Jiang Nan

Biodata

Feature	Value
Name	Jiang Nan (江南)
Alias(es)	Brother Nan; Lord Jiang Nan—forms of address used by Tang Fei and the Pei family 18 20 33
Species/Race	Human from another dimension 1
Gender	Male 1
Origin	Shanghai in his original world; arrives in the Dragon Ball world in September, Age 736 1 3
Affiliation	Former captive and assistant at Dr. Gero’s research institute; describes himself as “halfway to being a Turtle School disciple” 2 5 48
Occupation/Role	Protagonist; formerly a software engineer and technical team leader; later a laboratory assistant and martial artist 1 3 5 22
Spouse	Wei Jun, whom he married two days before his disappearance 1 6
Status	Alive; staying with Son Gohan in the latest supplied passage 50
First Appearance	Chapter 1, “Dragon Ball Battle Power System” 1

Power Progression

“Battle power,” “power level,” and “combat power” refer to the same numerical measure in Jiang Nan’s progression.

Stage / Realm / Level	Chapter	Notes
Battle Power 5	1	Initial reading when the system activates; establishes annual battle-power doubling.
Battle Power 20	5	Retrospectively identified as his level immediately before the third annual doubling.
Battle Power 40	5	Third annual doubling, three years after arrival. Surveillance has prevented effective training; his sudden strength increase initially causes him to break plates while cooking.
Battle Power 42	11	Breaks through his physical limits during his first sustained run with 50 kilograms of weighted equipment.
Battle Power 45	11	Another breakthrough on the fifth training day, after three hours of running.
Battle Power 65	12	Reached through weighted training; by the fifth month, he has been stalled at this level for over a month.
Battle Power 68	12	Begins reaction training by striking released flies with a branch.
Battle Power 69	12	Gains one point during his first stopwatch-timed fly-striking session, which takes nearly two hours.
Battle Power 72	12	Gains three points after refining striking force and angles; completes the session in one hour.
Battle Power 74	12	Further reaction practice reduces completion time to half an hour.
Battle Power 75	14 18	Weighted running becomes effective again after reaction training; raises his load to 150 kilograms and gains one point.
Battle Power 80	18	Hearing the system imitate Wei Jun’s voice strengthens his resolve to return home, producing a five-point increase.
Battle Power 81	18	Gains another point through continued training with 150 kilograms of equipment.
Battle Power 82	19	Gains one point during a five-minute fly-striking session; recognizes that he needs real combat to overcome an approaching bottleneck.
Battle Power 85	22	Increases through sparring with Pei Hu, despite losing the match to the older fighter’s superior technique.
Battle Power 90	22	Reaches another plateau through weighted exercise and reaction drills.
Battle Power 180	22	Annual doubling activates in September. Begins sensing ki within his body and projecting it from a fingertip.
Battle Power 183	42	Confirmed during his search for Son Gohan; the intervening increase is not explained. System detection reaches 183 meters.
Battle Power 195	50	Gains twelve points during a day of sparring with Son Gohan, repeatedly pausing to reflect on weaknesses exposed during the exchanges.

Background / History

Original World and Arrival

Jiang Nan worked as a software engineer in Shanghai and had been promoted to team leader after voluntarily taking blame for his boss. During a typhoon, he stayed late to help a colleague deploy an emergency feature. Lightning struck him while he was heading toward the subway, transporting him to a platform inside Dr. Gero’s research institute 1 3.

Gero’s staff initially believed their experiment had brought him from Central City. Jiang Nan’s newly activated system instead identified him as a human from another dimension. His immediate priority was returning to Wei Jun, whom he had married only two days earlier; the system confirmed that sufficiently great battle power could make dimensional travel possible, but could not transport him itself 1.

Captivity in Dr. Gero’s Institute

When further teleportation attempts failed, Gero ordered Jiang Nan dissected to investigate his unusual body. Doris interrupted the procedure and later took responsibility for him, fitting him with a lethal tracking collar and assigning him subordinate work 2.

Jiang Nan learned from food expiration dates that he had arrived in September, Age 736. His knowledge of Dragon Ball’s future made the early date encouraging, but Doris’s battle power of 97 demonstrated how vulnerable he remained. After the institute relocated to the Red Ribbon Army’s North City base, she allowed him to live in her villa and removed his collar, while warning that leaving the city would be fatal 3 4.

