After gathering everything useful and making sure nothing had been overlooked, Ethan and the others began their journey back to Earth.
However, Vegeta did not travel with them. He and Nappa left in another disc-shaped spaceship to deal with those weaklings.
Ethan felt that once Vegeta's strength reached a certain level, there was a high chance he would come to Earth and cause trouble. Of course, that was assuming he did not run into King Cold and get killed by him. None of Frieza's subordinates knew of King Cold's existence, only Frieza himself did.
Without the help of a gravity chamber for training, even if Vegeta wanted to transform into a Super Saiyan, it would not be easy. He might get stuck at a certain stage and find it difficult to improve further.
Once Ethan and the others returned to Earth, they would soon receive a warning from Trunks, who came from the future, or rather, a parallel dimension. Two extremely powerful enemies would soon appear on Earth: the Androids. There was no mistake about it.
After learning this, everyone, including Son Goku, would train desperately in order to avoid defeat and death in the battle against the Androids.
Three years... no, in the original story, about a year passed after the battle on Namek before Son Goku returned to Earth, and that was when Trunks appeared.
Counting it all together, that made four years.
Four years was enough time for Ethan and the others to greatly increase their combat power again, but reaching the level of Android 17 and Android 18 in their base forms would still be very difficult, let alone surpassing the even stronger Android 16 and Perfect Cell.
"Do I still have to rely on transformations?"
Returning to Earth would not take much time. The spaceship built by copying Frieza's technology was astonishingly fast. There was no warp drive or hyperdrive. It simply flew, yet it was still faster than ships that used jump technology. It would be great if this kind of black technology could be used in other worlds, assuming that was possible.
In any case, whether it could be used or not, Ethan had already collected the technology.
In addition, he also wanted to see what Trunks's time machine was all about and what kind of concept it used. He had no intention of replicating the machine itself, but the concept behind it might help him gain a deeper understanding of the rule of time.
"I'm thinking too far ahead. Right now, I should focus on increasing my combat power."
Ethan began recalling the plot developments that would come next.
In the original story, there were clearly three, or even more, timelines.
In the first timeline, everything up until the appearance of the Androids was mostly the same. Before the battle with the Androids, Son Goku personally killed Frieza and his father, then died from a heart virus before he could fight the Androids. After that, his companions fought the suddenly appearing mysterious enemies, the Androids, and were all killed, with only Son Gohan narrowly surviving.
After escaping with his life, Gohan continued fighting the Androids while training Trunks. Before Bulma finished building the time machine, he also sacrificed himself in battle against the Androids.
Trunks used the time machine to return to the past and brought back a special medicine that could cure Son Goku's heart virus.
The time machine invented by Bulma could not change its own timeline. If it affected the past, it would directly create a new timeline.
There was also one thing Ethan was not sure about. Was this Trunks the same Trunks who appeared in the main storyline?
According to Ethan's understanding, after this Trunks returned to the future and found a way to deal with the Androids, he would take the time machine back to the past again to tell Son Goku and the others about the solution. He chose to land at the time when Son Goku had just returned to Earth, around the time he first met him.
However, this Trunks was ultimately ambushed and killed by Cell. That meant Cell, the strongest artificial life-form, came from that world and had little connection to the timeline of the Dragon Ball main storyline. He was more like a visitor from a parallel world.
What Ethan could not determine was whether the Dragon Ball main storyline should be considered the second timeline, or whether the world Trunks visited, where Son Goku did not die, should be the second timeline instead.
That was because there were some contradictions. For example, the Trunks who experienced the main storyline would later become so strong that Cell in his first form would not have been able to kill him at all.
Furthermore, many people from Ethan's previous life believed that the first Trunks had not experienced the battle with Cell in the past. He had always been focused on dealing with the Androids, and the method he used to eliminate them was most likely the emergency shutdown device, which was why he specifically returned to the past again.
But that Trunks landed in the main storyline's timeline, which left Ethan confused. He could only speculate that Cell's arrival had caused unknown changes to the timeline, and that when Cell traveled back to the past in the time machine, the timeline that should have been connected to the dead Trunks branched off into a new flow.
In other words, the main story was actually the third timeline.
Aside from the main Dragon Ball storyline, there was also the timeline where Future Trunks returned to take part in the battle, experienced the Cell Games, and ultimately changed the outcome of his assassination. That was the fourth timeline.
