"So, how does it work?"
"W-Well, it distorts time, causing one year within the chamber to pass in the same timespan as one day out here."
"I know that," I replied blandly, glancing over at the shaken and fear-struck Namekian next to me, "I meant how does it work? As in, why is the time distorted? How did you distort it?"
Right now, I was standing in front of the entrance to the Hyperbolic Time Chamber. To my side, Kami was trying his best to answer my questions, though he was understandably nervous. He had assumed that I came here with the intention to kill him, but after our first stiff and hostile meeting, I had just been badgering him with questions.
Despite making a beeline here after leaving Bulma with Korin, I had no intention of using the Hyperbolic Time Chamber right now. I didn't want to leave her alone here for an entire day, and overall didn't want to spend an entire day on Earth where I was doing nothing but training.
But most importantly, I both didn't want to waste one of my two chances to enter the chamber and didn't want to end up trapped in there. Training alone for a year straight would definitely give me some huge gains, but I could be much more efficient with my few possible uses of the chamber by bringing a powerful training partner with me.
Right now, I don't have that powerful partner, as even taking a hundred Zarbon's into here wouldn't give me a real challenge. So, I would wait until I had an adequate partner before entering the chamber.
As for the other reason - it would be all too easy for Kami to just blow up the entrance after I went inside and trap me in there. I could probably break out eventually, as I'd have pretty much infinite time to train until I was strong enough to pull out the 'scream so loud I cross dimensions' strategy that Buu used, but it still wasn't something I wanted to risk.
Instead, I was here to try and learn about how the Hyperbolic Time Chamber functioned so I could recreate it. That should be possible, as it wasn't like the chamber was some ancient unknown relic or anything - in the series, Dende had reconstructed and improved it after the entrance was destroyed to trap Buu.
I had a whole planet of Namekians at my disposal, so as long as I could understand the theory behind it, they should be able to make me one - and, since most of them were stronger than Kami, hopefully an improved version.
"A-Ah, it's, um… magic?" Kami replied unhelpfully, and I just looked at him dully.
Honestly, I hadn't been planning to be doing this at this moment, as I had assumed that Kami would be dead right now, since I had killed Piccolo not even an hour ago. I thought I'd have to wait until my next trip here, when Piccolo and he were revived by the Dragon Balls, to question him.
But, something involving my third and final wish on Namek had caused the man to live. It was unexpected, as a keen observer might've noticed that both me and Bulma were talking about the Dragon Balls as if they were still active despite Piccolo's death - which they were.
My third and final wish with the Namekian Dragon Balls had been pretty genius, if you ask me - to cut the lifeforce connected to every set of Dragon Balls in the universe from its creator and tie it to me.
In this world, there was only one real 'game over' condition - the Dragon Balls being destroyed, or deactivated. Here, death was nothing more than a vacation when you had wish-granting balls, so even if Beerus himself showed up right now and killed me, Zarbon could simply revive me.
Which might've sounded like something that wouldn't happen, but I was more than privy to the 'butterfly effect.' I was constantly changing things about this world, and in major ways - which meant I couldn't reliably trust my knowledge of the timeline of this world. I could still use and abuse it as much as I could, but banking my entire existence on it would be foolish.
So, when the Dragon Balls were tied to weak Namekians around the universe, who could die from essentially a light breeze compared to my power, I was a bit worried. I didn't know if my changes would cause them to die prematurely, and thus make me end up Dragon Ball-less. With this, I could have more control over the Dragon Balls, and at least prepare ahead if I knew they were in danger.
The plan was to tie all the Dragon Balls to myself, and then once the cooldown was over and I could make more wishes, change those ties individually to my trusted subordinates. While I was immortal, and probably wouldn't die anytime soon, if I did end up dead, then I wouldn't be able to be revived - because they were all tied to my lifeforce.
So, I'd tie one to main-Zarbon, one to a member of the Ginyu Force - not Ginyu himself, because even if he was loyal to me, I was not going to let a body-switcher stick around. I had yet to meet him or have an excuse to call for him, but once I did, he was dead meat - one to Dodoria, and so on. Then, I'd eventually wish for them to become immortal as well, and wiping out all the available Dragon Balls in Universe 7 would become very difficult. No matter what happened to me, and no matter what Beerus did, there would always be a way to reverse things and turn the situation in my favor.
But that was just the plan - in reality, Porunga could only do something within the power of his creator. That meant he could tie the Namekian and Earth Dragon Balls to me, but any other ones, such as the Super Dragon Balls and Cerealian Dragon Balls, were outside of his jurisdiction since their creators far outmatched Elder Guru.
Which was annoying and, in my opinion, pretty senseless. In case my second wish wasn't apparent at this point - Porunga could create a method to literally clone people, but couldn't overpower an old-ass Namekian on Cereal?!
Annoyance aside, Bulma knew this, and so while she also knew that Piccolo dying should've meant that the Dragon Balls became stagnant, she knew they weren't - thus why she wasn't absolutely furious with me. However, I doubt even she knew that Kami would still be alive.
I had only figured it out when Korin mentioned him, and then again when I sensed his energy. When Porunga had cut Kami's lifeforce from the Dragon Balls, it seemed that he also cut it from Piccolo. I was somewhat worried that this meant they wouldn't get such a large power boost if they ever merged again, but there wasn't much I could do about it now.
But, back to the present - "What kind of magic?" I asked Kami dryly, just for him to glance away, looking slightly embarrassed.
