The return to Planet Vegeta was a sensory assault. The sterile, recycled air was a pale ghost after the vibrant, magicule-rich breath of the Jura Forest. The oppressive gravity, once a constant burden, now felt… manageable. The shift was so jarring that Astra—his mind now firmly settled on that Name—stumbled for a moment in his crib as the world snapped back into focus.
A single day had passed. The same infants were wrestling in the same cribs. The same robotic attendants whirred on their same indifferent patrols. But he was fundamentally altered.
His first action was to clamp down on his energy with a vicious, instinctual precision born of his month of intense training. His [Energy Harmonization] skill, combined with his heightened [Ki Control], allowed him to suppress his aura to a whisper. His [Appraisal] of himself, now filtered through the Dragon Ball world's mechanics, showed a carefully curated facade.
[Appraising: Kairo]
[Race: Saiyan (Low-Class)]
[Power Level: 20]
[Status: Healthy]
He had manually suppressed his true Power Level of 89, presenting only a minor, believable increase from his previously recorded 19. To any scanner or casual observer, he was just another low-class infant showing slow, unremarkable growth. The perfect camouflage.
But camouflage would not save his race. He had power now, but it was a drop in the ocean compared to the tidal wave of Frieza's force. He needed resources, information, and most of all, he needed to accelerate his growth in this world without drawing the wrong kind of attention. The System was his key, but its Multiverse Jumps were time-limited. He needed a permanent, local solution.
His mind, sharpened by survival in the forest and the analytical power of [Stellar Forge], began to weave a new plan. A dangerous, audacious plan. He would not remain in the shadows of the nursery. He would step into the light, but on his own terms. He would become a "prodigy"—but a very specific, useful one.
The opportunity presented itself later that cycle. A mid-class warrior, his armor scuffed from training, was berating a robot for a malfunctioning scanner. "Useless piece of junk! Can't even calibrate a simple power reader!"
The robot beeped helplessly.
Astra focused his [Magic Sense], viewing the device not with Ki, but with the magical perception he'd developed. He saw the problem instantly—a misaligned energy conduit, a simple flow issue that Ki senses would miss but was clear as day to his multi-spectral vision.
This was his moment.
He projected a weak, carefully calculated mental whisper, aiming it not as a broadcast, but a focused thread towards the warrior. It was a strain, pushing the limits of his telepathy, but he made it seem effortless.
"The tertiary conduit is misaligned by 0.3 microns. It is causing a feedback loop in the scanner's core."
The warrior, a Saiyan named Borg, froze. He looked around, his scowl deepening. "Who said that?"
Astra made eye contact from his crib, projecting again. "The infant. Designation: Kairo. The scanner. The flow is wrong."
Borg stared, his confusion warring with Saiyan impatience. He was a warrior, not a technician. But the specificity of the statement intrigued him. Grudgingly, he popped the panel on the scanner. He wouldn't know a tertiary conduit if it bit him, but he could see a tiny, glowing wire that looked slightly out of place. He shoved it back into a socket with a grunt.
The scanner immediately hummed to life, its display clearing.
Borg stared at the device, then back at Astra, his eyes wide with something that wasn't quite respect, but wasn't disdain either. It was the look one gives a uniquely useful tool.
"Freak," he muttered, but there was no heat in it. He grabbed the scanner and left, throwing a last, lingering look at the infant who had fixed with his mind what Borg couldn't with his hands.
The gambit had begun.
Over the next few days, Astra repeated the process. He remained physically "weak," but he used his [Appraisal] and [Stellar Forge] analysis to identify minute flaws in armor, weapons, and ship components that the brute-force Saiyans overlooked. He never offered the information freely. He waited for a moment of frustration, then projected a single, precise solution.
He became a whispered secret among the low and mid-class warriors. The "Ghost in the Nursery." The infant who could see the breaks in things. They didn't understand it, but they couldn't deny the results. He was too weak to be a threat, too useful to ignore.
This carefully cultivated reputation granted him his first true prize. A warrior, grateful for Astra identifying a critical fault in his scout ship's engine before a mission, left a discarded, broken training device by his crib as an odd sort of reward. It was a worn gravity regulator, a piece of tech used to create heavy-gravity environments for warriors pushing their limits.
It was malfunctioning, its max output stuck at a paltry 2x gravity. Useless to any self-respecting Saiyan warrior.
To Astra, it was a treasure beyond measure.
That night, under the cover of the dim rest-cycle lights, he placed his hands on the broken device. He closed his eyes and activated [Stellar Forge].
His consciousness plunged into the device's internal matrix. He saw the burnt-out circuits, the fractured power crystal, the scrambled control runes. It was a mess of failed systems. A Saiyan would have discarded it. A Rimuru might have absorbed it.
Astra would rewrite it.
He poured his mana into the Forge, not to repair, but to reforge. He analyzed the fundamental principles of gravity magic he'd sensed in Veldora's cave and the technology of the regulator itself. He used the Forge to strip away the damaged parts, using the raw materials to create new, more efficient pathways. He didn't just fix the crystal; he re-grew it, purifying it, making it a better conduit. He didn't just re-solder wires; he re-aligned them into a more optimal pattern.
It took hours and drained his entire mana pool, leaving him shivering with exhaustion. But when he was done, the device was no longer worn. It was pristine, its surface gleaming with a faint, internal light it had never possessed before. And its output…
He triggered it on its lowest setting.
A field of invisible force slammed down on him, driving the air from his lungs. The metal of his crib groaned in protest.
[Ambient Gravity: 5x Standard.]
He had not only repaired it; he had improved it. He had turned a broken 2x regulator into a functional 5x one. And his [Stellar Forge] analysis told him this was only the beginning. With more materials and more mana, he could push it further. 10x. 50x. 100x.
A grim smile touched his lips for the first time since his reincarnation. He had his training tool. He had his cover. He had a foot in the door.
The weak infant was gone. In his place was a strategist, an engineer of his own destiny. The journey to forge a salvation from the ashes of Planet Vegeta was truly underway.