"The All-Powerful?"
Vincent Fox drew a sharp breath. Very few across myth or fiction earned that title. Zeus, perhaps. King of the gods. Lord of Olympus. A being whose very presence rewrote the sky. If Zone Six had figures in that league, then this was going to be a problem.
Professor Charles Joe caught his hesitation and smiled. "Do not get spooked. Zone Six is brutal in power scaling, but the task board is not all carnage. There are plenty of doable objectives."
He stopped wasting time and walked Vincent through the dossier.
Two hours later, Vincent closed the file and exhaled. Across the desk, Professor Joe tossed back the last of his tea. Even for a man who lectured daily, two straight hours of briefing left him winded.
While the professor rested his voice, Vincent replayed the key names. Son Goku. Vegeta. Majin Buu. Familiar faces, and he knew most of what they could do. Then the new blood. Toppo. Jiren. And the warning that came with them.
"Finish the beginner tasks," Professor Joe had said flatly. "Attempt intermediate only if you must. As for the advanced phase, do not even think about it."
Because the final stage would pit entrants against the strongest across multiple universes. That was not a test. That was a sentence.
Vincent took his leave and walked home, turning the advice over in his head. In every Zone so far he had chased the highest rating and taken it. Gold, every time. Now the professor wanted him to stop at beginner or, at most, intermediate. The competitor in him bristled.
Then he chuckled. "Fine. If Krillin and Piccolo can step onto that stage, so can I. Train first. Talk later."
Two months slipped by.
He trained every day, then doubled the load. He wanted four months' worth of progress crammed into two. The academy had gone on break, but for those with clearance to enter Zones at will, vacations did not mean much. In between sessions he still made time for Autumn Shaw. The more they met, the closer they grew, and somewhere along the way they stopped pretending and made it official.
He also followed up on loose ends. After Quentin Hale's failed revenge, Vincent dug into Ryan Locke and the shadowy group rumored to back him. The search went nowhere. Whatever they were, they lived up to the word mysterious. No trail. No chatter. Nothing. As if they did not exist unless they chose to.
He checked on two old enemies as well, the Blackwell and Langford families. For now he only gathered intelligence. Those houses had roots and resources, and Vincent was not arrogant enough to swing first and ask questions later. When he moved, it would be absolute, with no time left for them to react.
By the end of the two months, his stats had leapt again.
Name: Vincent Fox
Race: Human
Physique: 7271
Spirit: 2145
Strength: 7175
Agility: 6156
Bloodline: Saitama Physique (Awakened)
Abilities: Flameborne
Skills: Advent of the Demon God (upgradable), Conqueror's Haki, Armament Haki, Observation Haki, Byakugan
Compared with two months ago, the difference was staggering. The Saitama Physique snowballed. The further he pushed it, the faster the gains came. Workouts that once felt like iron now went down like water. His numbers climbed almost without him noticing.
Two of his three physical stats had cracked seven thousand, the third cruised past six, and Spirit had cleared two thousand. When he shifted to Flameborne, he could sheathe an entire arm in fire without strain.
Out of curiosity he asked a few classmates where they stood. The strongest reported a single stat just over a thousand. That was when Vincent realized how far he had pulled ahead.
Or, more precisely, how outrageous the Saitama Physique really was.
They had all started from the same line. Now he was miles down the track. His raw punch, without any charge-up, hit with well over a hundred thousand newtons of force. A handgun round delivered a bit over three thousand newtons by comparison. He could now flare and suppress Conqueror's Haki at will. He was not at the mythical "kingly" tier yet, but he was far beyond ordinary prodigy. Between his mind and his body, he was a two-front menace.
Among humans, his composite stats were near the top. In pure strength and constitution, he was on the shortlists. Aside from the nameless ancients whispered about in rumors, he could not think of anyone he truly feared.
If this were earlier, men like Fleet Admiral Sengoku or Admiral Akainu would not last a minute. The Six Paths of Pain, even Nagato with the Rinnegan, were one-punch problems. In front of his fists, none of them were built to last.
"It is time," he said at last. "Back to the Zone."
He had already sketched the Dragon Ball timeline in his notes. It was not all doom. Son Goku, Vegeta, Android 17. Monsters, yes, but allies when pointed the right way. And Krillin had to be on the board. In this special slice of reality, Krillin was the keystone.
Packing light, Vincent stepped out the door, flagged a car at the curb, and headed for the Forbidden Zone gates.
----------------------------------------------------
The deeper he goes, the more the truth unravels. Don't wait read ahead and witness Vincent's rise before the world catches up!
[email protected]/_theon
Change @ to "a"