A month later, Reke stood on the rooftop, limbering up.
"Whoosh—" Reke drew back his fist.
Feeling the ki inside him had doubled, Reke didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
He'd already decided to hold off on increasing his battle power. Who could've guessed that going out once would leave him gravely injured, triggering the Saiyan passive ability and forcing his battle power higher?
What am I supposed to do? My battle power's already at 200,000, and it's still rising. When will it stop? Reke thought.
Unbelievable. Someone actually complaining that his battle power was increasing too quickly. If anyone else heard Reke's thoughts, they'd want to kill him—and only dismembering him would be satisfying enough.
What an annoying guy. Even the author wanted to punch him.
After warming up, he confirmed that his body had fully recovered, then flew toward Plus's home.
"Ding, ding—"
Reke pressed the doorbell for ages, but nobody answered.
Reke was getting frustrated. It wasn't that Plus wasn't home; Reke could sense his ki inside. It was just that nobody was coming to open the door.
Reke was nearly out of patience and was about to fly in when Plus's furious voice came through the intercom.
"Press, press, press! Are you trying to hound me to death? Which bastard is this? Didn't I say I was doing research and not to disturb me?"
Reke couldn't bring himself to get angry at Plus. After all, Plus was doing work for him.
With an awkward smile, he said, "Professor, it's me."
"Click!"
The intercom cut off. Two minutes later, the front door opened.
In the distance, Reke could already see Plus running toward him.
"You're finally here! Hurry, hurry—come with me." Plus ran up, grabbed Reke by the hand, and tried to pull him inside.
Reke looked at the disheveled, bearded figure reeking from head to toe. If not for the ki inside him matching Plus's, Reke wouldn't have believed this was the well-dressed young man he'd seen a month ago.
"Huh?" Plus tugged a few times but couldn't move Reke.
"Professor, what happened to you? Maybe you should clean up first?" Reke gestured toward him.
"There's no time for that. Come inside first."
Unable to resist Plus, Reke followed him into his laboratory.
At a glance, Reke's eyelid twitched. He couldn't find a single place to step.
Parts covered the entire floor of the lab. Reke couldn't tell what they were, and was afraid he'd damage something important if he stepped on it, so he stood motionless by the door.
"Come on in! Why are you still standing in the doorway?"
Reke had no idea how Plus managed to walk across the floor. He'd already reached the middle of the room, and when he noticed Reke hadn't followed, he turned and called out to him.
With no other choice, Reke slowly lifted into the air and floated along behind Plus.
Plus paused for a moment, then continued on without a care until he stopped beside Reke's spaceship.
"Um, what should I call you?" Plus started to say something, then realized he still didn't know what to call the boy in front of him. Awkwardly, he ran a hand through his messy hair and asked.
"You can just call me Reke."
"Reke, this is the tracking device you mentioned. As for the listening device, I couldn't find one. There's nothing else useless on the ship, either."
"Can you block the tracking device?" Reke asked, glancing at it.
"Sure. Give me two days," Plus replied confidently.
"Can this spaceship of mine be put back together and used?" Reke asked, looking at the empty shell that was all that remained of it.
"Uh! Sorry, I can't put it back together right now. I'll only be confident about it after I've mastered the other technology."
"What?" Reke's heart sank. It felt like ice water had been poured over him.
He took a deep breath and asked, "Can you make a new spaceship?"
"I can, but it won't be fast. Based on the technology I've mastered so far, I estimate the ship I build might not even reach one ten-thousandth of your ship's speed."
"Man, are you planning to make me die of old age aboard a spaceship?" Reke couldn't help complaining.
"Don't lose heart. Once I've mastered the technology in this ship, I'm confident I can build one that reaches half its speed."
Reke brightened at that and pressed him for an answer. "How long will it take you to master it?"
Plus held up two fingers and stared at the ceiling, as though something up there had caught his attention. He didn't dare look at Reke.
Reke only noticed the fingers, not Plus's expression.
"Two years? I didn't know you were that good!" Reke praised him.
"Not two years. Twenty."
Realizing he couldn't get away with it, Plus steeled himself, shut his eyes, and said it.
Reke turned to stone on the spot. His mind buzzed, the words "twenty years" echoing over and over in his head.
"Twenty years?" Reke trembled with anger.
"Reke, our technology is too far behind. Twenty years is the shortest time I calculated," Plus said sincerely.
Plus had given up trying to sugarcoat it. He just said whatever came to mind.
It wasn't that he wasn't afraid of Reke, or that he didn't know how powerful Reke was.
It was just that he really had done his best.
What could Reke do? He was desperate too, but he couldn't exactly kill Plus.
If it was going to take twenty years as things stood, then without Plus, Reke might be stuck here for the rest of his life.
Why did Reke think he'd sought out Plus in the first place? This guy was already the smartest scientist on Udrapa Planet, and the one with the deepest knowledge of spaceships.
There was nobody else.
Reke had no choice but to start talking himself into accepting it.
After calculating things in his head, he realized the earliest he could leave Udrapa Planet was Age 762, the very year Kakarot transformed into a Super Saiyan. In other words, he still had plenty of time.
Thinking of it that way made Reke feel a little better.
He couldn't help marveling once again at how incredible Bulma and her father were.
They really were the people who'd created Hoi-Poi Capsules and the Time Machine.
Just comparing Plus's twenty years with Dr. Briefs's one month showed that the gap between them was heaven and earth.
With a resigned attitude, Reke casually asked, "What about the Gravity Chamber?"
To Reke's surprise, Plus gave him another piece of good news.
"The Gravity Chamber won't be a problem. Because of the materials, the most I can build for you is one that goes up to 200 times gravity."
At the mention of the Gravity Chamber, Plus regained his confidence. He tidied his hair and spoke.
"Oh! How long will it take?"
"Give me three months. But why do you need a Gravity Chamber with such high gravity?" Plus asked, puzzled.
After the twenty-year wait he'd just been told about, Reke found that he could easily accept three months for a Gravity Chamber. He even found Plus a little more agreeable.
"What do you think? I need it for training. What else would I do with it, leave it there as a decoration?" Reke replied irritably.
Plus didn't mind Reke's tone. He said doubtfully, "Do you understand that as the gravity increases, the pressure you have to endure gets greater and greater? And it affects everything on your body at once. That's completely different from carrying extra weight."
"Of course I know. The gravity on my home planet is five times that of Udrapa Planet."
Plus nodded and didn't pursue the topic further.
Before you continue