Chương 158: Next stage

Two weeks after his match against Rias, Alex watched as Vali defeated Tobio Ikuse, and cemented his participation as a semifinalist. Now in a week Alex had to fight the other semifinalist on his side of the bracket, Indra, and Vali had to fight the one from their side, Typhon, the week after that. He didn't doubt Vali would win though, as his team was well prepared to face godly beings even before the tournament started. Though no one actually said it to avoid potentially insulting the other competitors, the tournament was now largely considered to end with a heavenly dragon showdown, and many were eagerly anticipating it.

Alex was waiting at the area where Vali's team would leave the stadium, and was immediately pounced on by a very energetic Kuroka. As he caught her, the nekomata started rubbing her head against his and said,

"Nyan, did you see how well I did Alex?" Alex laughed at her actions, and assured her he did watch her fights closely. The rest of Vali's team greeted him when they saw him, to which Alex returned the greetings as well. When Vali saw him however, he smiled and said,

"I'm looking forward to meeting you in the finals, don't lose to Indra instead." Alex's brow twitched when he heard Vali's words, but didn't say anything. He was already aware he couldn't match Indra in terms of strategy, but Alex decided to enjoy the benefits of fighting in rating games. Since the matches were held in pockets in the dimensional gap, it meant he could go wild without lasting repercussions on the world itself. He didn't say any of this however, and simply said to Vali,

"I could say the same to you, I'm looking forward to an interesting match against you." This caused Vali to smile, unaware of what Alex had planned for him. After finishing their business after the match, the members of Vali's team not part of the Asora group parted from them and they all returned to Asora. Alex Kuroka, Le Fay, and Fenrir who was following Le Fay all returned to Misty Manor, while Vali, Bikou, Arthur, Elaine, and Gogmagog returned to their manor as well. Sadly the giant golem wasn't able to actually enter the manor, but instead had a large shed made for it behind the manor.

As they arrived back at Misty Manor, Fenrir immediately went to lay down in an open area. Alex wanted to laugh when he saw it, the god-devouring wolf was essentially his guard dog now, not that he ever mentioned this directly to Fenrir. He just seemed to like it here more than over at Vali's, which Alex recalled it only really liked Le Fay out of Vali's group, and so it was kind of obvious it would follow her here.

After parting from Kuroka and Le Fay, Alex went immediately to the underground training area. He walked up to the place Seekvaira was at, causing her to focus on him instantly. Without Alex saying anything she asked,

"The usual room and time?" To which Alex replied,

"Let's go a little longer, now that my match is in just a week I want to go more." She nodded and led the way to the training room he usually used. As they walked Alex looked around and was admiring how the training area looked now.

It was one long hall that was filled with various training machines and magic formations to increase the intensity of the sessions. Then there was the occasional door that led to the private training rooms, these were where both gravity and time could be manipulated to drastically increase the training. Currently it still required either Alex or Seekvaira to personally activate the formations on each room, however they were working on making it so the formations were permanent, and could be activated by those authorized to use them.

As Alex entered the room Seekvaira closed the door behind him, and activated the time formation, turning each hour into three days. Since Alex only had a few hours before it was time for dinner, then to meet with his team, this technique allowed him to squeeze in about nine days of training before dinner. As he felt Seekvaira's formation take effect, Alex also applied his own gravitational effect, and the entire space instantly became harder to move in. He had long since lost track of the actual amount of gravity he applied while training, and had simply adopted the system of increasing the amount on himself until it felt right for training.

With the time alteration, and the increased gravity, Alex started his training. The first thing he did was turn into a super saiyan, after he was surrounded by the now familiar golden glow, Alex started trying to condense the power within him for the next transformation. Instead of swiftly trying to jump directly into SSJ2 however, Alex was aiming at mastering all the aspects of the base super saiyan, and the various forms involved. His first goal was the 2nd stage super saiyan, and then the 3rd stage. Though the forms were judged to be useless in the series, Alex didn't believe there was such a thing.

In the Dragon Ball world everyone capable of fighting was a master martial artist, but this wasn't the case in other worlds. Though the forms would have obvious drawbacks such as limiting speed and excessive stamina drainage, they would also be useful depending on the situation until Alex managed to reach SSJ2. Though he was only aiming for those two forms at the moment, Alex also hoped to reach the fully powered form both Goku and Gohan reached in order to fight Cell, before leaving the dxd world. Though he could just try to go straight for the fully powered form, Alex wanted to truly master every aspect of his powers.

With this thought in mind, Alex started concentrating his ki throughout his body. Several hours after he started this, his muscles slowly started inflating.