But now things were different. After some time had passed and the excitement had fully built up, Roy had originally wanted to end Dragon Ball right after the Namek arc, once Frieza was defeated, just like Akira Toriyama had once intended.
In the end, the fans refused to accept it.
The Dragon Ball fan club in Old Silver Mountain City went straight to Shonen Magazine and blocked the entrance, tearfully begging Roy to continue serializing Dragon Ball.
That just so happened to fulfill the seventh clause in the Restrictions and Vows Roy had set when he manifested Android 18.
And so, under the earnest pleas of the fans, Roy "reluctantly" began continuing the manga with the Android arc.
However, in order to prevent the power scaling from completely falling apart, Roy deliberately added a few harmless adjustments to the setting, making the overall plot logic of Dragon Ball feel smoother and more reasonable.
For example, the idea that androids created by a scientist on Earth could casually overpower a Super Saiyan who had defeated Frieza, the tyrant of the universe, really was a bit hard to justify.
So Roy added a plot point: Dr. Gero of Earth had, by sheer chance, discovered the most advanced eternal energy system in the universe, a device from a hyper-advanced planet that Frieza had once destroyed. That system had been left drifting through space before accidentally falling to Earth.
That at least helped smooth things over a little.
Of course, one consequence of that change was that, during one of Roy's once-every-seven-days Nen manifestations, the device really did appear.
Then Android 18 dismantled it into scrap without a word.
As for the setting between Android 18 and Krillin in the story, Roy also made a slight change there.
After all, she was his wife. There was no way he was going to hand her over to some bald guy.
So he arranged things so that Android 18 ended up with him instead. When the fans saw it, they all smiled knowingly and thought it was a pretty good little easter egg.
These kinds of revisions posed no problem at all for Roy, who had once worked as a manga assistant.
And back on Earth, Dragon Ball had already been dissected thoroughly by countless sharp-eyed fans online.
Every little detail had been split apart and analyzed inside and out.
Roy even had a clear grasp on which plot holes existed and how they could be adjusted with minor changes.
And just like that, an even more reasonable and coherent version of Dragon Ball was born, and it received even greater praise.
At this point, Dragon Ball had already built unstoppable momentum. There was basically no manga left that could hinder it.
So Roy made his decision without hesitation.
He was going to start drawing new manga.
After all, among the additional conditions in the Restrictions and Vows he had made earlier, when maximizing Android 18's manifested strength and obtaining the item tied to his sixth Nen ability, there was still one more requirement:
He had to create three more national-class classic manga.
As for which new manga to choose, Roy had already settled on his targets.
He picked up his pen and swiftly wrote down three titles on the page:
Fist of the North Star, Sailor Moon, and Gundam.
There was no need to explain the first and the last. Once they were released, then adapted into anime, and backed by the foundation Roy had already laid with Dragon Ball, those two series would absolutely become classics among classics, household-name works.
As for Sailor Moon, one should never underestimate children, especially not the purchasing power of certain overly enthusiastic male fans.
The first two groups were already known among merchants as the easiest audiences to profit from. And as for that special type of obsessive fan, once you hit exactly what they liked, the buying power they could unleash would absolutely exceed anyone's imagination.
Besides, the current market generally assumed that manga was entertainment for boys, so nearly everything on the market was aimed at male readers.
After Dragon Ball appeared, the entire market seemed to have turned into a place where, aside from hot-blooded boys' battle manga, no other type of manga even existed.
So once Roy released Sailor Moon, it would definitely shake the entire world.
And beyond that, Roy's ambition did not stop there.
His Nen ability could grant him items and things from the manga he created.
And after obtaining overwhelming power from Dragon Ball, Roy had no interest, for the time being, in cultivating some other power system. With both Nen and Ki complementing each other, that was already enough for him to sweep through the world as things stood.
What he really wanted was to use these three national-class manga for one bold experiment.
If it succeeded, the rewards he would reap would be enormous.
…
After spending several days in a row drawing all three manga, Roy handed them over to old Luke, who immediately rushed off to arrange the page layouts and all the related matters.
When it came to manga operations, old Luke was clearly an expert. Roy had no intention of interfering with how he handled things.
He believed old Luke's eye was more than sharp enough to see just how classic these three manga were.
And he was certain old Luke would come up with the right strategy to maximize the impact and effect of the three series.
That was exactly what Roy was hoping for.
After old Luke went off to handle the manga business, Roy returned to his residence, took a deep breath, and gradually calmed himself.
Then, in a steady voice, he said:
"I want to maximize the value of the three items I'll obtain after Dragon Ball ends, through my fifth ability: World's Conclusion.
I hereby set a rule: for the next three manga I draw, I will forfeit all items and objects that my Nen ability would have obtained from their worlds.
In exchange, I want the items manifested from those three manga worlds in the future to be converted into the maximum possible value for the three items I receive after Dragon Ball is completed."
This was Roy's ambition.
Fist of the North Star, Sailor Moon, and Gundam were all national-class classics. Once serialized, they were bound to explode across the market, which meant Roy's Nen ability, Manga Realm, would be able to obtain items of extremely high value from those three worlds.
And yet Roy set Restrictions and Vows, giving up everything he could have obtained from those three manga in the future in exchange for the highest-value items possible from the fifth ability he would receive once Dragon Ball ended.
His fifth ability: World's Conclusion.
Once a manga he created came to an end, based on how popular the work had been during serialization and how the public responded after its conclusion, he would obtain three random items from that manga world.
That was what Roy had his eye on.
He wanted to use three national-class classic manga in exchange for three items from Dragon Ball.
Whether that trade would prove to be a profit or a loss, no one could say.
But Roy's decisiveness and courage in making it were beyond reproach.
Ever since he had stripped away the darkness, Roy had become much steadier. He had matured a great deal as well, and everything was moving in a better direction.
…
Meanwhile, during the days Roy was drawing those three manga, Gon and Killua Zoldyck had also returned to Whale Island.
(End of Chapter)
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