A\N: I liked the challenge that went underwater, training in such depth would be beneficial for superhumans, hope the reward was worth it in your eyes, please enjoy the following chapter.
Co-Written by Zecske05
After going through one of the deepest swims the world has ever 'seen' the martial artist known as Yamcha spent his day's training and getting used to his new techniques. After all, just because you have the knowledge about something, it doesn't mean you do not need to practice its foundation. It had been approximately three weeks since that challenge.
"Heh! Would you look at that, I'm starting to get a grasp on this move, a little more training and it will be perfect"
The former bandit was training Hamon on top of a lake he found when looking for a good place to train, ripples came whenever he stepped on it making him able to walk on the surface of the water. His alone time was however stopped as a portal shows up out of nowhere and something comes out of it.
"Are you having fun?" Melvin asked.
Yamcha turns around quickly seeing who it was "Oh hey there Melvin. Yeah, it has a very interesting mechanic, I even tried using it with a bottle of wine, don't know why that one in particular but it helps me know the location of my enemies through the ripples"
"Kind of pointless since you can sense ki right?" Melvin mentioned the obvious.
"Well you never know when it will be useful, besides I find it to be cool learning something different"
"Whatever suits your boat, I hope you enjoy trying all the ways of using it'' Melvin said with a smile.
"Did you come here to give me another challenge? Because I think I'm getting familiar with this technique now" Trying to show what he means, Yamcha covered his hands with Hamon.
"Oh, I don't know! Do you think you're up for it?" Melvin rests against his staff while looking smugly.
"Yup! I wouldn't be asking if I weren't up for it now would I?"
"I guess there is something up my sleeve, but do you think your body would be durable enough to take it?" Melvin challenges.
"You bet! You saw how darn durable I was back in those deep waters" Yamcha mentioned the previous challenge.
"Oh! We are dealing with a tough guy huh? Fine by me, but be prepared boi, because we are going to see what your will is made off'' He said excitedly.
And just like the last time, Melvin does his thing and in a flash of light, they are teleported. Yamcha was in a new location that seemed to be a very large yet bleak space, the walls were made of smooth reinforced plated steel but the floor had a white-like color, maybe ivory, there wasn't much light on it though.
"Yeah...This place is not one last bit ominous" Yamcha said sarcastically.
Certain areas of the metal floor started to melt and move like it was alive, starting to morph into what could be described as blobs of liquid-like metal, taking a humanoid shape of showing what appeared to be faceless metal mannequins.
"Whoa that's a bit creepy but, dolls? I thought that this was supposed to give me a challenge" Yamcha taunted.
The orb shows up and begins to talk "Don't get cocky just yet man, this is more than meets the eye. So here's the deal...I and by that I mean they! Are gonna hit your body with tools made of metal and test your endurance, but you can't move out of the way, or else that will be considered as a failure"
"Eh? I can't even move? That sounds unfair, but when you put it as an endurance test I guess it can have some merit" Yamcha sweatdropped a bit.
The metal dolls start to act by first shapeshifting their steel hands into one of the tools for sports Yamcha had experience with, baseball bats, ready for their home run, the metallic surface reflecting his face.
"Out of all things, why baseball bats? Man that looks like it could hurt, ok give me your worst"
"HAHAHAHA! STRIKE STRIKE STRIKE! Cmon! That is just a breeze for him" Melvin screams like a maniac, having a fun time.
After his creator orders, the dolls position themselves around the guy, seeing that he was about to get hit Yamcha gets into positions, breathes in and stands his ground. The dolls then start swinging the blunt weapons like professional baseball players. Yamcha got hit in the Chest, Back, legs, and his face as well at full force attack. But the martial artist seemed to be fine, not screaming or grunting from the attack.
"Kō-kin Jutsu"
Or simply put Hard Muscle Art. It was a technique where the practitioner conditions their body to become durable enough to resist an enemy's attack without succumbing to serious injury. When fully mastered the user body become so impenetrable that it is almost impossible for even a spear to pierce the muscles. In this case Yamcha was also very well versed in ki so the moved worked even better powered up like that.
'Even though this move could be polished a bit more I gotta admit. These things are actually able to pack quite the punch, the bats didn't break either from all the swings' He thought, surprise even if this was not his full power at work.
