[A new predator inside the jungle]

▽▽▽

-A week later...

-Roaaar...!-

-Hisss...!-

Among the infinite numbers of trees in the jungle, two titanic figures could be seen facing each other with hostility evident in their eyes. One of them, and the biggest among the two, was an enormous snake of black and red scales that gave off a vastly more dangerous aura than most creatures in this jungle, its fangs incredibly long and sharp, coupled with a certain liquid that could ooze from them every once in a while and fall to the ground in the form of a drop, melting it immediately as soon as it made contact with it.

The other figure was a gigantic wolf of blueish-grey fur, and although smaller than the snake, it had a much more intimidating and vicious appearance than the snake by far as its fur was spikier and its countless fangs were showing, making it look like a creature born from the very own hell.

Both of these titans were facing each other while also baring their fangs at each other, the battle was imminent, and any other animal within the vicinity had already long run away to not get caught in between the confrontation of these two.

-Growl...!-

-Hisss!!-

Every second that passed seemed to increase the tension between these two, waiting to see who could be the first one to move. However, before any of the two could even attack, suddenly a black blur appeared from the side of the snake and slammed it with an enormously powerful hit, sending it flying several meters away from the zone.

The snake couldn't even react to the sudden attack, and the wolf, who was only able to watch everything unfold, watched with a disbelieving expression on its face at the figure that had done something so unbelievable despite its small size.

A humanoid figure with only one arm could be seen standing amongst the dust cloud that had erected after the clash with the snake, its eyes were looking at the wolf-like it was a prey despite the ferocious appearance of the latter, not even a tickle of fear or nervousness in them.

Suddenly, the voice of a man came from the mysterious figure.

"Hmm... I think it will take a long time before I can be able to one-shot beasts with more than 300 points of power level just using one punch...-Sigh-... Whatever, I will just finish it off later... Now I have to deal with this one..."

-ROAR!!-

Seeing the new and more dangerous threat at sight, and sensing its thick murderous intent, the wolf didn't hesitate anymore and lunged at the mysterious man ready to tear this new threat apart.

However, similar to the wind, the figure disappeared from its previous spot and rapidly reappeared in front of the wolf with his fist raised high into the air.

-Baaam!!!-

-Squeal!-

Unable to react in the slightest, the wolf was soon hammered by the punch and crashed against the ground bellow him with a ferocious force, even sinking the earth a little because of the power behind that strike.

However, the beat-up didn't end there, as in the blink of an eye the man moved towards the unconscious body of the wolf and started barraging it with incredible punches from his only hand. Deepening more and more the earth with each successful hit.

-Bam!!!-

-Bam!!!-

-Bam!!!-

-Bam!!!-

-Bam!!!-

-Bam!!!-

-Bam!!!-

Finally, slowing down his attack for a second, the man raised his fist even higher into the air and hammered the wolf's body for one last time with all his strength.

-BAAAANG!!!-

At his last strike, the earth shattered, and enormous cracks started to spread bellow the wolf's body, which now lied lifeless in the ground with all its body covered in severe bruises from the man's punches.

"That's one... Now, where's the other-"

-Gyaaaak!!!-

Suddenly from behind the man appeared the snake that he had hit a few moments ago and opened its mouth wide trying to devour the being in front of it in one go and kill it with its venom.

"There you are"

However, before the mouth could even close upon him, the man punched with ferocity the superior part of the Snake's mouth and knocked it into the air with ease.

Not letting it rest in the slightest, the man jumped with strength and reached the snake's floating body before he hammered it with an incredibly powerful kick, and sent it crashing to the ground like a meteorite.

-Booom!!-

After the snake crashed with the ground, in the blink of an eye the man's figure reappeared beside the completely dumbfounded beast that couldn't understand anything that was happening and started barraging its body with fierce strikes similar to those the wolf had received, just that this time each of them were directed specifically to the head instead of the whole body.

-Crckkk...!-

It took a few seconds more before the sound of something cracking reached the ears of the man, making him slow down and eventually stop completely the barrage of punches he was throwing at the snake.

