"Clang!"
Raiden Ei held up a thick wooden plank with one hand and placed it with other similarly sized planks.
"Hoo~ This should be almost enough lumber needed to build the house."
Raiden Ei placed the Musou Isshin in her hand onto a nearby tree stump, glancing at the sun in the sky; it was already nearing noon.
Having been busy since morning, preparing the massive amount of lumber needed for construction all by herself was something she previously believed impossible.
This made her realize more clearly the difference between her past self and her current self.
The most direct proof was that previously, merely lifting an object weighing a dozen catties could cost her half her life.
But now, she could easily lift giant trees weighing tens of tons with a single hand, and with an ordinary Musou Isshin, she could casually sever trees one to two meters in diameter.
She felt she liked this feeling; although this world was filled with the most direct chaos and violence, she would absolutely never lose to anyone.
"Sister Ei, what's wrong?"
Little Ann, who was watching from the side, saw Raiden Ei spacing out and floated in front of her eyes, waving her small hand.
Raiden Ei snapped back to reality upon hearing Little Ann's voice, realizing she had been lost in thought for quite a while.
She let out a light chuckle toward the Little Fellow, stroking her small, delicate, and smooth face, which felt like Milk.
"Nothing, just thinking about some things from the past."
Little Ann did not pull away from Raiden Ei's reaching hand, looking at her with bright eyes.
"Eh~~~ Sister Ei's past? I'm so curious, can you tell Ann?"
"Heh heh, I cannot, oh."
Raiden Ei let go of the hand stroking the Little Fellow's cheek and directly refused to talk about her past.
It was better if only she knew these things, keeping them as a secret hidden deep in her heart, never to be discovered again.
"Eww~~~ Sister Ei is so mean."
Little Ann pouted in the air discontentedly, though it was clear she still cared a lot.
"It's more interesting if Little Ann discovers these things herself, isn't it?"
Raiden Ei comforted the Little Fellow for a moment before changing the subject.
"Alright, why did you come here? And why are you floating the whole time, aren't you tired?"
Seeing this, Little Ann stopped pressing further, instead happily circling Raiden Ei as she floated.
"To see Sister Ei! I missed you because I hadn't seen you in too long."
"This is also a psychokinesis ability. As for being tired, of course not! I am very formidable."
Raiden Ei looked at the Little Fellow's cheerful tone now and knew how happy she was, so she took the opportunity to praise her a few times.
"Mm-hmm, I know, because I always thought so too."
Raiden Ei chatted with Little Ann there for a few more sentences before taking her back to the camp, catching a wild pheasant on the way to serve as their lunch.
Time always passed incredibly quickly without one noticing.
After Little Ann finished lunch, Raiden Ei took advantage of the time she was taking a nap to head to the mountaintop, preparing to develop her Devil Fruit abilities.
The scenery on the mountaintop was quite nice; below her were continuous emerald treetops, the low sky seemed within reach, and she could even see the blue sea in the distance.
Raiden Ei shielded her eyes from the direct sunlight for a moment.
"The weather is nice today, so I'll try out the power of lightning first."
She released lightning from her hand; purple flashes continuously erupted. She kept increasing the output power, condensing it into an expanding sphere of lightning in her hand.
The sound of crackling electricity was incessant and grew louder, forcing even the surrounding sunlight to recede from the purple glare.
"That's enough, if I output any more, I'll soon lose control."
After a few minutes, the sphere of lightning in Raiden Ei's hand had expanded to about one or two meters in size, the internal currents intertwining like water contained within a balloon.
"I pretty much know how much lightning I can output at full power now."
As Raiden Ei finished speaking, the sphere of lightning in her hand instantly burst open, forming a purple streak of lightning that shot rapidly toward a tall tree standing in the distance among the mountains.
In an instant, the lightning reached the hundred-meter-tall tree, which offered no resistance; the entire tree instantly exploded, wood chips scattering as the broken trunk crashed down.
The thunderous roar followed immediately after the lightning struck the tree at the very moment the thunder sphere shattered.
The sudden, immense sound of thunder startled not only the birds and beasts on the island but also Raiden Ei, who was the closest and the originator of the blast.
Raiden Ei calmed her emotions, rubbed her slightly echoing ears, and couldn't help but complain, "That sound is a bit grating!"
Thinking of that huge roar just now, she figured the sleeping Little Ann must have been startled awake.
She hadn't actually expected it to produce such a loud noise; otherwise, she would have tested it more cautiously.
"Sigh, I should go back and check first, otherwise, the Little Fellow will surely worry again."
With that, Raiden Ei's body elementalized, returning to the camp at extreme speed.
After spending some time explaining to Little Ann and assuring her she wouldn't cause such a large commotion again, the Little Fellow finally slept soundly.
Raiden Ei walked out of the tent, not wanting to return to the mountaintop to continue testing the power of the Goro Goro no Mi, because she already knew how to use it at its maximum power.
The rest was just continuous optimization, but there was no rush for that; she found a spot around the camp.
She planned to see if she could combine the characteristics of lightning with Observation Haki, similar to Enel, to develop an ability with an extremely large sensory range.
"Hmm? Wait, how do I still have Elemental Power?"
Raiden Ei held out her hand, looking at the tiny bit of lightning at her fingertip. Although it looked the same as the lightning ability brought by the Goro Goro no Mi,
she knew clearly in her heart that the essence of the two was different.
"I confirmed this several times before; the Elemental Power was truly gone. Where did this come from?"
Suddenly, an idea struck Raiden Ei's mind.
"Could it be that it recovered after eating the Goro Goro no Mi?"
She retracted the tiny bit of Elemental Power, rubbing her fingertips back and forth.
"That's right. Before eating the Devil Fruit, the Elemental Power definitely hadn't recovered."
"It's only been a few days since I ate the Devil Fruit, and a little Elemental Power has already recovered. Although it's less than one ten-thousandth of what it was, it has recovered, hasn't it?"
Raiden Ei currently couldn't figure out how the Elemental Power recovered; it was just such a tiny amount that she truly had no feeling about it at all.
If she hadn't been carefully sensing the changes in the body's electrical currents just now, she wouldn't have noticed it so quickly.
Elemental Power remained an unsolved mystery; she would need to pay close attention to it in the future. As for now, she should focus on developing her Devil Fruit ability.
The Elemental Power likely wouldn't be of use anytime soon.
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