This novel is finished and I have posted all the advanced chapters on my Patreon https://www.patreon.com/darkshadow6395
Champa and Vados had already begun searching for fighters for the Martial Arts Tournament. On the other side, the God of Destruction Beerus and Whis were also starting to consider their lineup for the upcoming battle.
From the GT world, Son Goku and Vegeta were the obvious first picks. Aside from them, they still needed to select eight more fighters.
But how to choose those eight?
That question was far from easy to answer.
After all, Universe 7 was no longer the same as in the original story. There was no shortage of powerful warriors now.
The Universe 7 versions of Goku and Vegeta were self-explanatory: one had already mastered Super Saiyan God Form and even reached Super Saiyan Blue Form, while the other had fully mastered Super Saiyan 4 Form.
And that wasn't all.
Majin Buu and Raditz, who now possessed power similar to Super Saiyan 2 Form, were also extremely strong.
On top of that, Son Gohan, Goten, Seripa, Toma, and the rest of Bardock's Squad were nothing to scoff at either.
"Aspara San, won't you be participating?" Whis asked curiously, turning his gaze toward Jiang Chen.
"I'll pass," Jiang Chen said with a smile, shaking his head.
"As a Time and Space Patrol officer, it's probably better if I don't get directly involved."
Of course, the real reason wasn't about his patrol duties, he simply wasn't very interested in a competition involving Universe 6 alone.
At present, the strongest fighter in Universe 6 was only Hit.
Hit was strong, especially in the anime, where he could even fight evenly with Super Saiyan Blue Goku stacked with Kaiō-Ken x10. But that was mostly the anime staff's way of hyping him up. In the manga, Hit wasn't portrayed as quite that powerful.
In fact, in the manga, Hit never demonstrated the ability to instantly overpower Super Saiyan Blue Form. According to Whis, due to Super Saiyan Blue's instability at the time, plus the energy Vegeta had burned showing Cabba the transformation, Vegeta had been fighting at less than 10% of his full power when Hit faced him.
Hit's battle with Goku showed that, without going all out, his strength was below Super Saiyan God (Red) level. At full power, Hit had enough confidence to defeat a Red-haired Super Saiyan God Goku but couldn't maintain that level for long, similar to how Goku initially struggled to sustain Super Saiyan transformations. (By the Tournament of Power arc, however, Hit could maintain this power for much longer.)
At full strength, Hit's Time-Skip ability could immobilize someone at Red Super Saiyan God level, allowing him to easily suppress them. However, he still couldn't freeze a Blue-level Super Saiyan opponent, meaning that his Time-Skip ability alone wasn't enough to restrain a Super Saiyan Blue fighter.
For Jiang Chen, such power was far too simple to interest him.
Even if he wasn't yet at the level of Super Saiyan 5 Gogeta, he was at least as strong as, if not stronger than, Super Saiyan 4 Gogeta.
For someone like him to join would just be bullying. Honestly, even sending GT Goku and GT Vegeta into this match felt like overkill.
Beerus, however, seemed quite entertained by the whole affair, and chose not to intervene.
"Is that so? What a shame," Whis said with a smile and a shake of his head. He didn't seem too concerned either way.
Meanwhile, Beerus quickly finalized the roster. This time, the lineup was noticeably different from the original story.
The chosen fighters were:
Two versions of Son Goku and Vegeta (from two timelines)
Majin Buu
Raditz
Son Gohan
Trunks
Goten
Toma
The two Gokus needed no explanation. Majin Buu was easily at Super Saiyan 3 level power. Raditz had achieved Super Saiyan 2. Gohan's strength was now close to Super Saiyan 3 as well. Even though Goten and Trunks were still just kids, their power already exceeded Super Saiyan 1. As for Toma, his strength was roughly equivalent to a full-powered Super Saiyan 1.
Such power would rank among the absolute top even across all twelve universes. Within Universe 6, Jiang Chen could already imagine the look on God of Destruction Champa's face.
"Lord Beerus, with a lineup like this, Lord Champa is going to lose his mind!" Whis spoke with a soft, amused tone, his eyes gleaming with mischief.
"Hmph!"
Beerus snorted coldly, but a sly smile tugged at his lips as well. Clearly, he was also imagining the scene to come.
Time passed quickly.
In the blink of an eye, more than a month had gone by.
During this time, the preparations for the Martial Arts Tournament had finally been settled.
The rules had been slightly altered from the original story. The tournament would now feature ten matches in total.
Both Universe 6 and Universe 7 would select ten fighters each.
The ten fighters would compete in a round-robin style battle, and the last one standing on the arena would be declared the victor.
As for the venue, the battleground was chosen to be none other than the Null Realm.
After all, with fighters of this level, holding the matches in either universe risked catastrophic destruction.
The Null Realm, known in the original story as the central arena of the Tournament of Power, was a pocket dimension isolated from all other realms. Though there were no sun, moon, or stars here, time flowed the same as in the universes. For instance, one tak was equivalent to 48 minutes on Earth.
Upon arriving, Beerus and Champa immediately began constructing the tournament arena.
Angels Whis and Vados also assisted them.
With the combined efforts of two Angels and two Gods of Destruction, the entire arena was swiftly completed.
And so, the tournament was officially declared open. But just as the matches were about to begin, an unexpected incident occurred.
"Not good, Buu! He… he fell asleep!"
Gohan's anxious voice rang out, signaling that events had once again veered back toward the original storyline.
Sure enough, Majin Buu had inconveniently fallen asleep, leaving Universe 7 one fighter short.
"Hahaha! Beerus, you'd better surrender now!" Champa's gleeful laughter echoed through the arena.
Beerus's brow furrowed deeply.
Though he was confident in his team's strength, ten fighters were still far more reliable than nine, and he had no desire to lose to Champa.
"Lord Beerus, hold on. I can bring in another fighter for you." Seeing Beerus's scowl, Jiang Chen chuckled softly and stepped forward, his voice calm and steady.
"You?" Beerus's eyebrows shot up in surprise.
"Yes. Please wait a moment, Lord Beerus." Jiang Chen nodded once. In the next instant, his silhouette vanished from the spot.
(To Be Continued…)