A Pirate's Spring Awakening

Early in the morning, before the sky had fully brightened, Bellamy was already urgently knocking on the ship's doctor's door.

"Captain, what is it?" Muret rubbed her eyes, looking at him with a bewildered expression.

"Go wash your face, and wake Mia up while you're at it."

After arranging to meet them in the dining area, Bellamy went to inspect the ship's hold. The vessel was still leaking, and someone needed to constantly monitor the lower decks. Fortunately, he had managed to acquire ten more Clone Soldiers this time; otherwise, Ross and the others wouldn't have gotten any sleep at night.

However, with more people, a new problem had arisen: the ship's supplies were running low. While Clone Soldiers couldn't exactly be considered human, they were living, specialized organisms that needed to eat. This commandeered ship hadn't had many provisions to begin with. After the chaotic battle, the hull had sustained further damage, and a considerable amount of food and water had been lost. They needed to reach the nearest island for resupply as soon as possible.

The closest island to them now was the one where the Lvneel Kingdom was located, approximately a three-day journey at full sail. If possible, Bellamy also wanted to trade for a better ship on the island. It was almost impossible for this battered vessel to successfully navigate into the Grand Line; the reverse currents of Reverse Mountain were no joke.

He didn't have to wait long. Both women were soon up, and the cook had even prepared some breakfast for him.

Bellamy, holding the manual, pointed to the sections he needed to learn and began to question them. Medicine, regardless of the world, was an incredibly complex system. Even the most skilled doctors wouldn't dare claim to have mastered all medical knowledge. The anatomical information recorded in the King Punch manual, for instance, was extremely obscure.

Muret and Mia studied it for a long time, eventually identifying thirteen special locations in the body that could be used to store energy. There were a dozen or so other points they couldn't decipher, so Bellamy had to temporarily abandon them.

The King Punch charged and accumulated muscular strength – pure physical power. If he only needed that level of energy storage, Bellamy naturally wouldn't need to study the theory so thoroughly. But he wanted to store his elasticity, even his life force and stamina. Simply knowing how to use it wasn't enough; he had to fully understand the principles.

Following the information they had deciphered, Bellamy began to channel the elasticity within his body, slowly gathering it towards these thirteen special points: the inner side of the arms, the center of the wrists, the base of the ankles, deep within the knees, the left side of the abdomen, the lower chest…

A total of thirteen energy points. Using a method similar to winding a clockwork spring, Bellamy slowly accumulated his elasticity, coil by coil.

"It's actually going in!"

Upon entering these special locations, his elasticity, transformed into a spiral shape, was indeed being wound in, turn by turn. Bellamy felt a wave of relief wash over him; this method of energy storage had initially been just a theory. Before actually experimenting, no one knew if it would work. Now that it had succeeded, Bellamy was overjoyed.

Previously, the elasticity in his body had been evenly distributed among all the cells throughout his entire frame. But now, this dispersed power was being condensed by him using a special technique. Once power was concentrated, the advantages were numerous. Bellamy felt that not only had his elasticity become easier to control, but its instantaneous explosive force had also become stronger.

Most crucially, according to the characteristics of a clockwork spring, this elasticity could be compressed into an extremely dense mass and then unleashed at any moment.

At this thought, a flash of inspiration struck Bellamy, and a word leaped into his mind: Energy Compression!

The moment he thought of this term, a sense of advanced sophistication washed over him. From any angle, energy compression was an exceptionally advanced technique.

"If I wind the spring to its limit, how much elasticity can be compressed?"

The amount of elasticity within Bellamy's body was already immense. He roughly calculated that if all this elasticity were unleashed at once, it could generate an impact force of several tens of tons. With special techniques to unleash it, this figure could even be doubled. Compared to when he had just eaten the Spring-Spring Fruit, his power had increased at least tenfold. In less than two years, this growth rate seemed somewhat exaggerated, but when compared to Logia or Mythical Zoan users, it was actually par for the course. When it came to being overpowered, Logias still took the cake.

Bellamy was the type to act immediately on an idea. Since there were no issues with the technique itself, he began to gather all the elasticity within his body, bit by bit, concentrating it. Thirteen points, spread throughout his entire body.

When all the elasticity within him was gathered at these thirteen points, a miraculous change occurred in Bellamy's body. Under the astonished gazes of Mia and Muret, Bellamy, who stood at two and a half meters tall, began to rapidly shrink.

Two-point-three meters. Two meters. One-point-eight meters.

The transformation only stopped when he had contracted to one and a half meters.

"What is this form?"

Bellamy extended his right hand, looking at his palm, which had clearly shrunk by several sizes. He clenched it a few times.

"The power has increased, and it's more condensed."

This change completely exceeded his expectations. He hadn't imagined that a Spring-Man could completely contract their entire body. A two-and-a-half-meter-tall powerhouse, condensed down to one and a half meters. Muscles, bones, blood vessels, internal organs – all contracted together. Bellamy felt like the power accumulated within his body was about to explode.

"This form… it's perfect!"

He now felt like an entire spring compressed to its absolute limit, ready to burst forth at any moment. When elasticity was compressed to its extreme, the body naturally underwent a corresponding change. Before this, Bellamy had never conceived of such a transformation. His development of the Spring-Spring Fruit had clearly not yet reached its deepest levels.

Bellamy still had a long way to go before achieving Devil Fruit Awakening.

Upon discovering this brand-new transformation, Bellamy's mastery of the Spring-Spring Fruit immediately rose to a new level.

"Gear Third… I finally have a clue."