The absolute silence of the valley was a canvas for the roaring symphony in King's mind. He stood in the center of the devastation, the scale of Saitama and Genos's past sparring session both humbling and liberating. Here, he could truly cut loose.
He started not with a bang, but with a stretch. He rolled his shoulders, loosened his neck, and went through a series of basic calisthenics. It was a mundane prelude to what was to come, but his High Combat Instincts insisted on preparation. As he moved, his mind was a whirlwind of tactical simulations.
'The abilities are tools, but a fight is a fluid thing,' he thought, his golden eyes, King's Eyes , scanning the terrain for imaginary foes. 'I can't just use them in isolation. They have to flow.'
The primary goal was clear: push his foundational abilities to their limits through sheer, repetitive strain. He hadn't forgotten the system's message about his physical vessel being too weak. While he couldn't afford the 25,000 BP for King's Aura - Lv. 4, which would automatically enhance his body and other skills, he could still force growth the hard way. His King's Armor and King's Eyes weren't just shields and scanners; they were muscles. And muscles could be trained.
He began with simple, brutal physicality. He fell into a fighting stance and started throwing combinations at the air. Jabs, crosses, hooks, and kicks, each movement explosive and precise. But he wasn't just shadowboxing. With every punch, he willed the King's Armor to flash into existence around his fist at the moment of imagined impact, solidifying for a fraction of a second before dissipating. With every kick, a greave of golden energy would encase his shin.
CRACK-WHUMP! Flash. CRUNCH! Flash.
The strain was immediate and immense. Constantly manifesting the armor, even partially, was like doing endless, maximum-weight reps with a muscle he never knew he had. Sweat beaded on his forehead, his breath coming in controlled pants. The King Engine provided a powerful, steady rhythm, a metronome for his exertion.
Simultaneously, he pushed his King's Eyes. He didn't just look at the shattered mountain in the distance; he analyzed it. He tracked individual specks of dust caught in a rare sunbeam, calculated the trajectory of a loose pebble tumbling down a slope, and identified the precise, weakest fracture lines in a nearby megalith. He was forcing his perception to process more information, faster, sharpening the tool to a razor's edge.
After what felt like an hour of this grueling routine, he moved to integration.
"Scenario one," he grunted, his voice echoing faintly. "Multiple, fast-moving Wolf-level targets."
He envisioned a pack of sleek, canine monsters charging him from all sides. In response, he didn't throw a punch. He simply brought his hands together in a short, sharp Seismic Clap.
KA-BOOM!
The concussive wave was smaller, more controlled than his first test, but it was deafening in the silent valley. A fan of force erupted, scouring a 45-degree arc in front of him and sending a cloud of pulverized rock dust billowing outwards.
"Good. Area denial. Creates space."
"Scenario two: A single, armored Tiger-level threat."
He focused on a large, tilted slab of concrete jutting from the ground, imagining it as a monster's armored carapace. He raised a hand, and with a sharp exhalation, unleashed a Kinetic Blast.
FWOOM-PANG!
The invisible ripple struck the center of the slab, not with enough force to obliterate it, but punching a clean, fist-sized hole straight through it. The precision was surgical.
"Armor penetration. Target weak points."
Now, for the true test of synthesis. He imagined a more complex foe: a large, brutish monster with a thick hide, closing the distance fast.
He began to move. He feinted a straight punch, and as his imaginary foe reacted, he dropped low and swept its legs—not with his own, but with a controlled, horizontal pulse of his King's Aura. The air shimmered at ground level, a invisible scythe meant to unbalance.
Before the "monster" could recover, he was already rising, his right hand glowing with the focused energy of a Kinetic Blast. But he didn't fire it. Instead, he used the building pressure in his palm to reinforce his King's Armor, creating a brilliantly glowing, super-dense fist.
He drove this fist forward in a devastating straight, a physical blow empowered by untapped projectile energy.
CRRRACK!
The sound wasn't from an impact, but from the air itself fracturing around his knuckles. The imagined combination was seamless: Aura to disrupt, Armor to fortify, and Kinetic energy to empower a physical strike.
He repeated this process for hours, cycling through scenarios. Using a Seismic Clap against the ground to launch himself backward, creating distance. Using the dust cloud from a clap to mask the tell-tale shimmer of a Kinetic Blast. The Adaptive Combat Instincts he relied on were no longer just providing data; they were being fed a constant stream of practical experience, refining their algorithms in real-time.
