Avatar chibi Smith formed the 20x Kaioken.
The red aura hit the system space with the full output, and he fired a Kamehameha overhead, angling it past the front rows — past Piccolo, past the Goku and Vegeta — into the mid-depth tier where he'd been targeting.
The beam connected with a light sphere.
It shattered.
Congratulations. Super Saiyan Son Goku character card obtained. Combat power in Super Saiyan form: 150 million. Skills included: Super Saiyan transformation, Kamehameha (enhanced), Spirit Bomb. Saiyan bloodline integration.
The card materialized. Goku in battle-worn armor on Namek, golden hair standing straight, green sky behind him — the moment the transformation had first happened, the moment that had changed everything in the Dragon Ball world.
Smith looked at the card for a longer moment than he'd looked at any draw result in recent memory.
Every Dragon Ball fan knew this image. This specific image. He'd watched this scene more times than he could count, starting from a different life on a different Earth.
The 20x Kaioken had topped out at 600 million. But Kaioken came with a clock — cellular strain, duration limit, the unavoidable cost of multiplying your output past what the body could sustain. Super Saiyan was a transformation, not a borrowed state. Once triggered, it held. The drain was different in kind.
His breathing had quickened.
He let the Kaioken dissipate and steadied himself. Either path was a significant improvement. The second path was more so. He'd decide after the remaining draws.
He moved to the item lottery.
The meteorite surface had been completely restocked. He read it systematically.
Frieza Corps battle suits, second and third generation. Third-generation scouter. Single-occupant Saiyan spacecraft — he already had that. Namekian spacecraft. Frieza's command ship.
He scanned past those.
Kami's Lookout. Tree of Might Fruit. Tree of Might Sapling. Power Pole. Flying Nimbus. Grand Elder Guru's potential development — one use. Supreme Kai's sword. Potara Earrings. Time Machine. Android 8. Android 16. Elder Kai's potential development — one use.
He stopped at Kami's Lookout.
Bulma had been building a floating structure above Korin Tower for months. She'd gotten the altitude right and the architectural profile close. What she couldn't replicate was the Hyperbolic Time Chamber — the room where a single day outside was a year inside, where gravity ran ten times Earth standard and temperature swung between fifty degrees and negative forty, where a person could accumulate decades of training in what amounted to an afternoon.
With the Lookout, Dende moved up from Korin Tower. With the Lookout, the Hyperbolic Time Chamber existed.
And with the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, Super Saiyan training became something that could be completed in days rather than the years he'd been calculating.
The choice wasn't difficult.
He draws and hope lady luck is in his side.
Congratulations. Kami's Lookout obtained.
He confirmed the draw and moved to the partner lottery.
The partner meteorite showed him a wider roster than he'd been able to see in previous draws. Front-row entries: the Ox-King, sea turtle, Oolong. King Kai
Deeper in: the Supreme Kais. Android 17. Android 18. Mai. Pan. Grand Supreme Kai. Kibito. Babidi. Elder Kai. The Black Star Dragon. Ultimate Shenron. Zamasu. Whis.
He stopped at Android 18.
He spent a moment on that. 18 with a combat power in the 200 million, if you ran it straight. But he'd be pulling a partner card for the support value as much as the combat value, and 18's particular profile in the Dragon Ball world was less about support and more about being one of the most dangerous combat units on Earth for a specific period of its history.
He Draw..
The beam hit a different light sphere.
Congratulations. Support-type battle partner obtained: Mr. Popo.
Smith looked at the result.
Mr. Popo. Chief attendant of Kami's Lookout, guardian and steward of the Lookout's operations, combat power sitting somewhere around 1,000 — meaningless as a combat asset by current standards, but genuinely extraordinary in a different category. In the Dragon Ball world, Popo's role wasn't fighting. It was running the most important training facility on the planet and serving as the institutional memory of the Lookout through every generation of gods.
He thought about it.
He'd just drawn the Lookout. He'd had Dende for months. And now he had Popo.
The Lookout trinity was complete. That was either a coincidence or the system having a sense of humor about thematic consistency.
He confirmed the partner draw, and the disappointment about not getting Android 18 lasted approximately four seconds before he acknowledged that Popo was a substantially better result for what he was actually building.
Outside, the late afternoon light was sitting on Korin Tower's upper platform. Korin was attending to the Senzu Bean cultivation. Dende was where he usually was — somewhere between the tower and the sky, the position of someone who had no gravity requirements.
