Chapter 4: Spooky, Not Scary

The first couple of days made me question whether my new life was worth living. Naturally, I found that it totally was when after the first week, I started to feel the days begin to pass easier and easier with each additional Enhancement. Of course, as I got stronger, it took longer and longer to reach my limits and call upon the Gacha Gods to help me. But, I still got an average of ten Enhancements a day for the first month.

During the second month, that lowered to around seven a day. Then five a day after the third month and by the fourth month I was only getting the three a day I was guaranteed for completing a round of Master Roshi's training (Early Morning, Mid Morning and Afternoon).

By the fifth month I had finally caught up to Goku and Krillin — the kids that were my fellow disciples under the great and totally not clinically insane Master Roshi — and starting on the sixth month I broke through to a new level of Gacha Rarity by advancing my daily training from using the 50-pound turtle shells to the 100-pound variants.

[Congratulations! For completing a day of Master Roshi's Training with a 100 lbs weight, you have earned a Locked Unique Gacha Coin!]

[Results: Rarity — Unique 1,000 (Locked) | Unlocked Ki (Perk)]

After unlocking my Ki, my physical prowess began to skyrocket as the days passed and I continued to gain new Unique rewards. Ki alone was a superpower on the level of Aura. It was actually much better in terms of growth and potential as it could increase infinitely, but it needed to be cultivated to that point.

It started off as a small cup's worth of energy which increased after every single day of Master Roshi's grueling training routine. As I got more and more Ki, I became able to use a lot of the nifty Abilities I started gaining related to it.

Ki Sense allowed me to sense the energy of living beings and gauge their strength through it. Ki Blast allowed me to toss my energy into beams that exploded on contact. Kiai allowed me to flex my Ki to create a shockwave with my body as the epicenter. Flight allowed me to counteract the forces of gravity and tell it where it could shove it.

Then there were martial arts techniques that used Ki as a supplemental component instead of being the primary focus. Drunken Fist, Afterimage Technique, Turtle Martial Arts… After I learned everything I could — arbitrarily or via the Gacha Gods — related to Ki, my daily Unique Gacha rewards became superior versions of the Enhancements I received for completing a round of training.

At the end of the eight months, I was a completely different person. Starting with my body, it had gone from skinny fat — which I had been working on before accepting Turtle's Tutalege — to being shredded to gills. For whatever reason, Goku and Krillin didn't change at all despite undergoing the exact same training I did, and while I can understand Goku eating his way to retain his chubby-lite body — the kid ate enough for five whole families somehow— Krillin had no excuse.

Moving on, aside from my body, my mentality was different. I struggled to tell whether it was better or worse, but it was definitely changed. It had to have for me to not go crazy after everything I had been through, especially at the start.

Beyond that, I was also unreasonably powerful. I'm talking capable of jumping ten stories without the help of my Ki, strong. I'm talking capable of punching through dozens of meters into a boulder, strong. I'm talking capable of lifting tons like it's nothing, strong. I'm… I'm done talking now.

I still had absolutely no idea how powerful that was compared to the superhuman Hunstment of Remnant or their boogeymen Grimm monsters, but it was enough to feel safe. In the absolute worst-case scenario, the fact that I could now fly on my own at car-like speeds was practically a guaranteed get-out-of-any-dire-situation card.

It happened the night before my last day of training was due with Master Roshi. One moment I was lying in my bed getting ready to fall asleep and in the next, another shift in reality happened faster than I could comprehend and I was back in my apartment on Remnant.

The first thing I did when I realized I was finally through with that god-forsaken "Scenario" was to fetch my scroll and check how much time had passed. As it turns out, no time had passed at all. It was still the same night of my first day as a line cook.

I breathed a sigh of relief at that realization. Had eight months also passed on Remnant, not only would I be jobless again, but all the money I had inherited from my family would probably be seized by the government. That would have been inconvenient to deal with.

I went to sleep and got ready for a life free from the hell that was Master Roshi's training. Then promptly forgot to do that by working out the next morning and finding my routine wanting. Who knew that after going through 75% of a year training like an absolute lunatic, a bit of calesthenics and a 5K wouldn't do anything for me anymore.

Technically, that's not true, as my old routine still yielded Uncommon and Common Gacha Coins, but those were mostly useless; cough, except for Skills, cough. More importantly, they weren't the best that I was capable of getting and I was not going to leave that on the table.

I promptly tried out the nearest powerlifting gym and proceeded to find out that a civilian gym simply wasn't going to cut it. Sure, if I maxed out the machines or loaded up a barbell until it started to bend, I could maybe go for pushing my current endurance, but that would take forever.

