Aozawa was testing the cooldown time of Global Travel. According to his tests, the cooldown time for Global Travel was about an hour after a round trip. This cooldown time could be considered the longest among the superpowers he had acquired since obtaining his abilities. However, considering the distance covered by Global Travel and the fact that his language translation ability was not weakened, just the number of uses, there wasn’t really a problem.

He used his Global Travel ability to jump from Tokyo to New York. The sunny city was rapidly replaced by one enveloped in nightfall, with dazzling neon lights decorating New York City like stars. People of all colors walked on the streets of New York, forming a beautiful scene.

Aozawa wanted to select powerful individuals and bestow the Sound of Everything upon the weak, to observe what would happen when the powerless received this strength. And whether the duration was permanent, as he expected, as long as it was not stripped away.

He felt that there was likely no problem.

But conducting such an experiment wouldn’t take much effort, so there was no need to be lazy.

Aozawa lifted the Defense Barrier from Hojo Tetsuji, preparing to apply the Defense Barrier to the person he would later enhance with the Sound of Everything, to easily keep track of their location. He used his Catalyst sensing ability to search for powerful martial artists.

...

David Upchurch was a semi-gang member from Queens. He embodied all the stereotypes that Whites had about people like him: fond of drug abuse, prone to cursing, uneducated, and only able to acquire things through stealing, never considering honest work. Even so, he cursed those very Americans every day.

There were no good people in this world.

Of course, he considered himself the exception. The hardships his grandparents had already endured were sufficient, and he saw no need to suffer himself.

Now, what he took and what he did were all compensations he felt Whites owed him.

He had also forgotten how many children he had. After all, to him, any safety precautions during intimacy with a woman were unpleasant. He never bothered with them. If a pregnancy did occur, he was often the first to run and saw nothing wrong with it. That’s how he had grown up. His father disappeared early on, and those who think they need a father’s love don’t understand their powerful genes.

Tonight, like usual, David yawned as he entered a supermarket, casually picked up some items from the shelves, packed them in a bag, yawned again, and swaggered out the door. No one stopped him. The last diligent employee who dared to stop their theft had already been fired.

David returned to his tent on the street. He was the kind of person even the gangs looked down on, only able to run errands for them and occasionally assist with drug trafficking, but he was never made a full member. Those drug traffickers usually never touched the drugs themselves. He did. Lacking money, he could only do certain things to get those drugs. His life was a mess, and he didn’t care.

Life is short, live it up.

Those who carried themselves with dignity were probably not as happy as he was.

David entered the tent, opened his bag, and prepared tonight’s dinner. Suddenly, the tent flap was lifted, and he was faced with the skin color he hated the most.

"FARK!"

David was about to curse explosively, but then he clearly saw the man’s face. The sharp, dignified features reminded him of the head of the Trident Gang. The curse stuck in his throat. David had survived in this rotten-to-the-core Queens because he had good instincts. He only dared to curse at those who wouldn’t talk back.

"What do you want?"

"I will bestow upon you a Divine Power."

Aozawa searched and found this person to be the most suitable. Years of drug abuse had left his body broken and frail.

"Huh?!"

David looked incredulous, thinking what kind of nonsense the man was spouting. Despite having little education, he was not easily fooled.

God bestowing Divine Power upon someone like him only happened in movies.

Such a scene was impossible in reality. If any good thing ever happened, it was the white lords who enjoyed it.

Aozawa raised his left hand.

David could no longer hold back. He didn’t care who this was—this was his tent, his territory!

"FARK, you—"

Before he could finish swearing, he suddenly felt a powerful force propelling him from behind, preventing any evasion, and he found himself facing that left hand. The moment his shoulder was grasped, David saw milky white energy spreading from that palm into his body.

"WHAT THE FARK?!" David cursed instinctively.

As the milky white power surged into him, David felt his weak body quickly filling with strength, his limbs growing strong, as if he could crush stones by merely gripping them. His heart beat powerfully and rhythmically.

David, his face filled with astonishment, looked at the white man before him and exclaimed, "Are you God?"

"Change your past habits, and you will ascend to the Celestial Kingdom."

Aozawa bestowed the Defense Barrier on this man to ensure he could always keep track of his whereabouts. He then used his Element Replacement ability to transform into an unseen breeze. The man disappeared outside the tent.

Staring at this scene in disbelief, David saw the worldview he had built over thirty-two years thoroughly shattered.

God really did exist and had bestowed power upon him.

Originally, he thought the stories in movies were nothing but lies, ghost stories. But to his surprise, the director’s style was unexpectedly realistic.

