The night was pitch-black, torn apart in jagged fragments by the flames soaring into the sky.
In the shadows not far from the massive bonfire, a giant fern leaf trembled slightly.
Hidden beneath it was a middle-aged man with a peculiar "3"-shaped hairstyle and amber-tinted glasses.
He wore a blue-and-white striped shirt on his upper body, a purplish-red bowtie that looked especially ridiculous in the firelight, and khaki trousers below—now smeared with jungle mud.
Baroque Works' senior agent—Mr.3.
He pushed up his glasses and stared at the unbelievable scene before him, a mocking sneer curling across his lips.
"What kind of performance art is this? Cooking themselves?"
Rolling a drop of white wax between his fingers, Mr.3's eyes brimmed with disdain.
"Looks like this island's primitive environment finally drove them insane. Using a method like this to… keep warm? Or some kind of sacrifice?"
Heat waves surged toward him. Even from dozens of meters away, Mr.3 could feel his cheeks burning.
He wasn't in any hurry to make a move—if anything, he found this spectacle amusing.
"Hmph. Whatever nonsense they're up to, that pot's temperature should've softened even iron by now."
"I'll just wait until they're half-dead in there—boiled until their skin splits open—then I'll step in and harvest the leftovers."
Mr.3 chuckled darkly to himself.
"That's the victory of strategy. Without lifting a finger, I'll claim that fifty-million-Beli bounty."
What he didn't know was that inside that boiling stone cauldron, a process completely defying biological common sense—a veritable act of forging gods—was underway.
...
Inside the cauldron, crimson light flooded everything.
Ronan, Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji were at the very center of this hell.
This wasn't ordinary boiling liquid, but the most concentrated heart's blood and spinal essence of two prehistoric dinosaur overlords, fused with several millennium-grade spirit herbs—a true high-energy crucible.
Every drop of the elixir contained savage life force, like sentient micro-bombs that burrowed madly into their pores, tearing cells apart and rebuilding them anew.
"So hot!! It hurts—AAAAAAH!!"
Luffy threw his head back and screamed, his voice shrill like a wounded beast.
As a rubber man, his tolerance for high temperatures was already low.
Now, the heat wasn't scorching his skin—it was invading him at the cellular level.
Under the searing assault, his rubber body began to undergo bizarre changes.
His skin flushed red-hot like forged iron, white steam hissing off his body.
His torso and limbs ballooned to their limits one moment, then shrank rapidly like deflated rubber the next.
As if invisible hands were kneading this lump of "rubber clay" with ruthless force.
"Are you trying to boil me into soup… damn it!!"
Luffy gripped the edge of the cauldron with all his strength, his fingers biting deep into the granite, leaving claw-like imprints.
Zoro's situation was no better.
He sat cross-legged in the elixir, his entire body boiled scarlet.
His teeth ground together with cracking sounds, blood seeping from the corners of his mouth.
Veins bulged violently across his body, twisting beneath his skin like writhing earthworms, on the verge of bursting apart.
"I can't pass out… absolutely can't…"
Zoro roared inside his mind, forcing his consciousness to remain sharp.
Amid the endless agony, he could almost see countless blades carving into his bones—this was the medicinal power purging impurities from deep within his marrow.
He tried to suppress his body's screams with sheer sword-willed resolve.
Sanji, meanwhile, was deathly pale.
Cold sweat appeared only to be instantly vaporized by the heat.
His legs trembled violently beneath the surface, the very structure of his human bones seemingly undergoing reconstruction.
That was the sign of the "lineage factor" buried deep within his bloodline being forcibly awakened by the violent medicinal energy.
"My legs… are they breaking…?"
Sanji's consciousness wavered, but he clenched his teeth and endured.
Ronan stood at the center of the cauldron.
Even with the system's support, the pain he bore was beyond what normal humans could imagine.
But he knew—right now, he was the anchor for the other three.
He could not fall.
Seeing them all at the brink, Ronan suddenly snapped his eyes open, golden light erupting from his pupils.
"Don't resist the pain! Accept it—guide it!!"
His voice boomed like a great bell, detonating directly inside their minds and yanking their fading consciousness back into place.
"Sink your qi into the dantian! Don't treat this energy as an enemy!"
Ronan shouted, "Imagine your body as a bottomless black hole—devour all this violent energy!"
"Don't let it linger on the surface—that's a waste! Crush it into your bones, force it into your organs!"
"Thirteen Guardians' Iron Body—Third Stage!"
"Temper a Single Breath Within!!"
"Break open the Ren and Du meridians! Establish the Great Circulation inside your bodies!!"
At Ronan's command, the three—acting purely on survival instinct—responded immediately.
Their bodies began to subconsciously follow the breathing technique Ronan had drilled into them over and over.
Inhale—
Exhale—
Their frantic, disordered breathing gradually became deep and steady.
Time passed, second by second.
The fire beneath the woodpile burned hotter and hotter, as if determined to ignite the night sky itself.
Yet inside the cauldron, an astonishing reversal took place.
The once-full pot of violently boiling elixir began to shrink at a visible rate.
The liquid level dropped steadily.
It wasn't evaporating.
It was being forcibly consumed—drunk in through millions of open pores by these four monstrous bodies!
Their physiques transformed into massive vortices, greedily plundering every last bit of essence from the cauldron.
Crimson blood-qi coiled around them, forming small storms of energy.
Ronan closed his eyes and turned his awareness inward.
He could clearly sense it—the energy known as "qi" was surging like a golden dragon, smashing through sealed blockages inside his body.
Wei Lü.
Jia Ji.
Yu Zhen.
The Three Gates—shattered in succession!
[Ding! Congratulations, Host—Physique has broken through its critical limit!
Indestructible Body (Initial Stage) achieved!]
The system's notification rang out like divine music.
[Ding! Congratulations, Host—Ren and Du meridians fully opened!
Great Circulation successfully established!]
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