"Keep going! Keep going! Have you given up yet?" Melvin asked with a somewhat sadistic tone.
"Heck no, you call this a strike? You won't even make me fall on my knees with this!" He said defiantly.
"Is that so? Then maybe if we take a different approach''
Suddenly the dolls stopped their assault, and this time only two of them came to the plate, their hands now shifting from bats to what could be seen as metal-linked weapons, nine section chains to be clear.
"Wait...is that a-oh! Haven't seen that in a while!" Yamcha said remember when he tried training with that once in the desert what seemed like forever now, and ended up hitting his own face more than a few dozen times.
"Whip him up, good boys!" Snaps fingers.
The two dolls start by moving their nine section chained hands at speeds too fast for the human eye to follow, moving them in the air beyond Chinese kung fu masters could muster. That was considered a soft weapon because it was not meant for any life-threatening wounds besides breaking a few bones, but the speed made it look like it could cut through the human body like butter and shatter bones to dust, in this case, it stung...it stung like a beehive fallen on the floor and you were the unlucky bastard to be there.
'Oof! Ouch! Hey, that's not fair you crazy bastard' Yamcha thought, holding his ground.
"What? Are you gonna cry now? I bet Vegeta could do this in his sleep!"
'Why you little!' His eyebrows twitch in annoyance.
Yamcha thought of Vegeta as a cocky guy who thought that his Saiyan heritage made him the strongest, it really annoyed him. Humans have to struggle so much to be strong but he always gets it in a way that puts everyone on the floor...besides Goku and his kid. He wonders if he would still have the same drive if he was a human instead of depending on that Saiyan blood.
"What about you then? Are you cocky or are you hardworking?" Melvin said, almost like he read his mind.
"I'm in the middle for now. But I'm trying to improve as much as I can! And with this...I will show it to you!" He said now with his own words.
Suddenly Yamcha tried something different, and most of the huge muscles he made were brought to his arms as the red tinge followed through. This was not really meant for battle though, it took off his balance and it looked ridiculous, almost like Master Roshi Buff form but only in the arms, but the chains end up breaking apart after being swung with such force against the hard skin and limbs.
"I just showed you some pretty niche techniques, not bad for a human right?" He said, powering down back to normal.
"Congratulations, you just sustained a few slaps and showed some old tricks. But can you take something a bit more overkill?"
"Try me" He challenged.
''Oh thanks, I wanted to hear that as an excuse to go a bit crazier, this shit is way too past their use at this point"
After saying that, Melvin makes all the clones drop from their previous order and start melting, fusing in a blob as the liquid metal starts taking shape into something way bigger than before. A freakishly huge pirate-like black iron cannon shows up eighteen meters away from him to have a look.
"What...is that?" Yamcha asked, surprised.
"Know what this is? Well then, I sure hope you can take a cast iron ball that weighs 5,400 Kilograms being shot from a cannon towards you" Melvin said with a cheerful tone.
"Look at the size of that thing, it's massive. Something tells me this is gonna be tough, but it's too late to bail out now is it? Meh, whatever, I can take it no problem" Yamcha said, swallowing up his doubt.
"Don't come begging when it makes you puke your guts out"
With the sound of a pavilion being lit, it took a few seconds before the behemoth of an iron ball was then shot with an ear-shattering…
*Booooooooommmm!*
"Bring it on!"
Yamcha screamed fiercely, his feet firm in the ground and position forward ready to face the challenge in front of him with confidence and fighting spirit. The colossal ball of metal impacts head-on against Yamcha's body, but not before the martial artist manages to tackle it and grasping it with both hands, he could feel it, trying to push him back with unnatural force and velocity.
"Uhgnnn! Well would you look at this, nice try but you won't put me down just yet"
So heavy and so forceful. It surprised him the actual level of difficulty that it was bringing to him. His feet were sinking down to the floor as the weight increased together with the shockwave, trying to push him further against the wall, but Yamcha refused to let that win against him, he was having none of it! And then managed to push through it with raw strength.
Instead of pushing back, he did a different maneuver, with both hands he did a throwing motion in sync with the rest of the body that managed to change the ball's path with skill rather than power. It ended up hitting the tempered steel wall behind him with a loud noise that caved in and it remained stuck there until later.