For three years, Jiang Nan assisted with laboratory work and learned enough under Doris’s guidance to build a charger for his phone. Institute surveillance prevented systematic training. His battle power nevertheless reached 40 through annual doubling, although Doris easily defeated him when she tested his fighting ability 5.

Tournament and Escape

Jiang Nan accompanied Doris to the 19th World Martial Arts Tournament to collect combat footage for Gero’s research. He entered the preliminaries for access to the indoor venue, then immediately forfeited upon seeing Pabrik’s superior power level 6 7.

During the trip, Gero discovered that Jiang Nan had not visibly aged in over three years and that a biological sample remained viable after a year. Seeing a possible route to immortal androids, he ordered Doris to bring Jiang Nan back. She delayed their return and deliberately allowed Henry’s men to capture them, creating an explanation for Jiang Nan’s disappearance 7 8.

Jiang Nan tried to defend Doris during the ambush and was beaten. After she killed Henry and the attackers, the two became intimate. Doris then freed him and returned to Gero with a false account that the Silver Wolf Society had killed him. She refused Jiang Nan’s invitation to leave with him, and he escaped aboard a cargo ship 8 9.

Training in White Cloud City

The Silver Wolf Society placed a million-dollar bounty on Jiang Nan. In South City, he subdued the Razor Gang without killing its members and deliberately encouraged a false report that he was heading for West City. He instead flew to White Cloud City, rented an apartment, and began systematic training 10 11.

His regimen combined Turtle School-inspired weighted exercise with reaction drills devised around striking flies. After protecting Mr. Li’s noodle shop from the Flying Dragon Gang, he gained Tang Fei’s persistent admiration and access to local contacts. A sparring match with Pei Hu exposed his predictable attacks and lack of combat experience, prompting further practice before his next annual doubling raised him to 180 11 12 14 18 22.

Lin Jiajia’s Death and Retaliation

Before leaving White Cloud City, Jiang Nan agreed to help Li Xiaomei find her missing classmate, Lin Jiajia. He investigated the girl’s home and confronted her father, Lin Bin, who promised to bring her back. When Jiang Nan returned, he found a funeral and an implausible account of her sudden death 23 24 26 28.

Opening the coffin revealed severe injuries. Jiang Nan learned that Lin Bin had sold his daughter to clubs to finance his gambling, broke both of his legs, and pursued those responsible. At the club, he defeated Pei Hu and Pei Zheng and forced Sister Lan to identify Police Chief Steven as Jiajia’s killer 29 30 31.

Jiang Nan confronted Steven at the police station and killed him—his first killing. He then ordered Black Tiger Hall to arrange Jiajia’s funeral and threatened to destroy the organization and the Pei family if they repeated such atrocities 32 33.

The Pei family subsequently joined forces with Carlos of the Silver Wolf Society to hire Mercenary Tao. Jiang Nan defeated the assassin, accepted over 300 million in money in exchange for sparing him, and ordered him out of White Cloud City. Privately, he wished to preserve Tao’s future role in Goku’s development 34 35 36 37 38.

Mount Paozu and Son Gohan

Jiang Nan traveled to Mount Paozu to find Son Gohan, obtain the Four-Star Dragon Ball, and improve his understanding of ki. His plan was to use the ball as a sample when asking Doris to build a Dragon Radar, while also retrieving the phone he had left in North City 23 42.

Son Gohan gave him the Four-Star Dragon Ball without accepting the jewels Jiang Nan offered in exchange. He also corrected Jiang Nan’s misunderstanding of the Kamehameha and helped him examine his stalled training. A day of reflective sparring raised Jiang Nan’s battle power from 183 to 195, encouraging him to stay for several more days 46 48 49 50.

Appearance

• Handsome face: Identified as one reason he has attracted women since childhood 6.
• Increasingly muscular physique: Early room exercises added muscle without raising his battle power; later growth gave him strength several times greater than an ordinary person’s 5.
• No visible aging: Gero observes no apparent aging after more than three years in the Dragon Ball world 7.

