The planetary defense initiative finally had a definitive shape by the time Jordan heard the full tactical breakdown.
The Grand Elder had meticulously engineered it during Jordan's first month of training. Jordan knew this because the ancient ruler had quietly consulted him on the brutal logistical specifics twice—always in the quiet evenings, when the three suns dipped low, casting a warm amber glow through the bubble-windows, and the pace of conversation could afford to be unhurried. The older Namekian's approach to military planning was deeply methodical, reflecting centuries of heavy responsibility: he ruthlessly identified the absolute hardest constraint first, and then aggressively designed the entire system around it.
The primary constraint was his own failing heart.
The resulting strategy was elegant and brutally efficient: systematic, cyclical potential unlocking, aggressively applied to every single Namekian currently living on the planet, with Nail personally coordinating the grueling physical training program between the magical sessions. The divine unlocking ability violently converted accumulated martial arts effort into an immediate, tangible power spike. If the warriors continued to grind between cycles, their biological baseline rose even higher before the next unlock. Every single magical session compounded heavily on the previous one.
It was, Jordan noted with immense professional respect, easily the most terrifyingly efficient biological development system he had ever encountered outside of his own reality-warping Stand.
The physical implementation had immediately fallen to Nail. Jordan had watched the elite warrior take the tactical blueprint from his Elder and march out the heavy wooden doors with the logistics already running hot in his brain. He was a man who had spent his entire adult life being the absolute, lonely pinnacle of strength on his planet, and had just been handed a concrete, actionable framework for ensuring he would no longer carry that crushing burden alone.
Jordan had officially received his own SSR reward during the third month.
It had required immense tactical patience. The Element Pickup passive ran constantly, but extracting an extraordinary biological ability possessing the specific, ancient depth of the Grand Elder required repeated, prolonged proximity and the absolute perfect contact conditions. Jordan had simply spent enough time sitting quietly in the Elder's immediate presence that F-boy eventually, inevitably, caught exactly what was there to catch.
[Fantasy Card: Namekian — Potential Guidance] Type: Ability Card • Rarity: SSR
Effect 1: Through direct physical contact and focused spiritual will, aggressively guide another being's untapped, dormant potential into active expression. The resulting combat power increase is substantial and permanent. (System Note: This divine effect has failed to produce results exactly once in recorded multiversal use.)Effect 2: During the violent potential-unlocking process, the subject may simultaneously awaken entirely new biological abilities or dramatically sharpen existing traits. Results vary wildly by individual biology.
Jordan read the glowing blue System Note appended to Effect 1. He slowly looked up at F-boy.
The Stand was standing quietly beside him, hands casually shoved into its tailored pockets, meeting Jordan's glare with an expression of flawless, serene, corporate neutrality.
"Yes, very funny," Jordan said dryly. "That's fine. You can go away now."
F-boy did not go away. It just stood there, actively refusing to un-summon, quietly projecting a massive aura of smugness.
"Fine."
Nail had officially completed his very first potential-unlocking session two weeks into the brutal new regimen.
The warrior's raw combat power had instantly skyrocketed past 68,000. It was nearly double what Jordan knew his original-timeline ceiling would have been at the exact moment of Frieza's invasion. And that staggering number was strictly from the first cycle, completely before months of additional, compounding physical training could accumulate for the second unlock.
Jordan had run the cosmic math. If the Grand Elder's brutal plan ran uninterrupted for the remaining twelve months before Frieza's armada finally breached this sector of the galaxy—even accounting for the ancient ruler's rapidly declining stamina—the Namekian warrior caste was going to be violently, fundamentally different from the helpless pacifists in the original timeline who hadn't known to prepare.
Would it be sufficient to face Frieza in his final form directly? Absolutely not.
But that wasn't the tactical point.
It would be sufficient to survive the vanguard.
The weighted training suit had been a highly practical parting gift.
Jordan had utilized his Dragon Clan Magic to manufacture it from scratch during his second month. On the outside, it featured standard, flowing Namekian styling, visually identical to the traditional combat garments the warriors already wore. But Jordan had aggressively woven a localized, self-sustaining gravity field generator directly into the molecular threading of the fabric. The field violently, constantly maintained exactly ten times standard Namekian gravity at all times.
For a normal human, 10x gravity was a lethal training challenge that caused immediate, crushing physiological damage. For a biological monster operating at Nail's current power level, simply carrying physical heavy weights was only marginally useful. The localized gravity field was fundamentally different: it aggressively applied the crushing kinetic resistance to every single micro-movement. Every breath, every heartbeat, every casual moment spent standing still or walking up the mesa to the Elder's house. The warrior's body was forced to adapt continuously, entirely without rest periods.