-Huff...-

"This is like easy mode compared to a week ago... I don't even have to worry about anything anymore. Though I fear that things will not go like this forever..."

The man breathed exhaustingly and seated on the ground before suddenly a small screen appeared on the corner of his vision, making the sides of his lips curl upwards a little bit.

▽

≡[You completed a Side Quest‼]

▸Defeat the two enemies that entered your territory and interrupted your sleep!

[Rewards for completing the quest successfully:]

▸+200 Ƶ Points

▸+1 Senses sharpening potion [★☆☆☆☆☆☆]

▽

"-Yawn...- Let's just hope these guys stop coming here and causing a ruckus... Though it's good to have a source of Z points, it isn't that good when they come to bother you every morning..."

Indeed, the man who had defeated both the snake and the wolf so easily was none other than Ryu, who had been training and buying more objects, skills, and consumables after acquiring a good bunch of Z points during the last week.

Ryu walked towards a small mountain in the distance and entered a cave on the outskirts of the mountain with a calm expression on its face.

However, what was most astonishing was that the cave didn't resemble in the slightest how it looked a week ago, now, the floor had been polished and made a lot smoother, though it still lacked a bit in that aspect, and a small-sized house could be seen inside it.

The house looked exactly like a modern house from the dragon ball z universe, it had every necessary room for living, and it even had electricity even though it was in the middle of a cave. Ryu had bought it a few days ago from the system and started living there, killing any beast that passed near his base to start accumulating Z points, and also training inside and becoming stronger now that he finally had a place he could call home.

-Click!-

As Ryu entered the house, he walked towards a couch and seated there before letting out an exhausted sigh, not because of the fight he had just had, but simply an exhausted sigh because of all the training he had been doing during the past week.

"It has been going really well these days... I wonder if I'm already strong enough to deal with the next problem that fate is going to throw at me... Though probably the difficulty of the next problem increases along with my strength, so it will be hard either way... -Sigh-... Shit, why can't fate just leave me alone? What have I done in the first place to receive its hate?"

Ryu groaned in annoyance and opened his status window before analyzing it with a pensive expression on his face.

▽

≡[System bearer: Ryu Kain]

-Power Level: 346

-Z Points: 585

≡[Abilities]

-Ki mastery (E): 8%

-Martial arts [One arm style] (E): 66%

-Magical arts (F): 4%

≡[Skills]

▷Journey of the traveler (Passive)

▸Fate will bend against you.

▷Power level scan (Active)

▸Scans the power level of any being that is within your eyesight. Please note that Gods cannot be scanned unless the host possesses divine Ki.

▷Taiyoken/Solar Flare (Active)

▸Emits an incredibly dazzling beam of light that can blind the enemy due to its intensity.

[Advice: Please note that if the user emits the Taiyoken from a part of the body that is in the user's field of view, it is very probable that the user will be blinded too.]

▷Stronger than a mouse! [★☆☆☆☆☆☆] (Active)

▸Increases the resistance of your body and your strength by 50% more for a short amount of time.

▷Faster than a turtle! [★☆☆☆☆☆☆] (Active)

▸Increases your agility, flexibility, and the speed you gain when using ki by 50% more for a short amount of time.

▷Intimidation [★☆☆☆☆☆☆] (Active)

▸Releases a wave of killing intent that can scare multiple opponents with a lower power level than you, and slightly decrease their strength. You can also use it simply to scare your enemies and make them run away, depending on you. [Please note that intimidation does not work with beings with a higher power level than you]

≡[Inventory]

▸Bottle of enhanced medicinal liquid. [4]

▸Nutritional paste. [1]

▸Senses sharpening potion. [2]

▸Pain-reducing pill. [3]

▸Enhancing Pill. [1]

▸Water bottle. [16]

▸Nutritional paste. [15]

▸Stamina Replenishing pill. [7]

▸Nutritional liquid for plants. [1]

▽

As you might have guessed from the martial art's name, Ryu now lacked an arm.

