Ah, I'm dead!
Looking at the half-dragon, half-human monster before him, its body covered in green scales and a pair of wings sprouting from its back, Li Ming decisively played dead.
He closed his eyes and fell to the ground, slowing his breathing as much as he could despite his nerves. One careless move, and he really would die!
"Uh... Aah!!"
The villager in the monster's hands died instantly. Li Ming was even less willing to make a move now. Though his entire body had tensed up instinctively, he still fought the urge to tremble.
These monsters were exceptionally keen. They weren't beasts that only hunted when hungry, either. They were demons who took pleasure in killing and bloodshed!
"Tsk, tsk. What a lovely expression."
The tall, lanky monster cackled as he tossed the corpse aside. Blood flowed along the ground to Li Ming's side. The touch of it on his fingertips was warm, and an iron-like smell crept into his nostrils.
"King Piccolo wants us to take care of a human brat. Let's go."
Thud!
The sound of something heavy hitting the ground rang out. Li Ming's whole body jolted!
One of his legs... Once the pressure and excruciating pain of that instant had passed, Li Ming bit down hard on his lower lip to keep from screaming!
His hands trembled almost instinctively, drawing the attention of the two monsters. They lowered their heads, but Li Ming hadn't made a sound the whole time. They assumed his muscles and nerves were twitching in death and paid it no mind.
"All right, let's go."
Whoosh!
The shadows suddenly spread. The two monsters opened their wings and beat them, sending a violent gust sweeping down. Then they flew away.
Li Ming's body was still trembling. One of his lower legs was completely ruined, crushed beneath a stomp from the later monster, which weighed hundreds of pounds!
Perhaps they would have preferred to watch him struggle in agony, screaming in despair. That would have given them even more pleasure.
Mustering all his strength, he pushed himself up with both hands. Seeing his lower leg utterly wrecked, Li Ming's face turned deathly pale.
Pain, fear, and blood loss all seemed to foretell that he didn't have long to live.
In the final moment before his consciousness sank into darkness, he thought he heard a voice.
Ding!
"System loading... Host's soul is on the verge of dissipating. Main system binding canceled. Initiating backup plan."
"...Talent System installation complete. Host is on the verge of death. Beginning random match..."
"Ding! Congratulations, you have acquired the Advanced Saiyan Bloodline talent. Fusion beginning automatically."
All of these changes happened while Li Ming was on the verge of death, so he had no idea what was happening to him. Outside, though, a different scene was unfolding.
A flash of white light passed over his body. Then, like a dying flame miraculously reignited, the life within him began to recover.
Even more bizarrely, his lower leg, which had been completely broken, gradually began to heal. Flesh and bone seemed to merge back together of their own accord.
As time passed, Li Ming's consciousness finally awoke. His whole body felt weak, and the hunger gnawing at him felt like torture. His body's craving for energy had reached its peak!
In a daze, he groped his way to a stream nearby. Without a second thought, he lowered his head and gulped down mouthful after mouthful of water.
"Uh... Th-this is me?"
After drinking, Li Ming felt more clearheaded. He stared at his reflection in the water: his muscles bulged dramatically, and sharply defined features gave him a handsome face.
He couldn't help reaching out to feel them. Once he was certain it really was his body, he also spotted fish swimming in the stream.
His hunger immediately overwhelmed his curiosity. He reached out without thinking and caught a fish with perfect precision, leaving not even a blur behind!
He didn't bother cleaning it, just stuffed it into his mouth. The three- or four-pound fish went down in two bites, but he didn't feel full at all. If anything, he was even hungrier.
Li Ming was still rational enough to know that his condition was absolutely abnormal, but he couldn't worry about that now. If this continued, the hunger would drive him mad!
He took one step, and in an instant his figure appeared dozens of meters away. A moment later, he left behind an afterimage and vanished again.
The creatures in this world were very primitive. Dinosaurs and the like were nothing unusual. In desolate wastelands far from people or in primeval forests, large predators and other animals could be found everywhere.
"Roar!"
A fiery red Tyrannosaurus Rex towered over a hundred meters high, like a mountain!
The ruler of the region for dozens of kilometers around had just crashed to the ground amid a shrill scream!
The sound of crunching and chewing followed, lasting a full hour. By the time Li Ming emerged from beneath the dinosaur's corpse, most of its body had disappeared.
