"Huff... huff..."
Amid his heavy panting, sweat had soaked through his clothes and even dripped onto the ground.
Finally, Lin Ze stopped, his legs numb.
"Rest for ten minutes, then 100 push-ups, 100 squats, and a five-kilometer run..."
That was right. Lin Ze was following Saitama's training routine from One-Punch Man, with practical combat moves like straight punches and side kicks added in.
Because his legs were short, though, he had reduced the run to five kilometers...
At first, Lin Ze could not even finish half the routine in a day. Half a year later, he had successfully reached Master Saitama's training volume and was still slowly increasing it.
"If only I could keep living peacefully like this..."
Sitting beside the straw dummy, Lin Ze gazed at the indistinct faces on Hokage Rock in the distance, lost in a rare moment of reverie.
But when he thought of the approaching Third Shinobi World War, the Nine-Tails' Rampage, and the Fourth Shinobi World War...
Taking it easy was out of the question.
Just as he was about to resume training, Lin Ze suddenly felt something in the woods behind the training ground inexplicably drawing him toward it.
The feeling was strange, wasn't it?
He could not tell whether it was pulling him or calling to him. He only felt that whatever it was, it was extraordinarily important to him!
Driven by that feeling, Lin Ze walked toward the woods.
The sky gradually darkened. Lin Ze looked around at the dim surroundings and gritted his teeth.
The strange sensation urged him onward. After walking for a while, Lin Ze stopped beside a small river, where he saw something round and fruit-like slowly floating downstream.
The water flowed gently, and that fruit-like object happened to drift right up to Lin Ze's feet.
"This... this is..."
His expression instantly went blank, and Lin Ze looked as though he had seen a ghost.
Hurriedly crouching down, Lin Ze stared wide-eyed at the thing by his feet-a strangely shaped fruit.
Lin Ze cautiously reached out and picked up the fruit at the river's edge.
It was bluish-purple all over, its surface covered in spiral patterns, with dragon-scale-like protrusions at the top. The entire thing gave off an eerie sheen.
Wasn't this... Kaido's Fish-Fish Fruit, Model: Azure Dragon?!
Anyone else from the Hokage World would have had no way of knowing what it was. They would probably have thrown it straight away as a poisonous fruit.
But Lin Ze was different. Having once been an anime fan, he recognized what it was almost at a glance.
"A Devil Fruit?! How could one appear in the Hokage World?!"
Lin Ze stared dumbfounded at the Devil Fruit in his hand. It looked exactly like the one in the manga, nothing like a fake.
"Could it just be a coincidence? Or some kind of poisonous wild fruit?"
All sorts of thoughts flashed through his mind.
But he quickly dismissed them all-it looked far too real. Every detail perfectly reproduced its appearance in the original...
"Has my cheat finally arrived? Does that even make sense?"
He looked at the little river before him...
Recalling the strange sensation he had just felt, Lin Ze looked at the fruit in his hand, which resembled it no matter how he looked at it, and swallowed.
As a longtime anime fan, he remembered this fruit all too well.
It was the foundation of Kaido's unchecked rampage through the Pirate King world, one of the very best Mythical Zoans, with the power to summon wind and rain and churn rivers and seas.
But why had it appeared in the Hokage World?
And in this utterly unremarkable little river, at that?
Countless thoughts churned through his mind, but none of them made sense.
He shook his head, forcibly casting those jumbled thoughts out of his mind.
"Who cares why it's here..."
"If I don't want to be cannon fodder, I'll have to risk it!"
Gritting his teeth, Lin Ze brought the fruit to his mouth and took a hard bite.
Blech!!
An indescribable stench instantly exploded in his mouth and shot straight to his brain. The taste defied description-it tasted worse than shit!
His stomach churned violently, and Lin Ze hurriedly covered his mouth to keep himself from throwing up.
"This thing is even more disgusting than the manga described..."
Looking at the remaining fruit with a bite mark in it, Lin Ze gritted his teeth and, still frowning, ate all the rest.
Here goes nothing!!
Blech!!
It was still unbearably foul. Although Pirate King mentioned that a single bite of a Devil Fruit was enough to gain its corresponding ability, when the moment actually came, Lin Ze still chose to play it safe.
What if I missed out on part of the ability?
He did not dare take that gamble!
Gritting his teeth, he stuffed all the shit... the Devil Fruit into his mouth, forced himself to chew twice, then turned ashen and began dry-heaving.
"Damn, how did Kaido put up with this back then...?"
Once the entire Devil Fruit was in his stomach, Lin Ze took a moment to recover, then carefully sensed the changes in his body.
One second... two seconds...
Bzzz!!!
A surge of violent energy suddenly erupted within him!
Lin Ze's pupils abruptly contracted. It felt as though a massive hammer had slammed into his brain, and the intense dizziness made him stagger several steps, nearly falling into the river.
Pressing hard against his temples, Lin Ze felt as though his blood was boiling and his bones were itching, with countless scales seemingly writhing beneath his skin.
Argh-!
Lin Ze let out a muffled groan and fell to his knees, his body unable to bear it. Cold sweat seeped from his forehead.
Looking down at his body, he saw fine blue-green patterns emerging on his arms, like the beginnings of dragon scales.
His neatly trimmed nails had also sharpened, gleaming coldly like dragon claws.
Lin Ze could also feel that his vision had become considerably clearer even in the night.
Even more astonishingly, his muscles, sore from his recent workout, seemed to have been infused with new vitality, and his fatigue vanished completely.
"So this is... the power of the Fish-Fish Fruit, Model: Azure Dragon?"
Lin Ze raised his hand, staring in disbelief at his fingertips gradually undergoing Dragon Transformation. He tried lightly swiping at a large tree beside him.
Shhk!
Three deep claw marks instantly appeared in the nearby tree trunk!
"Holy shit!"
Startled, Lin Ze hurriedly withdrew his hand, his heart pounding.
Lin Ze tried clenching his fist and discovered that his grip strength had at least tripled. The scrapes on his arms from his workout were also healing at a fairly rapid pace.
"Sure enough, it's just like Kaido's ability!"
Lin Ze's breathing quickened, and a glimmer of joy flashed in his eyes.
"With this, what do I even need chakra for?!"
"I've hit the jackpot..."
Lin Ze could not help grinning. So what if his chakra was lacking? So what if he could not master ninjutsu?
With this Fish-Fish Fruit, Model: Azure Dragon, he might just be able to carve out a path for himself in this cruel Hokage World!
No matter how strong taijutsu became, it ultimately had limits. But the power of the Fish-Fish Fruit, Model: Azure Dragon could keep growing as he developed it, and legend even had it that it could reach the point of immortality and indestructibility.
But that wild joy did not last long before reason suppressed it.
Lin Ze abruptly came to his senses and looked around, only breathing a sigh of relief after confirming that no one was there.
"No, I can't celebrate too soon."
"The Hokage World isn't the Pirate King world. People here are far too wary of unknown powers. If anyone discovers that I have an ability that's neither ninjutsu nor a kekkei genkai, the consequences would be unimaginable."
"And there are people like Orochimaru and Danzo, too..."
Lin Ze recalled the Naruto anime he had watched, particularly the scene of Orochimaru stretching his neck. It made his scalp crawl.
Hiss!!!
"I still have to play it safe when I need to..."
Lin Ze could not help shivering. He took a deep breath, calmed himself, and carefully cleared away the traces by the river and on the tree before returning silently to the orphanage.
Before you continue