After the fight with the vulture ended, Ryu was caught in between two options. Recover his lost arm using a senzu bean by spending all of his current Z points plus a few Z points he would need to earn later, or give up his arm and close the wound with the Enhanced healing liquid he had at the moment, and use all his Z points in becoming stronger.

If he used the healing liquid at that moment, then even if he bought a senzu bean later it couldn't be able to recover his lost arm as it was a part of his body that had already healed and there wouldn't be anything left for the senzu bean to heal.

On the other hand, if he tried saving for the Senzu bean, then he wasn't sure whether he could be able to survive the injury in his arm before he could be able to save enough Z points for buying the senzu, and even if he survived, then he could have to spend all of his Z points in that, and there couldn't be anything left for him to become stronger, making everything a lot harder in the end.

The most optimal option was obvious, but it still pained in his heart to let one of his damn arms go. However, as the feeling of losing blood increased, the choice was soon made clear.

In the end, he decided for closing the wound and giving up on his arm. Either way, there were still the dragon balls, and they could probably be able to recover his lost arm in the future.

After that tragic event happened, Ryu started training and improving himself to his limit so that he could confront whatever enemy fate would throw at him later. After all, he didn't want to renounce to another arm again and end up fighting only using his legs and head.

During the week, using the [Martial arts] basic knowledge that the system had given him as a reward, and after fighting with several monsters using his only arm and legs, he had managed to create his very own martial art style, if it could be called like that, which after quite a bunch of fights ended up leveling up incredibly faster than Ki mastery for some reason. Maybe it was simply because of his insight and ability to improve, or because he fought mostly using his body as his weapon thus gaining more experience after every fight, or simply because of both reasons, but either way, he was still happy to see something in his status improving so fast compared to the others.

As for the magical arts, he has barely made any progress until now, as he couldn't understand what was supposed to make possible magic in the first place. Ki blasts were made of Ki, physical attacks were backed by strength, but magic? He couldn't feel any kind of mana or energy besides Ki inside him, even though the basic knowledge about [Magical arts] that the system had given him said that there was something like that inside his body.

In the end, because he was wasting too much precious time, he decided to not concentrate on that anymore and decided to train his body instead.

And it was a good idea!

Thanks to the incredible method of training he ideated, which consisted of training until he would become half-dead and then recovering his body using healing liquid and stamina replenishing pills, his power level had grown by the astonishing amount of 117 points in just one week!

For some may seem a pretty low amount, considering how Saiyans could become stronger so much faster using similar methods to his, but considering that Ryu was a human, and that gravity didn't seem to be any heavier than that of earth, it was insanely faster compared to other humans who spent years training just to gain half what he had won in just one week.

Though, he still hoped that his growth rate would accelerate in the future as he would become stronger, because although it was amazingly fast on a planet like this where there were only creatures of a similar power level, fighting creatures with millions of power level when he could only gain 100 points average per week didn't seem so favorable.

Heck, he wasn't even sure if he was near the power level of a normal soldier from Freezer's army. He had watched some videos about power levels in his previous life back on earth, but he couldn't remember whether the average soldier had only between 100 and 300 points of power level, or between 1,000 and 3,000 points of power level.

If it was the latter, then he was still pathetically damn weak, and it would take several months before he could be even able to reach their power level, which was also sad as they were merely average soldiers from a monster that could reach 120 million of power level with his transformations.

And considering how fate treated him, it couldn't be a surprise if one day he would have no more option but to battle Freezer... Or even worse.

"Ah fuck!"

Desperate, Ryu grabbed tightly his head with his hand and spat various curses for several minutes. It wasn't only after several minutes passed that he finally calmed down and sighed exhaustedly.

'A peaceful life doesn't even seem to be possible anymore...' Thought Ryu as he lied on the couch and started taking a nap, making sure to leave his problems aside at least for that moment.

And indeed... What awaited him was by no means easy... Or at least, fate could make sure for it to not be easy...

... And what was worse... was that fate was already moving its strings, unbeknown to Ryu... And a new enemy could soon appear to destroy the peaceful life he had been having until now.

...

-End of the Chapter-

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