The Kinzoku Capital of Gifu was truly beautiful in Merun's eyes.
He stood at the crest of the northern highway, his rucksack bag slung over one shoulder, his jaw slightly slack as he stared up the mountain fortress city. He had spent his life here on Panama in small settlements like his tiny home village of Owari and his pseudo-base-village of Odani, so this was quite the contrast.
He'd been to megacities back on Earth, of course. As a normal man who had seen modern skyscrapers, glittering glass high-rises, and sprawling mega-towers in his past life, he shouldn't have been easily impressed. But Gifu was different. It felt like a movie set of feudal Japan mixed with dark fantasy elements. It was a sprawling, soot-choked metropolis of iron-reinforced stone, titanic blast furnaces that pierced the sky like blackened spears, and thousands of interconnected metallic walkways. Yet, despite its sheer size, the technology wasn't sleek or futuristic. It was heavy, oriental, industrialized, and utilitarian—steam-hissing pneumatic lines, armored public transports, and humming defensive walls built directly into the architecture.
For a guy raised on video games, the best way to explain it was that it felt like stepping directly into a high-budget RotK or Three Kingdoms game. Standing face-to-face with a massive, heavily fortified fantasy castle lit a massive spark in his heart!
What a fucking place! Merun thought, a rare sense of genuine awe washing over him. Now this! This speaks culture! It's so fucking cool!
As he walked down into the lower sectors, he noticed the cobblestone streets were oddly empty. For a castle city of this scale, there were barely a few people wandering around—stalls were folded up, and the usual hustle and bustle of a market district was completely missing. The silence was eerie, almost unnatural for a capital.
Weird.
But then, growing louder as he walked, a massive, echoing cacophony of roaring crowds and explosive cheers boomed from a faraway sector of the city, bouncing off the heavy stone walls.
The arena! he thought, a knowing smirk tugging at his lips. The entire population of Gifu had made sure to attend the tournament. It seemed they'd been hyping up this Steel Convergence tournament for a while now!
As he adjusted his path toward the sound, his hand instinctively drifted toward his temple, tapping the sleek frame of his scouter. He'd been initially worried about it being stolen somehow. Iro had warned him repeatedly about the extreme dangers of having his specialized gear leaked or copied, and the catastrophic harm it could bring to humanity if the wrong groups of people managed to reverse-engineer it.
But he didn't have to worry about it much anymore. The Beggar Sect had since gone behind the scenes, flooding the market with primitive but useful commercial versions—completely stripped of the power-level scanning function, of course. Primarily bought and sought after by private organizations, these baseline models were marketed as compact, reliable devices for communication and data log keeping. By doing so, the sect had lowered the perceived novelty of Merun having one, creating a whole forest to hide his golden tree in plain sight.
As a fail-safe backup, they had also surgically implanted a harmless, unique esoteric metal plate behind his ear. Only when the scouter was worn by him, making direct physical contact with this unique plate, would the circuit complete and power the device. Any other method of forcing power into the device would instantly corrupt the internal data, rendering the whole thing completely useless to a thief.
He tapped the frame, activating the lens.
[MERUN FURUTSU - 15,600 - LOW-TIER MARTIAL SENIOR]
He consciously suppressed his ki further to test his reading. The green lens flickered violently, the digital readout slowly ticking down before locking in with a sharp, steady hum.
[MERUN FURUTSU - 4,000 - MID-TIER MARTIAL SQUIRE]
Heh. I really have it figured out! Merun thought. Amused, he flexed his core, completely unfurling the suppressed ki he'd been holding back the entire time for a split second.
[MERUN FURUTSU - 20,500 - LOW-TIER MARTIAL SENIOR]
He immediately snapped his ki back into complete suppression as he felt multiple powerful presences rapidly approaching his position.
"WHO DARES?!"
A black-garbed Martial Senior enforcer landed heavily in the alleyway, full aura flared and on high alert. He was followed immediately by his squad, who dropped down one by one, weapons half-drawn. They looked deeply confused. The volatile aura of a foreign Martial Senior had suddenly spiked and vanished in the middle of the city out of nowhere—and protocols strictly dictated that any visiting high-tier martial artist had to be registered and tagged with an escort.
"Where did it go?"
"Keep your eyes peeled!"
"You there. Stop," the lead guard barked, approaching Merun, who was casually leaning against the soot-stained wall wearing his pauldrons and cape combo. The guard walked up with full caution, noting Merun's formidable, heavily built physical frame.
But when Merun met his gaze, the raw, lingering intensity behind his pitch-black eyes caused the guard to freeze dead in his tracks, an instinctive shiver hitting his spine.
Before the guard could process the fear, the heavy atmosphere instantly vanished. Merun's broad shoulders slouched, and he crumbled into a slightly clumsy, panicked bow.
"Hello, milord! I'm just a humble farmer," Merun spoke, his voice cracking slightly with anxious, wide-eyed innocence as he offered a goofy smile. "What can I do for you?"
The guard sweated, blinking rapidly before laughing off his own tension. Sensing the man in front of him with his martial perception, he felt absolutely nothing. The man was completely normal. No aura unique to the Senior realm—or of a martial artist to that matter. Just a massive, harmless peasant.
"Ah. Haha... did you see anyone come through here just now?" the guard asked, shaking his head.
"I'm sorry, sir, I saw no one," Merun who was telling the truth (it was him), bowing again.
"I see. Thank you," the man sighed in disappointment, turning back to his squad. Before stepping away, he patted Merun on the shoulder, looking at his broad frame and his outfit with appreciation. "Your cloak looks fantastic, and you have a nice build for a farmer! It's never too late to take up the blade. Go join the Gifu Garrison if you ever want steady lodging and training."
"Thank you for the advice!"
Merun watched as the squad leaped into the air, sky-walking away across the metallic walkways. The moment they vanished over the rooftops, Merun couldn't hold back a low, breathless laugh. Man, the dude was actually pretty decent! But they were totally tricked!.
In those two months of suffocating, non-stop martial training fueled by his hate for his complacency, his power level had jumped by almost a staggering 5,000 points. Not just that, but he could now finely control his ki to trick the electronic scouter the same way Namekians manipulated their power signatures. It wasn't entirely necessary since only a select few possessed scouters capable of scanning power, but it was a hell of a flex. More importantly, he had perfected faking out the local martial artists of Panama who relied entirely on reading the physical weight of an aura.
But the numerical jump wasn't the real victory. He could feel his true combat strength and technical execution growing by leaps and bounds, even if he had only managed to extract and learn two specific techniques from the Vajra Tyrant Style.
If he wanted to, he could definitely master all five forms in a year or two... but his mental health took a blow. After all, he wasn't a true Gaian Martial Artist or a true Saiyan. His mind was developed on Earth. A normal guy. It only took a promise of seeing his family to snap him back to reality.
Life is meant to be enjoyed, after all... up to a certain point.
Lifting a hand, he tapped the side of the device, turning the display off as he leaned back into the shadows. The rhythmic, muffled thuds of the distant arena faded from his immediate awareness as his mind drifted back to the grueling conditions set upon him by the Beggar Sage before he could go join the Kinzoku.
The old man hadn't met him face-to-face. Instead, he appeared as a hologram through his scouter back in Owari.
"Merun, you look like shit." He said in a jokingly disappointed tone.
"Anyway, let's talk about the conditions before you can go back to your family."