The floorboards of the apartment groaned in protest.
Ren sat perfectly still in the center of his living room, his legs crossed in a lotus position, his hands resting on his knees.
He had been sitting in the exact same spot for four hours.
His gray hoodie was entirely soaked through with cold sweat, sticking uncomfortably to his dense musculature.
He took a slow, agonizingly deep breath, drawing the humid air of the Ghost Town into his lungs, and pushed his focus downward.
“Come on,” Ren whispered through gritted teeth, his brow furrowing.
“Burn.”
He was hunting for the spark.
He vividly remembered the sensation from his battle with the Steel-Hide Lycan.
It had been a localized, pressurized heat residing deep within his gut, a volatile energy that he had violently forced into his fist to shatter the monster’s skull.
But that had been triggered by the primal terror of impending death.
Now, sitting in the relative safety of his apartment, his Saiyan biology was completely dormant.
Ren tightened his core, mentally grasping at the emptiness in his stomach.
He tried to visualize a flame.
He tried to forcefully flex his internal organs, simulating the extreme physical stress of combat.
A tiny, microscopic flicker of heat bloomed near his diaphragm.
Ren’s heart leaped.
He tried to seize it, tried to force that tiny spark to travel up his chest and into his arm.
But the moment his heart rate spiked with excitement, his concentration shattered.
The tiny flicker of heat instantly vanished, leaving him grasping at nothing.
Ren let out a loud, frustrated groan and collapsed backward onto the tatami mat, staring up at the water-stained ceiling.
“It’s like trying to flex a phantom limb,” he muttered, wiping the sweat from his eyes.
Without a martial arts master like Roshi or King Kai to explain the flow of spiritual energy, he was completely stumbling in the dark.
The Saiyan body was built to harness Ki, but it required an ironclad mental discipline to separate that energy from the wild, feral emotions of battle.
He pulled up his digital overlay, hoping the intense meditation had at least yielded a fraction of a point.
[Ren]
[Power Level: 38]
Nothing.
He had completely plateaued.
Ren pushed himself off the floor and walked to the bathroom to splash cold water on his face.
The sun was already high in the sky.
It was a Tuesday, which meant the financial districts of City Z were swarming with people, and the local Hero Association branches were heavily monitoring the streets for quota activity.
He had to go out and play the fool.
With his rank accidentally inflated to 214, he needed to make himself look as incompetent and mundane as possible.
No more monster hunts on the clock.
No more heroic rescues.
He needed to find a lost cat or help an old lady cross a busy intersection, submit the paperwork, and fade back into obscurity.
An hour later, Ren was walking down a crowded commercial avenue on the border of City Z’s safe zone.
He had deliberately bought a cheap, overly sweet crepe and was eating it while he walked, cultivating the aura of a slacker who didn’t take his job seriously.
His tail was tightly bound beneath his jacket, restricting his movements to make his gait look perfectly average.
Up ahead, a small commotion gathered near the entrance of a subway station.
Ren stopped chewing, his enhanced hearing picking up the sharp sounds of a scuffle.
Three men in cheap leather jackets were cornering a terrified salaryman against a brick wall, demanding his wallet.
It was a standard mugging.
Threat level: Wolf, barely.
Ren sighed, tossing the remainder of his crepe into a trash can.
“Perfect.
I’ll trip one, let the cops handle the rest, and file the report.”
He stepped off the curb and began to jog toward the alleyway, making sure to let his feet slap loudly against the pavement.
Before he could even shout a warning, a massive shadow eclipsed the alleyway.
“Hey!
You lowlife scum!” a booming, obnoxious voice echoed over the street.
A giant of a man stepped out from a nearby coffee shop, cracking his knuckles.
He wore dark cargo pants and a tight, tiger-striped tank top that barely contained his bulging, heavily tanned muscles.
Tanktop Tiger.
C-Class, Rank 13.
Ren instantly slammed on the brakes, stopping ten feet away from the alley.
He recognized the man immediately, and more importantly, he recognized the faction he represented.
Ren quickly focused his vision on the massive hero.
[Tanktop Tiger – Power Level: 42]
Ren blinked.
Forty-two.
It was strong.
It was higher than his own Power Level of 38, but it wasn’t an insurmountable gap.
In a pure, brutal street fight, Ren was absolutely certain his superior combat speed, Saiyan durability, and lethal instincts would allow him to tear Tanktop Tiger apart.
But the One Punch Man universe wasn’t just about the man in front of you; it was about the man standing behind him.
