“Twenty-one.”
Ren gasped for air, his arms trembling so violently that he looked like he was vibrating.
“Twenty…
two.”
His elbows gave out.
Ren collapsed chest-first onto the worn tatami mat with a heavy thud, lying in a pool of his own sweat.
His lungs burned as if he had swallowed hot coals, and his muscles screamed in agonizing protest.
He rolled onto his back, staring up at the water-stained ceiling of his cheap apartment.
He had been at this for over an hour, and he had only managed twenty-two push-ups.
The legendary workout was a cruel joke.
To someone who had spent his previous life hunched over a keyboard, achieving those numbers in a single set was a physical impossibility.
His core lacked the stability, his arms lacked the endurance, and his cardiovascular system was hopelessly average.
Ren closed his eyes, willing his heart rate to slow down.
He could have quit.
He could have accepted his fate, packed his meager belongings, and moved to one of the safer cities.
City A or City B, perhaps.
But nowhere was truly safe in this world.
The Deep Sea King would eventually attack City J.
The Dark Matter Thieves would obliterate City A.
The Monster Association would turn City Z into a crater.
Without the bald hero to act as the ultimate shield, the entire planet was a ticking time bomb.
Hiding was just delaying the inevitable.
Ren gritted his teeth and forced himself back up.
“Twenty-three,” he groaned, pushing off the floor with everything he had.
The rest of the day was a blur of agonizing repetition.
It took him hours to complete the push-ups, doing them in sets of five, then three, then single agonizing reps.
The sit-ups tore at his unconditioned abdominal muscles, leaving him unable to stand straight.
The squats turned his legs into useless jelly.
By the time he stepped outside to begin the ten-kilometer run, the sun was already setting, casting long, eerie shadows across the deserted streets of the Ghost Town.
The run was not a run.
It was a pathetic, dragging shuffle.
Every step sent a jolt of pain up his shins.
But as he dragged his feet across the cracked pavement, something strange began to happen.
His brown, furry tail, which he kept tightly wrapped around his waist beneath his shirt, began to uncoil slightly.
It shifted on its own, subtly adjusting his center of gravity.
When his exhausted legs threatened to give out, the tail acted as a perfect counterbalance, keeping him upright.
It was a tiny detail, but it was a reminder of what he truly was.
He was not just a human.
The potential for limitless power was locked inside his DNA, waiting for the right catalyst to wake it up.
When Ren finally dragged himself back into his apartment, it was nearly midnight.
He collapsed onto the floor, completely shattered.
He concentrated, pulling up the digital overlay to check his progress.
[Ren]
[Power Level: 5]
Nothing.
Not a single decimal point of growth.
Ren let out a dry, exhausted laugh.
Of course not.
Gaining genuine combat power was not going to happen in a single day.
It required breaking muscle fibers, recovering, and growing denser.
It was a biological process, and it required patience.
Two weeks passed.
Life in the Abandoned Zone was a psychological nightmare.
Every night, Ren would lie awake on his futon, listening to the horrifying sounds echoing through the empty city blocks.
The heavy, rhythmic thudding of massive footsteps in the distance.
The tearing of concrete.
The wet, sickening sounds of unseen monsters hunting each other in the dark.
He was at the bottom of the food chain, surrounded by apex predators.
The sheer stress of knowing a Demon-level threat could crash through his ceiling at any moment kept his adrenaline constantly spiked.
But the fear fueled his discipline.
Every single morning, he woke up and subjected his body to hell.
The push-ups got slightly easier.
The sit-ups stopped feeling like his internal organs were tearing.
His pathetic shuffle slowly evolved into a heavy jog.
However, a massive, unforeseen problem arose by the middle of the third week.
Hunger.
It was not a normal hunger.
It was a ravenous, hollow void in his stomach that felt like a black hole.
The Saiyan biology was finally beginning to respond to the extreme physical stress, shifting his metabolism into overdrive.
His body was desperately crying out for fuel to rebuild his torn muscles stronger than before.
Ren sat on his kitchen floor, staring bleakly into his open refrigerator.
It contained half a cabbage, a carton of expired milk, and three eggs.
He checked his wallet.
He had barely enough yen left to afford a few bags of cheap white rice and some discount meat from the supermarket a few districts over.
If he wanted to grow stronger, he needed calories, and massive amounts of them.
But he had no job, and getting a normal job in this world was impossible when monster attacks shut down transit lines every other day.
“I need to become a hero,” Ren muttered, closing the empty fridge.
“I need the Hero Association’s salary.”
But the Hero Exam required physical testing and a sparring evaluation.
The passing grade for a C-Class hero usually demanded a Power Level of at least 20 to 30.
Mumen Rider, the top of C-Class, was a solid 50.
If Ren walked into the exam room right now, he would be laughed out of the building.
He needed to focus on the immediate future.
Ren walked into the center of his living room, cracked his neck, and dropped to the floor.
“One,” he said, pushing himself up smoothly.
He fell into a rhythm.
The excruciating pain from the first week had dulled into a deep, manageable burn.
Sweat poured down his face, pooling on the tatami mat, but he did not stop.
His breathing was steady, his form rigid and precise.
He reached one hundred without breaking his set.
He immediately flipped over, hooking his feet under the edge of his cheap sofa, and began his sit-ups.
His core contracted like coiled springs.
Then came the squats, his legs moving with a newfound stability.
Finally, he grabbed his worn-out sneakers and hit the streets.
The Ghost Town was as desolate as ever.
Weeds broke through the asphalt, and rusted cars lined the sidewalks.
Ren sprinted.
He pushed past the burning in his lungs, pushed past the fatigue in his calves.
His tail swished beneath his jacket, keeping his momentum perfectly balanced as he took sharp corners without slowing down.
For the first time since he had arrived in this world, he felt in control of his own limbs.
He felt fast.
He felt capable.
When he finished the ten kilometers and returned to his front door, he wasn’t gasping for breath.
He was heavily winded, dripping with sweat, but he was standing tall.
Ren walked into his bathroom and turned on the small overhead light.
He took off his soaked shirt and looked in the mirror.
He looked different.
The soft, unathletic padding around his waist was gone.
His shoulders looked slightly broader, and there was a tight, defined leanness to his arms and chest.
He looked like an athlete in peak physical condition.
He focused his vision, his heart beating with heavy anticipation.
The digital interface shimmered to life, overlaying his reflection in the cracked mirror.
[Ren]
[Power Level: 6]
Ren let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.
He gripped the edges of the sink, a wide, genuine smile breaking across his face.
Six.
It was a single, solitary point.
To any S-Class hero, it was an imperceptible joke.
But to Ren, it was a profound victory.
It was proof that the system worked.
It was proof that he was not stagnant.
The barrier of his human limitations was beginning to crack.
“Okay,” Ren whispered to his reflection, his eyes burning with a fierce, quiet intensity.
“Now we know how to climb.
Let’s get to work.”