Smith flew up above the tower's peak, assessed the airspace, and confirmed the item.
Deploy Kami's Lookout. Set fixed position?
It appeared without drama. One moment the sky above Korin Tower was empty. The next, the Lookout was there — the exact architecture, the exact scale, the exact texture of the stone and the vegetation and the reflecting pool at its center. Floating. Invisible to external instruments and satellite observation, the existing barrier doing exactly what it had always done.
He landed on it. Walked through the spaces. Every room matched the reference. The Hyperbolic Time Chamber was at the back corridor — the sealed door, the gravity pressure already perceptible through the frame, the slight heat differential.
He materialized Mr. Popo.
Popo appeared, clasped his hands, and bowed. His expression carried the particular combination of unflappable competence and deep respect that had always been his operational register.
"Popo," Smith said, "this is a different world from the one you came from, but the Lookout is the same Lookout. Your role is the same. I'll be bringing Dende up — he'll be the resident deity. You'll manage operations jointly."
Popo said, with genuine warmth, "Lord Dende has come to this place as well. That is very good."
Smith noted that Popo had filed the information about a completely different universe in approximately one second and moved on to logistics. He appreciated that.
He descended from the Lookout to the top of Korin Tower.
Korin looked up at him. Then up past him. Then back at him.
"You brought the Lookout."
Smith said, "You can sense it?"
"It's above us," Korin said, with the matter-of-fact tone of someone reporting an observable fact. "I have another function, you know. I've always been the guardian of the path to the Lookout. The same as I've always guarded this tower." He stretched one paw out. "And with the Lookout present, a dormant ability returns."
A small cloud condensed in his palm — yellow, soft-edged, the particular quality that Smith recognized immediately.
"I can make Flying Nimbus again," Korin said, with visible satisfaction.
Smith stared at the cloud.
"I completely forgot you could do that."
"The clouds that have always surrounded this tower," Korin said, gesturing at the perpetual cloud layer below them, "are all Nimbus. Every one of them. They've just been passive." He tucked the small cloud away. "Now they can be used properly. It's a pity the Power Pole is missing — the tower connection won't be accessible to anyone who can't fly. But those who can fly can reach the Lookout directly."
Smith thought about the Flying Nimbus. In the Dragon Ball world, it only worked for the pure-hearted — anyone else fell straight through it. He had a Saiyan bloodline, a considerable body count, and a fairly comfortable relationship with lethal force.
He looked at the cloud.
I should probably not test that in front of anyone.
"Korin," he said, "the Nimbus is yours to manage. Make them available to whoever qualifies."
Korin nodded, already looking pleased about having something new to do between Senzu Bean cycles.
Smith looked at Dende. "How are the Dragon Balls coming?"
Dende's expression shifted — the particular look of someone who has been working on a problem and arrived at an interesting but inconclusive place.
"The material question is unresolved," Dende said. "Dragon Balls are made from fragments of the Super Dragon Balls — the original, cosmic-scale artifacts. There are no Super Dragon Ball fragments in this universe that I've been able to locate." He paused. "However."
"However," Smith echoed.
"There's something in Bulma's laboratory. A gem mounted in a scepter. I haven't examined it directly, but the resonance is unusual. It feels like it could hold the properties I need. Bulma wasn't comfortable with me removing it for testing."
Smith thought about the scepter.
Loki's scepter. The Mind Stone inside it.
He thought about the Dragon Ball lore — that all the Dragon Balls had originated as fragments of the Super Dragon Balls, which themselves were the largest and most powerful manifestation of wish-granting energy in the universe. And he thought about the Infinity Stones, each one a repository of one of the universe's fundamental forces — reality, time, mind, space, soul, power. Each Stone representing a fraction of the original rule-set that governed everything.
If Super Dragon Ball fragments could become Dragon Balls, and if the Infinity Stones were also compressed fragments of universal law—
Dende's instinct might not be wrong.
"I'll bring it to you for examination," Smith said. "I want to know if it's viable before we make any permanent decisions about it."
Dende nodded. The question would need careful handling — Bulma's objection wasn't unreasonable, and whatever was in that scepter had significant history attached to it. But if an Infinity Stone could become the core of a Dragon Ball that produced unlimited wishes...
He looked at the Lookout floating above the tower.
The system draws had been good today. Better than good.
He went inside to start the Super Saiyan integration process.