After that, he sighs in relief "Phew...hey that was not so bad for a workout."
Yamcha's full power would have been able to deal with that if he focused only on pushing it away with his body's power. But this was way more interesting, only using a certain amount and finding other ways to get past it.
"Huh...what you know, you sure can PUMP some iron. Hehehe get it ?"
"Yeah yeah very funny. Now can we move on?" He groaned at that pun.
"Aren't you tired? Maybe some tummy hurting?" Melvin said, making fun of his guest.
"I went through worse than this. Now show me the next thing that I need to endure"
"Your impatience is no fun, alright, let's get some fresh air if you're so into it"
In a quarter of a second, the surroundings shift again, this time turning to what seemed to be just a normal over the hill forest, with beautiful lush green fauna, trees with thick logs, and a blue sky, nothing that he could recognize though besides its standard natural visage.
"Huh. Nice scenery we got here" Yamcha said.
"Nothing better than taking that fresh sweet air of nature before training into some harsh shit!" Melvin orb said right next to him.
"So this is where my next challenge will be right?" Yamcha said unaffected.
"Yep, try guessing what it will be"
"Let me take a wild guess and I will say that it's a tornado"
"...What makes you say that?" Melvin said with a face of neutrality but actually in disbelief.
"I don't know. Just a feeling of what would be difficult and possible for its usage in training, I mean an open field? What would you do? Throw rocks?"
Melvin groans in annoyance like someone just spoiled his favorite movie ending before he could watch it on Cine like everyone else "A Guess like that can be a real turn off for every one man, that really makes me wish I could just make a volcano pop out to prove you wrong"
The green orb disappears in frustration and then the sky suddenly turns dark as night, the wind goes from a breeze to a wild gale, and droplets of water start falling on the floor soon turning to downpour rain. A storm had now arrived in an instant and Yamcha was at the center of it.
"Oh! Look at that, I guessed right, maybe someone is becoming predictable" Yamcha jokes.
"I HEARD THAT! How's this for predictable?!"
Out of the blue what seemed to be the mother fucking BOSS of all tornados shows up and was starting to gain distance towards Yamcha quickly, its size could be seen from afar.
"Did you know that the width of the largest tornadoes can get to 1500 meters?" Melvin said, feeling more victorious.
"Are you holding a grudge or something? Very mature of you, I gladly accept this gift then"
Yamcha was no scientist but everyone knew that inside a tornado the air would be lacking in all possible ways, his lungs would not gather enough oxygen with it. So, activating his Hamon through quick breathing patterns Yamcha gains some advantage, filling his body with energy before running towards the tornado with bravery and confidence that he could take this head-on. Inside that disaster of nature, the winds were blowing with a lot of power and everything was spinning with great speed.
"Fun fact! Did you know the atmospheric pressure in tornados is low? And this one is currently at a low 700MBAR rotating at a speed of 500km an hour!?" The glossy orb taunted him with that piece of information
'No kidding, this wind is pretty strong and it's spinning so fast' Yamcha thought, feeling the storm blowing his body away.
"Enjoy the wind and be careful with the low oxygen discharge, because there are more things you should worry for"
'As always, there is something besides all this. Now, what is the second thing that makes this harder?'
Any normal human being would have suffocated and had their body throw like a ragdoll before it would eventually be a corpse. Now, what happens when you don't have to worry about that? only one word...Debris. When a hurricane this big goes around the area like they just don't care, it sucks all sorts of things in its way such as...Rocks, trees, cars, animals, and entire houses! all kinds of materials and whatnot just there, spinning around inside that mass of wind at high speed.
'Whoa! Where did all those trees and cars come from? I didn't see one before jumping into the tornado' He thought, surprised at this.
"Do you Like my gift?" Melvin mused at this.
'Tch! All I need to do is dodge them, easy peasy''
"Yeah...dodge a minefield of debris at high speed while inside a huge tornado with low breathable air. I wonder how long it takes for this baby to dissipate" Melvin said reading his mind and taunting him.
'There is no way I'm going down that easy, better get ready for this ride buddy'
Yamcha knew he could talk to him telepathically and so demonstrated his speed by jumping over some of the flying rocks and dodging the telephone poles from left and right before it could hit him. Wood logs came and he punched them in half, the strong winds kept trying to throw him off balance
"Pfft! You're not that Super, are you just gonna wait until this goes out? The speed and low air will eventually get to you, either that or get hit in the head by a random cow heh!"
