Having chosen his direction, Kane began to focus on training.
But soon, he discovered a limitation.
This body’s potential was lacking.
He trained desperately, and while there were results, they did not meet his expectations.
He believed he would eventually become a strong fighter, but how long that would take was unknown.
And strong fighters differed from one another.
The gap between them could sometimes be wider than the gap between a human and a dog.
At this rate, making it into the ranks of the top-tier fighters was almost hopeless.
Not to mention the manga was still ongoing — who knew what kind of gods would appear later on, and just how absurd Imu would turn out to be?
He had also called out for a system or a cheat many times, both in his heart and in the wilderness, but received no response.
Later, he gave up and focused solely on developing his Devil Fruit ability.
Kane knew this was his greatest asset.
He created more and more ghosts using the Ghost Ghost Fruit, but they were ultimately unsatisfactory.
He understood that numbers meant nothing.
Against truly large-scale battles, these ordinary ghosts would not hold up.
What he needed were powerful individuals.
That day, Kane made a decision that defied common sense in the world of One Piece, and began drafting a long-term plan for it.
This plan might last five years, ten years, twenty years, or even fifty years.
Drawing inspiration from the Ghost Knight class in the game DNF, Kane guided ghostly energy to erode his left hand, transforming it into a demonic hand.
At the same time, he studied diligently, hoping that one day he would create a higher-order creation: the Ghost God.
There were many difficulties along the way.
First, he had no idea how to create a Ghost God — the transition from zero to one was always the hardest part.
Second was the demonic hand itself.
Paramecia-type Devil Fruits generally fell into several categories: supernatural abilities, superhuman bodies, creation, localized mutations, domination, and special types.
The Ghost Ghost Fruit belonged to the special type that combined supernatural abilities and creation.
It had nothing to do with superhuman bodies.
So although Kane could manifest a demonic hand, it was not a passive skill but an active one.
Apart from when he was asleep, he had to maintain the ability around the clock.
He could, of course, manifest the demonic hand only when using his abilities and keep it turned off normally, like a Sharingan.
But he still worked hard to maintain the demonic hand, hoping that one day he could turn it into a passive skill.
This related to Kane’s ambition — it was the cornerstone that would amplify his greatest asset even further.
Time slipped by quickly.
Kane grew from a little brat into a teenager.
On the day he turned eighteen, the first Ghost God was born.
It was a Ghost God that could change his destiny, whose special ability was enough to push him to the peak.
The ability was simple: one was to enhance Kane’s potential.
The method to obtain it was equally simple: win!
Kane discovered that as long as he defeated an opponent and achieved victory, his potential would increase.
This was verified through daily training.
The amount of potential gained depended on the opponent’s strength — the stronger the opponent, the more potential gained.
What made Kane realize just how absurd the First Ghost God’s ability was came during training, when he discovered that “winning” was a concept.
Defeating an enemy was a win.
Defeating yourself was also a win.
If today’s training was stronger than yesterday’s — win!
Though the increase was far less than defeating an enemy, it was still a steady income.
And if today’s training was not stronger than yesterday’s — that was a loss.
If today’s training was the same as yesterday’s — not a loss.
Not losing is winning!
This had already risen to the conceptual level!
But that was just how Devil Fruits worked — unreasonable and absurd.
Hohahahaha~
There was no upper limit to this steady income.
Kane’s physical potential would eventually surpass Kaido’s, surpass Big Mom’s!
The second ability was discovered by accident.
One day, he encountered a pirate who was a Paramecia-type Phantom Shadow Fruit user.
The ability was quite good — probably a lower-tier version of the Shadow Shadow Fruit.
Unfortunately, the guy’s development of it was abysmal.
He was pathetically weak and was easily defeated by Kane, who exchanged him for a bounty.
At the same time, Kane obtained a new reward, which he named Spirit Resonance.
It was not energy, nor attribute points, but something akin to a conceptual essence of laws.
Kane could use it to comprehend and learn part of the Phantom Shadow Fruit’s abilities.
However, the progress was painfully slow.
If he relied solely on gradual comprehension to obtain the full ability, it would take forever — he would have to abandon everything else he was doing.
His daily time was limited.
Kane had already poured all his energy into developing his abilities, practicing swordsmanship, training Observation Haki, and building his physique.
Once he learned Armament Haki, that would also be added to the training list.
He simply had no time to study other abilities.
