The Jade Emperor now had to begin making preparations. He was determined to capture Goku; then, he could use Goku's power to strengthen his own.
It was just that the Jade Emperor currently lacked capable assistants.
Although the Buddhist Sect's Four Heavenly Kings were here, there was still some distance between them and the Jade Emperor.
It was not that the Jade Emperor did not want to grow closer to them—it simply was not easy. Their relationship was decent, but the others were, after all, members of the Buddhist Sect. They had not worked together for long, so they naturally were not especially close.
The Jade Emperor sat there in a daze. He could not help missing Kui Mulang. So much time had passed; he did not know whether Kui Mulang was alive or dead.
In the mortal realm, in the South Sea, on a desolate island, a man clad in tattered clothes crawled out of the ocean. He lay on the island, gasping for breath.
That man was none other than the Kui Mulang the Jade Emperor had been thinking of.
After Kui Mulang was injured in the great battle at Phoenix Island and fell into the South Sea, he had remained adrift upon these waters.
Because of those injuries, a large portion of his magical power had vanished, and he could not recover it anytime soon.
Back then, he had felt as though he was about to drown in the sea. Fortunately, a wooden plank drifted past, and he used it to float on the ocean for many days. He had nearly starved to death before luckily finding this small island.
He then settled on the island, recovering a little magical power each day before diving into the sea to catch fish.
He had just gone into the