'Then I will just...'
His body is covered in energy as the man powers up Chi for a move.
'Push them aside!'
"N-Nani?''
With a powerful Kiai concentrated around his body, Yamcha pushes everything around him away with the push from both hands. That Ki push was always useful when dealing with annoyances like that, and now the debris have been dispatched... for the time being
"You thought this was gonna stop me?! I trained with Kami in high altitudes before"
Yamcha finally spoke again even with the low oxygen, it only took a moment. Letting his ki flare up and doing a pose grabbing both his shoulders he let out a scream as power surged through the body, it was similar to Piccolo move back in the tournament,
'Now for the big surprise' "Shōgekiha! (Explosive Wave)"
Yamcha then bursts out a big explosion of ki from all over his body in order to repel that disaster of nature which dissipates mid-air, the shockwave blowing away everything on its surroundings while the things that were on it start falling down, hitting anything unlucky to be there at the wrong time.
Yamcha landed softly on the ground looking a bit cocky and gaining his breath "Are you...impressed yet?"
"Look at you. Blowing up big masses of air, bet you feel pretty good doing such eccentric training" Melvin spoke, acting like that was not a big deal.
"My friends could do this, with the right training anyone can"
"Really? Well, maybe I should go completely off the racket next time if you think this is so damn easy. Push you past your limitations"
"I didn't say that it was easy but it wasn't the hardest either" Yamcha smirked.
"Oh well, this was fun to watch. Maybe we should be going"
"Yeah. I could go for some good food right about now" Yamcha said rubbing his belly.
"Man I gotta give it to ya, you're a tough cookie" Melvin complimented.
"Thanks, I don't remember the last time someone said that to me"
"Well, I guess I should be giving you something huh? And here I thought it would be fun shooting ballistic missiles at your face later but...meh maybe later"
"Sure, if you think that will do something, anyway, what did I win? I am very curious" He said, acting a bit giddy.
"Hm...Mark my words, the challenges will be harder after this"
After that Yamcha was brought back to his home via teleportation by Melvin. After that, the latter told him that it would take a little bit of time to get his reward, so the scar-faced man kept waiting in his cottage (A\N: A cottage it's a big, cozy, and beautiful, not a small cabin, search up) A total of ten minutes had passed until the Wolf Fang Fist user had been called outside to get what he wanted.
"Here you go! Sorry to keep you waiting"
Melvin said, showing Yamcha what seemed to be a sword. The human takes a curious look at it seeing that it appeared to be a single-edged curved sword, the blade itself seemed to be made from ordinary steel at first, but it had this shine to it that gleamed in the sunlight beautifully. It adorned an interesting damask pattern to it and its fittings were that of solid bronze. (A\N: Think of a Niuweidao or Yamchas Azure dragon sword from DB)
"A…sword?" Yamcha said, not really that impressed. Sure it was a good-looking sword but still, was that all his effort brought?
"Why the long face? I have you now this melee weapon it's pretty cool"
"Not wanting to be rude, but a simple blade won't help me in the long run at this point" Yamcha said pointing at it.
"Man you sure have no sensing skills of a nice weapon, ok hear me out, you can say that this tool is an anomaly that most would think to be impossible to make, possessing three features" Melvin said with a serious look, most of it was that he wants to make suspense.
"I-Is that so?" Yamcha sweat drops at that.
"Ever heard about Graphene? Well I will spare you the details but the material used for the metal is similar to that one"
"Eh? Not really Is that any good?"
"Well it is a carbon material that easily conducts eletricity and considered to be the strongest material ever produced but at the same time it is brittle like ordinary ceramic, being very sensitive to cracks"
"That feels like a paradox, strong and weak at the same time?" Yamcha was getting curious.
"Scientists had usesd several ways to try and make that substance as perfect as possible such as chemical vapor deposition, in which carbon vapor is allowed to cool and settle on a surface and what not, i wont got deeper. But in other words the resulting lattice of carbon atoms that makes up the graphene always had some defect, scientists had managed to make an imperfect copy of it that, while is impressie, it can only withstand a tiny fraction of it such as about 580 pounds per square inch" Melvin said as if he was impressed by their effort but at the same time not.