Personality

Jiang Nan is sociable, warm, and practiced at navigating unequal relationships. He befriends researchers during captivity, flatters Doris to defuse danger, and uses his workplace experience to recognize attempts to recruit or manipulate him. He is also reluctant to accept gifts or unpaid assistance that might leave him indebted 3 5 19 21 22.

His caution is deliberate rather than absolute cowardice. He conceals his origins and system, forfeits an unfavorable tournament match, and uses misinformation to escape pursuit. Nevertheless, he risks himself to help Doris during an ambush and intervenes against gang members threatening the Li family 3 7 8 11 14.

Homesickness drives his training. He fears losing his memories of Wei Jun and his parents, using phone photographs—and later the system’s imitation of his wife’s voice—to preserve that connection. His intimacy with Doris complicates his professed loyalty to Wei Jun and leaves him feeling guilty 5 9 11 18.

He believes strength should protect the weak, while acknowledging that absolute power and flattery might corrupt him. Initially unwilling to kill ordinary criminals, he eventually executes Steven after discovering Jiajia’s abuse. He experiences a slight tremor after the killing but no regret, and remains uneasy about assuming the role of judge 5 10 31 32 33.

Abilities & Skills

Battle Power System

• Annual doubling: Doubles his current battle power every year, including gains earned through training 1 11.
• Power detection: Displays life-forms’ battle power as numbers in his vision. Green indicates weaker beings, yellow an equal, and red stronger beings 3.
• Detection range: Maximum range in meters equals his battle power; at 183, it scans a radius of 183 meters 42.
• Measurement limits: Measures a being’s own strength, not weapons. Combat experience, technique, and luck can still affect a fight’s outcome 3 7.
• Voice imitation: Reproduces familiar voices from his memories, including Wei Jun’s 18 42.
• No direct dimensional travel: Offers a potential path through sufficient strength, but cannot send him home itself 1.

Resistance to Aging

• The system confirms that, as a being from another dimension, Jiang Nan is unaffected by the passage of time in this world 7.
• His lack of visible aging and the continued viability of a year-old biological sample attract Gero’s interest in immortal androids 7.
• This does not establish invulnerability: Jiang Nan remains susceptible to injury and regards death as a real threat 8 36 37.

Physical Strength, Speed, and Durability

• Lifts a 300-kilogram coffee table at battle power 40 5.
• Dodges gang members’ gunfire and later catches a pistol bullet between two fingers 10 14.
• At battle power 180, finds 180 kilograms of weighted equipment effortless and generates cutting wind with a twig 23.
• Withstands Pei Hu and Pei Zheng’s combined attacks without defending himself; later disarms police and crushes their rifles into a ball 31.
• Takes Tao’s Dodon Ray on his palm with only slight scorching, pain, and numbness 37.
• At battle power 183, leaps onto a hundred-meter-high cliff 42.

Martial Arts and Reaction Training

• Weighted conditioning: Adapts Turtle School training from his knowledge of the original story, progressively increasing his load 11 12 14.
• Precision drills: Strikes released flies with a branch, adjusting force and attack angles to improve speed and accuracy 12.
• Combat adaptation: Learns during his first bout with Pei Hu to conceal his intentions and abandon predictable attack patterns 22.
• Afterimage: Evades Tao’s concealed blade by leaving an afterimage in its path 37.
• Reflective sparring: Pauses exchanges with Son Gohan to analyze exposed weaknesses, producing his largest documented single-day training increase 50.
• Early limitation: Raw strength initially exceeds his technical skill; Doris and Pei Hu both defeat him despite his growing physical power 5 22.

Ki Sensing and Fingertip Blasts

• Begins sensing energy moving within his body after reaching battle power 180 22.
• Projects silver energy from a fingertip, initially comparing the attack to the Dodon Ray; later describes it as an unnamed fingertip blast 22 42.
• Uses a fingertip blast to pierce Pei Zheng’s lower leg and another ki blast to destroy Tao’s grenade before it explodes 31 37.
• Senses ki well enough to recognize that Tao’s claim of an approaching accomplice is a bluff 37.