I still had my cooking job to look forward to and even if I could stand to workout all day at the gym, I promised myself I wouldn't. Fortunately, I was in Vale and situated close to Beacon Academy, where all the up and coming Hunstman in the kingdom went to become certified… or something like that.

I didn't particularly care to become a Hunstman myself, but I was inclined to pay a premium to make use of their training facilities and squeeze out the absolute most rare variants of Gacha Coins possible. The prices there were kind of exorbitant, but then again so would any place with the kind of equipment I needed to actually push me. That was all for tomorrow though as I'd already used up all the time I set aside for my rest day by finding all these things out.

In accordance with my second rule of not making training the sole reason for my continued existence, I decided to live on a three-day-rotation. Monday would be a cooking day with just a quick morning workout. Tuesday would be a rest day. On Wednesday I would dedicate the day to working out and that schedule would repeat until Saturday. Sunday would be a free day to spend however I wanted; not as a dedicated rest day, but one I could spend resting, working, or cooking depending on my mood.

So I spent this current rest day roaming around Vale aimlessly. It was surprisingly enjoyable, walking around without a care in the world. Half the reason was probably because I still wasn't used to the nuanced differences between Remnant and Earth.

After "studying" for around two hours a day for eight months with Master Roshi, I'd learned enough about advanced STEM principles to appreciate how advanced even a common car was on Remnant. Seeing flying shuttles and anti-grav technology implemented in the infrastructure was all the more fascinating.

It also helped that I was now so physically fit that I no longer felt any effort from walking. I could probably start a walk to the nearest continent, Vacuo, continue walking through my sleep and only have to worry about starving or dehydrating; oh, and the Grimm too, if they were still a threat to me, I guess.

Still, after enough sightseeing, the grandiose impression I initially had of Vale died a swift and merciless death. Great Kingdom or not, Vale was a metropolis and like any other big city it had just as many bad points as it did good points.

Sure, the downtown was nice, clean and sophisticated. Many of the suburbs I passed were well kept and picturesque, too. But there were also plenty of ghettos and slums around, too. Then, I started noticing the homeless and destitute.

I started paying more attention as I passed a bad section of the city and winced when I realized I had been ignorant of the fact that many of the people I passed on the streets were dressed too conservatively. Summer was still in full swing and only now had I wondered why so many men, women and children were covered up like they were afraid to show even an inch of skin.

If not for my Ki-enhanced vision, I probably still wouldn't know most if not all of those people were actually Fannus who were hiding their animalistic traits. Things were pretty fucking bad if this was the state of affairs in the Human Kingdom that was supposedly the most tolerant and supporting of faunuskind.

I could imagine it was similar to civil-rights era America. I can't remember the right years, but maybe a couple years after segregation was made illegal? I didn't see anyone outright physically assault what little amount of Fanus dared to appear without hiding their nonhuman characteristics, but I did hear more than a few muttered racist remarks.

It was sad and distasteful, but I couldn't do anything about it. Even if I could, I doubt I would since it was a problem that didn't affect me personally. Did that make me part of the problem? Probably, but I couldn't care less. I was not about to living my second life campaigning for the rights of the Faunus. I was not a politician.

I doubted anything short of divine intervention would expedite societal change any faster than it already was. I doubt there was any better way for the world to be a little more equal and fair than to just wait for most of the ignorant and hateful people to die out over time. That's how racism more or less died out on Earth, right? For some reason, I felt like I might be completely wrong and oversimplifying a subject I had absolutely no background to discuss.

Anyway, Vale was cool but not without its fair share of problems. I stopped twice to eat a quick lunch and later dinner before returning to my apartment to get ready for my next day of work.

…Or I would have if I wasn't stopped on my way back by some apparition.

I approached the "ghost" child that was seemingly bleeding out in the middle of the empty alley I was taking as a shortcut to my apartment. I called it a ghost because whatever that thing was, it definitely wasn't alive; it had no Ki. It still looked like it was as it's chest heaved and it struggled towards me, looking intently for my help.

"Sure, why not?" I chuckled softly as I strained my Ki Sense and prepared myself for whatever trap I was likely springing. Last time I checked, I hadn't received or accepted another Scenario from my Gacha powers, so this had to be the machinations of someone else.

"Let's get you to an ambulance," I spoke aloud while daring to look away from the ghost to bring out my scroll.

As I had hoped, a few moments later, a presence dropped into my range of perception. Curiously, despite implying to have fallen from the roof of the four-story tall apartment dozens of meters away towards my back left, I didn't hear a sound behind me.

Now that knew for a fact that this was some sort of set-up, I used the Afterimage Technique to quickly move to the other side of the apparition and have my eyes on it while also looking towards at intruder.

She was not what I was expecting.