Further Training

Inside a training room...

Jiang Yun had developed a new idea about martial arts techniques: techniques that multiplied combat power. The original story had already shown how effective they could be. Take the Kaioken, developed by King Kai. It could even multiply one's power twentyfold, allowing someone to defeat an enemy dozens of times stronger. How incredible was that?

King Kai might have seemed a little goofy, but he was undoubtedly a grandmaster of martial arts, one of the great masters in Dragon Ball. The likes of the Turtle Hermit, King Kai, and Old Supreme Kai all behaved strangely on the surface, yet their state of mind had reached a certain level. They remained unshaken by praise or disgrace, and their martial arts wisdom was profound. One should never be misled by their combat power.

Sometimes, state of mind mattered even more than combat power, as the original story had shown. For example, the Guardian of Earth taught that one should be as tranquil as the sky and as swift as lightning. Then there was the old man Goku had encountered, who could even blend into the world around him. He appeared to be there, but when one tried to sense him, it was as if he didn't exist. He had clearly reached the state of unity between heaven and man, drawing close to nature.

Likewise, Korin had trained Kid Goku by honing his skills and state of mind. He had used Goku's desire for strength, pretending that the Ultra Divine Water was the key, to train him. Without Goku even realizing it, his strength had improved tremendously.

Take the Ultra Instinct Goku mastered in the original story. Goku was said to be well suited to learning this divine technique, while Vegeta wasn't. Why? The key was that Goku had an innocent heart and had trained under all sorts of masters since childhood. Why had he grown so rapidly on Namek, going from a power level of tens of thousands to becoming a Super Saiyan? It was because he had built a solid foundation and could control that power perfectly.

And what about Vegeta during the battle on Namek? Every time his power increased, he became outrageously arrogant and immediately lost sight of himself. He ignored Frieza's overwhelming strength and even thought he had become a Super Saiyan, only to be humiliated moments later.

The same thing happened during the battle against the Androids. After coming out of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, he ignored everyone's objections and insisted that Cell reach his perfect form. He ended up defeated because his state of mind couldn't match Goku's. It couldn't even match Future Trunks's.

Thanks to the trials he had endured in the future, Trunks's state of mind had long surpassed Vegeta's. He bore the hopes of an entire world. But because the Dragon Team had died so early in the original story, Gohan and Trunks had both been far behind in their martial arts cultivation, which kept them stuck at the first stage of Super Saiyan.

Vegeta's state of mind didn't truly mature until the Majin Buu saga, when he bravely sacrificed himself to fight Majin Buu. That was when he became the Saiyan Prince we loved. And seeing how much Vegeta cared for Bulma in Dragon Ball Super had warmed the hearts of Dragon Ball fans.

Coming back to himself, Jiang Yun recalled his idea for a technique that multiplied combat power. King Kai's Kaioken was powerful, but its drawbacks were too severe. Perhaps it simply wasn't a technique he needed to learn. King Kai hadn't continued developing it, and it was only when Goku took it up that the technique truly flourished. Later, after Goku modified it, he could even use the Kaioken on top of Super Saiyan God.

It was amazing that Goku had such astonishing talent. In such a short time, he had surpassed King Kai's years of effort by so much. Though he had modified the technique King Kai developed, it was still proof of Goku's extraordinary potential.

Thinking of his own Half-Step Crushing Fist, Jiang Yun knew it had hit a bottleneck. Even now, he could only increase his power threefold. After studying ki, he had modified the technique again, allowing it to briefly amplify his overall power, but it still couldn't compare to the Kaioken. Moreover, he had discovered that because of his body's physical limits, he couldn't increase the multiplier any further. Its amplification was weaker, but that also meant its side effects were far milder than the Kaioken's. In the end, it only left him exhausted.

Jiang Yun realized that it was little more than a secret technique for a brief burst of power. He was deeply dissatisfied with a technique he couldn't use for long, even though it would already be considered astonishing by anyone else's standards.

Throughout these years of training, he had kept thinking about how to improve his techniques and had made some progress. He thought of the novels from his previous life and all the theories readers had come up with. Remembering the techniques in those novels that could multiply one's strength dozens of times in an instant, Jiang Yun couldn't help but yearn for something similar.

His years of research hadn't been fruitless. He had discovered that most techniques in Dragon Ball compressed ki before releasing it. When Raditz invaded Earth, Piccolo had developed a powerful move called the Special Beam Cannon. Its fearsome quality lay in its tremendous piercing power. In the original story, it could even multiply his combat power several times, and its piercing force had gone straight through both Raditz and Goku. Its might was plain to see.

Goku's Kamehameha was much the same. After Goku had refined it over and over, it had become his signature move.

Thinking back to when he first saw Goku's Kamehameha, he remembered how he'd unconsciously copied the same movements. The scene still echoed vividly in his mind.

Now he had the chance to face off against them himself. Jiang Yun felt as if fate had brought him to this moment, and a surge of heroic ambition welled up in him.

The Dragon Ball technique that had left the deepest impression on Jiang Yun was undoubtedly Tien Shinhan's Tri-Beam. With a combat power of only tens of millions, he had managed to suppress Cell, whose power reached well over a billion, for a short time. The Turtle Hermit had said the technique used one's life force, and while its cost was enormous, there was no denying its power.

Drawing on countless examples, Jiang Yun modeled his technique on the Kaioken's method of circulation. The Kaioken temporarily increased the strength of one's ki by burning it within the body, which was why a red aura appeared around the user. King Kai had once said the technique placed tremendous demands on the body, and only Saiyans like Goku could probably withstand its higher multipliers.

Using that as a reference, Jiang Yun had developed his own version of the "Kaioken." He called it the "Jiang Divine Body."

Yes, Jiang Yun had high hopes for the Jiang Divine Body. He also wanted to become a True God, not attain a divine realm through a shortcut like Goku, but reach it entirely through his own efforts. If he could reach that level, Jiang Yun guessed he might be able to rival Goku and Vegeta in their Super Saiyan Blue forms.

Of course, he was still a long way from that level. He guessed that reaching the Divine Realm required immense power to support it, rather than being something one could inherit, like the positions of the Guardian of Earth, King Kai, or Supreme Kai in the original story.

By now, Jiang Yun's Jiang Divine Body could multiply his power fivefold, and it even resembled the Super Saiyan transformation. Despite its name, it was a martial arts technique focused on the body. Developing it had led Jiang Yun to wonder about Super Saiyans. In the distant past, could the Saiyans' origins—and what people called Super Saiyans—have been rooted in their training, with the transformation eventually becoming engraved in their bloodline and passed down?

Jiang Yun didn't know if that was the case, but he knew that anyone who could reach such a level of power must be beyond anything he could imagine.

Whether that's true or not, now isn't the time to think about it. I'm a martial artist, not a scientist. Jiang Yun smiled with a sense of relief.

Then his thoughts drifted to the many Martial Alliance disciples still undergoing their trials.

They must be having a wonderful time! Jiang Yun thought, grinning mischievously.

Meanwhile...