"…What kind of joke is this?"
When Zuke saw the three rewards for completing the main quest this time, he was completely dumbfounded.
The first reward for the main quest, the "Space Pod" needed no explanation—there was no way Zuke was going to choose that.
After all, he already had his own Cube Spaceship, and he could use the Gate of Babylon to take it out of this mission world.
Sure, picking this reward would give him another Spaceship… but having one more of that thing was meaningless. He couldn't pilot two spaceships at the same time anyway.
But the second and third rewards were significantly more impactful—so much so that he had to stop and think carefully.
Ultra Instinct was a natural ability of the Angel race, which allowed for "automatic body movement and increased combat power." It was a battle technique that handed full control to the body's instincts.
While that might sound similar to abilities seen in weaker-level works, in the Dragon Ball universe, this was undoubtedly a divine-level skill.
And it wasn't just some crude "instinctual movement" either—it was a high-level technique involving refined control over the internal eruption and concentration of combat power within the body.
Even Goku in Dragon Ball Super hadn't fully mastered it by that point, showing how difficult it was to attain.
As for Ultra Ego, it was a state learned during a God of Destruction's training in the art of "Destruction." By venting one's destructive urges, a fighter could continuously increase their power.
This form was based on mastering the Destruction technique to a certain degree—so if Zuke chose this reward, it was essentially giving him the "entry point" to Destruction for free.
Vegeta learned this ability later in Dragon Ball Super. According to him, the pure destructive will of Ultra Ego made him feel like a true Saiyan again.
In other words, Ultra Ego was better suited for Saiyans who pursued pure combat.
However, the form did come with its flaws—if one couldn't control themselves, they could easily fall into endless berserk rages and even gradually lose rationality, suffering unnecessary injuries.
It was somewhat similar to going Great Ape or Broly's berserk state—but there were still major differences between them.
"Whether it's Ultra Instinct or Ultra Ego, these are both modes that only appeared during the Dragon Ball Super era—when the power levels were already far beyond anything from the original series…"
Zuke scratched his head as he looked at the three rewards.
"How come such heavyweight rewards appear right after defeating Frieza… This system suddenly being so generous is making me feel a bit suspicious."
Though both options were very tempting, Zuke soon realized that neither reward would instantly bring him up to the terrifying power levels seen in Dragon Ball Super.
After all, both abilities depended heavily on his own base power to be effective.
Ultra Ego is a technique that allows one to bring out and concentrate all of their latent power in the most perfect way possible.
If Zuke had a battle power of 100 million, then with Ultra Instinct, he might be able to burst up to over a billion.
But going higher than that wouldn't be possible—Ultra Instinct didn't create power from nothing.
Ultra Ego was similar. When first activated, it wouldn't boost his combat power instantly.
Only by accumulating destructive urges and battle impulses during combat would his power gradually increase.
But that increase also had to start from his current base power.
So in order to unleash the full potential of these two skills, he still needed to continue raising his own power.
That said… although the upper limits of these skills depended on his base strength, choosing either one of them now was clearly a gain.
Even if they wouldn't instantly raise his battle power dozens of times, both techniques could continue to grow stronger over time—they were skills for the future.
"Since that's the case… I'll go with Ultra Ego."
After some thought, Zuke quickly made his decision—to choose Ultra Ego.
The reason was actually simple: he still had the chance to learn Ultra Instinct from someone else.
Merus had already mentioned Ultra Instinct to him before—it was just that Zuke hadn't yet started learning from him.
But Ultra Ego? There was very little chance he'd be able to learn it on his own. Beerus wouldn't even wake up for decades!
Not to mention, with Beerus' bad temper, Zuke honestly didn't want to train under him.
It was one thing to humbly seek guidance from someone like Merus, who was a genuinely kind person and polite during training.
But Beerus? That guy was legendary for being unreasonable—he'd smack you and step on you at the drop of a hat. Zuke figured he'd lose several liters of blood just sparring with him for a bit.
So it was better to just obtain Ultra Ego directly from the system, and learn Ultra Instinct slowly from Merus later on.
As soon as Zuke made his choice, the reward selection screen vanished instantly.
However, Ultra Ego didn't manifest in his body right away—just like previous rewards, he'd need to leave the mission world before it would activate.
"…But now that I think about it, why was Ultra Ego even in the reward list?"
After calming down, he began to wonder why such a power appeared as an option at all.
Looking at past rewards, the system usually only offered options related to things Zuke had already come into contact with.
If it was something he hadn't encountered, it would be labeled "Unavailable."
Ultra Instinct made sense—he'd encountered it countless times during training with Merus. As a passive ability of the Angels, it showing up in the rewards list was reasonable.
But Ultra Ego was a state derived from the God of Destruction's technique. Logically speaking, Zuke should've had to make contact with a God of Destruction before it could appear.
…Unless, under Whis' instruction, he had already been designated as Beerus' successor, and the system had secretly recognized that?
Zuke wasn't entirely sure. But since it was a good thing for him, he didn't dwell on it too much.
Next, he planned to return to Planet Saiya and recruit the remaining members of the Frieza Force.
Most of them were fence-sitters—after learning of Frieza's death, they'd probably just surrender outright.
After all, to them, it didn't really matter whom they served.
In the original story, those guys didn't hesitate to badmouth Frieza just to distract from their own disadvantage.
To be continued…
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