The journey back to the surface was a blur of absolute agony.
Ren dragged his broken body up the rusted iron ladders of the Deep Zone, one excruciating rung at a time.
His left arm was completely useless, hanging limply at his side.
His shattered ribs ground against his lungs with every breath he took, forcing him to take shallow, ragged gasps of the toxic air.
His right arm, the one he had used to channel the rudimentary Ki blast, was in even worse shape.
The skin along his forearm was violently blistered and raw, radiating a burning heat that felt like he had submerged his limb in boiling oil.
His human biology, even enhanced to a Power Level of 38, was not designed to act as a conduit for pure, pressurized spiritual energy.
He had forced it, and his cellular structure had paid the price.
By the time Ren finally crawled out of the storm drain and collapsed onto the dry concrete of the riverbed, the sun was beginning to rise over City Z, casting a pale, gray light over the Ghost Town.
He lay on his back, staring up at the smog-choked sky.
He wanted to sleep.
He wanted to close his eyes and let the darkness take him.
But if he slept now, without feeding the biological furnace screaming in his gut, he would simply die of organ failure.
Ren rolled onto his stomach, using his tail to help push his battered frame off the concrete.
He stumbled through the empty streets, heavily favoring his right leg, leaving a trail of blood drops on the cracked pavement.
When he reached his apartment block, he bypassed his own door and went straight to the rusted emergency supply box he had hidden in the stairwell.
Using the remainder of his bounty money, he had stockpiled military-grade, high-calorie survival rations.
Massive, dense bricks of compressed peanut butter, oats, and protein paste.
He didn’t bother mixing them with water.
He tore the foil packaging open with his teeth and forced the dry, chalky paste down his throat.
It tasted like sawdust and ash, but it was fuel.
He ate three bricks, consuming nearly ten thousand calories in ten minutes.
The moment his stomach registered the massive caloric dump, Ren dragged himself into his apartment, locked the heavy iron door, and collapsed face-first onto his futon.
The fever hit him instantly.
His body temperature skyrocketed.
His Saiyan cells, flooded with raw materials, went into violent overdrive.
The fractured bone of his collarbone cracked and shifted as it rapidly fused back together.
The shattered ribs knitted themselves tight, growing significantly thicker to protect his vital organs.
The blistered, burned flesh on his right arm peeled away, replaced by dense, highly resistant scar tissue designed to withstand thermal shock.
Ren lay completely comatose for nearly thirty hours.
When he finally opened his eyes, the apartment was completely dark, save for the ambient moonlight filtering through the blinds.
He took a slow, deep breath.
His lungs expanded fully, pressing against his ribs.
There was no pain.
Just a heavy, solid pressure.
Ren slowly sat up.
He looked down at his right arm.
The blistering was entirely gone.
In its place was a layer of pale, slightly calloused skin that felt incredibly tough to the touch.
He clenched his fist.
The muscles in his forearm contracted with terrifying density, pulling tight like braided steel cables.
He pushed himself off the futon and stood in the center of the room.
Gravity felt like a mere suggestion.
His body felt impossibly light, yet deeply grounded.
Every single one of his senses had been sharpened.
He could hear the faint scuttling of a rat three floors below him.
He could see the microscopic dust motes floating in the dark corners of his living room.
Ren focused his vision, demanding his ocular system to quantify the horrific trauma he had just survived.
The digital overlay flickered to life.
The numbers spun rapidly, struggling to calculate the sheer density of his newly forged muscle fibers before locking in with a bright, solid chime.
[Ren]
[Power Level: 54]
Ren stood frozen.
Fifty-four.
A massive sixteen-point jump.
It was the largest Zenkai boost he had ever experienced.
The combination of near-lethal physical trauma, extreme humiliation, and the forced unlocking of his Ki pathways had shattered his previous limits.
He let out a slow, shaking exhale.
He had done it.
He had surpassed Mumen Rider.
He was no longer just a strong human; he had officially crossed the threshold into true superhuman territory.
If he walked into the National Testing Center today, he would shatter their machines.
He possessed the raw strength necessary to enter the B-Class.
But as Ren stared at the number, a cold, calculating logic settled over his mind.
Being strong enough to enter the B-Class and actually surviving the B-Class were two entirely different things.
A Power Level of 54 made him a predator in the Ghost Town, but in the corporate hierarchy of the Hero Association, it made him a target.
If Fubuki caught wind of a newly minted superhuman who wasn’t under her thumb, she would send her executives to crush his kneecaps.
“I need to lay low,” Ren whispered to himself.
“I am strong enough to survive the lower tiers now, but I have to keep my official rank stalled.
The moment I hit C-Class Rank 1, the spotlight turns on.”
He walked to the bathroom and washed the dried blood and grime from his face.
He put on a clean black shirt, wrapped his tail tightly around his waist, and zipped up his gray Association jacket.
