky.
"Go!!"
This deep blue crescent-shaped slash shot out rapidly, carving a trench across the sea surface.
"That's way too weak!"
Rocks didn't hold back his criticism. That slash was indeed weaker than even an ordinary swordsman's.
"This is just the beginning!"
Ignis glanced at the monster that was Rocks, then tenderly caressed his small blue worm and the eight white ones.
He slowly drifted into memory.
....
His name was Ignis, from Gu Yue Village in the southern frontier province of Dragon Country.
The village made its living, and even its fortune, by raising economic venomous creatures like snakes, toads, scorpions, spiders, and centipedes.
At the same time, Ignis was also a newly enrolled university student who had just turned eighteen.
But who would have thought that only a month or two into the semester, he would hit the jackpot and end up in this world.
Coincidentally, the place he traveled to was also called Gu Yue Village.
Fortunately, this wasn't the Gu Zhen Ren world's Gu Yue Village, but the One Piece world's Gu Yue Village.
Otherwise, he'd probably be refined by that old demon Fang Yuan!
Speaking of which, it was quite a coincidence. In his village, there actually was a young uncle named Fang Yuan, the same name as that "Great Love Immortal Venerable."
Over a decade ago, he also had an accident while in university and was knocked out by a Dongfeng truck.
And now, with Ignis hitting the jackpot and traveling to the Gu Yue Village in the One Piece world, Ignis found a chilling thought creeping in.
Could his young uncle Fang Yuan have really been knocked by a Dongfeng truck into the Gu Yue Village of the Gu Zhen Ren world?
If that were true, he hoped they might meet someday across the three thousand worlds.
Of course, Ignis wasn't exactly eager to meet that cold and merciless old demon, Fang Yuan.
....
Up until today, Ignis had lived in this world for two and a half years.
It took him a year or two to slowly integrate into this world and learn its language.
But fortunately, perhaps his mother planet hadn't completely abandoned him, or maybe it was just the luck of the traversal.
When Ignis was hit by that stroke of fortune and transported, his soul was literally smashed apart.
It split into nine fragments of soul.
These soul fragments merged with the power of this world and slowly transformed into the soul flames, or rather, soul worms, that now surrounded Ignis.
These were both split parts of Ignis's soul and soul worms independent of Ignis himself.
Ignis treasured these plump, little soul worms.
He deeply understood that these soul worms were definitely his golden finger, his cheat code, crucial to his future!
But for the first two-plus years, he couldn't find a way to cultivate or use the soul worms.
He tried methods from his previous life, raising snakes and venomous creatures, and even dabbled in the ethereal art of raising Gu...
Still, nothing worked.
During these two and a half years, Ignis learned the world's common language and script, trained his physique, and searched for a way to use his soul worms.
It wasn't until recently, while foraging for wild edibles and vegetables in the hills behind Gu Yue Village, that fate smiled upon him. He accidentally stumbled upon a Devil Fruit.
It was then he understood the true purpose of his soul flames!
Now, perhaps he should call them Soul Gu Worms.
One of his soul worms had spontaneously rushed forward, devoured the Devil Fruit, and transformed into a Soul Gu Worm.
The plump, white soul worm had morphed into a deep blue, crescent-moon-shaped Gu worm.
Ignis experienced the power and exhilaration that came with this Devil Fruit-powered Gu worm!
He began to grasp the true meaning of the saying, "Man is the spirit of all things; Gu is the essence of heaven and earth."
It turned out his soul flames could gain special abilities by merging with Devil Fruit powers.
That meant, in the future, Ignis could become a user of multiple Devil Fruits, possessing up to nine different abilities!
If his main body could also eat one, he would be a user of ten abilities!
.....
Through the common origin and resonance of his soul, Ignis understood the ability of that Devil Fruit.
The Paramecia-type Moonlight Fruit ability.
This was the Devil Fruit ability that his first soul worm had merged with.
The soul flame that had gained the Moonlight Devil Fruit's power, now called by Ignis the Moonlight Gu, or Moonlight Soul!
It possessed the ability to unleash crescent blade slashes, and under the moonlit night, it gained other enhanced abilities.
'Gu Yue Village, Moonlight Fruit ability, Moonlight Gu... was all this really just a coincidence?'
After gaining his first ability, Ignis felt as if he saw infinite hope; his ambition began to flourish.
However, adhering to the principle of keeping a low profile, he didn't plan to rush out to sea just yet.
He intended to master his Moonlight ability first, then head out to sea in search of other Devil Fruits!
He believed that if he lived long enough, he could become a peerless powerhouse in this world.
The longer the time, the more abilities he'd have, the stronger he'd become!
Ignis once thought this Gu Yue Village was his blessed land, where he had luckily obtained the Moonlight Fruit, figured out his cheat code, and started his journey to power.
But he never imagined that just as he was preparing to continue lying low and developing...
Gu Yue Village, like its namesake in the Gu Zhen Ren world, suddenly faced its own doom.
Before Ignis could even properly master the Moonlight Fruit's ability or go to sea to find a second Devil Fruit, the small country where Gu Yue Village was located was invaded by a powerful member nation called the Cang Kingdom.
Amidst the unbridled looting and massacre, Ignis, who had only recently gained the Moonlight ability, was forced to resist to protect himself and the kind villagers who had helped him.
In the end, a powerful general of the Cang Kingdom suddenly struck, instantly and overwhelmingly suppressing Ignis, who had just begun to show his potential.
This filled Ignis with a sense of powerlessness and regret. His journey to become the strongest had only just begun, and it was already being cut short...