Despair and Hope of Trash with a Power Level of 5

The heavens were silent, save for the deafening roar of the primordial beast. A foul, bloody stench washed over the air, all but drowning out Lin Fan's own insignificant cries.

The gaping maw was already wide open, a forest of jagged teeth dripping with viscous saliva. In the next instant, it would swallow his naked body whole, grinding him into a pulp of flesh and bone.

Lin Fan's pupils contracted sharply. Despair hit him like a bucket of ice water, instantly extinguishing his previous flicker of defiant rage with the most primal form of terror.

He squeezed his eyes shut instinctively, bracing for the heart-rending agony to come.

At that critical juncture, a jarring, teeth-gritting screech echoed from the steep cliffside beside him.

It seemed that the beast's violent collision and stomping had shaken a massive boulder loose.

The giant rock wobbled twice, broke free from the mountain's grip, and came crashing down with an unstoppable, overwhelming force!

BOOM!

The boulder struck true, landing squarely where the dinosaur's long neck met its skull!

Even with the beast's thick, armored scales, the impact forced a pained howl from its throat. Its massive body staggered and toppled sideways, its heavy head slamming into the rock wall with a dull thud that sent a shower of debris raining down.

A chance!

Though he didn't understand why, the instinct to survive drove Lin Fan forward.

He snapped his eyes open to see the beast dazed and reeling, hissing incessantly, too preoccupied to pay him any mind.

He scrambled away on all fours, hands and feet working in a frenzy. Disoriented and desperate to put distance between himself and that terrifying existence, he plunged headlong into the depths of the dense, shadowed jungle.

He ran until he had no idea how far he had gone, and only then did the heart-stopping roars and tremors finally fade away.

Lin Fan's lungs burned like a broken bellows, and his legs felt as heavy as lead. He collapsed from exhaustion, covered in mud and fallen leaves, gasping for air in a wretched state.

As he caught his breath, the relief of surviving was quickly eclipsed by a deeper sense of bewilderment and dread.

He lay sprawled on the cold earth, gazing up at a sky so alien it chilled his heart.

All around him stood towering ancient trees he had never seen before, and ferns of staggering size. The air was thick with an inescapable, primal vitality, yet it also harbored an omnipresent sense of danger.

That hadn't been a hallucination—the monstrous beast, this savage landscape... where on Earth could such a place exist?

"Transmigration..."

An absurd, yet the only possible explanation for his current situation, surfaced uncontrollably in his mind.

Recalling the strange, iridescent light that had flashed before his eyes just before his sudden death, Lin Fan's heart sank.

If this truly was transmigration, what world was this?

Why was it so hostile?

Starting out naked in the wilderness, hunted by a dinosaur?

This was hell-level difficulty!

Just as his mind was in turmoil—starving, freezing, covered in wounds, and nearing total despair—a strange, mechanical rumbling, completely out of place in this savage world, drifted from the distance.

Hum—hummm—

The sound grew closer, carrying the rhythmic cadence of machinery. It sounded like... the roar of an engine?

Lin Fan jolted, struggling to prop up his upper body. He tilted his head to listen, a faint, incredulous spark of hope igniting in his chest.

People?

Signs of civilization?

He followed the source of the sound, crawling and stumbling forward.

After pushing through a thicket of bushes, the view suddenly opened up to reveal a rough, tire-rutted dirt road.

And right there on that road, an old-fashioned, dust-covered open-top Jeep was bouncing toward him, kicking up a trail of smoke and dust.

The driver was a man in coarse cloth garments, with dark skin and an ordinary face. He had a blade of grass hanging from his mouth, looking for all the world like a simple field farmer.

A person!

It was really a person!

Lin Fan almost wept with joy. Forgetting how shocking his naked, disheveled appearance must be, his desperate urge to live drove him to stumble into the middle of the road, waving his arms and screaming at the top of his lungs: "Help... help me! Please!"

The Jeep slammed on its brakes, the tires screeching against the dirt as it skidded to a halt just in front of him.

The man in the vehicle was clearly startled by the sight of the mud-caked, blood-stained, stark-naked wild man who had suddenly lunged from the roadside.

He widened his eyes, looking Lin Fan up and down. His initial shock quickly shifted into a look of mixed wariness and curiosity—not as if he were seeing a monster, but rather... as if he were observing some rare, noteworthy specimen.