Nail had put the heavy garments on, stared silently at his own reflection in a polished stone mirror, and said absolutely nothing.
Then he had immediately marched outside to violently train.
Jordan quietly dubbed it the 'Goku Gravity Method' in his own head. He politely decided not to explain the multiversal reference to the locals.
On his final day on the planet, Jordan was relaxing in the Grand Elder's throne room.
At some point during the grueling third month, Jordan had completely stopped thinking of these meetings as formal diplomatic visits, and had seamlessly transitioned into treating the sanctum as 'the quiet place I sit in the evenings.' The Grand Elder was a spectacularly good conversationalist, possessing the specific, comforting quality of an immortal who had seen enough of the universe's mechanics to comfortably discuss absolutely anything without losing his cosmic perspective. Jordan had found the quiet hours surprisingly, deeply restful.
Jordan was already casually standing when Nail finally arrived at the summit.
He was actively practicing. The golden Super Saiyan mutation was currently running at a violently suppressed, low-idle output. He wasn't utilizing it for active combat deployment; he was maintaining it strictly as a biological baseline, stubbornly holding the apocalyptic transformation active while deliberately keeping every other aspect of his physical behavior completely, boringly ordinary.
His spiked hair was brilliant gold. His eyes were a piercing, pale teal. Microscopic wisps of golden flame danced lazily at the tips of his hair, shifting in the warm air currents blowing through the open bubble-windows. But absolutely everything else was completely at rest: his hands casually clasped behind his back, his physical weight perfectly balanced on both boots, his facial expression an impenetrable mask of absolute calm.
The endgame tactical goal was exactly what the DBZ veterans casually referred to as Mastered Super Saiyan. Fully internalizing the violent mutation. Forcing the explosive transformation state to operate as a calm resting heartbeat, rather than a frantic peak effort.
The combat advantages were staggering: the 50x multiplier aggressively applied to his baseline continuously, entirely without the catastrophic stamina drain of a forced transformation, and completely devoid of the psychotic, aggressive psychological edge that came with fighting at maximum emotional output all the time.
He absolutely wasn't completely there yet.
But the stark difference between the roaring, island-shattering chaos of Day One and the quiet, golden hum of today was massive, and it continued to grow.
Nail froze at the circular floor opening the exact second he saw the gold.
"Jordan," the warrior said, recovering his stoic composure. "You are leaving."
"The Dragon Balls officially reset their cycle today," Jordan noted, nodding casually toward the massive, dormant sphere resting on the back of the Elder's throne. "A full Namekian year has passed. I've secured exactly what I came here for, and I have somewhere highly specific I need to be."
Nail was completely quiet for a long moment.
Something microscopic shifted in his rigid expression. The aggressively controlled, stoic face opened up just a fraction of an inch to reveal the genuine respect hiding underneath the armor.
"You will always be deeply welcome here," Nail said softly.
Jordan looked at him and smiled.
"Jordan," the Grand Elder rumbled from his stone throne. "Before you finally depart—please, take one of the Dragon Balls with you."
The ancient ruler was already reaching blindly behind his heavy headrest. This time, he grasped the massive stone sphere with the deliberate, heavy intention of officially handing it over, rather than the casual, illustrative gestures of earlier months. "The remaining six artifacts are heavily secured inside the subterranean storage vault now. We moved them there precisely following your tactical suggestion."
Jordan had gently, politely suggested that leaving six reality-warping artifacts sitting completely undefended in six separate, pacifist villages was exactly the kind of terrible logistical arrangement that would be incredibly convenient for a psychotic galactic tyrant who wanted to hunt them down one at a time. The Grand Elder had immediately agreed with the grim logic, and ruthlessly consolidated the planetary storage.
"You'll want to borrow one more before you officially leave," the Grand Elder added warmly.
Nail respectfully took the heavy stone ball when the Elder offered it. He turned to Jordan, wearing the highly specific, wary expression of a man who had been in this exact, terrifying proximity to the Dragon Balls before, and desperately wanted to understand the current tactical iteration of it.
"Are you violently summoning the dragon again?" Nail asked carefully.
Jordan shook his head. "I don't need to. I have an entirely different tactical purpose in mind this time." He took the massive ball from Nail carefully, feeling its heavy, dense weight. It possessed the matte, satisfying texture of a fully recharged artifact. The massive inner crimson star was perfectly clear and highly luminous, radiating the warm, humming amber glow of cosmic power that had completely finished its dormancy cycle. "Besides. I don't want to make a terrible habit of calling Porunga every single time I need a minor favor."
Nail nodded slowly, visibly relieved.
"Then come with me," Nail said, turning sharply toward the subterranean storage room.