…

Shula engaged Yamcha. They clashed several times in a split second. 

 

Baam! Baam! Baam!...

 

The air quaked with each of their punches. They were fast, and Baba couldn't see them. Only hearing their fists clashing was the only sign that they were fighting.

 

'This young man is stronger than my brother.' Baba calculated. He had to be since Shula was also stronger than Roshi too. It was still a mystery to her why the demon boss had attacked suddenly. He never seemed like the type to do so. 

 

Booom!

 

One of the houses crashed, and Yamcha's injured body lay amid the wreckage. He was breathing heavily, but he grit his teeth and got up. 

 

The young man smirked confidently. "Is that all you got?"

 

Baba wasn't sure how good of a plan it was to anger someone like Shula. 

 

The demon boss’ eyes narrowed, and rage overturned his whole body. "You!!!" He yelled out like a maniac. Charging at Yamcha without an ounce of logical thought or reasoning. 

 

At the last second, just before the hit landed, Yamcha crouched, and Shula's fist flew overhead, exposing the demon's midsection. 

 

Yamcha shot two beams from his hands, hitting the demon point blank and causing a huge explosion.

 

When the smoke cleared up, Shula had his legs and head left, both parts separated, and the demon was dead. 

 

On the other hand, the young man stood above the dead demon’s body. A spiked golden sword was running straight through his chest. Blood ran down his mouth, looking at his chest with wide eyes. "N -No… I can't die like this." He fell to his knees.

 

Devil Man appeared next to the young champion in an instant. "Baba! Come and heal him!"

 

Baba approached and examined the sword running through his chest. It was too late for her to do anything at this point. The weapon had some strong demonic qualities since it belonged to Shula. It might even be cursed. 

 

Didn't Yamcha knock away the sword with a beam? The sword must have had some ability to summon it back to the user's hand. 

 

Looking at the young man's dying face, knowing she couldn't do much, it sprung Baba’s old heartstrings to see someone so young and with so much potential die. "Devilman, pull out the sword in one fell swoop. The demonic magic on that thing is just causing pain. I will try and heal him."

 

Devilman followed the instructions, and the almost-dead Yamcha winced a little as the sword got pulled out. The weapon had steep edges too, so it was like pulling out a chainsaw; blood and pieces of his organs came out with it.

 

"*cough* Old lady, I really wanted to learn some magic. Can you imagine how cool it would be if I could shoot a fireball?" Yamcha spoke in a hoarse voice, going into shock, as he started saying delirious things. His face was pale, hands and fingers shaking. 

 

Baba hadn't cried in a long time and wasn't about to start now. But the least she could do was to comfort the young man. "Yes, I will make you the best magician out there. Now stop talking and concentrate on using Ki to stop your bleeding."

 

"Did you take out all the demons," she addressed Devilman. 

 

He nodded. "Yes."

 

"Good, we don't want any interruptions during this. Make sure the village's survivors don't get too close," Baba instructed him.

 

Her hands shined green as she started giving Yamcha some of her life force. Or at least tried to, as immediately she sensed something strange with his body. It felt like Yamcha's whole body was a dimension of its own rules. Nothing could be given or taken from it. Baba hadn’t seen such a thing before. 

 

How was this possible? It went beyond just magic and was in the domain of Gods. Not ones like Yanma or Earth's Kami. Such a body was a miracle taking human form. She noticed his wounds had already started stitching themselves together, and even his organs were returning to their original form.

 

'He is already healing?! Cursed demonic energy is like poison for normal humans, yet his body is acting like it is, at most, the flu. No, maybe it isn’t reacting at all. Since this body is a world of its own, demonic energy might not work by the same rules.'

***

 

Stabbing himself with a sword through his chest is a bitch and a half. 

 

'Fuck, it hurts! Fuck, it hurts! Fuck, it hurts! Fuck, it hurts! Fuck, it hurts!' 

 

Yamcha clenched his teeth to try and keep calm. Why the hell did this sword cause so much pain? It wasn’t like this was the first time a sword had cut him. Even Tao’s poison wasn’t this painful.

 

[Willpower increased by 1]

 

Oh? So you could raise the willpower stat this way too? Seeing that his stats rise, Yamcha was okay with the pain and more accepting of it. Maybe stabbing himself a couple of times wouldn’t be so bad. 

 

Until now, he had never tried increasing his willpower stat and improved only due to the circumstances of his training. Still, he hoped at least everything would work out. He had gone through a lot of trouble and pain to make this happen. 

 

He was inexperienced at manipulating things behind the scenes, and wasn't some kind of genius mastermind. But everyone had to be a beginner at one point. 

 

Yamcha learned a lot from this experience. He had to throw another demon in front of the Devilmite Beam so it wouldn't kill Shula, stab himself, and even sacrifice people, which he didn’t want to do. However, he did try only to leave the weak old behind and kill any demons that went for kids. That originally wasn’t the plan, but planning something and seeing it happen before his eyes were two different things.

 

Still, those sacrifices hadn’t been for nothing. With them, Yamcha will get access to Magic. He thought back to the age-old question: How do you make best friends with someone at a level where they would give you even their biggest secret? Obviously, by saving their life. 

…

 

It took three weeks for Yamcha to 'heal' from the aftershock of the fight. During that time, he only read books about Magic and was taught the basics about it by Baba. 

