"I'm Bellamy? What the hell did I just eat?"
Wait, these memories…
A torrent of memories flooded his mind. After a while, Bellamy finally grasped his situation. He had transmigrated! He was in the world of One Piece, and he had taken over Bellamy's body.
Bellamy... the original user of the Spring-Spring Fruit, a two-bit thug. For some inexplicable reason, he'd always idolized Donquixote Doflamingo. He was a rather unlikable minor character. But now that he was here, everything was about to change.
It seemed he'd lost a tiny bit of his memory during the transmigration, mainly his original name. No big deal. It was just a name. From now on, he'd be Bellamy.
Bellamy struggled to recall the current timeline. "It's Sea King Year 1516... four years before Luffy sets sail."
Sea King Year 1498: Roger's execution marked the beginning of the Great Pirate Era, throwing the seas into chaos. Thanks to the Navy's tireless efforts, this chaos was gradually subsiding. At least in the Four Blues, the appearance of major pirates was becoming rare.
Bellamy was a North Blue native. He was currently in Minion Island's Neon Town, the place of his birth and where he'd obtained the Spring-Spring Fruit.
Speaking of the Spring-Spring Fruit, Bellamy stuck out his tongue, trying to clear the disgusting taste from his mouth. The original Bellamy had risked his life to snatch the Devil Fruit from a group of bandits, but he'd ended up collapsing from blood loss due to his severe injuries. While he was unconscious, an otherworldly soul had descended and taken over his body.
Thus, a brand-new Bellamy was born.
"So, am I lucky or unlucky?"
Lucky, of course, because he'd become a Devil Fruit user without having to do anything. Unlucky because the Paramecia-type Spring-Spring Fruit wasn't exactly impressive in the original story.
Just look at how "Hyena" Bellamy had developed the Spring-Spring Fruit's powers:
Spring Snipe: Turning his arm into a spring, compressing it to store a massive amount of elastic force, and then releasing it to launch himself at the opponent.Spring Hopper: Turning his legs into springs and bouncing rapidly between nearby buildings.
What a mess. To think a perfectly good Devil Fruit had been developed in such a way. If the original Bellamy had gotten his hands on, say, the Cream-Cream Fruit, he'd probably have just ended up opening a bakery.
Bellamy believed that if developed properly, the Spring-Spring Fruit could be quite promising. After all, that rubber kid he'd seen in his memories from his previous life was on his way to becoming a Yonko, so why couldn't a Spring-Spring man rise to prominence?
"But now's not the time to rush into developing my fruit abilities."
Except for certain bug-level fruits, like the Hollow-Hollow Fruit or the Hobby-Hobby Fruit, which grant almost cheat-like powers without requiring much physical strength, most Devil Fruits need a strong body as a foundation. This naturally included his Spring-Spring Fruit.
The importance of stamina and vitality in combat went without saying. The most terrifying monsters in this world could easily fight for five days and five nights straight.
Physical training would undoubtedly be his top priority, followed by fruit ability development, then Haki, navigation, swordsmanship, gunnery, and so on...
"So most transmigrators start by training their bodies, huh?"
It couldn't be helped. After all, alternate worlds were dangerous places. Without a strong body, you couldn't even sleep soundly.
Bellamy climbed up from the cold ground, intending to explore his new body. Suddenly, something occurred to him.
"I remember Kuma's Paw-Paw Fruit can repel fatigue. I'm the Spring-Spring Man, I shouldn't be any worse than him, right?"
In terms of elasticity, the Spring-Spring Fruit should logically be superior to the Paw-Paw Fruit. If that's the case, then wouldn't that mean...?
Wait, why did a cheesy advertising jingle suddenly pop into his head?
"Bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce away those wrinkles!"
Bellamy slapped his forehead hard, trying to get rid of the wrinkle image. "I'm only 18, where would I get wrinkles?"
Even if he had wrinkles, he couldn't possibly bounce them away. Bouncing away wrinkles would involve the domains of life and death. All he wanted was the power to bounce away fatigue and fear.
"So why can the Paw-Paw Fruit repel fatigue? I don't get it."
Theoretically, anything the Paw-Paw Fruit can do, the Spring-Spring Fruit should be able to do as well.
After a brainstorm, a vague direction for his fruit ability development began to emerge in his mind.
However, before Bellamy could begin his training regimen, he needed to return to Neon Town to find a reliable doctor and a capable cook.
"I think I have a few underlings in town."
The original Bellamy, a Doflamingo admirer, had long wanted to set sail and become a pirate. To prepare for his voyage, "Hyena" Bellamy had gathered several subordinates and saved a considerable amount of money.
In Neon Town, the original Bellamy was a somewhat notorious figure. Greedy and unscrupulous, he loved to forcibly seize what others had worked hard to obtain. "Hyena" was his infamous nickname in this place.
A terrible reputation, and one Bellamy disliked intensely.
"Since I'm here, the history of the Hyena is about to change."
"Crack." Remembering the information in his memories, Bellamy couldn't help but clench his fists, his eyes gradually darkening.
One could easily imagine the kind of environment a hyena would have to survive in. The fact that he'd come out alone to steal the Devil Fruit, without bringing any of his underlings, showed just how unreliable the original Bellamy's crew was.
"Good thing I'm already a Spring-Spring Fruit user."
Devil Fruits, the treasures of the sea. Even the most useless fruit could enhance combat abilities far beyond ordinary people's imaginations.
After eating the Spring-Spring Fruit, Bellamy naturally possessed around two tons of elastic force without needing to develop it. Moreover, he could easily use this force without any training; he just lacked proficiency.
This was the terrifying aspect of Devil Fruits.
With his original strength, even a full-powered punch couldn't generate two tons of impact. In other words, just by eating the Spring-Spring Fruit, his strength had more than doubled.
"Looking at it that way, I guess I am lucky."
He had gained some measure of self-preservation power right after transmigrating. At least it wasn't the worst-case scenario of starting as a commoner. He was truly fortunate.
After all, he was now in the Great Pirate Era.
What defines the Great Pirate Era? Chaos.
Roger's final words had set the entire sea ablaze. An endless stream of pirates, impossible to kill off completely, had utterly destroyed the world's order.
Not every pirate was like Luffy, fighting for a while and only knocking people unconscious. Those were adventurers, not pirates!
Evil, greedy, burning, killing, looting, disregarding order, and making destruction their profession—those were pirates!
Coming to such a world, in such an era, without the strength to protect oneself, the ending would be extremely tragic.
Thinking of the terrible scenarios that could occur, Bellamy suddenly recalled a certain saying.
"The weak don't even have the right to choose how they die."