It was time to test his new scanner range in the daylight.
Ren caught the early morning train out of the Ghost Town and headed directly to the City Z central Hero Association branch.
The lobby was relatively quiet, populated only by a few early-rising heroes checking the bulletin boards.
Ren walked over to the digital kiosk to log a mundane, falsified patrol report to keep his weekly quota satisfied.
As he typed on the touchscreen, the heavy glass doors of the lobby swung open.
The temperature in the room seemed to drop.
The casual chatter of the C-Class heroes instantly ceased, replaced by stiff postures and nervous glances.
Ren looked over his shoulder.
Walking into the lobby were two men in impeccably tailored black suits.
One was a towering mountain of muscle with a brutish scowl; the other was a tall, lean man with perfectly styled hair and a clipboard in hand.
Mountain Ape and Eyelashes.
The enforcers of the Fubuki Group.
They were here on a recruitment sweep, checking the branch registry for any rising C-Class stars to intimidate into joining their faction before they could even reach B-Class.
Ren kept his head down, returning his focus to the kiosk.
But beneath his calm exterior, his heart beat with a steady, confident rhythm.
Before the deep zone, these two men were completely unreadable to him.
They were walking question marks, possessing strength that his ocular system could not even comprehend.
Because his scanner could only read up to ten times his own Power Level, anything above 380 had been a complete mystery.
But now, his baseline was 54.
He could read up to 540.
Ren subtly activated his vision and cast a sideways glance at the two enforcers as they walked past the reception desk.
The digital overlay flickered, the numbers calculating smoothly without a single error warning.
[Mountain Ape – Power Level: 285]
[Eyelashes – Power Level: 260]
Ren quickly looked back at his screen, completely suppressing the wide, triumphant smile threatening to break across his face.
They were no longer gods.
They were no longer unknown terrors.
They were just numbers.
Two hundred and eighty-five.
Two hundred and sixty.
They were incredibly strong, possessing nearly five times his current physical output.
If they cornered him in an alley right now, they would still beat him within an inch of his life.
But the gap was no longer an insurmountable abyss.
He could see the ceiling of the B-Class, and it was entirely reachable.
If a Tiger-level threat like the Arachnid could push him up by sixteen points, a few more dances with death would bridge that gap entirely.
“You there.
Rookie.”
The sharp, condescending voice cut through Ren’s thoughts.
Ren turned around slowly.
Eyelashes was standing five feet away, adjusting his glasses, looking at Ren with an expression of mild distaste.
Mountain Ape stood silently behind him, arms crossed, looming like a brick wall.
“Me, sir?” Ren asked, intentionally letting his shoulders slump into a submissive posture.
“Yes, you,” Eyelashes said, looking down at his clipboard.
“Ren.
Rank 214.
Your file indicates you received a massive merit boost for assisting Shooter with a Silverback Alpha.”
“I…
I just flushed the monkeys out, sir,” Ren stammered, rubbing the back of his neck nervously.
“Shooter did all the real work.
I barely survived.”
Eyelashes narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing Ren’s posture, his cheap gray jacket, and his completely unremarkable demeanor.
“I can see that,” Eyelashes scoffed.
“We monitor anomalies in the registry.
A sudden jump of one hundred and seventy ranks is usually a sign of potential.
But looking at you…
it seems the algorithm simply made a mistake in heavily weighting a support role.”
Mountain Ape grunted, losing interest completely.
“He’s weak.
Bone structure is too narrow.
Don’t waste time, Eyelashes.
Miss Blizzard wants the sweep done by noon.”
“Agreed,” Eyelashes said, turning away from Ren without another word.
“Return to your petty patrols, rookie.
Make sure you do not get in the way of the professionals.”
The two suited men walked away, heading toward the branch manager’s office.
Ren stood at the kiosk, his face a perfect mask of meek submission.
But underneath his gray jacket, his newly forged muscles coiled tight.
They had looked right at him and seen absolutely nothing.
They had dismissed the greatest biological threat in the city as a statistical error.
It was exactly what Ren needed.
Ren logged his fake patrol report and walked out of the Association branch, stepping into the bright morning sunlight.
“Two hundred and eighty-five,” Ren murmured to himself, the number burning into his mind like a target.
The Fubuki Group ruled the middle tiers through sheer numbers and intimidation.
But they lacked the one thing Ren possessed: limitless, agonizing potential.
He now had his benchmarks.
He knew exactly how much blood he needed to spill to stand eye-to-eye with the executives of the Blizzard Group.
Ren looked toward the distant skyline of the Ghost Town.
The Deep Zone was waiting.
The Demon-level threats were waiting.
“Keep your throne a little longer, Fubuki,” Ren whispered, blending into the civilian crowd.
“I’ll be up there soon enough.”