Chương 102: Efficiency
After a later-than-usual breakfast, Vahn was once again relaxing in the convertible's back seat, this time with Grayfia seated next to him, his left arm around her shoulders. More significantly, in place of her usual or sexy Maid outfits, Grayfia was wearing a pair of form-fitting white short shorts, an off-white, long-sleeved safari blouse with golden buttons, nearly knee-high black leather boots, black leather gloves, and, as she regarded it as part of her identity, her usual frilly headband.
"At this rate, it'll only take another hour to reach the location of the final Dragon Ball," remarked Bulma, steering the convertible through a barren wasteland heavily populated by tall, stone-like mushrooms.
"Any idea what you want to wish for...?" asked Vahn, genuinely curious as he doubted Bulma still planned to wish for a boyfriend. Though, if she did, that would arguably make things easier for him.
"Well, I thought about your suggestion of having the Dragon Balls return to my basement between uses, but since there's a chance someone else could create a radar, that would just make my home a target..." explained Bulma, appending, "That said, I was thinking of wishing for everyone but us to lose all knowledge of the Dragon Balls, along with the means to find them. That means we'll need to locate and collect them again a year from now, but I'm not too concerned, given how easy it was this time."
"Wow...I knew you were smart, Bulma, but that's some incredibly forward-thinking..." remarked Vahn, brows raised and eyes wide in surprise. Nearly every major plot development in early Dragon Ball centered around one or more groups seeking to use the Dragon Balls to achieve world domination or some other nonsense, so if Bulma followed through on her wish, groups like the Pilaf Gang and the Red Ribbon Army would lose their relevance...
"Well, after hearing what you said you would wish for, I got to thinking and realized that the Dragon Balls could be used to help but also harm a lot of people," stated Bulma, quickly adding, "I mean, I already knew that, but your words got me thinking about what that actually meant. And so I figured that, instead of wishing to have them destroyed, removing them as a threat but also preventing them from being used to help people, the simplest solution was to make potential ne'er-do-wells forget they exist or prevent those with wickedness in their hearts from using them. I mean, if a cloud can make such determinations, a set of magic, wish-granting balls should be able to as well, right?"
"You would think so..." agreed Vahn, genuinely curious to know why Kami didn't place such a restriction on the Dragon Balls. By the time of Dragon Ball Z and Super, they had at least placed a password on them, but it was such a simple phrase that anyone with more than a room temperature IQ would be able to figure it out...
"What about you and Grayfia...?" asked Bulma, staring back at the duo through her rearview mirror as she contended, "You should have at least one or two selfish wishes you'd like granted. I know for a fact that you're not lacking in desire..."
"Mmm...if I had to make a selfish wish, I'd ask for a personal, localized Room of Spirit and Time..." responded Vahn, prompting Bulma to ask, "A Room of Spirit and Time? What's that...?"
"It's a place where one day can be stretched to a full year," explained Vahn. "There are several rooms with similar effects, but most have usage restrictions, such as if you remain inside for more than two years between stays, you become indefinitely trapped."
"That would be pretty convenient if you ever encountered a time crunch," remarked Bulma, offering a curt nod before asking, "And what about you, Grayfia? What would you wish for...?" while keeping her eyes on the road ahead.
Though she was tempted to state that she already had everything she could reasonably wish for, Grayfia deliberated for several seconds before answering, "I would request something similar to Vahn but have the effect applied to a location or one of the houses we keep in storage..."
Leaning closer to Vahn, Grayfia whispered, "That way, we can take it into the existing Room of Spirit and Time and stack the effects..."
'Oh, wow...' thought Vahn, meeting Grayfia's intense, silvery gaze with his aquamarine orbs blazing. He didn't know if what she was describing was possible, but if it were, that would compress a single day in the outside to 25,550 years within the compounded Room of Spirit and Time. And even if they were limited by the two-year restriction of the current room, that was still 730 years in the span of a mere two days in-virtua...
"In other words, the thing the two of you value more than anything else is time," concluded Bulma, nodding sagely before asking, "But, if you really could extend each day into a whole year, wouldn't that result in you aging a lot faster than everyone else? You could be a middle-aged and then an old man in just two months."
"That's not a problem for us," responded Vahn, seeing no reason not to reveal, "Grayfia and I are both functionally immortal, so even if we spent a full year in a Room of Spirit and Time, we'd come out looking the same as we do now."
"Wait, does that mean you're both super old...?" asked Bulma, surprised by the revelation and wondering whether or not she should feel disgusted. If it turned out that Vahn was some million-year-old monster in the guise of a super attractive boy...well, it wasn't like it would be the end of the world.
"Grayfia is a bit older, but I only recently turned eighteen," revealed Vahn, a playful smile adorning his face as he teased, "So you can rest assured. I will definitely be aging faster than you, but I'm presently just three to four months older."
"Well, if that's how it's going to be, maybe I should wish for eternal youth or something similar," quipped Bulma. "I don't actually want to live forever or anything, but if there's like a whole community of immortals, it could be interesting to learn from and surpass them."
