(A/N: If you wanna read 10 chapters in advance, check out my Patreon. patreon.com/bucketofshirts)

…

Yamcha shot a beam at the planet Slug had escaped to and blew it up. He tried sensing the Namekian, but it was harder than before as he hid his power. 

 

But with Yamcha's perception, his Ki Senses had expanded and enhanced beyond what should be normally possible. Not only could he sense Slug, but his sight was better than most telescopes. 

 

There was a new addition to his skill page. 

 

[Future Foresight - Lvl 1/100]

[A skill that allows its user to look one second into the future. It works under the concept of looking through the eyes of your future self.]

 

With a high enough Perception, Yamcha had always thought he would get something like Ultra Instinct since he would be able to separate his mind from his body and see things in a way to allow him to use Ultra Instinct. But there was also some hope at sensing God Ki. Either one would have worked for him. 

 

But he got something different he hadn't seen in Dragon Ball before. There was Divination Magic, but no ability that would allow someone to see the direct future. 

 

With the barrier around him and being in the middle of nowhere space, Yamcha would be lying if he said he wasn't worried. 

 

But those worries were enriched when he saw a Ki beam heading straight for him. "Fuck, that bastard is still so energetic?!"

 

Yamcha wasn't happy about this, but there wasn't anything he could do now other than risk his life to a degree with a 90% chance of dying. In space, Yamcha had somewhat of an advantage, but no light-eaters could distract Lord Slug either. 

 

While they had fought on what seemed equal grounds, Yamcha knew Lord Slug was stronger than him. While the Namekian could afford to name a mistake against him, the same didn't apply the other way around.

 

Due to the huge distance before the beam reached him, Yamcha dodged it easily. But even then, mid-space, the beam attack twisted and started giving chase. 

 

Against normal enemies, a strategy like this would have worked. But Yamcha gathered Ki at the tip of his finger, compressing his attack the size of a rice grain, shooting it at the incoming attack, creating a hole in the middle of it, and dismantling the entire Ki Beam. 

 

'If the consumption of Future Sight didn't have some weaknesses, I might have given chase and eliminated what will undoubtedly be a future threat.'

 

While Future Sight was a skill that would likely accompany him for the rest of his life, Yamcha also saw many of the weaknesses of the skill.

 

Many might see the time he could look into the future, one second, as a measly time. But that was quite the opposite. One second was almost an eternity for someone at his level or higher. But that didn't mean there weren't other weaknesses. 

 

For example, the skill could see in the future, which was literal. It was like borrowing the sight of his future self, and that was it. He didn't sense anything in the future or feel any pain from it. Also, the skill consumption was crazy at over 50,000 Ki per second. 

 

The greatest opponent someone like Yamcha could have was against an invisible enemy he couldn't see. Or someone with poisons. After all, by the time a poison killed him, it wouldn't matter if he could see death. 

 

'Maybe that latter one is canceled by my status page. Because even if I don't know I'm poisoned, my status page will show me. An instant attack where I can’t even see it would do the job better.'

 

Flying to a nearby planet, Yamcha took out a space pod from his inventory. The older model one he had used in his first mission. Getting in it, he pressed some coordinates and set off. 

Yamcha hoped Lord Slug would die here. But that was only what he hoped because he already assumed the old Namekian would survive. 

…

He arrived at the meeting point with Bulma in less than a week. Entering the house, machine parts, wires, and gadgets were everywhere. There was even a robotic hand in the corner.  

 

Sounds of something melding rang from the backyard.

 

Yamcha walked there and saw Bulma and a pink-haired and blue-eyed woman wearing a maid outfit sitting on the table while her arm was open, showing her metallic insides. 

 

'An android!' Yamcha was surprised. He had only split for a little over ten days, and Bulma had already built something like this. 

 

The android's blue eyes looked human-like but were empty; there was no life in them. "Target spotted, identifying, Yamcha. Non-threat."

 

Bulma turned around and took off her welding mask. When she saw Yamcha, her eyes watered a little, and she breathed a sigh of relief. "Here I thought I would have to go and get the Dragon Balls to revive you."

 

Yamcha smirked. "You didn't believe in me?"

 

"No," she said without missing a beat. "You said some things a character in a novel would say before they die."

 

"So I raided a death flag?" Yamcha sat beside her while Bulma leaned her head on his chest. The android tilted its head in confusion, not understanding what was happening here.

 

“Yes, a very shitty one,” Bulma muttered, and Yamcha only rubbed her head, messing up her hair. She wasn’t wrong for assuming he would die. Even he had expected death multiple times during his fight against Lord Slug. 

