An hour later, Rowen appeared in the Base Commander's lounge at G-5.
The Shadow Clone that entered looked somewhat surprised.
"What happened? Didn't get anything good? But it's only Diamond-tier. Whatever comes out should be pretty decent, right?"
Rowen's main body rubbed his forehead.
"Just dispel yourself already. Nothing here concerns you."
"Tch."
With a cold snort, the Shadow Clone dismissed itself, dissolving into smoke.
Rowen stood up and looked out the window.
After a long while, he let out a breath.
The Talent Card in his hand transformed into a stream of light and disappeared.
The next moment, Rowen's body suddenly stiffened.
Large amounts of sweat and steam erupted from his entire body.
Inside him, every bone in his body began to change.
His skeleton compressed inward, gathering together as its density rapidly increased.
At the same time, the flow of heat that represented his stamina and Haki circulated throughout his body.
Like Luffy regrowing teeth after drinking milk, his bones continuously shattered, recovered, compressed, and regenerated.
Pain!
Excruciating pain exploded from within his body.
Standing beside the window, Rowen suddenly collapsed to the floor as his skeleton shrank proportionally.
Visible to the naked eye, his entire body seemed to lose nearly half of its support structure.
Yet after three seconds, it expanded back to normal.
Three more seconds later, it contracted again.
Even his skull resembled a deflated balloon.
Whenever his brain was on the verge of being damaged, the flow of heat would surge into his head, restoring the compressed bones.
Compared to his brain, things were even worse for his internal organs.
Other than his heart, nearly all of them were squeezed together before being forced back into shape.
"Cough..."
The injuries to his organs caused blood to spill from his mouth.
Unable to move properly, he even choked on his own blood.
Yet even coughing had become incredibly difficult.
His internal organs continued to suffer damage.
The cycle of compression and recovery never stopped.
Despite the agony, Rowen remained conscious.
He could clearly feel the heat within his body the energy that represented his vitality rapidly diminishing.
The muscles throughout his body gradually relaxed.
The skin on his face began to sag as though he had aged decades in an instant.
He looked like nothing more than skin stretched over a skeleton.
If this continued...
If recovery could no longer keep pace...
His brain would be crushed.
His organs would completely rupture.
And at that point he would die.
"Slap."
Rowen stretched out a hand and dragged his body forward.
Such a shriveled body...
Yet it had become heavier?
He had truly been careless.
Moving his arm again, a strip of skin tore loose.
The energy stored in his muscles wouldn't last much longer.
As for Flying Thunder God...
In his current state, he couldn't use it.
Bang!
His arm slammed against the wooden door, producing a dull sound.
He clawed toward it, trying to reach the handle.
There hadn't been anyone in the Base Commander's office earlier.
He needed to reach the window.
With the current density of his bones, a fall wouldn't kill him.
What would kill him was the enhancement process itself, draining him to death through malnutrition.
Rowen struggled to extend his arm.
His fingers brushed the handle.
Then his hand slipped away.
The door was pushed shut again.
At that moment, he felt his ribs compressing his lungs.
He could barely breathe.
His thoughts had become completely consumed by the mysteries of the Prison Space.
After all, it was the foundation of everything he possessed.
Combined with the fact that this was the first physique and talent card he had ever obtained, he had used it without thinking.
Like an idiot.
Even ordinary Physique Attribute Cards left him suffering from extreme hunger.
And this...
This was fundamentally altering his innate talent and physique.
The Diamond-tier level comparable to a basic Zanpakutō Asauchi had only produced a single item.
He should have been prepared for something like this.
Damn it!
What a pig brain!
"Vice Admiral?"
The sudden voice filled Rowen with joy.
He tried to muster the strength to answer, but the cartilage in his throat suddenly contracted, preventing even the slightest sound from escaping.
This was really...
Fucking painful!
"Vice Admiral? Tina's coming in..."
The next moment, the door was pushed open.
Perhaps she had used too much force, because the soft, collapsed Rowen behind the door was directly shoved into the corner between the wall and the door.
"Huh? Tina clearly heard a sound. Why isn't anyone here?"
At that moment, the little remaining heat flow restored some of the cartilage in his throat.
A dry, hoarse voice sounded out from Rowen.
"He..."
Only a single syllable.
That was the absolute limit of what he could manage.
