The bullet train ride from the outskirts of City Z to the heart of City A took just under three hours.
For Ren, it felt like traveling to another planet.
As he stepped out of the central transit station, he had to shield his eyes from the glaring LED billboards and the pristine, polished glass of the skyscrapers.
City A was the crown jewel of the continent, heavily fortified and bustling with millions of citizens.
In the direct center of the metropolis, looming over everything like a monolithic fortress of black steel, was the Hero Association Headquarters.
Ren adjusted the straps of his small backpack, keeping his head down as he joined the massive crowd of pedestrians.
Beneath his gray hoodie, his tail was bound tightly to his waist.
The National Testing Center was a massive dome located adjacent to the main headquarters.
As Ren approached the entrance gates, he was immediately swallowed by a sea of eccentric individuals.
There were towering men with muscles bulging out of tight singlets, martial artists in traditional gi, teenagers carrying heavily modified katanas, and people dressed in ridiculous animal mascots.
This was the monthly Hero Exam, the only legitimate gateway to a steady paycheck and a license to use public violence.
Ren subtly activated his ocular system, sweeping his gaze across the courtyard.
The numbers flickered rapidly as his eyes registered the aspirants.
[Hero Aspirant – Power Level: 11]
[Hero Aspirant – Power Level: 14]
[Hero Aspirant – Power Level: 9]
Most of them hovered around the low teens.
They were martial arts students or bodybuilders—certainly stronger than an average civilian, but cannon fodder for any actual monster.
Ren felt a quiet surge of relief.
His brutal month in the Ghost Town had paid off.
With a Power Level of 24, he was significantly stronger than the vast majority of the hopefuls here.
He wouldn’t just pass; he would be perfectly positioned to enter the C-Class without drawing too much unwanted attention.
Suddenly, a massive ripple of hushed whispers spread through the courtyard crowd.
“Hey, look…
over there by the VIP entrance.”
“No way.
It’s the Fubuki Group.”
The crowd parted like the Red Sea.
Ren stopped walking and peered over the shoulders of a massive man in a wrestler’s mask.
A sleek, heavily armored black luxury car had pulled up to the curb.
Two men stepped out of the front doors.
One was a towering behemoth of a man in a sharp black suit, his face contorted into a permanent, brutish scowl.
The other was a tall, lean man with impeccably styled hair and absurdly long eyelashes.
Mountain Ape and Eyelashes.
The rank 3 and rank 2 heroes of the B-Class.
Eyelashes opened the rear door of the car, bowing slightly.
A woman stepped out.
She wore an elegant, dark green dress that draped flawlessly over her figure, complemented by a white pearl necklace.
Her short, dark green hair framed a face that was stunningly beautiful, yet carried an expression of absolute, freezing disdain.
Fubuki.
The Hellish Blizzard.
B-Class Rank 1.
Even from fifty yards away, Ren felt the air pressure drop.
It wasn’t just an intimidating presence; it was a physical weight.
The latent psychic energy radiating off her was so dense it caused the small pebbles on the asphalt near her high heels to tremble and float a millimeter off the ground.
Ren narrowed his eyes, zeroing in on the trio to gauge the true strength of professional, ranked heroes.
The digital overlay in his vision flickered violently.
It tried to calculate Mountain Ape first.
The numbers spun, flashed red, and settled.
[Mountain Ape – Power Level: ???]
Ren’s breath hitched.
His scanner’s limit was exactly ten times his own strength.
Since he was at 24, he could read up to 240.
Mountain Ape was unreadable, meaning his raw physical strength exceeded 240.
Eyelashes registered the exact same way.
Then, Ren shifted his gaze to Fubuki.
The scanner didn’t even attempt to calculate.
The system instantly violently glitched, flashing a bright, blinding crimson warning directly into his optic nerve, forcing Ren to wince and rub his eyes.
[Hellish Blizzard – Power Level: ???]
“Right,” Ren muttered to himself, lowering his gaze immediately to avoid eye contact.
“I am still an absolute insect.”
It was a sobering, necessary reality check.
The Zenkai boosts had made him arrogant, thinking his Power Level of 24 made him a predator.
But the Hero Association was a different food chain entirely.
B-Class heroes were walking tanks.
A-Class heroes were localized natural disasters.
And the S-Class?
They were gods.
“Keep your eyes peeled, Eyelashes,” Fubuki said, her voice smooth but carrying an authoritative edge that demanded absolute obedience.
“We are only looking for immediate B-Class potential.
I will not have useless dead weight joining my faction.”
“Understood, Miss Blizzard,” Eyelashes replied, pulling out a digital tablet.