"Oh that sounds good enough right?" Yamcha asked.
"Oh yeah? Well the PERFECT form of Graphene is meant to be two hundred times stronger than steel! And able to take enough punishment of about one hundred gigapascals!"
"Wow! That is really durable but...what is gigapascal?" He should read more books to understand what he keeps saying, so much science and words he never heard.
"Basically fourteen million pounds prt square inch before it breaks" Melvin said with a double thumbs up while the sword levitated instead of falling on his feet "I mean dont get me wrong, the dudes who made the imperfect one are great and all but I think having the perfect form will do you way more good my boy"
"Wait what!? That normal-looking sword can really be that tough?" Yamcha's curiosity was peaked "I remember using one of those but…''
"Fufufu! That's not all, here comes the second feature. Do you know what's the sharpest material in the world?" Melvin asked.
"Ahn...is it diamond?" Yamcha tried guessing.
"Obsidian! This gem of a material has a top-notch cutting edge! This little gem has a sharpness that can fracture down meat to single molecules!"
"Oh! That seems useful and dangerous" Yamcha was paying attention.
"Yeah but...trying to make weapons with obsidian is pointless, you know why?"
"Cmon, stop asking me questions I don't know and keep going" Yamcha felt frustrated for not being smart enough to understand what he meant.
"Because of its glass-like characteristics and hardness makes it brittle. Diamond is the hardest mineral on the Mohs scale, but hardness is not the same as toughness that's why they are used as scalpels for sensitive surgeries"
"I see, because in delicate procedures, there is no need for a lot of strenght"
"Surgical obsidian scalpels can produce cutting edges many times finer than even the best steel scalpels, if we compare the angstrom scale of a household razorblade to an obsidian variant, the steel one would be three hundred while the obsidian would be thirty. The smaller the angstrom, the finer the blade is. But! what if you could somehow manage to make a sword with the best durability and the best sharpness as well? You would have a diabolical concoction" Melvin had a somewhat evil glint to his eyes.
"I mean...I don't know much about the details but are you telling me that you took the best from both worlds without downsides?"
"Ah! There you go, wasn't so difficult now, was it? Indeed, I made this sword to be as durable as Graphene and sharp as obsidian. It can take and dish out punishment, logicaly speaking you cant just mix anything you want to make soemthing better, there is a whole science behind it all but that wont apply to me"
"Eh? Oh well I think I see what you're trying to tell me here. Perhaps it won't be so bad to re-learn how to use a sword'' Yamcha said, remembering that Trunks from the future had a sword for some reason at first.
"You will be surprised how useful swords can be if you have faith and skill on them" Melvin said, giving the sword to him.
"Hmmm...Yeah, I guess it would make me look really cool too. But what about the third feature?" Yamcha asked.
"Ah! Yes, that one is really difficult to master because of the details, but long story short? The blade also has the intricate...hmm I wanna say magical? Yeah lets go with either magical, the magical ability to change shapes, you want it to be a long sword? Done! You want it to be a dagger? Done! A blunt weapon with no edge? Done as well, but here is the thing...the more you want to change be it shape, size, and overall appearance it will FEED on your energy"
"Wait, so if I want to like...make a huge ass sword the size of my body that is curbed and spiked, that would drain my energy quickly?" Yamcha reminds himself of Gero.
"Well, if you practice making the changes to be quick and smooth it won't be a bother. Just a tip...try not to do anything too complicated at first ok? The less thing we need is you losing a limb by accident because of rusty skills" The former angel said with a glare that combined with his creepy smile gave off an ominous feeling.
"R-Right" Yamcha shivers.
(A\N: This sword is not from an anime or game it's just something I made up by myself. There is a huge list of badass swords out there but they are either too op or not what I want. Just making something that uber charges the cool factor of having a blade that can change shapes)
Hyunkelakaor: Nice so far, underwater pressure sounds like a good option for getting stronger, might have well added the lack of oxygen to give it a max time before suffocating.
FanficThinker: Strong water pressure from really deep in the ocean? Yeah, when you are not climbing up huge towers or using weighted clothing, this is way better than swimming laps. Not everyone has a private gravity chamber to training *Ahem* Vegeta.