"Damn it," David was about to curse to ease his mood when he remembered what God had said and hastily swallowed his words.

If Paradise existed, then Hell probably did, too.

If he couldn’t go to Paradise after he died, that meant he would go to Hell.

David didn’t want to go to Hell.

Being alive was painful enough, let alone going to Hell after death; he was determined not to end up there. He looked down at the item he had stolen, quickly grabbed it, and ran outside.

David, though uneducated, knew that enduring a few decades in exchange for happiness lasting a thousand, even ten thousand years, was a much better deal.

"Hey, David, I’ve got a batch of goods here, you interested?"

"I don’t do that stuff anymore! Don’t come to me in the future!" David loudly refused his friend’s offer.

In the past, he might have hesitated, but now, the power surging inside his body gave him confidence like never before. It allowed him to loudly say NO to drugs.

He wanted to go to Paradise, so first, he had to become a good person.

...

After endowing David with the martial artist’s robust sound, Aozawa quickly returned to the martial artist’s side. The martial artist, stripped of his power, lay on the ground, unable to make a sound or do anything, only able to move his eyes and look at a head on the table. It was his most recent acquisition, still not properly preserved against decay, when the accident happened.

Aozawa stood on the ground and used Telekinesis to capture the cat lying on the sofa, bringing it to his side, then stripped the cat of its voice.

He wanted to test whether a person deprived of a voice could accept the cat’s voice.

A milky white gas appeared as his left hand touched the martial artist, but it didn’t enter, just winding around his left hand.

"So, it won’t work, huh?" Aozawa muttered to himself, returning the cat’s voice.

"MEOW!"

The liberated cat, startled, quickly scurried away from the area.

Aozawa used the power of Marked Detonation to blow up the martial artist, then employed the Global Travel ability to jump back to Tokyo, Japan. He tried to use the ability again, only to find it was in its cooldown period.

He would have to wait and see if this cooldown would be longer or shorter; he had used it twice with time in between.

Aozawa stood on the rooftop, watching the advertisement screens outside each major department store below, broadcasting commercials.

He was somewhat surprised that those people had made such a big deal out of it.

But then he thought about it and, on second thought, found it reasonable.

Wouldn’t using the identity of the Holy Lord precisely aim to make them more proactive?

Just that in terms of timing, it was shorter than he expected; he had given them three days, but the competition was only two days long?

Aozawa decided to take a look at the Tokyo Dojo using his Schrödinger’s Cat ability, making his body semi-transparent, and with a thought, he appeared outside of the Tokyo Dojo. It wasn’t even ten in the morning, but outside it was already swarming with onlookers, online influencers, news media, and martial artists eager to register for the competition.

The title of the world’s strongest.

No rules, the freedom to fight to the death. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

These conditions were far too tempting for martial artists.

People thirsting for money, fame, or the desire to face off against strong opponents, all could satisfy their own wishes in this great tournament. The number of participants and onlookers was seriously disproportionate.

Aozawa looked at the martial artists, spotting a familiar figure among them.

What was Tetsuji doing here? Did that chuunibyou advertisement ignite his manly passion?

Puzzlement flashed through his mind.

Then in the crowd, he saw two other familiar figures. To Aozawa, their presence was unsurprising. He scanned the scene’s martial artists, then looked in a particular direction among the crowd and left the Tokyo Dojo.

These matters didn’t require his attention; he only needed to wait for the outcome.

He had to continue testing the Sound of Everything ability, trying to see if he could collect multiple sounds, and whether he could extract sounds created by Will-o’-the-wisp’s monsters and then bestow them upon humans.

「Among the queueing crowd.」

Peter looked around at the gathered onlookers and at the queue forming of martial artists ready to register. From start to finish, it was indeed quite a long line. An excited expression on his face, he said, "Haha, it’s quite unexpected that Japan’s officials would hold such an event."

"Indeed, there are quite a few impressive-looking guys here, it’s really exciting," Sophia added from behind, not wanting to miss such a grand event.

Regardless of whether she won or lost, if she didn’t even have the courage to throw a punch, she didn’t deserve to be counted among the nonconformists.

In her view, nonconformists were those who dared to rebel against anyone, even their own fates; they were essentially heroes.

"Will that guy show up?" she muttered.

Peter knew the person his aunt referred to, and he laughed, "Don’t worry, he’ll definitely come here. A man’s blood will drive him to this battlefield."

"If that’s the case, all the better," Sophia clenched her fists, the fear within her dissipated. It was time to challenge him once more.