7 -Getting stronger, and Realization

Once Ian was far from the calm belt, he took his ship out and landed on the deck. He wanted to absorb the blood while still far from Loguetown.

He sat there on the ground with legs crossed, then took the bottle he got along with a syringe, then he filled it, and took a deep breath before injecting the DNA into his left arm.

Unlike what he thought, the DNA sample didn't make him feel the pain straight away, rather it had fused with his blood, and was spreading to the rest of his body. And he just sat there calmly awaiting some change.

After about 20 minutes of waiting, the mysterious energy in his body finally started doing something. It went into any place the blood was in, then it turned that to the energy that immediately started changing his body.

It strengthened his meridians, bones, flesh, and skin. It increased his toughness to a height that was comparable to a resilient beast. His bones became like fine steel, and his regenerative abilities were increased. Of course, as his body was changing fundamentally, he was feeling extreme and unimaginable pain. But he didn't yell out, and only grit his teeth.

After about 30 minutes of being like this, it finally ended. But he was so tired that he just lost consciousness while lying on his back on the deck.

Getting robbed was the least of his troubles now. He was exhausted and he let the sleep claim him for now.

...

It was only two hours later that he woke up.

'This power… this feeling is amazing, but what is this smell?' Ian thought excitedly inside his mind as instead of feeling tired, he felt immense power coursing through his body. But first, he needed to take a bath as he saw that his skin released something that was smelly. He guessed that his body must have disposed of toxins or something like that.

He went inside the ship to the bathroom and took a bath before he wore his clothes back and stepped to the deck to see what is different about his body.

As he thought about so, once again information poured into his mind.

He found out that he now can hold his breath for almost an hour underwater. The average person in one piece world can hold their breath between 5~10 minutes as they are inherently stronger than the usual.

But he before could barely pass 12 minutes. But now he could hold his breath for an hour. He was ecstatic about it but it was not the end yet.

From the new information he got he now knew that there's a scaling for strength. At least for him now, as others in this world may not know of it. They only trained until a certain point where it became hard for them to die.

This scaling was a universal thing. As any person who wishes to leave their homeworld would be required to reach the peak stage as without it they would die from the pressure.

There were four stages for one to reach the point where one would be able to leave their universe. and Ian who didn't want to call them just stages, just chose random names for them, like a cultivation system, since he liked novels about them. and he felt that the similarity was high. But in the end, it was just an evolution of the body.

It started with the Elementary realm. Which he now knew that it was the stage that he previously was in.

Then it was followed by the Earth realm, Emperor realm, and finally Saint realm.

Each realm except the first one had something special about it. At least in his case. as for the people in the world of one piece it just focused on strengthening them physically only. Perhaps in another world, it would be different.

Since he reached the earth realm, he knew that it focused on his toughness and strength, with a minor increase in his mind power. And the Emperor realm focused on his mind strengthening his willpower mainly with his body secondly. But he didn't know anything about the last realm yet. The Saint realm.

However, even if the Emperor realm focused on his willpower, the 'small' increase it gives the physical strength would still be much bigger than the Earth realm.

As far as he knew he was previously at the peak of the Elementary realm, and with the strengthening using the blood of the sea king he had broken through the next realm. Now he would need to do the same and refine a lot of powerful bloodlines to reach the next stage. Or he could train his body naturally but like that it would take a lot of time to reach it.

'The gamble was a success. Now with this, I'll be closer to my dream more than ever' Ian thought to himself.

He would of course take the better option in this, as this ability had no drawbacks, and it apparently gives other things besides the physical strength. As it increased his underwater breathing limit, perhaps the next time or the one after it he would be able to breathe underwater.

He stood from the deck then flew above the ship, and searched for any nearby rock then when he found one he stored the ship and flew at it.

He had before journeying off in his training punched big rocks with Haki to strengthen it to the maximum.

But now, he punched it with his bare hands and watched with amazement as he took a part of the rock easily. And he didn't even feel any pain whatsoever. Rather it felt like he punched something soft. He was once again elated. He had become stronger so easily, and as most of his abilities were centered on his physical power, he was much stronger than before.

Perhaps only the stronger of the vice admirals can equal his physical strength. Of course, there are many who are stronger physically than him, but at the least, he was now closer to the top.

He once again took a deep breath and continued using his abilities. He first projected a blast of telekinetic energy and released it at the rock from before. It was destroyed completely with nothing left.

The rock was almost 10 meters high and 6 wide. He would previously have to use one of his punches using Haki and telekinesis. But now it was just with his telekinesis alone. And one shot at that. Ian was getting more excited by the second. He tried all the rest of his abilities that required telekinesis, except those that needed another person, and found out that all of them were much stronger now.

He then used the six powers and noticed how all of them were strengthened too. He guessed his speed now using 'shave' would be closer to a master of the six powers.

He thought about going back to the calm belt and do this again, but he knew from the new information that he got, that he would need a period of time between each refining that he does.

Now he had to stabilize and adapt to his body, as soon as possible.

And now that he thought about it, his previous idea about journeying with the straw hats didn't appear as exciting as before.

Considering how strong he is, all of their earlier adventures are extremely easy for him. And by the time they get strong, he would have become even stronger.

He started flying in the direction of the island while musing to himself.

'It appears that I must search for my own adventure. It was stupid now that I think about it' he thought. 'i guess I liked the anime too much and wanted to be a part of those guys who treated each other as a family. however, maybe my path lies elsewhere...'

'Since I already know what they are going to do it's pointless to join… It's decided then, I will be going alone. However, since this world's protagonist is Luffy then I should have a close relationship with him. I'll try to save him sometimes in the future if I was near him.' Ian mused to himself then finally reached a conclusion.

He will seek his own adventures. This world contains many mysteries. And they are all ready for him to discover them. joining the Straw hats would have him contradict himself as all their adventures he already knew.