"Um… time magic?" He answered, not looking very elderly or wise right now.
"You don't know how you made it?" I assumed, causing his cheeks to turn red in embarrassment - something I didn't even know Namekians could do - as I deadpanned, "You made it! How the hell do you not remember something like this?!"
"I-It was long ago! And, it was before I became… myself," Kami explained poorly, and slightly defensively, "I was once a singular being, but then I split into two! I-I thought I did, at least, but now my other half has died, and yet I'm still here… nothing makes sense anymore…"
"Y'know, for an elder Namekian, and someone who calls himself 'Kami,' you're pretty useless," I said bluntly, only making him more depressed as I sighed and turned away from the chamber.
It would seem that I'd need to just wish for a time chamber with the Dragon Balls - which was annoying, because I already had a backlog of wishes I had planned to use, since I wanted to tie the Earth Dragon Balls to main-Zarbon as I kept the Namekian ones on me for the time being. Though I did get three wishes every time I used the Namekian Dragon Balls, so I guess I could get through at least most of the wishes I had planned in one go.
"A-Ah… sorry?" Kami asked, sounding like he wasn't sure if he should be apologizing to his enemy or not. I waved him off dismissively, turning as I casually walked away from the entrance, leaving Kami confused on what exactly was happening.
He was even more confused as I fully left - just showing up, asking a bunch of questions about the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, and then leaving as quickly as I had arrived - by launching off of the open outer area of the Lookout after slinging Vegeta and Nappa over my shoulder again, both of whom were still unconscious.
I didn't take Bulma with me yet, as not even an hour had passed since I left her with Korin, and I assumed she wouldn't have been able to learn the ins and outs of Senzu Bean farming yet. Bulma was definitely a genius, but even she had her limits.
And I still had some more things to do before I left Earth again, though I was heading towards my ship right now. Carrying around Nappa and Vegeta was becoming a bit annoying at this point.
I reached the ship pretty quickly, landing outside as the ramp opened and two identical figures came out to greet me. I didn't know if they saw my power on their scouters, or if they had sensed me - as I had taught a few 'trainers' how to sense energy over the past year, and had given them the responsibility of teaching the other soldiers - but either way, they certainly knew I was here now.
"Put them both in healing pods. Monitor them personally," I stressed the last part as I tossed Vegeta to one Zarbon and Nappa to the other, "Especially the Prince. He'll be stronger than usual when he awakens, but you should still be able to handle him without any trouble."
Vegeta would experience his Zenkai Boost after awakening, but unless he gained an enormous one, he wouldn't be able to cause any trouble. His power level in his fight against Goku had been around the twenty to thirty thousand range, which was much lower than the average Zarbon.
The clones only shared the power level of the original Zarbon when they were created, so they didn't grow stronger as he did, but pretty much all of them were well over one million in power level at this point. Unless Vegeta got a hundred-times Zenkai Boost, he wouldn't even be able to leave the medical bay.
"Yes, my Lord," Both Zarbons spoke in unison - which was a bit creepy, but I was getting used to it - as they bowed their heads and then headed back up the ramp into the ship.
I didn't follow them - instead turning the opposite direction as my legs tensed. I shot up into the air again, heading towards a large conglomeration of weak power levels as I approached the nearest city. I reached it pretty quickly, as I could cover all of the relatively small planet in just a few seconds.
As I looked down at the sprawling city below me, I promptly landed on one of the crowded sidewalks - receiving more than a few shocked stares as I did - in front of a pretty plain plain-looking man.
"W-What the hell-"
I promptly lashed out, snatching the phone out of his hand as I had chosen him for a reason. Then, before he could say a word, I shot back up into the air and disappeared from view of the city. I would be the talk of the town for months, but I didn't care as I casually navigated the phone, finding the GPS app, and was silently glad the phone didn't have a passcode.
Then, I continued flying casually for a bit, which was only actually a few seconds, as I found my true destination: A collection of towering mountains, which were not too far from another large city.
The next part was much easier, as there was a power level much higher than most humans on Earth deep within them, so finding it wasn't difficult. It felt a bit strange, as even when I sensed the energy, it felt… odd. Almost hidden in a way - like energy, but also not energy. I remembered the Z-Fighters having some trouble sensing these certain individuals in canon, so could this have been why? Then, why was I able to sense it pretty easily - maybe not easily, and the energy signature being so much higher than anything else in the area definitely helped, but at least without much trouble? Was I just that much stronger than they had been, or was it because I had become better at sensing energy than they had been?
Either way, I would take the ego boost - I hadn't even been able to sense energy when I first arrived in this body, and now, I could sense it better than the Z-Fighters had been able to after years of training? Granted, it was probably more like my method differing from theirs, and that being why I was able to sense it while they struggled to, but I'd still pat myself on the back for my progress. And, conveniently, ignore how my body was overpowered as hell, and was definitely doing most of the heavy lifting.
Ego boost aside, in just a few seconds, I found myself in front of the entrance of my destination. It was a pretty normal-looking cliffside, looking nearly as if it were a part of the mountain behind it, but the singular metal door wedged in the rock gave it away.
Dr. Gero's laboratory.
In this world, the Androids would be seeing the light of day much earlier than they expected.
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AN: Thank you for reading! The next chapter will be posted in a few days! Sorry for the longer gap than usual between last chapter and this one, the next one will be posted sooner.
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