"Hah!"
"Hah!"
Inside a martial arts dojo, a young man relentlessly pounded a sandbag, sweat pouring down his face. His expression was resolute, his muscles finely toned, and his legs weighed down by dozens of pounds of training weights. Each punch he threw landed with a resounding thud.
After a while, the boy steadied his horse stance and continued throwing punches, his clothes already drenched in sweat.
Once his fists and kicks were spent, he dropped to the ground and completed two hundred push-ups, stopping only when his strength was utterly exhausted.
Gasping for breath, the boy rolled onto his back.
"Two years... Now, I'm no longer the same. It's time to take action."
Originally, this boy had been an ordinary person on Earth, with only one specialty—an encyclopedic knowledge of the 2D world. After a fatal accident, he found himself transmigrated into this world.
The body he now inhabited belonged to a boy named Tang En, whose family had perished in a monster attack while moving to West City from the countryside. This tragedy allowed a certain otaku from another world to take over.
On his second day in this world, Tang En realized where he was—none other than the Dragon Ball universe, a realm teetering between everyday life and apocalyptic nightmares.
After a brief moment of shock and disbelief, the cat-eared king on the television confirmed this was no dream.
After all, aside from the Dragon Ball world, where else would the king be a giant cat?
Excitement? Of course, there was excitement. Who wouldn't want to be reborn as a transmigrator after death?
But after the initial thrill, Tang En grew deeply concerned about his future.
He knew that in the Dragon Ball world, ordinary people could still live relatively peaceful lives.
Aside from the occasional risk of planetary destruction, most could survive in relative peace—and even if they died, large-scale resurrections were possible.
(Except in Trunks' parallel timeline, of course.)
However, as a die-hard Dragon Ball fan, Tang En refused to live his life as a nameless bystander.After all, who wouldn't want to experience that kind of world-destroying power?
After some research, Tang En discovered that unlike other transmigrator colleagues, he had no golden finger, no system, and no cultivation mentor—not even his physical body was anything special, just an ordinary Earthling through and through.
This... spoke volumes.
Even if Tang En had gotten the body of a low-level Saiyan, with a starting power level of just one, he wouldn't have been discouraged.
With his knowledge of Saiyans and their training methods, he believed he could at least reach the level of someone like Nobi Gohan, if not surpass Sun Wukong or Vegeta...
But reality was cruel. In the Dragon Ball world, bloodline was like an insurmountable mountain weighing down on all Earthlings.
By the later stages, it became entirely the Saiyans' stage, where Earthlings didn't even qualify as extras.
After resting for a while, Tang En did a backflip and stood up, stretching his limbs until they cracked. He rubbed his stomach—he was hungry.
Leaving his room, Tang En went to the second floor of the martial arts hall, where everyone ate.
Come to think of it, ever since arriving in this world, Tang En had noticed his appetite had increased dramatically. He ate far more than before—whether due to frequent training or his constitution, he wasn't sure.
Because of this, Tang En had initially fantasized that he might actually be a Saiyan. So every full moon, he'd stare at the moon and check his backside in the mirror for any signs of a tail, even considering jumping off a building to test whether near-death would make him stronger...
It wasn't until half a year later that Tang En fully accepted he was just an ordinary Earthling who happened to eat a lot.
"Maslow, get me lunch—the usual."
"Got it, Senior Brother Tang En! Coming right up!"
Tang En had been in this world for two years and was now fifteen.
When he first joined this martial arts hall, called Tianyi Dojo, two years ago, he was just a scrawny kid. But after he started training, he realized he was growing stronger without even noticing.
If he hadn't accidentally thrown a stone over a hundred meters away a year ago, he would never have realized he'd become far stronger than in his previous life.
Tang En didn't have a Power Level Detector, nor could he use Ki Sense to gauge strength, but that didn't stop him from judging his own progress.
He noticed that while the Dragon Ball world had incredibly high power levels, ordinary Earthlings knew nothing about cultivation. Most relied on innate talent, with few putting in effort to train.
Back then, Krillin had reached a power level of several dozen after less than a year under Turtle Hermit's guidance. Though Tang En didn't dare claim he could progress faster than Krillin under such tutelage, after two years of training, he could feel he'd undergone earth-shaking changes.
At the very least, his power level had to be in the double digits.
As early as half a year ago, no one in Tianyi Dojo could defeat him anymore.
Tang En lowered his head and tore into the large ham in his hands, quickly polishing off two big bowls of rice before finishing off the mysterious monster meat patty in front of him with lingering satisfaction.Today he was leaving this place. Tang En thought about his plans, humming a tune as he walked toward the old dojo master's room.
The old master was named Muer. During Tang En's early training days, he had often given him guidance. Moreover, when he learned that Tang En had lost both parents, he had even waived his meal fees for a time, earning Tang En's deep gratitude.
Tang En knocked on the door and then stepped directly into the old master's room.
"Huh? No one here?"
The old master had suffered injuries in his youth, leaving him with lingering ailments in his old age—one of his legs was completely immobile. He rarely ventured far, so Tang En sat down to wait for his return.
Bored, Tang En casually practiced a few sets of fist techniques, then did some push-ups. Rolling onto his back, he lay on the floor, wondering if he should come back tomorrow instead.
Suddenly—
A flash of light streaked past. Tang En's vision blurred instantly, and he instinctively turned his head to avoid the glare. As the light faded, he looked toward its source—roughly near the ceiling lamp above.
Something about the spherical object inside the lamp seemed familiar. When Tang En focused his scattered gaze on it, he jolted upright in shock.
A Dragon Ball!
Orange, spherical, with stars—and glowing! Wasn't this exactly a Dragon Ball?
Without hesitation, Tang En leaped up and yanked the orb from the lamp.
"It's real! One, two... five stars—this is the Five-Star Ball!"
Tang En couldn't believe it. The old master's room had been hiding a Dragon Ball all along.
"Right! I remember now—in the manga, Bulma already had two Dragon Balls when she first met Goku. Bulma is sixteen now, and the main story begins in about half a year."
"If I recall correctly, Bulma's first Dragon Ball should be the Two-Star Ball, which she found in her family's warehouse. That means this one must be the second."
"But I thought this Dragon Ball was supposed to be found in a valley. Could it have moved there in the next few months?"
Unable to make sense of it, Tang En gave up on puzzling it out.
Before this, Tang En had been wondering how to meet the heiress of Capsule Corp. After transmigrating, he had initially been in West City and naturally wanted to seek out the genius girl, Bulma.
But when he arrived at Capsule Corp., he found it impossible to enter—guarded by a slew of AI identity checks, with no way to call for help outside.
Now, with this Dragon Ball, he wouldn't even need to go. Bulma would come to him. Tang En had originally planned to head to Mount Paozu today to meet his childhood idol.
With this Dragon Ball, Tang En could do so much more...