 

“As the main character, I obviously got a power-up mid-fight,” Yamcha joked. But he couldn’t help but think about how if he had decided not to save his status points, trying to raise his stats naturally before using the points, since the higher the stat, the harder it was to increase. 

 

‘A cliche I read in so many fanfics in my last life essentially saved my ass there!’ 

 

No more words needed to be said between him and Bulma. They weren't at a stage where they needed to argue about things like this. Like an old married couple, they knew almost everything the other would say before they did. Her because of her intelligence, and Yamcha because he used Observe. 

 

He felt Bulma settle her head on his shoulder and breathe a sigh of relief. 

 

"So, about the Gravity Machine?" Yamcha coughed awkwardly. 

 

"You're an expert at ruining a good moment," Bulma pouted and got off him. But she still handed him a capsule.

 

"You figured out how to put gravity machines in capsules?!" Yamcha was shocked. This was something Bulma had been having difficulty with. He didn't know the exact science behind it, but Yamcha trusted her. Within less than ten days, she had done things that would have taken some other genius years.

 

For the first time in his life, Yamcha saw Bulma in a different light. She wasn't the bubbling woman who barely knew anything about a relationship or the one she would grow to become in the original dragon ball series, where her biggest invention would be a spaceship.

 

What Yamcha saw now were the hints of Future Bulma. A desperate woman who was smart enough to create something that could trick even the Gods themselves, a time-traveling machine. Not only that, but she built the thing in an apocalyptic world with only the scraps she could get her hands on. 

 

"How strong is the android?" Yamcha pointed at the pink-haired maid.

 

"If we go by power level metrics, it's around 100,000. But she's still a little buggy," a smirk slowly made its way into Bulma's face. "Keep dwindling about; soon enough, my machines will catch up to you. All that training and I can make something stronger in a couple of weeks."

 

Yeah, that was a little disheartening. But Yamcha knew a long time ago that this world wasn't fair. Just like how he had the Gamer Interface was unfair to normal people, and Frieza being able to match up with Gods in only four months of training, the world wasn't fair in many ways.

 

‘That’s kind of scarily true. Imagine training all your life and getting beaten by a robot. Well, Vegeta kind of experienced that with Android 18.’

 

But Yamcha wouldn't waste his time complaining about the world's unfairness. Instead, he would train hard and do something about it. "I will go and test out your new gravity machine."

 

'I also need to start thinking about developing a better clone technique.'

…

Two months passed in the blink of an eye. Yamcha pushed himself against the 400x gravity pressing down on his body. 

 

Even the air he breathed in was so heavy it was suffocating to a degree. The human organs weren't made to handle this kind of pressure for a long time. 

 

But Yamcha had activated Superhuman Body Control and moved his internal organs and muscles so they could resist the higher gravity. The last time he had gone out of this room was two weeks ago. 

 

Unlike Saiyans, he couldn't get immediate benefits from this training. But his gradual growth would even out at about the same level as theirs. After a certain stage of power, gravity training was going to be useless. 

 

He had even developed a new clone technique. However, it wasn't something useful in combat. 

 

Flexing his power, Yamcha felt the gravity machine around him start shaking. His power level was at 250,000 and at a max of 750,000. Yamcha was growing fast, but not as fast as he needed to be. 

 

"Dinner should be ready soon," Yamcha muttered under his breath as he looked at a monitor showing the outside. 

 

Suddenly, he sensed something in the sky, a familiar power approaching the planet. Without an ounce of hesitation, Yamcha's Ki exploded outward and destroyed the Gravity Machine. 

 

Then he rushed toward the house, grabbed Bulma and the android maid before either of them could react, and created a barrier covering them all. 

BOOOOOM!!!!

A huge beam landed on the planet. It looked like a pillar of light. As if God was casting down judgment on mortals. 

 

But Yamcha knew this was no God. He winced as he witnessed what many would consider a world-ending event. 

 

A giant spaceship in the sky had cast a shadow over the planet. 

 

Lord Slug had found him, and Yamcha was sure the old Namekian still hadn't given up on his goal for immortality and would chase him to all corners of the Galaxy. That was Lord Slug's wish for immortality.

 

Because this was a chase that the old Namekian's life depended on, he wouldn't give up until one of them died, or he got immortality.

*******

A/N: There’s a reason the Namekians can sense Yamcha’s body has a similar sensation to dragon balls. It will be explained later down the line in a revelation.