“We will observe the physical exams from the gallery.”
The trio bypassed the lines completely, walking through the glass doors of the VIP entrance.
Ren let out a slow exhale, releasing the tension in his shoulders, and filed into the main entrance with the rest of the nervous aspirants.
The interior of the testing center was essentially an oversized Olympic training facility.
Hundreds of candidates were herded into locker rooms, issued standard gray athletic wear with numbered bibs, and then funneled out onto the massive indoor track.
Ren stood near the back of his group, stretching his arms.
His bib number was 4022.
A sharp microphone feedback squeal echoed through the arena.
Standing on a raised podium in the center of the track was a man wearing a customized, scaly martial arts suit resembling snakeskin.
His sharp eyes scanned the crowd with a mix of boredom and contempt.
A-Class Rank 37, Snakebite Snek.
“Listen up, you pathetic lot,” Snek’s voice boomed through the speakers.
“I am your primary examiner.
Today, you will undergo standard physical evaluations: the 1500-meter dash, weightlifting, jumping side-to-steps, and the punching machine.
If you score high enough, you move on to the written and psychological tests.
If you fail, you go back to playing pretend in your backyards.”
Snek pointed a finger out at the crowd.
“This is not a game.
Monsters do not care about your dreams.
If you are weak, you will die.
Now, line up for the 1500-meter!”
The testing was a brutal filter.
Ren watched as heavily muscled men collapsed halfway through the run, vomiting from exhaustion.
He watched martial artists shatter their wrists on the punching machine.
The physical demands of the One Punch Man universe were simply on a different scale than normal reality.
When it was Ren’s turn, he kept a tight leash on his instincts.
During the side-to-side jumps, he moved quickly, but purposefully kept his feet heavy, avoiding the explosive blur of speed he had used against the Sewer-Ghouls.
He clocked in an impressive time, but nothing reality-breaking.
For the weightlifting, he hoisted a massive barbell over his head.
The weight, which would have crushed his spine a month ago, felt incredibly manageable.
He could have lifted twice as much, but he dropped it with a feigned grunt of extreme effort.
The final physical test was the punching machine.
Ren stood before the massive, heavily padded target.
Up in the glass-paneled observation deck, he could see the faint silhouettes of Eyelashes and Mountain Ape looking down at the testing floor.
“Candidate 4022,” the examiner beside the machine droned.
“Strike the pad when ready.”
Ren exhaled slowly.
He didn’t use his waist to generate torque.
He didn’t utilize the coiled tension of his hidden tail.
He just threw a standard, solid right hook, relying purely on the dense muscle fibers he had built in the Ghost Town.
The heavy thud echoed sharply.
The digital numbers on the machine skyrocketed, pinging loudly before settling on a score that made the examiner raise an eyebrow.
“Excellent,” the examiner noted, scribbling on his clipboard.
“Solid C-Class numbers.”
Up in the observation gallery, Eyelashes tapped his pen against his tablet.
“Candidate 4022.
The guy in the gray hoodie,” Mountain Ape grunted, leaning against the glass.
“He punches hard for a skinny kid.”
Eyelashes quickly checked the live data feed pouring in from the testing floor.
“Physical scores are above average.
He hits hard, but his technique is sloppy.
Completely unrefined.
His running time was decent, but nothing to write home about.”
Fubuki, seated in a plush chair behind them with her legs crossed, didn’t even bother to look out the window.
“Does he possess the strength to immediately challenge a rank 50 B-Class?”
Eyelashes adjusted his glasses.
“No, Miss Blizzard.
He’s a mid-tier C-Class at best.
He would require months of training and resource investment before he would be of any use to the Group.”
“Then ignore him,” Fubuki said coldly.
“We are not a charity.
Next.”
Down on the floor, Ren stepped away from the machine, massaging his knuckles.
He had no idea he was being evaluated and dismissed by the most powerful faction in the lower ranks, and if he had known, he would have been thrilled.
The last thing he needed right now was Fubuki demanding his absolute loyalty and dragging him into her mafia-style turf wars.
“Alright, maggots!” Snek’s voice echoed through the arena once the physicals concluded.
“Those of you who haven’t embarrassed yourselves completely will now proceed to the written exam!
Follow the green line to the lecture halls!”
Ren wiped a small bead of sweat from his forehead.
The physicals were done.
He had officially secured his physical benchmark.
Now, he just had to pass the written and psychological evaluations.
For a man who actually possessed the mental age of an adult and a deep, meta-understanding of the Hero Association’s core philosophies, the written test was going to be a breeze.
The climb was officially underway.