"Idiot!" Chronoa rolled her eyes and hurried Levos along. "As long as even one God of Destruction refuses, there's no way you can store them in your pocket space. And with how strong they are? Forget it. Move. Come into the temple with me."
Levos had no choice. Following Chronoa's instructions, he left Cell Max's body in the courtyard and entered the Temple of Time with her.
The interior décor was minimalist clean and quiet in a way that naturally calmed the mind. It felt… comfortable.
At the very center of the hall stood a stone platform shaped like a round table.
Stacks of strange crystals were neatly arranged on it.
They immediately caught Levos's attention.
Across their surfaces, different scenes flickered like living pictures. And as he stared, an eerie sense of immersion washed over him as if he were actually inside those moments, personally experiencing everything that happened.
"Those are Time Crystals," Chronoa warned. "Don't stare too long, or you'll lose yourself in illusions of the future."
Her voice snapped Levos back to reality.
"Illusions of the future?"
"Everyone can see fragments of their own future from a Time Crystal."
Levos's heart jolted.
So these things could predict the future?
That brief, accidental glance just now had shown him several images so vivid they felt burned into his soul. He cared he cared a lot. He needed to look properly, carefully.
What would the future of Universe 7 be like?
Would he be able to defeat the enemies that had haunted him all this time?
But Chronoa stepped forward, deliberately blocking his view. She stared straight into his eyes, serious for once.
"The future isn't fixed," she said slowly. "If you see something and deliberately change your decision at a key point to avoid it, you may create a brand-new timeline."
"The stronger you are, the easier and more far-reaching your changes become. Sometimes, even a tiny shift in mindset can cause history to deviate… twisting space-time."
"As the Supreme Kai of Time, preventing branching timelines is one of my main duties."
With that, Chronoa flicked her hand, and all the crystals vanished.
Levos clicked his tongue under his breath.
"It's just one look. Do you really have to be that stingy?"
"You're ridiculously strong," Chronoa shot back. "You're the most dangerous person I've seen in all these years. Who knows whether you'll become some monstrous villain in the future and use Time Crystals to overturn history?"
"Even good people can be misled," she continued, getting more and more lecture-y as she went on, like some cranky old teacher. "If they become obsessed with a single misleading vision and make a choice that completely violates common sense, history gets rewritten."
"And besides," she finished grandly, "a true powerhouse has absolute confidence. They won't be swayed by any external thing."
"I'm just curious," Levos said, acting like he didn't care.
But inside, he couldn't stop thinking about several images he'd seen.
For example
A Black Frieza who was more than twenty centimeters taller, in a "Black Golden" form, doing the Fusion Dance with Black Golden Cooler.
A guy who looked exactly like Vegeta getting pinned into a rocky mountain by a Broly whose aura was terrifying.
A helpless, pitiful Paragus secretly climbing into a one-person pod… only to get caught red-handed by his own son.
On King Kai's planet, the Kai's expression was stern as he forced someone wearing a gas mask to churn out drafts and draw nonstop.
And among all those fragments, two scenes weighed on Levos the most because he desperately wanted to understand what on earth could lead to them.
One vision showed the Grand Zeno's palace, scarred with battle damage.
Two guards lay collapsed on the ground. The Grand Priest stood in front of the throne, shielding it.
And Grand Zeno, face blank, raised a small hand and activated the power of erasure.
Levos was baffled.
Challenging Grand Zeno and the Grand Priest was basically the same as suicide.
"Even if my strength inflated to insanity," he thought, "this still doesn't feel like something I would ever do."
The other scene put even more pressure on him.
In a misty, steamy place, he was surrounded by a crowd of beautiful women wrapped in bath towels.
Bulma, Android 18, Puar, Vados, Marcarita, Cheelai, Kale, Caulifla, Launch… every woman he could name was there.
And even Chronoa was squeezed right up next to him.
The image was so absurd it nearly gave him a headache.
Levos couldn't even begin to imagine how such a situation could happen.
By Chronoa's logic, he shouldn't let any future fragment alter his mindset.
But
"This is a straight-up battlefield. A harem war zone!" Levos's scalp prickled. "Am I really supposed to change nothing and let it develop naturally?"
He shot Chronoa a suspicious look.
"She's in it too… Did she see that scene? If she did, what kind of expression did she make?"
No.
It had to be fake like a mirage meant to trick him. A misleading prophecy.
Levos suddenly felt enlightened. Thinking carefully, he realized every one of those "future" fragments had flaws.
How could Frieza possibly grow twenty centimeters taller?
What a joke.
Ten centimeters would already be pushing it.
And if Frieza dared do anything harmful to Earth, Levos would simply make him shrink twenty centimeters.
As for doing the Fusion Dance with Cooler completely impossible.
A guy who blushes just watching the Ginyu Force pose routine would never do an awkward dance himself.
The only explanation was that Frieza got body-snatched by Captain Ginyu.
But then… why would Cooler go along with it?
That part still made no sense.
"You two brothers aren't satisfied with reaching a Black Golden form," Levos muttered. "Now you're doing fusion too? Are you trying to pressure me into training harder?"
"Universe 7's insane competitive culture is probably your fault."
Levos hated tryhards with a passion.
As for the "Vegeta" being rock-pinned by Broly, that was definitely not Vegeta from this timeline.
That old acquaintance had already reincarnated. Not even the Dragon Balls could bring him back. No way he'd show up again.
But Paragus and the one-man pod did look like a faithful recreation of a famous scene.
Still, that Paragus felt strange almost like he was silently begging Levos for help.
What kind of weird plotline was that?
So many questions swirled in his head that he nearly got lost in them.
Luckily, Chronoa reminded him that Cell Max outside was about to explode, yanking his thoughts back.
"So where are you going to teach me to convert divine power into divine ki?" Levos asked. "This place is too small. Not suitable for training."
Chronoa reached into the stone platform and pulled out a scroll.
"This is a History Scroll. Inside it is a timeline that's about to disappear. I'll send you in."
As she spoke, she cast a spell and unrolled it.
A blazing white light filled the entire hall. Levos's vision flashed and his footing turned weightless.
He immediately scanned his surroundings. A few seconds later, he realized he was floating in an unknown stretch of space, inside an unfamiliar universe.
In front of him hovered a condensed, hazy halo of light.
Through it, he could see Chronoa standing in the Temple of Time.
"If you're not coming in, how are you going to guide my training?" he demanded.
"Relax. Everything you need to know about converting divine ki is recorded in this book. I have to stay here in case something goes wrong."
Chronoa's voice carried through the halo along with an old, worn-looking book.
Levos had too many questions.
"What's the time flow like in there? How do I contact you when I'm done? What's your backup plan if something happens?"
"We're not wasting time." Chronoa sounded impatient. "One year inside equals one day outside. Most of your questions… you can find answers slowly."
The halo vanished.
And with it, the connection to the outside world was completely cut off.
Levos lowered his gaze to the book in his hands.
"Origin of the Gods?"
He flipped through a few pages, and very quickly, he found the method to convert divine power into divine ki.
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