Finally, chest heaving and drenched in sweat, he knew it was time for the ultimate test. He needed to understand the true limits of King's Authority, and more importantly, his own.
He planted his feet, drawing upon his legend, his will, his fear. The King Engine shifted from a steady thrum to a deafening, sustained BOOOOOOM that made the very rubble at his feet vibrate. The air grew heavy, charged with intent. He focused everything into that single, hyper-dense point before his chest.
He unleashed it.
The wave of golden-tinged Intent surged forth, disassembling a small hillock of rubble into its constituent atoms. The recoil hit him like a physical blow, a sharp, familiar agony in his chest that stole his breath and made his heart stutter. He gritted his teeth, enduring it, analyzing the pain.
'Duration: two seconds. Range: fifty meters. Recoil: debilitating, but not incapacitating. Recovery time: approximately ten seconds.'
It was a data point. A painful, but valuable one.
As the sun began to dip below the scarred horizon, painting the valley in deep oranges and purples, King finally stopped, his body screaming in protest but his spirit soaring. He was exhausted, but he had done more than just train.
He had begun to compose his symphony of destruction. The individual notes—the Clap, the Blast, the Armor, the Eyes—were now being woven into chords and melodies. He was far from a master conductor, but he now held the baton with firm, and growing, confidence.
The path to mastering his arsenal was long, but as he looked at the new, smaller scars he had added to the valley's immense tapestry of ruin, he knew he had taken a monumental first step. The grind for BP would continue, but now, it was matched by the grind for flawless execution.
---
The dawn light that filtered into the valley the next morning felt like a spotlight on a stage built for gods and demons. King stood once more in its center, the memory of yesterday's exertion a dull ache in his muscles, a feeling he now associated with progress. The initial, overwhelming awe of the place had faded, replaced by a sense of grim familiarity. This was his workshop now.
His High Combat Instincts had been processing the data from the previous session all night, and as he began his stretches, new, more complex scenarios unfolded in his mind's eye. It was no longer about using one ability after another; it was about making them interdependent, creating a combat loop where the end of one technique was the beginning of the next.
He started with fluidity. Instead of static punches and kicks, he began to move, his feet carving patterns in the dust as he engaged an imaginary, agile opponent. He visualized a serpentine Tiger-level threat, coiling and striking with blinding speed.
His left hand shot out, not to punch, but to fire a low-yield Kinetic Blast at the ground ten feet in front of him.
FWOOM-CRUNCH!
The blast wasn't meant to kill, but to disrupt. It kicked up a dense screen of pulverized rock and dirt, obscuring his form. In that same instant, he pushed his King's Eyes to their limit, their golden glow piercing the artificial fog he had created. To his imaginary foe, he was blind. To him, its shimmering, heat-like outline was perfectly clear.
As the monster hesitated, confused by the sudden loss of visual, King was already moving. He burst through the dust cloud, his right arm sheathed in the brilliant, solid light of his King's Armor. He didn't throw a punch; he delivered a clothesline, the armored forearm catching the "monster's" neck with the force of a speeding truck. The combination was brutal in its efficiency: create environmental advantage, negate it for the enemy, and capitalize with overwhelming force.
For hours, he drilled these sequences. He practiced firing a Kinetic Blast with his right hand while simultaneously forming an armored shield on his left to block a counter-attack he'd foreseen with his Eyes. The mental strain was immense, a constant, tripartite drain on his focus, but his Adaptive Combat Instincts were slowly hardwiring the processes, turning conscious effort into subconscious reaction.
Sweat poured from him, his breath pluming in the cool morning air. The King Engine was a constant, powerful drumbeat, the rhythm to which he practiced his deadly dance. He was no longer just a man with powers; he was becoming a system, a single, integrated weapon.
As the sun climbed to its zenith, he felt a familiar, gnawing emptiness in his core. The energy drain from constant ability use was significant. It was a stark reminder of his limitations, but also a clear metric for his growth. Yesterday, he would have been on his knees by now. Today, he was merely pushing through a formidable wall.
It was time to change the focus from finesse to raw, overwhelming power. His gaze fell upon the slopes of the shattered mountain, specifically on a field of house-sized boulders that had sheared off from the peak.