But Tina had clearly heard it.
She immediately pulled the door open wider.
The next second, she jumped straight into the air.
"Y-You... what kind of monster are you?!"
Honestly, she couldn't really be blamed.
Rowen's current appearance was far too horrifying.
His original height of nearly three meters had shrunk to barely over one.
His muscles were completely withered, and loose skin, nearly drained down to fibrous strands, was spread across the floor.
He looked like some irregular lump of flesh rather than a human being.
"Uh... food..."
"Hm?"
Tina froze for a moment.
Then her eyes landed on the clothes lying on the floor.
"Vice Admiral! Vice Admiral, is that really you?!"
"How did you suddenly become like this? Oh! Food? You need food?"
Fortunately, despite only hearing a single word, the quick-witted Tina immediately understood.
Using Soru, she dashed to the kitchen and returned carrying three crates of milk.
Since Rowen couldn't chew meat in his current condition, Tina simply opened the cartons and poured the milk directly onto him.
One crate.
Two crates.
Three crates.
The milk seeped through Rowen's torn skin and was absorbed directly into his body.
The heat flow inside him recovered somewhat.
As the bones in one of his arms regenerated, he suddenly grabbed a bottle of milk.
He forced it into his recovering jaw and gulped it down.
"More! Hurry!"
Without asking questions or satisfying her curiosity, Tina instantly used Soru again.
The wooden floor shattered beneath her feet as she shot out of the Base Commander's office.
Before long, streams of Marines began carrying milk and various meat products into the office.
Crate after crate of milk was consumed.
Rowen's bones gradually regained enough strength to support his body.
His muscles recovered somewhat as well.
Even the teeth that had previously been absorbed and broken down began growing back.
And so, with milk and huge amounts of meat, he began devouring food like a madman inside the office.
At the same time, the Marine chefs and supply personnel from the G-5 cafeteria had already been chased out by Tina after delivering the food.
Smoker looked at Rowen, who was stuffing himself without restraint, and asked Tina:
"I remember Vice Admiral Rowen isn't a Devil Fruit user, right? Then how could he end up in a condition like this from overusing an ability?"
Tina spread her hands.
"Vice Admiral was practically about to die just now. Was Tina supposed to stop and ask what happened first?"
"But it really was dangerous. If I hadn't heard the noise from the lounge and opened the door, Vice Admiral might actually have starved to death."
"If that happened, Vice Admiral Kuzan would probably freeze all of us into ice sculptures."
Smoker immediately thought of the future Admiral candidate.
For some reason, he suddenly felt a chill around him and couldn't help shivering.
That man's relationship with their Vice Admiral was absurdly close.
Nothing like the ugly rumors spreading around Marine Headquarters.
Over the past year, whenever Kuzan had missions in the New World, he would stop by G-5.
He practically treated the base like his own home.
Still...
Had Vice Admiral eaten a Devil Fruit?
Was he testing some newly acquired ability?
Then he accidentally awakened it?
And then the cost of that awakening was simply too great?
But no matter how huge the consumption was, it shouldn't have directly turned someone into a dried-up corpse, right?
"Fuuu..."
Tina let out a sigh of relief.
"Tina remembers Vice Admiral Tsuru mentioning before that Vice Admiral Garp once regrew a broken tooth just by rinsing his mouth with milk. Earlier, Vice Admiral Rowen couldn't even open his mouth, so Tina was wondering if she'd have to feed him mouth-to-mouth."
"Huh?" ⊙_⊙
Smoker's eyes widened.
"So you're trying to take a shortcut? If you can't beat him, join him? Defeat the Vice Admiral by changing your identity?"
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Several iron rods coated in Armament Haki suddenly appeared, pinning Smoker firmly in place.
"Tina was worried about Vice Admiral Rowen's life. If you keep talking like that, perhaps we should have a little match."
As she spoke, four more iron bars descended, forcing Smoker into an embarrassingly shy-looking pose.
Before Smoker could explode in anger, however, a crisp cracking sound froze both of them.
Crack.
"How is that possible?"
"Tina's iron bars shouldn't be this fragile!"
"You didn't coat them with Armament Haki."
At that moment, Rowen's hand was resting on one of Tina's iron bars.
He had tried to use it to pull himself to his feet.
Instead, he snapped it in half.
