In the Dragon Ball world, Universe 7, on Planet Vegeta, in the Saiyan nursery.
Two pointy-mouthed aliens were taking notes.
"What's going on? The reading says zero? That means his power level is below 0.5!"
"Whose child is this?"
"No idea. There's no information on the incubator at all. His power level isn't even one. Is he really a Saiyan monkey?"
"Shh, keep your voice down! He has a tail, so there's no doubt about it. Still, there's no identity information or registration. How did he even get in here?"
"Could he be a baby born on another planet? Maybe his parents found out his power level was too low and snuck him in?"
"Possible. With a power level this low, if it were detected in public, his parents might end up as humiliated as Bardock."
"What do we do now? Should we report it?"
"Idiot! A baby with no known origin suddenly shows up in the nursery, and his power level is this low. What do you think will happen if we report it? What do you think will happen to us?"
"Then what do we do? Let's just kill him!"
"Fool! If this gets discovered, we're dead. Do you want to face the wrath of the entire Saiyan race?"
"Then what?"
"Let me think... Right, Bardock! Bardock's son Kakarot has a low power level too, just two. He's supposed to be sent to a low-level planet in a few days. Why don't we send him off early and take this unknown piece of trash with him? It's not that big a deal."
"Good idea!"
And so, in the dead of night,
the two pointy-mouthed aliens each carried a Saiyan baby from an incubator—one staring with wide, puzzled eyes, the other crying nonstop—and quietly made their way to the launch site.
The two babies were placed together in the same spherical spacecraft. A moment later, it blasted off, trailing a long tail of flame.
"Who are you two? Why did you launch a spacecraft without permission? Who did you send away?" The pair were soon discovered.
Three Saiyans surrounded them. The one in front was missing an ear.
Faced with this, the two aliens showed no sign of panic.
They had clearly expected this; an event this conspicuous couldn't go unnoticed. They were calm only because they'd prepared an excuse in advance.
"Sir, we're in charge of the nursery. We just sent Bardock's son away."
"Bardock's son has a power level that's too low. The other babies' auras frightened him into crying nonstop, seriously disturbing their rest. That's why we sent him away in the middle of the night."
"Right, and the spacecraft we used was already meant for Bardock's son. Its destination had been set in advance, too."
"Bardock's son? The useless weakling with a power level of two is a coward, too?" The one-eared Saiyan raised an eyebrow.
"Yes, yes, that's—uh!" Before either alien could finish speaking, their chests were pierced.
After wiping the blood from his hands on the two corpses, the one-eared Saiyan said indifferently, "Don't waste them. Use them to grow Saibamen. And tell those aliens that not one member of the warrior race is theirs to send wherever they please!"
"Yes. Should we retrieve the spacecraft?"
"No need."
Inside the spherical spacecraft, the two Saiyan babies were one noisy and one quiet, an awkward contrast.
The one crying nonstop was naturally Bardock's son, Kakarot—the future figure who would lead the Saiyan race into a new era: Sun Wukong.
Whenever a new hairstyle or hair color appeared, he was almost always the first to discover and try it.
As for the other baby, who was far too quiet for an infant, he was a reincarnator.
"What... happened to me?" Indeed, he was no ordinary person. He was the venerable ancestor of the Yin-Yang Immortal Sect, Bu Wuchen, also known as Immortal Venerable Wuchen.
Staring blankly at his own tiny hands, the once-mighty Immortal Venerable Bu Wuchen was at a loss.
It seemed he had become a baby, and all his immense cultivation had vanished.
What's more, his head felt groggy.
Indeed, even his Divine Soul was no longer what it once had been. He had retained only his memories—memories too vast for his infant soul to bear.
"Reincarnation? Or a tribulation of the Dao Heart?" Whenever cultivators encountered a bottleneck, they might fall into a tribulation of the Dao Heart.
This tribulation was an illusion of the Dao Heart. Those who emerged from it would reach a higher level; those who failed would perish!
"No, this isn't a tribulation of the Dao Heart!" As an Immortal Venerable, Bu Wuchen had experienced countless illusions of the Dao Heart.
Since they were illusions, they were all false. With his state of mind, he should have been able to sense his true self and dispel every delusion with ease.
"If this isn't a tribulation of the Dao Heart, then I must have fallen into reincarnation. Since I've entered the cycle of reincarnation, I must have died. But how did I die?"
Bu Wuchen accepted the reality of his rebirth, but he had no idea how he had died. He only remembered meditating in seclusion to seek enlightenment—and then he had ended up here.
"How strange... so strange... Tsk, my head hurts... Never mind." Unable to figure it out, and with his head starting to ache, Bu Wuchen decided to stop thinking about it.
Instead, he began to analyze his current situation. The appearance of the two aliens from earlier came to mind.
"I wonder what realm I was born into this time. Those two looked strange, and I'd never heard their language before. They don't seem to be from the Yunlan Realm." Indeed, he hadn't understood a single word those two aliens had said.
"This thing is something I've never seen before, either." The spherical spacecraft was a novelty to him as well.
He didn't like it, though. It was stuffy inside, and a strange smell made him uncomfortable.
"This body even has a long tail. Could I be part of the beastfolk?" He wasn't satisfied with his new body, either.
"Never mind. I'll take things as they come." Putting those thoughts aside, Bu Wuchen stopped speculating.
"Waaah, waaah..." When he came back to himself, the other baby's crying grew clear.
"This child must be my older or younger brother." Only then did he turn his attention to the baby beside him, who, like him, had a tail growing from his bottom. It was Kakarot.
"Little brother, stop crying, or you'll pull the milk tube loose." Both he and his brother had strange tubes attached to them. Bu Wuchen could feel the tubes sending nutrients his body needed through his skin, so he'd come up with the name "milk tube" for them.
Somehow, as soon as Bu Wuchen spoke, Kakarot really did stop crying. He stared at Bu Wuchen with watery eyes.
"Little one, you may have been born before me, but if we're talking about seniority, I'm old enough to be your great-grandfather. So calling you little brother isn't exactly taking advantage of you. What do you think?"
"If you don't say anything, I'll take that as agreement. From now on, you're my little brother, and I'm your big brother."
And just like that, Bu Wuchen had settled the matter of who was the big brother. The cramped space didn't feel quite so bad anymore; at least he had a little brother to amuse himself with.
After an unknown amount of time, Bu Wuchen felt the spacecraft shake violently!
At the same time, the "sky and stars" constantly shifting outside the porthole gave way to a huge blue sphere, swelling larger and larger before his eyes!
Gradually, the sphere grew too large to see in its entirety. Mountains and rivers took its place!
"Were we sent into the sky? Are we falling back down now?" Bu Wuchen couldn't understand what was happening, but he grew anxious. What would happen to two babies if they crashed like this?
"Little brother! Stop moving around!" Seeing Kakarot thrash about in fright, Bu Wuchen grew even more anxious.
He forced his barely controllable little hands to grab Kakarot's arm, trying to steady him as best he could.
But his worry was clearly unnecessary.
Boom! The spacecraft, trailing flames, crashed into the bottom of a mountain valley. At some point, its porthole had turned skyward and opened on its own.
Inside the spacecraft, neither Bu Wuchen nor Kakarot had suffered so much as a scratch.
The terrifying impact seemed to have been cushioned perfectly and hadn't affected them at all. The only discomfort came from the dust and smoke that poured in after the porthole opened.
"Who's there?!" Before Bu Wuchen could check on himself and his little brother, a figure suddenly appeared at the hatch, dimming the cabin.