He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. At last, he had overcome his hunger. No matter what kind of creature you were, hunger would drive you mad before it killed you!
Of course, there were exceptions: special races that didn't need food to replenish their energy.
"System, looks like I got pretty lucky..."
After dying once, Li Ming had gained some understanding of this world's cruelty. Without the system, any disaster could have killed him!
Even with the system, he still didn't dare let his guard down, because something had gone wrong with it.
Since his soul had been on the verge of dissipating, the main system hadn't been able to bind to him and had ultimately left. But it had left behind a Talent System.
"Talent System, serial number DB4649T2006RS, at your service."
It sounded like a mass-produced system. Li Ming frowned. "System, what's my condition right now? And what can you do?"
"The host randomly obtained the Advanced Saiyan Bloodline talent. After completing fusion, the host escaped the threat of death and is currently in good condition. This system's current function is to match the host with bloodlines and talents found in the current world."
"What's the matching mechanism? Is it random?" Hearing that he had an Advanced Saiyan Bloodline, Li Ming felt relieved. It wasn't a bad bloodline. Vegeta might have been second-best for millennia, but his talent was undeniably excellent.
Besides, Saiyans were a naturally battle-loving race. They ranked somewhere in the middle or upper-middle of the universe. As long as he didn't run into those monsters, he could basically do whatever he wanted.
"Yes. In addition, the host must grow to the peak of the current bloodline before the next stage of functions can be unlocked."
"What functions does the main system have?"
"Ding! Insufficient permissions. Unable to retrieve information."
He was a little disappointed, but Li Ming quickly got over it and didn't dwell on it. The Advanced Saiyan Bloodline would serve him well for a long time, unless something unexpected happened...
As if suddenly remembering something, Li Ming raised a hand toward the sky. A blast of energy shot out, a brilliant beam stretching straight into the heavens!
"Just as I thought..." Li Ming's expression gradually turned to surprise. This sort of energy was nothing special for an adult Saiyan. If anything, it could only be called weak.
"My body's grown up, but I've never trained or fought. I'm afraid I haven't developed any of its strength at all."
This wasn't good news. Vegeta had a battle power of twenty-four thousand as an adult because he had helped Frieza conquer the universe from a young age. Saiyans naturally developed quickly.
A low-class warrior like Goku, on the other hand, grew up in an overly comfortable environment. Even after systematic martial arts training, his actual battle power was still no match for Raditz.
Li Ming's situation was that he had neither trained nor had a suitable environment to grow in. How much battle power the bloodline alone gave him remained to be seen.
After all, Nappa was also a high-class warrior, yet he was little more than cannon fodder. He looked to be in his thirties, in his prime, and had only six or seven thousand battle power—just a little stronger than an average soldier.
In his current condition, he probably wasn't even as strong as a soldier, assuming nothing unexpected happened...
"Still, it should be enough."
His short-term goal was naturally to find a way to raise his battle power. As for developing his Saiyan bloodline to its peak, that wasn't actually difficult. A Saiyan transformation was essentially a way to unleash one's power.
Saiyans were known as a warrior race, but in reality, they were only middle-ranking or slightly above in the universe. The Legendary Super Saiyan was the exception, of course.
So as long as he developed his strength enough to reach the threshold for transforming into a Super Saiyan, he would have reached the peak of an ordinary Saiyan. As for Super Saiyan 2 and Super Saiyan 3, those merely traded life force for power.
No—or rather, the first Super Saiyan form did the same. Saiyans were a race similar to humans, and their physiques were merely influenced by the battle factors in their bodies. They aged extremely slowly.
Aside from that, the only trait that set them apart was their tails. Their astonishing appetites were just a way to sustain the energy demands of high-intensity combat.
Li Ming frowned as he recalled what had happened earlier. Those two half-human, half-lizard monsters were clearly hatched from eggs laid by Piccolo.
The problem was, he didn't know the way!
And he hadn't learned how to sense ki. Even extremely powerful races in the universe, including Frieza's, lacked this ability to sense ki.
Luckily, there were always some landmarks in this world, such as Korin Tower, Mount Paozu, and West City...
His most urgent task was to find some people. Once he knew which way to go, he could eventually find somewhere.
Before you continue