Tanktop Tiger was a high-ranking member of the Tanktop Army.
His older brother, Tanktop Black Hole, was a high B-Class.
And their leader, Tanktop Master, was an S-Class behemoth.
If Ren laid a single finger on Tiger, the entire faction would hunt him down and crush him into a bloody paste.
The three muggers dropped their knives and tried to run, but Tanktop Tiger was already on them.
With a loud, theatrical roar, the hero grabbed two of the men by their collars and slammed their heads together.
The sickening crack echoed down the street as they crumpled to the concrete.
The third man tried to throw a desperate punch, but Tiger casually swatted his arm away and delivered a devastating knee to the man’s stomach, lifting him off his feet.
The crowd of civilians that had gathered began to cheer and clap.
Tanktop Tiger puffed out his chest, flexing his biceps for the onlookers, thoroughly bathing in the praise.
He turned around, expecting to see local police, and instead locked eyes with Ren.
Tiger’s arrogant smile instantly vanished into a scowl.
He marched over, towering over Ren’s frame.
“You,” Tiger grunted, aggressively poking a thick, calloused finger directly into the center of Ren’s chest.
“I saw your name on the registry boards this morning.
Ren, right?
The rookie who skyrocketed up to rank 214 because he got lucky in the woods.”
Ren forced his shoulders to slump.
He looked down at the pavement, adopting the posture of a terrified civilian.
“Yes, sir.
That’s me,” Ren said, making his voice pitch up slightly to sound nervous.
“Listen to me very closely, rookie,” Tanktop Tiger leaned in, his breath reeking of protein powder and cheap coffee.
“This sector of City Z is Tanktop territory.
My brother and I patrol these streets.
We don’t need some lucky punk trying to steal our arrest quotas to climb the ranks.”
Ren kept his eyes glued to the pavement, completely suppressing the burning, instinctual rage bubbling in his Saiyan blood.
His biology hated submitting.
It hated cowing to a man who was only marginally stronger than him.
But his human logic held the leash tight.
“I apologize, sir,” Ren stammered, giving a deep, subservient bow.
“I wasn’t trying to steal your arrest.
I was just passing through.
I know I’m not in your league.”
Tanktop Tiger scoffed, crossing his massive arms.
He looked Ren up and down, clearly disgusted by the display of absolute cowardice.
“Damn right you’re not,” Tiger sneered.
“If you want to survive in the C-Class, you learn your place.
You stay at the bottom, you clean up the trash we leave behind, and you don’t ever try to outshine the Tanktop Army.
Got it?”
“Crystal clear, Tiger-san,” Ren replied, keeping his head bowed.
“Good.
Now get out of my sight before I decide you look like a monster,” Tiger threatened, turning back to wave at the cheering crowd of civilians.
Ren didn’t say another word.
He turned on his heel and walked away, disappearing into the sea of pedestrians as quickly as possible.
He walked for three blocks before he finally allowed himself to stop in a quiet alleyway.
He leaned against the cold brick wall and took a deep breath.
His hands were trembling.
It wasn’t fear.
It was sheer, unadulterated fury.
His tail, bound tightly beneath his jacket, was twitching violently against his lower back.
He had played the part perfectly.
He had secured his cover, stroked the ego of a dangerous faction member, and walked away without drawing any unwanted suspicion.
It was the smartest, most tactical move he could have made.
But it felt like poison in his veins.
“Forty-two,” Ren hissed through his teeth, punching the brick wall beside him.
The heavy impact cracked the mortar, leaving a deep indentation in the stone.
He was tired of hiding.
He was tired of pretending to be weak.
But the reality was, he *was* weak.
As long as monsters like Tatsumaki and Tanktop Master existed, a Power Level of 38 was nothing but a statistical rounding error.
If he wanted to break the system, if he wanted to reach a level where no arrogant B-Class or C-Class faction could ever look down on him again, he had to take drastic measures.
Ren looked toward the horizon, where the pristine skyscrapers of the safe zone gave way to the jagged, smog-choked ruins of the Ghost Town.
“No more Wolf-level stragglers,” Ren whispered, his eyes hardening into a cold, predatory glare.
“No more playing it safe on the edges.”
He was going to the epicenter.
The Deep Zone.
The subterranean labyrinth beneath the Abandoned District where the true nightmares bred in the dark.
He didn’t care if it nearly killed him.
In fact, he was counting on it.
The Saiyan biology required trauma to evolve, and Ren was finally ready to throw himself into the meat grinder.
The climb to fifty was going to be bathed in blood.