"If you just want to live a long life, that can be achieved without making a wish using the Dragon Balls," stated Vahn. "But there are some downsides you should know about, chief among them being that a prolonged lifespan typically translates to a decrease in fertility. There are ways around it, but it is a general rule you should be aware of."
"Mmm...I'll think about it," said Bulma, shrugging as she added, "I mean, it's not like I'll be kicking the bucket anytime soon. I'll see how things go, and if I have regrets as I get older, I can just use the Dragon Balls to wish for my youth to be restored."
"That's probably the best possible decision you can make," confirmed Vahn, nodding approvingly. He had actually considered allowing himself to age normally for a time, but since he might become accustomed to his older appearance, he decided against it. Besides, he was 99% certain the majority of the women he was involved with preferred him looking at least a few years younger than them. And, if he was being perfectly honest...he was gradually developing the polar opposite preference. Girls like Koneko and Asia were undoubtedly appealing, but mature women like Grayfia and Venelana had a unique, irresistible charm...
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"Oh, wow...that's some palace..." remarked Bulma, referring to the large, multi-story palace that gradually appeared at the end of the road they were following. It had several crimson-domed roofs and five prominent towers that caused it to vaguely resemble a mosque, a large satellite on the centermost dome, and was situated atop a nine-stepped pyramid with a massive door at the front, its base at least a hundred meters across and its tallest point at least one hundred and fifty meters from the ground.
"It's excessive, that's what it is..." sighed Vahn, understanding why such grand structures were necessary to augment the strength of barriers, but that didn't apply to the desert palace before them, owned by the despotic comic relief character, Emperor Pilaf.
"I don't know about that," responded Bulma, gradually bringing the car to a stop as she reasoned, "As long as it was constructed using legal means or the builder's own resources, I think structures like this give the places they're built greater significance. If it weren't situated in a desert, I could see this being a pretty popular place for tourists."
"That's actually very reasonable..." conceded Vahn, realizing he may have been making a mountain out of a molehill regarding his general disdain for excess. He would personally be content with a cozy cottage near the sea, similar to Master Roshi's transportable, single-room island dwelling, Kame House...
Finishing his survey of the surrounding area and palace, Goku flew down to where the group was waiting, prompting Grayfia to hand him a glass of water. Upon gulping down its contents, he exhaled contentedly, wiped the sweat from his brow, and revealed, "I looked around and flew up to one of the windows, but I didn't see anyone. But there's a big hole in the back of the building, so I think whoever lived here was attacked and scared off by someone."
Following Goku's report, Bulma pulled out her Dragon Radar while Vahn and Grayfia exchanged glances and faint smiles.
"Well, according to my radar, that's where the Dragon Ball is," said Bulma, pressing the palm-sized device's plunger several times to hone in on the ball's exact location, revealing, "And based on the range, I'd say it's in the central tower, 233.8m from here."
"Shall I retrieve it...?" asked Grayfia, directing the question to Vahn, who, in turn, nodded and replied, "Go ahead. We'll wait here," in a relaxed tone.
With her orders received, a silver Magic Circle appeared beneath Grayfia before she promptly vanished, leaving Bulma to blink in surprise, make a show of rubbing her eyes, and ask, "Are my eyes playing tricks on me, or did Grayfia just teleport...?"
"How do you think we travel between dimensions and universes...?" asked Vahn, appending, "There are gates, portals, and even trains to facilitate it, but the most common method of transdimensional travel is teleportation."
"Okay, I get that," conceded Bulma, looking annoyed as she asked, "But if the two of you could teleport this entire time, why have we spent the past week driving...?"
"We weren't just driving around..." countered Vahn, exhaling from his nose as he contended, "We were spending time together, enjoying the scenery, and getting to know one another. If you just teleport everywhere you wish to go willy-nilly, you miss seeing and experiencing everything that makes an adventure or journey worth going on..."
"Ugh...that's easy for you to say..." groaned Bulma, visibly deflating as she revealed, "Just reaching Goku's Grandpa's place took me nearly two and a half weeks, and that was with chartering a private flight. According to my GPS tracker, I've covered nearly 23,500km, so you can take your scenery and shove it where the sun doesn't whine."
'Mmm...I forget that this Earth is much larger than ours...' recalled Vahn, the former possessing a circumference of 111,263km while theirs was only 40,075. This was why, at least in early Dragon Ball, characters that could move around at massively hypersonic speeds required several minutes to reach their destination.
Interrupting Vahn's thoughts and causing Bulma to perk back up, Grayfia promptly reappeared from a Magic Circle, the one-star Dragon Ball in her right hand. With that, they possessed all seven of the mystical balls, but since that night was a full moon, and even Grayfia might struggle against Goku in his Giant Ape form, he suggested they relocate, make camp, and summon the dragon early the next morning, specifically while the sky was still dark to avoid drawing too much attention to themselves...
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