Rubbing his temples, Ethan felt a headache coming on. Fortunately, his mission was not to sort out the timelines of the Dragon Ball world. His task was simple: defeat the strongest opponent at each stage.
In any case, after returning to Earth, all he had to do was quietly wait for the appearance of the Androids and Cell's rise.
As for whether Cell would be able to absorb Android 17 and 18 successfully, before reaching his Perfect form, Cell was always extremely cautious and stuck to the basic strategy of developing in secret.
The only variable was that after Trunks trained in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber for a year, his power would be enough to defeat Cell before he reached his Perfect form.
"Should I play Vegeta's role for once? Help Cell reach his final form?"
Ethan felt another headache coming on. The plot had already been thrown into chaos because of him. Who knew whether it should now be considered the fifth timeline? Vegeta had not even settled on Earth yet, nor had he truly joined Son Goku's group. Ethan also did not know whether he would still end up with Bulma.
Whether there would even be a Trunks in this world's future was also a question, although that did not affect parallel dimensions.
"What are you thinking about?"
"The next opponent."
On the way back, everyone was relaxed because Frieza had been successfully eliminated. Goku did not feel that this trip had been in vain. After all, the chance to adventure through the universe was not something everyone got.
Moreover, Goku had seen all kinds of races in the universe. Their combat power might not have been very high, but they occasionally used strange and unusual techniques, which had broadened his horizons.
So after returning to Earth, he did not plan to stay behind and continue training there. Instead, he planned to take Gohan on a trip through the universe for a while. Maybe he could even ask Chi-Chi to come along. There should not be any danger.
Cleaning up Frieza's remaining forces could be done along the way, and taking Gohan out to gain some experience was also a good idea.
He had already agreed with Krillin that Krillin would go with him. Piccolo was still deciding whether he would join Goku and the others.
While that group was discussing their next steps, Bulma was absorbed in researching the various technologies they had obtained from Frieza's subordinates. Ethan and Yoruichi took the opportunity to talk about their own matters.
"Will they appear soon?"
"They'll show up within a few years."
More specifically, four years later. Ethan remembered that Piccolo's hearing was exceptionally sharp, so he used a special method to communicate with Yoruichi and avoid being overheard.
"Are they very troublesome?"
"A little."
Although the exact combat power of Android 17 and 18 was uncertain, their strength did not surpass the Super Saiyan level. Once these Saiyans mastered the Super Saiyan state more completely, they would be enough to defeat the two Androids.
The real problem was Cell. To defeat him, one had to reach the level of Super Saiyan 2. This transformation could increase combat power a hundredfold, but Ethan did not know what Son Gohan's base combat power would be at that time.
Five million? Ten million?
It was probably far more than that. The Super Saiyan transformation was not just a large increase in combat power during battle. It was also like breaking through a limiter, allowing these Saiyans to once again tap into enormous potential, with their combat power soaring as long as they trained hard.
In that case, it became very difficult to calculate.
Could it be that in order to defeat Cell reliably, one would need a base combat power in the tens of billions, or even hundreds of billions? No matter how Ethan thought about it, reaching that level in his base form would be extremely difficult.
"The future looks grim..."
Maybe he should come up with some special training method to squeeze out his potential more quickly. For example, using the Wicked King Flame Killer Fist in his Black Dragon transformation state, ignoring the strain on his body and pushing himself to the limit as long as he did not die?
"Or..."
A new thought suddenly came to him. In the original story, in order to deal with Cell, Son Goku had trained in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber for nearly a year, almost making the Super Saiyan state into his normal form and perfectly drawing out the full power of a Super Saiyan.
Following that line of thinking, perhaps Ethan could completely turn his Black Dragon transformation into his normal state.
The Black Dragon transformation could raise his physical condition to a whole new level, allowing him to endure greater energy output. If he could completely integrate that advantage into his body, would that not mean his combat power would rise even further?
The more he thought about it, the more reliable it seemed. Ethan decided that after returning to Earth, he would not wander around the universe. His next goal would be to focus on this direction. Only then could he significantly increase his strength again.
Now that he had a direction and a plan, Ethan no longer felt the headache. He nodded at Yoruichi beside him, then stood up and stretched.
"Let's enjoy this last bit of vacation before we return to Earth!"
Once they returned to Earth, hellish special training would begin again!
(To be continued.)