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Just as Broly was about to keep "motivating" the Demon Man a little more, Erha finally contacted him.
"Boss, you don't need to keep poking him. The three devil beams you collected have already fused and hit maximum saturation. That's as fast as this skill can generate negative emotion energy. Even if you keep squeezing him, it won't make any difference."
"Oh? What a pity. Well, since we got what we came for, time to leave."
Broly turned back to the Demon Man and added one last jab, because why waste a perfectly good victim:"Demon Man, looks like your ultimate technique is totally useless on me. Oh, and remember—next time you need to pee, make sure you do a handstand!"
The Demon Man stood there like he'd just been struck by lightning, frozen in despair. It felt like the beliefs he'd held onto for years had suddenly collapsed. Broly couldn't help but think darkly: Man… when this guy meets Goku someday and tries that Devil Beam again, and it STILL doesn't work… is he gonna break down on the spot?
Broly mentally calculated the size of the poor guy's psychological trauma.Tsk tsk… poor kid. Hopefully you can survive Goku's next crit and keep living bravely.
After leaving Baba's palace, Broly flew toward Karin Tower using the coordinates Master Roshi had given him.
On the way, he asked Erha about that cluster of devil-energy inside him.
"Boss, this time we really hit the jackpot. That black energy born from the Devil Beam may be 'negative emotion energy,' but the system can actually absorb it and convert it into emotion-type power.
Basically, if you get angry or hateful because of real emotional reasons, the system can't convert that. But the Devil Beam doesn't create real emotions—it makes something like emotions out of pure energy.
So the system can extract the usable parts, strip out the emotion-effect stuff, and leave only pure energy. Sure, we only keep about 10% of it, but it's constant—every second your strength increases, like a weaker version of Legendary Super Saiyan's passive power growth.
As long as you're a normal human… well, Saiyan… you'll always have negative emotions. The beam just piggybacks on that and grows—no harmful side effects at all.
Oh right, Boss, haven't you noticed your power's already gone up? And that's not all!"
Erha's mouth fired off like a Gatling gun, but he was clearly excited—the system was making a killing too.
"What? It's that broken—and there are MORE benefits?" Broly was stunned. He checked his power level: it had jumped from 436 to 458. Twenty-two points of power increase in such a short time… automatically! And judging by Erha's tone, that wasn't even the main benefit.
"Yep. A small portion boosts your strength constantly. A much bigger portion is reinforcing your bloodline and stimulating your potential so you can awaken the Legendary Super Saiyan lineage earlier.
Another small chunk of the energy leaks during conversion. Since the system hates wasting energy, it just absorbs it. That means the shop inventory grows on its own, new features unlock over time, and points are generated nonstop.
Oh—and the system removed all the negative emotion effects from the Devil Beam's energy, but kept the anger part, since it might be useful later. You can release whatever amount you want when you need it."
Broly was completely blown away. In less than a day, he already had 40 extra points in the system store.Just how broken IS this NPC's skill? This is way too overpowered… and I love it.
As he expected, the Dragon Ball universe Elder Bird described really was just the tip of the iceberg. The universe was full of bizarre races and ridiculous abilities. Broly sighed in genuine amazement.
Not long after, a massive tower came into view, stabbing straight into the clouds.
He could now see Karin Tower with the naked eye—which at Broly's speed meant he was basically there—so he accelerated, sending shockwaves of air behind him.
When he got close enough to see the tower's absurd proportions—three or four meters wide but so tall you couldn't see the end of it—Broly couldn't help but think: What the hell…
Yep. Anything in Dragon Ball that defied common sense could not be viewed through the lens of science.
Still, he didn't stop and flew straight upward using bukūjutsu. After a few minutes, he reached the top.
The tower's top looked like a giant flattened lollipop—only the thin tower stem was holding up a platform dozens of times wider.
And on that platform…
A fat white cat. Yeah. A cat. A very chubby one. But that wasn't the weird part. The weird part was that it was standing upright like a human, eyes like thin slits, three whiskers on each side of his mouth, and three vertical "eyebrow whiskers" on each side of his forehead. He held a wooden staff over his shoulder, looking asleep.
This was the classic look of the legendary Cat Hermit—Korin—who had lived at least eight hundred years.
"Aiyaaa… looks like a pretty impressive kid is climbing up, meow…" The Cat Hermit opened his thin-line eyes—somehow.
Right as he spoke, Broly shot onto the platform and landed in front of him.
Broly raised an eyebrow at the Garfield-lookalike and stepped forward.
"So you're the hermit who lives atop this tower?" he asked, pretending not to know, while already scheming internally about how to score some senzu beans or maybe even Ultra Divine Water from this old cat.
"That's right. Do you have a problem with that? Though to be accurate, I'm a hermit cat. And I prefer people call me Cat Hermit, meow. As for power-ups… your current strength is already very high. I can't really make you stronger, meow!"
Broly eyed him skeptically. In the anime, Korin only looked slightly stronger than Tao Pai Pai and Goku after training… but who knew how much of his true strength this eight-hundred-year-old monster was hiding?
"I see… shame. Then do you happen to have any special gifts lying around? Don't tell me I came all this way for nothing?" Broly said with a look of disappointment.
"....."