And there wasn't a trace of Haki covering his hand.
After collapsing back onto the floor, Rowen stared blankly at his own hand.
It wasn't that his physical strength had already reached the point where he could casually shatter steel.
Rather, the heat flow circulating through his body was still continuously providing the energy needed for his bones to evolve at a fundamental level.
The talent physique known as Steel Bone...
In his memories, there were only two examples associated with that term.
Rowen swallowed a huge mouthful of meat, then gulped down three bottles of milk while analyzing the origin of the Steel Bone talent.
The current Commander-in-Chief of the World Government's military forces, Kong the Steel Bone.
And Big Mom, Charlotte Linlin, who at five years old had already possessed monstrous strength and whose body had never once been injured in the original story, earning her the nickname Steel Balloon.
Kong's title of "Steel Bone" was likely the result of years of Haki training and cultivation.
That wouldn't qualify as an innate talent.
Only Charlotte Linlin's Steel Balloon seemed worthy of being called a true talent.
After all, talent was power one was born with.
Only something innate could truly be called a talent physique.
"Tina, let Smoker go."
Tina was still standing there in a daze.
After a moment, she looked toward Rowen.
"Vice Admiral, are you already better?"
Rowen never stopped eating.
Between bites, he replied:
"Not yet. I'll explain... the details later."
"For now, you and Smoker... go get more food."
"In my current state... moving around would cause too much damage."
The power of Haki was leaking from his body uncontrollably.
With his foundation strengthened, if he walked to the cafeteria himself, G-5 Base would probably need major reconstruction afterward.
The iron bars retracted.
Smoker wanted to ask more questions, but Tina grabbed him by the hair and dragged him away.
From outside the Base Commander's office, Rowen could still hear Smoker being scolded.
"Hey, you damn woman! If you pull my hair again, I'm seriously going to lose my temper! Let me ask the Vice Admiral a few questions!"
"Can't you see the Vice Admiral still needs more nutrition? Where's your brain, Smoker?"
"Didn't he already recover?"
"If you'd been the one who found the Vice Admiral earlier, he'd probably be dead by now."
"And why are all of you just standing around here? Get back to cooking!"
Smoker immediately redirected his frustration toward the cafeteria staff.
Billowing white smoke erupted as he swept up a group of Marine chefs and carried them down the corridor.
The voices of the two gradually faded into the distance, while Rowen continued stuffing food into his mouth without pause.
The foundation of this world was truly strange.
For example, when a Devil Fruit user's abilities were overused and their stamina was exhausted, their body would shrivel up.
But just like how Luffy and Garp could regrow teeth by drinking milk, or how Zoro could recover by drinking and sleeping, as long as enough energy was consumed, the body could recover in a very short time.
"Burp!"
Rowen let out a milk-flavored burp and finally swallowed the chunk of meat stuck in his throat.
Spiritual energy generated by the soul and emotions of extreme pain and sorrow?
But apart from the Yomi Yomi no Mi that Brook had eaten, where else had the concept of the underworld ever appeared in this world?
And the power of the underworld seemed more related to freezing and ice...
The black flames inside the prison...
Wait!
Although the black flames inside the prison had always appeared in the form of fire, what they burned had always been souls.
Once a target's value was completely extracted, the soul would simply disappear.
Until now, he had assumed the soul was burned into ashes.
But looking at it now, perhaps it hadn't been reduced to ashes at all.
Perhaps it had simply ceased to exist.
The black flames burned souls and extracted sin.
Then what would happen if they were used in reality to burn physical matter?
Things were getting messy...
Rowen freed one hand and rubbed his newly regrown hair. The previous hair had already fallen out several times over.
This was a real world.
Yet the Flying Thunder God Technique, the Flying Nimbus, and the Rooster Talisman all originated from worlds within his memories.
Soon, another group of Marines arrived carrying large insulated containers.
The milk had already been poured into the containers.
Rowen lifted them and drank directly from them.
His stomach worked like an industrial grinder, continuously converting food into energy and restoring the bones whose compression had finally begun to slow.
Time passed quickly.
The feast continued from noon all the way until late at night.
By the end, Rowen was sitting there with long hair draped over his shoulders.
Stretching lazily, he looked up at Smoker.
"Come here."
"Let me tell you why I ended up like this."
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