He approached the first one, a jagged monolith of granite twice his height. He planted his feet, feeling the solid earth beneath him. This was not a test of his projected abilities, but of the foundation they were built upon. He called upon the King's Armor, but this time, he didn't let it flash. He willed it to solidify, to become a permanent, crushing weight around his limbs. A full cuirass of golden energy encased his torso, and greaves of light covered his legs, his boots sinking an inch into the ground with the contained pressure.
With a guttural roar that was swallowed by the valley's silence, he drove his armored fist into the face of the boulder.
CRRRACK-BOOM!
The sound was not a sharp report, but a deep, percussive detonation. A web of fractures spread from the point of impact, and the entire multi-ton rock shivered. Dust and chips of stone exploded outward. He didn't pause. He threw another punch, and another, a relentless, piston-like barrage. He wasn't just hitting it; he was systematically dismantling it with his fists. Chunks the size of furniture sheared off and tumbled away.
But his Adaptive Combat Instincts warned against a one-dimensional approach. A monster wouldn't stand still. He needed to incorporate his whole body.
He shifted his weight, pivoting on his left foot. His right leg, encased in the shimmering greave of energy, snapped upward in a devastating axe kick. The armored heel connected with the top of a slightly smaller boulder beside the first.
SHATTER!
The rock split cleanly in two, the halves collapsing inward. The impact sent a jolt up his leg, but the armor dispersed it effortlessly. He followed through, spinning into a roundhouse kick that caught another boulder on its side, shearing off a corner as if it were made of chalk.
This was a new kind of training. It was brutish, loud, and profoundly physical. The King's Armor was no longer just a shield; it was a blunt-force weapon, a wrecking ball attached to his body. With every punch that pulverized granite and every kick that shattered slate, he felt the ability being strained, tested, and in response, growing more resilient. The golden light seemed to burn a little brighter, hold its form a little longer.
He moved through the boulder field like a force of nature, a golden-eyed titan reducing the mountain' rubble to gravel. It was a symphony of destruction, each impact a crashing chord. The King's Eyes worked in tandem, not to predict enemy moves, but to pinpoint the inherent fault lines and weaknesses in the rock, showing him exactly where to strike for maximum effect.
Finally, as the afternoon sun began to wane, he stood panting in the center of a freshly created quarry of his own making. His muscles trembled with fatigue, and the King Engine's beat was a slow, heavy thud of exhaustion. But as he looked at the carnage, a deep, solid satisfaction settled within him.
He had not earned a single BP today, but the progress was undeniable. The phantom movements in his mind were now etched into his muscle memory. The abilities that were once separate tools were now extensions of his will, and the armor that protected him could also, with terrifying efficiency, annihilate.
He was hardening his body and his skills in the forge of this desolate valley. The specter of a Demon-level threat still loomed, a monstrous shadow on the horizon. But as he flexed an armored hand, watching the golden light gleam in the fading sun, the shadow felt a little less vast. He was not just gathering power anymore. He was learning its weight, its balance, and its song. And he was determined to become a master composer before the final, decisive note needed to be played.
-
Days bled into one another within the timeless, shattered cradle of the valley. The sun and moon became mere witnesses to a relentless, singular purpose. King was no longer a visitor in this landscape of ruin; he was a part of its ecology, a force of will as persistent as the erosion that had once shaped it. His life became a stark cycle: the grueling trek from his apartment, the hours of brutal, self-inflicted combat, and the weary return in the deepening twilight, his body a map of exhaustion and his mind a crucible of refining strategies.
And the progress was no longer just felt; it was visible.
His King's Armor had evolved beyond a reactive shield. Through countless repetitions, through the strain of absorbing the phantom impacts of a hundred imagined foes and the very real recoil of his own strikes against unyielding stone, it had learned to anticipate. It no longer just flared on a limb; it began to flow. During a complex combination, a full pauldron would form on his shoulder to deflect an imagined blow, while simultaneously, greaves would encase his shins for a sweeping kick, and gauntlets would solidify on his fists for the finishing strike. It was no longer a piecemeal defense but a second skin of solidified light, adapting to his movements in real-time, covering more of his body with a consistency that spoke of a deepening connection to the ability itself.