Kamehameha

• Reports receiving basic instruction from Master Roshi and demonstrates an energy wave that destroys a boulder 48.
• Son Gohan identifies his mistake: concentrating energy directly in his hands rather than first gathering it throughout his body 48.
• Understands the corrected principle after watching Gohan’s demonstration; the supplied passage does not show his subsequent corrected attack 48.

Technical Knowledge and Planning

• Applies his science-and-engineering background to understand the system’s compounding growth 1 5.
• Learns sufficient laboratory skills from Doris to construct a phone charger 5.
• Handles miniature recording equipment for tournament combat footage 7.
• Uses knowledge of future Dragon Ball events to choose training methods, pursue the Dragon Balls, and avoid unnecessary changes to Goku’s development 11 23 38.

Equipment / Items

• Original-world phone — Contains family photographs that preserve his connection to home. Left hidden in a hollowed-out book in his North City room; retrieving it remains a goal 5 10 42.
• Tracking collar, formerly worn — Restricted him to within 1,000 meters of Doris and could shock or kill him. Removed after their move to North City 2 3 4.
• Weighted training gear — Includes ankle weights, a belt, backpack, and dumbbells; grows from 50 kilograms to 180 kilograms 11 14 23.
• Fly traps, twig, and digital stopwatch — Tools for measuring and improving reaction speed. Retires fly training once the targets become too slow for him 12 19 23.
• Jewels from Henry’s estate — Carried as potential spending money and later offered unsuccessfully in exchange for Gohan’s Dragon Ball 11 46.
• Tao’s surrendered fortune — Over 300 million in cards and cash, accepted in exchange for the assassin’s life 38.
• Hoi-Poi Capsule tent and notebook — Used for shelter and recording his training and Dragon Ball-search plans on Mount Paozu 42.
• Four-Star Dragon Ball — Given freely by Son Gohan despite Jiang Nan’s offer to trade jewels for it 46.

Relationships

• Wei Jun — Wife and partner of seven years before his disappearance. Returning to her is his central motivation, although his bond with Doris creates guilt 1 11 18.
• Doris — Initially his coercive supervisor, later his protector and intimate partner. Enables his escape by reporting him dead but refuses to abandon Gero; Jiang Nan intends to find her again 2 4 8 9 42.
• Dr. Gero — Captor and employer who repeatedly considers exploiting Jiang Nan’s body. His discovery of Jiang Nan’s agelessness renews the threat of experimentation 1 2 7.
• Fett — Hostile researcher who wants Jiang Nan used in lethal experiments and resents Doris’s protection of him 2 4 6.
• Mr. Li and family — Friendly neighbors whose noodle shop Jiang Nan frequents and protects. Mr. Li warns him against Black Tiger Hall and refuses to betray him to Tang Fei 12 14 17 19.
• Li Xiaomei — Treats him as a trusted older-brother figure and asks him to help her missing friend. Jiang Nan shields her from the worst evidence of Jiajia’s injuries 23 24 29.
• Tang Fei — Formerly a gang leader Jiang Nan humiliated; later an eager would-be follower and useful local contact. Jiang Nan refuses to formally take him along but understands his conflicting family loyalty 14 18 19 33.
• Pei Hu and Pei Zheng — Initially respectful hosts seeking to win him over. Their involvement in Jiajia’s exploitation destroys the relationship; after Jiang Nan injures them, they participate in hiring Tao 20 21 30 31 34 35.
• Mercenary Tao — Hired to assassinate him. Defeated and spared for money, partly because Jiang Nan wants to preserve Tao’s future importance to Goku 36 37 38.
• Son Gohan — Generous mentor and sparring partner who gives him the Four-Star Dragon Ball, corrects his Kamehameha, and helps him overcome a training bottleneck 46 48 49 50.
• Kid Goku — Meets him while staying with Son Gohan. Goku watches his Kamehameha lesson and shares their meal 48.

Notable Quotes

“With great power comes great responsibility. If I truly gained that kind of ability, then it would surely be power granted to me by heaven, in the hope that I would take on the responsibility of protecting the weak.” 5

“To seek justice!” 29

“The world is vast. Perhaps there are enemies lurking in some unknown corner beyond anything you or I could imagine.” 49