He understood the principle of biting off more than you could chew.
But letting good things rot away was not Kane’s style either.
Sometimes inspiration struck out of nowhere.
Kane used the Spirit Resonance as the core and created the Second Ghost God: Phantom Shadow Kaija.
This not only opened a new direction for creating future Ghost Gods but also saved him from investing extra effort into studying the Spirit Resonance.
Kane could summon Ghost Gods to aid him in battle — essentially, he could use the abilities immediately upon acquiring them.
By focusing on developing the Ghost Ghost Fruit’s abilities, he would naturally enhance the power of the Ghost Gods and the progress of their conceptual development.
It was killing multiple birds with one stone.
No system, no cheat?
Then I will make my own!
With the birth of the second Ghost God, Kane’s demonic hand finally evolved into a passive skill.
The Ghost Ghost Fruit had undergone a sublimation at that moment, entering a brand new domain.
It had gone from originally being supernatural ability and creation, to now being supernatural ability, creation, and localized mutation.
But this was only the beginning.
Kane aimed to keep developing toward the superhuman body category.
He would add brick by brick, level by level, step by step, until he reached the very top!
Until he evolved the Paramecia-type Ghost Ghost Fruit into the Zoan-type Hito Hito no Mi, Mythical Zoan, Ghost God Form!
Dreams were necessary!
Do not think Kane was daydreaming.
He had a basis for this.
He remembered that during the Egghead Island arc, Vegapunk had proposed a relevant hypothesis:
Devil Fruits were born from human desires.
They were the possibilities of human evolution that people yearned for.
Or a certain longing for the phenomena of nature itself.
In other words, if people deeply desired to become something, then the Devil Fruit would respond to that desire and manifest accordingly.
If Vegapunk’s hypothesis held true, then what Kane was attempting was entirely possible.
Kane himself was a human too!
The collective desires and hopes of many people converged, accumulating over time to give rise to the various Devil Fruits.
Looking at it from another angle, if quantity was insufficient, could quality make up for it?
On the day Kane became powerful enough, with overwhelming conviction and desire breaking through dimensions, that would be the day the Paramecia evolved into a Mythical Zoan.
If Luffy could go from being a rubber man in the beginning to the Sun God Nika later on, Kane could definitely do it too.
Anything was possible!
He had to have a Mythical Zoan.
It would not do without one.
Look at what things had become later on: Mythical Zoans — Azure Dragon, Okuchi no Makami, Nika — and the Five Elders each had one.
Then came something absurdly luxurious: feeding a Mythical Zoan Cerberus Fruit to a rapier.
The next one was even more heavyweight: the colossal Nidhoggr form.
Thought that was all?
There was more.
Chopper got an epic upgrade — the Zoan Hito Hito no Mi, Ordinary Person Form, ultimate evolution into Human King Form.
The panacea Chopper was born!
So Kane could not do without Ghost God Form, just as Luffy could not do without the Nika Fruit.
He had also considered spreading legends and gathering the collective expectations of the masses to evolve the Ghost Ghost Fruit, but ultimately gave up on the idea.
Because Kane could not force the entire world to yearn for a Ghost God.
Even if he took an unorthodox approach and somehow succeeded, there was no guarantee that everyone’s desires would match the Ghost God Kane needed.
After all, human imagination was limitless.
If it backfired and actually succeeded, but the Ghost God Form turned out to be something Kane did not desire, it would become a grotesque mishmash — a form of spiritual pollution.
So unless it was the absolute last resort, when he was completely out of options and at the end of his rope, Kane would not activate that plan.
The ideal outcome was still for him to evolve the ability into a Mythical Zoan through his own efforts.
He would work toward that goal, persist, and keep going until the day he succeeded.
“Boss, take a look at this!
The latest model of the all-purpose wrench!
Get it while it’s hot~”
The vendor’s shouting pulled Kane back to reality.
He looked at the new tools in the hardware store and his eyes lit up.
“Mm, the old man will love this.
Give me one of these, and this one, and this, and this one too — wrap them all up.”
Stepping out of the hardware store, Kane spun around and took a look.
There were quite a few new things.
The real shopping spree had begun.
“Miss, do you have any medical books here?
Mm, good.
Please wrap up these few.”
“Hey, buddy, how much for this set of scalpels?
Fine, pack it for me.”
“Boss, I will take these two hats.”
“The diving suit quality looks good.
Let me see the largest size.”