As the words fell, Wilder's body transformed into mud and spread out. More than a dozen thin lines of swamp flowed along different cracks in the floor towards the opposite cell.
Time was of the essence. Wilder had to get to the other cell before the guards noticed anything unusual in the corridor.
Unlike his previous operation, these thin lines of swamp could fool the video Den Den Mushi, but they definitely couldn't fool a passing guard.
Letting the old man go was not only to get rid of that nuisance, but also to set the stage for this moment.
The first step was to draw the guards away with the old man's escape. The second step was the now-empty cell.
Before a new prisoner arrived, the opposite cell would be unoccupied for a short time, and that was what Wilder ultimately wanted.
Only an empty cell would give him enough time to complete this ongoing project.
As for his own cell...
Sorry, Wilder would never put himself in a precarious position. Before those four years were up, he wouldn't touch anything that might expose his situation. He would avoid it as much as possible; this was his consistent style.
"Glug..."
"Glug...!"
The sound of viscous bubbles popping intermittently echoed in the dark, empty space.
Without anyone noticing, in the empty, dark cell, a pool of swamp gradually twisted and coalesced into a half-human form on the cold floor.
Wilder revealed a pair of eyes from within the swamp. His lower body was a spreading pool of mud. He scanned the empty cell, and only after confirming there was nothing amiss did his gaze relax slightly.
So... let the plan begin!
His swamp-ified body moved at a decent pace towards the deeper, darker part of the cell. He reached the very back, the most concealed corner, and with a surge of his body, returned to his human form.
"Heavy Swamp!"
A muffled shout escaped him as Wilder's right hand, secreting mud, slammed heavily onto the floor. His eyes, nearly splitting from the strain, were fixed on the hairline crack he'd created with that strike.
The surging swamp rushed towards the crack like a swarm of crazed insects.
The crack, originally less than two millimeters wide, was forced open to a centimeter wide in less than three seconds by the pressure of the swamp.
Wilder could clearly feel the sensation of a large amount of swamp flowing from his right hand. He skillfully kept this flow contained within a limited area, preventing it from bursting out and spreading.
But maintaining this control was still extremely taxing for Wilder at his current level. He was defying the natural flow of the swamp, forcing the mud that should have spread in all directions to concentrate into a single force, compressing it within a confined space. The resulting pressure not only allowed the swamp to force open the floor, but also placed immense strain on Wilder himself.
If it weren't absolutely necessary, Wilder would never have chosen this method to complete the first step of this project.
In terms of sheer offensive power, the swamp might not be strong, but Wilder would never agree that the swamp itself lacked destructive potential.
The swamp's own weight, combined with its fluidity – if Wilder controlled it properly and focused it on a single point, it would be enough to crack open a small section of this floor. But the prerequisite was to release a large amount of swamp in an instant; only then would the resulting weight and impact be sufficient.
But that would inevitably cause a big commotion, which was not what he wanted.
The ultimate goal of all his plans was to increase his strength as quickly as possible within these four years, without anyone noticing anything unusual.
And what he was doing now was for that very purpose. By setting everything up in a cell that wasn't his own, no matter what happened in the future, no one would suspect him.
The surging swamp had silently infiltrated the crack. After widening the crack to a centimeter, it maintained that width, no longer expanding.
The next step was to connect the swamp within these cracks, slowly controlling it to swamp-ify the interior of this area.
"Heh heh heh..."
Wilder couldn't help but let out a low chuckle. This was a move he'd suddenly thought of a while back.
He'd always overlooked one of the most terrifying aspects of the Swamp-Swamp Fruit, until a scene from the original story suddenly flashed through his mind, making him realize what he'd almost missed!
In Wilder's mind, the most terrifying trait of the Swamp-Swamp Fruit was its limitless capacity for engulfment.
But that was before. Now, in Wilder's mind, the Swamp-Swamp Fruit had another most terrifying trait.
A trait that could rival limitless engulfment, and in some cases, was even more terrifying:
Assimilation!
A terrifying ability that could instantly swamp-ify the surrounding environment!
Wilder remembered that the user of the Swamp-Swamp Fruit in the original story had used this move, transforming the surrounding area into a swamp in a short period of time.
But after examining his own memories and conducting personal experiments, Wilder discovered that he couldn't achieve this.
To be precise, achieving this not only required a lot of time, but the process was also extremely difficult.
Wilder had failed many times during his attempts, until one moment...
Countless attempts and the thoughts in his mind seemed to trigger something. Wilder couldn't understand the reason, only that in that moment, it felt as though a smoother path had opened up between himself and the swamp.
After several days of practice, Wilder had finally, two days ago, preliminarily developed a rudimentary version of the swamp assimilation ability.
This assimilation ability only allowed him to control the swamp-ification of a small area, and it still required a significant amount of time.
To put it concretely, Wilder could currently swamp-ify an area the size of a mung bean in one second.
Therefore, this was a choice made out of necessity. If he could instantly assimilate the environment, he wouldn't have to go to such lengths to implement this plan.
Leaving the swamp within the crack, Wilder considered the first step of his plan complete. The next step was to return to his own cell and let the swamp in the crack assimilate the interior of the floor over time.
Wilder's body transformed into swamp again, splitting into more than a dozen thin lines, and returned to his own cell along the cracks in the floor.
Listening to the symphony of the prisoners' revelry and the game of cat and mouse between the old man and the guards, a wild, unrestrained smile couldn't help but spread across Wilder's face.
"A monstrous ability."
"You're the guy next door, aren't you?"
A calm voice came from the other side of the wall. Wilder's body stiffened slightly, then returned to normal, but the smile on his face had turned to ice, chilling and piercing.