Lin Fan felt deeply uncomfortable under the man's gaze, a sense of shame finally catching up to him. But he couldn't afford to care about that now. Gasping for air, he urged, "Brother, I've met with disaster. I was chased by a beast, and my clothes were... please, have mercy. Give me a ride, or at least some clothes to cover myself. I will surely reward you!"

The man's wariness eased slightly at these words, but he didn't respond immediately. Instead, he reached into the car and rummaged around, pulling out a peculiar object.

It was a monocle-like device with complex electronic circuits connected to one side, which he expertly fitted over his right eye.

A strange red light flickered across the lens, followed by a soft beep.

The man looked at Lin Fan through the device, his gaze seemingly piercing right through him.

Just as Lin Fan was growing confused, he saw the strange expression on the man's face intensify, transforming into an undisguised, wildly exaggerated look of astonishment.

"Pfft—hahahaha!"

The man pointed at Lin Fan, laughing without restraint, rocking back and forth until tears nearly burst from his eyes. "Five... a battle power of only five! Hahaha! I've been running through this wilderness for years, and this is the first time I've seen a living 'trash with a power level of 5'! You're killing me! How have you survived until now, kid? Huh? By running around bare-assed from fern-thorns beasts? Hahaha!"

Battle power? Five? Trash?

These unfamiliar terms pierced Lin Fan's ears like ice picks, freezing him in place.

An indescribable chill, far worse than what he felt facing that dinosaur earlier, swept through his entire body, as if his blood had turned to ice.

He jerked his head up, staring fixedly at the strange device worn over the man's right eye—the design, the function... a term buried deep within his childhood memories exploded in his mind with the terrifying force of a thunderclap!

Battle Power Detector!

Dragon Ball World!?

That was it! The giant beast... the familiar wilderness... this detector... and that heartless mockery of "trash with a power level of 5"...

All the clues connected instantly, weaving together into a clear and cruel truth—he hadn't just transmigrated; he had transmigrated into the world of Dragon Ball, a terrifying place where planets were blown up on a whim and battle power inflated to the point of despair.

And he, a regular office worker from a peaceful world, had become the recognized unit of measurement in this world.

A bottom-tier, insignificant... trash with a power level of 5.

Despair, like an endless dark tide, instantly drowned the sliver of hope he had just felt.

What was more terrifying than discovering he had transmigrated was realizing he had landed in a world whose danger he knew all too well, and in the most humble, ant-like state imaginable.

The farmer continued to laugh recklessly, as if he had seen the most ridiculous sight in the world: "Tsk tsk, what an eye-opener. With your pathetic ability, you probably couldn't even beat a wild piglet, right? And you dare to wander around this wilderness? Get back to your starter village, kid! Don't end up as beast fodder here!"

Every word was like a sharp blade, gouging into Lin Fan's heart.

His naked body was exposed to the man's contemptuous gaze and the biting cold air. Humiliation, fear, confusion, and a sense of despair that threatened to crush his spine coiled around his mind like poisonous vines.

He stumbled back a step, loose gravel rolling under his feet, nearly falling.

The world seemed to lose its color, fading into shades of gray.

The anger and unwillingness he felt at the start of his transmigration now seemed so laughable, so pale and powerless in the face of such an absolute gap in strength and this cruel definition of his existence.

Trash with a power level of 5... In a world where Saiyans walked the earth and Frieza was a common threat, how was he supposed to survive?

How was he even supposed to stay alive?

The farmer seemed to have laughed his fill. Perhaps he found it boring, or perhaps he was too lazy to bother with this "waste" any longer. He shook his head, started the Jeep, and the engine roared to life once more.

"Good luck, kid! Haha!"

Leaving behind that final taunt, the Jeep kicked up a cloud of dust and sped away, quickly disappearing at the end of the dirt road.

Lin Fan was left alone, naked and soul-broken, standing in the middle of the desolate road as if abandoned by the entire world.

A cold wind blew, stealing the last bit of warmth from his body.

With prehistoric beasts ahead and no place to stand behind, his battle power as humble as dust, where... was the hope?

He slowly raised his head to look at the sky of this alien world, his lips curling into a smile uglier than tears, while his eyes remained a dead, ashen gray.

The despair of a trash with a power level of 5 was nothing if not this.