 

Surprisingly Magic wasn't too complicated. Just ‘see’ how the Magic Power moves and copy it to create a similar effect. With his Perception, ‘seeing’ magic was easy. 

 

But to officially awaken magic, well, there are many ways: to be born with it naturally, have magic creature blood, and another was to eat certain magical plants that will unlock your road to magic.

 

Yamcha was a little different in that regard. His body was that of a Game Character taken form. Game Characters don’t have limits to what they can grow, or what they can learn. Sure, compared to if he was reborn in a Saiyan body, his growth might have been faster with the knowledge he had. But as long as he trained and continued growing, Yamcha knew his potential was something not many in this world could match, Saiyan or otherwise. 

 

"Again, your magic pool is low. So you will have to learn the basics,” Baba criticized him. He was used to it by now. 

 

She was a cranky old woman, and he can think things like this and not be afraid of her knowing. 

 

‘She looks like a young grandma. Wait, is that even an insult? She’s so ancient that calling her a young grandma is probably a compliment.’

 

“What’re you looking at, brat?” Baba said, startling Yamcha. 

 

“I just wanted to ask if there has been any news recently. Anything that caught your ear?” Yamcha answered without missing a beat. 

 

“Someone destroyed some private army with a stupidly basic name,” Baba used some kind of magic to check his body, something she did a lot recently. 

 

Yamcha guessed she had noticed something strange about him by now. He hadn’t tried to hide it, not like he could even if he wanted; at least he had a hint that his body functioned in a magical way, and there was no real science behind it. “Is it by any chance called the Red Ribbon army?”

 

“Yeah, I think that was their name,” she answered absentmindedly, frowning and using another spell. 

 

‘Goku should have been able to destroy the Red Ribbon army with relative ease. He was stronger than in the original show, and Tao didn’t exist… Shit, he probably didn’t climb Korin’s tower either.’

 

If Goku didn’t climb Korin’s tower, he wouldn’t meet Kami, so he wouldn’t have Kami convince King Yemma to allow him to travel the Snake Way. Which overall meant no Kaioken, no Super Saiyan, and essentially the whole world was fucked because of one small change. 

 

This was the so-called butterfly effect. 

 

Yamcha wasn’t going to and didn’t want to take over Goku’s place. If he wasn’t afraid of the changes he might have caused with his presence alone, he would live the rest of his life in blissful solitude. 

Okay, that might be a lie, as he would still want to learn Ki, Magic, and many cool techniques. But Yamcha would have been happy to do that in solitude, maybe have an average wife to cook for him, and everything would have been perfect. 

 

Though he wasn’t sure how well he would do in solitude, during this whole time, he blocked some shit from coming to the surface that might come out if he was all alone and had nothing to occupy his mind with. 

 

Baba finished her regular check-up and walked out of the room, just like usual. 

 

‘She is probably trying to make sense of my body. It would be impressive if she could. I wouldn’t mind learning more about it either.’

 

Yamcha took out a dragon radar from his inventory and kept track of the Dragon Balls. They weren’t gathered. Thankfully, no one had tried making a wish. But he wanted to go and get one in his inventory, just in case for the future. Can’t have such dangerous artifacts lying around and ready to use for any two-bit crook to become dangerous.

 

He had learned a lot of theoretical knowledge from Baba, and she seemed to think he couldn't use it despite the huge amount of magic Yamcha had. Yes, he knew that despite her comments about his magic power being weak, Devilman, who was surprisingly a nice guy, had told him the truth. 

 

She had tried unlocking his magic, but it didn’t work. Yamcha learned something valuable from her tests, outside interferences on his body would go away with a good night’s sleep. Also no matter how hard she tried, Gamer’s mind would block her from going to his mind to unlock the MP.

 

‘It takes years for the average mage to become a novice mage and use their Magic Power. But I am different. As a Gamer, I just need to do it.’ 

 

He closed his eyes and looked deep within himself. There was the flame-like Ki traveling through his body, but Magic was in the deepest part of his mind and soul. There were memories and walls, shit he wasn’t trying to think about his last life and who he had left behind, and finally, he stumbled on the strange mental/spiritual energy. 

 

With his Perception, Yamcha could see through difficulties others would have in less than a second.

 

[MP has been unlocked]

 

He could use Magic, and no one else knew about it. Hidden cards weren’t supposed to be shown, and a secret between three people can only be kept if two are dead. 

Name: Yamcha

Age: 17

Title: Champion

Level 50 [EXP: 46%]

 

HP: 1000/1000

MP: 330/330

KI: 399/399

 

Strength: 223

Agility: 177

Endurance: 200

(Power Level: 200) 

 

Intelligence: 11

Perception: 100

Willpower: 88

(Magic Power: 66)

 

Status Points: 148

His status page was coming along nicely too. He was sad some people had to die for this. Even if they were mostly old, each had a life and people they cared for, and others cared about them. 

 

But in life, sometimes you have to do things you don’t like to get what you want. Yamcha knew in the future, he might have to do more than just things he didn’t like, maybe even things he detested. 

 

He wrote a note saying his goodbyes, left it on the bed for Baba and Devilman, and then he flew off. 

*******

A/N: Yamcha (MC), what he wants to become, what he has to become, and what he is are three different things. Everyone has to do things they don't like in life to get what they want.