His King's Eyes underwent a similar transformation. The constant strain of tracking imaginary high-speed targets, of analyzing the weak points in a thousand different rocks, and of piercing through the obscuring clouds of his own making had honed them to a razor's edge. The world, through their golden glow, was no longer just objects and space; it was a tapestry of vectors, pressure points, and potential trajectories. He could spot a hairline fracture in a slab of granite from fifty yards, or track the flight path of a bird-sized target with effortless, predatory focus. The information wasn't just data anymore; it was instinct.
It was with his offensive abilities, however, that the most profound mastery was achieved. The Kinetic Blast had become an extension of his very neurology. The concept of firing it solely from his palm now seemed laughably primitive. His Adaptive Combat Instincts, fed by countless scenarios, had rewired the ability's delivery system.
He stood before a line of rusted I-beams, the skeletal remains of some long-vanished structure. He didn't raise his hands. He flicked his right index finger.
FWOOM-PING!
A pencil-thin ripple of force shot out, punching a neat, smoking hole through the center of the first beam. He then pivoted, his left foot snapping out in a side kick. From the sole of his boot, a wider, more concussive blast erupted, striking the second beam and bending it in half with a shriek of tortured metal. He could fire them from his elbows in a close-quarters grapple, from his knees in a devastating rising strike, even from his fingertips in a rapid, machine-gun-like volley. The Kinetic Blast was no longer a tool; it was his entire body, transformed into a living arsenal of invisible, instantaneous artillery.
The Seismic Clap, too, had been refined. He learned that the concussive wave didn't have to be a symmetrical, all-consuming fan. By focusing his intent, by visualizing the compression of force not just between his palms but through them, he could direct its fury. He demonstrated this on a large, freestanding wall of collapsed concrete. He clapped his hands, but instead of a wide cone, the resulting KA-BOOM! was a focused, spear-tip of pure concussive force that struck the center of the wall. The entire structure didn't just shatter; it vaporized in a straight line, leaving the edges mostly intact. He could now choose: a wide-area denial or a single, obliterating lance of sound and force.
Yet, amidst these triumphs, one ability remained a sullen, rebellious cornerstone. King's Authority.
He had tried. He had stood in the valley's heart day after day, drawing upon his legend, feeling the King Engine build to its deafening crescendo. He had unleashed the wave of golden Intent, watching it disassemble hillsides and scour new trenches into the valley floor. But the result was always the same. The power was immense, yes, but it was a wild, untamed thing. And the recoil—the white-hot agony in his chest, the King Engine's painful stutter—remained a brutal, unforgiving constant. He could marginally reduce the recovery time through sheer force of will, but the fundamental problem was unchanged: his body and his core aura were not strong enough to channel the ability without breaking themselves in the process. It was a dam holding back an ocean, and with every use, the cracks widened.
As he stood there one evening, rubbing his sore sternum after a particularly painful test, the solution became as clear and cold as the valley's silence. He had pushed his current form to its absolute limit. The low-level threats were gone, and his skills were honed to a fine edge. The only thing holding him back was the fundamental stats of his being. And the only way to upgrade those stats was with Belief Points. A lot of them.
His gaze lifted from the smoldering trench he had just created, looking past the valley's rim towards the deeper, darker heart of Z-City. The thought he had been cultivating for days, the terrifying, logical conclusion to his growth, finally solidified from a nebulous "someday" into a concrete plan.
'Tomorrow,' he thought, the word echoing with finality in his mind.
The calculus was simple and brutal. A single Demon-level threat could offer a BP yield that could dwarf his previous accumulation. It was the key. With that many points, he could finally purchase the King's Aura - Lv. 4 upgrade. He could reinforce his physical vessel, strengthen the very core of his power, and finally wield King's Authority without it being a act of mutually assured destruction. It was the only way to cross the chasm between being a powerful fighter and becoming the legend he was supposed to be.
A calmness settled over him, a quiet before the storm. The fear was still there, a cold stone in his gut, but it was now overshadowed by a resolute, calculating certainty. He had spent these days forging himself into a weapon of precision and overwhelming force. Tomorrow, he would take that weapon out of the proving grounds and test it against the anvil of a true catastrophe.
He turned his back on the valley, his shadow long in the setting sun. The King Engine beat a slow, heavy, but unwavering rhythm, no longer the drum of training, but the war drum of a king marching to claim his due.
Tomorrow, he would go hunt a Demon-level Monster.