However, that was ultimately a matter for the future, and even whether it would be developed was still unknown.
Ten days later, Taro took Hathaway and Ninn back to the spaceship at the foot of the snowy peaks, bidding farewell to the Yardrat and Magic Planet people who had come to see them off. While Ninn was waving goodbye to her newly acquainted friends from the spaceship's porthole, Taro gently reached out and pressed his hand on the spherical spaceship's metal hull.
Whoosh, they disappeared, leaving behind the wind and snow of the icy mountain range on Planet Yardrat.
The new Yardrat tribal leader turned his head and asked the new Holy Mage, Hera, "I hope Master Ivan was right..."
"Teacher wouldn't be wrong," Hera said calmly, using her mental telekinesis to envelop some of the accompanying children and tribespeople, flying them into the sky. Her voice, mixed with the wind and snow, was faint and elusive: "...This man will become a god-like figure... Befriending him is a must... He once saved us, and perhaps he will save you as well..."
The new Yardrat tribal leader looked at the starry sky again and finally flew away.
Indeed, many years later, if Taro hadn't led Son Goku and the others to defeat Frieza's group, the Ginyu Force or other Frieza Force soldiers would have sooner or later descended upon this planet and annihilated all life on it.
---
After leaving Planet Yardrat, the spherical spaceship reappeared in the dark, cold expanse of space.
Ninn was no longer as amazed as before. After all, even a child would get tired of seeing the same scenery repeatedly. However, the vastness of the universe never lacked miraculous sights. Taro even took the spaceship to witness a binary star supernova. Even though they were separated by light-years, the terrifying energy still reached them. If Taro hadn't used his power to shield them from the impact, the spaceship would probably have fallen apart.
The grandmother and granddaughter inside the spherical spaceship were both captivated by the magnificent scenery created by the destruction.
This cruel, gorgeous, pure, and ultimate beauty.
And there were meteors, or rather, comets. They closely pursued a comet traversing the dark space, its long tail as dreamy and dazzling as a haze... Although life could not be seen within the scale of space, there was no lack of entertainment, as long as one truly had a heart to appreciate beauty. And coincidentally, the three people inside and outside the spaceship all possessed such a simple mindset.
However, they weren't just "playing" and "sightseeing" in space. Taro would also land the spaceship on various planets with different customs and landscapes. After all, he was fine, but the two people inside the spaceship needed to eat, drink, and relieve themselves.
Of course, the landing point wasn't necessarily a planet with intelligent life. Sometimes, planets without intelligent life were even more beautiful, possessing a primitive, magnificent, and free beauty — as long as the planetary environment was suitable for life. Taro himself would determine this at the first moment of landing, and only after confirming that factors such as air composition and gravity were suitable would he notify the grandmother and granddaughter inside the spaceship to come out.
If it was an uninhabited planet, the task of hunting for wild game would naturally fall to him, this experienced old man. And whenever this happened, Taro would especially miss that little beast, the Phoenix... Ever since it became the Phoenix, Taro had gotten used to ordering it to hunt, and he rarely had to find food himself.
He also wouldn't deliberately avoid life-bearing planets in the universe.
Sometimes, they would land on inhabited planets. The choice of these planets was even more random. In the Dragon Ball universe, since there was life, most of them were basically suitable for Earthlings to live on. However... a few times, Taro and his group encountered planets colonized by the Frieza Force. Perhaps because they hadn't been resold yet, these planets still had garrisons of the Frieza Force.
But similarly, because the invasion and colonization were over, the Frieza Force garrisoned there wasn't very strong overall. The highest combat power... not to mention someone like Zarbon, was even inferior to Dodoria, probably around Nappa's level.
When Taro encountered them, he naturally casually swatted them dead.
He and the spaceship parked in an uninhabited wilderness (because it had been invaded but a buyer hadn't been found yet, so it hadn't been "beautified". Even the wilderness was generally very desolate, a scene of ruin). He had a picnic with Hathaway and Ninn, while he (knowing that the Frieza Force had scouters, so he naturally suppressed his power level to avoid attracting unwanted attention) would take the opportunity to casually send out a palm strike in the direction of any ki signature.
Once the palm strike was unleashed, the ki blast that left his hand would be like a living thing, heading straight for the Frieza Force base. Under Taro's remote control of sensing the enemy's ki reactions, this ki, would take the form of a ferocious beast, or a sword, or a humanoid figure... and in the shortest possible time, completely annihilate those cosmic scum.
Taro himself, however, would act as if nothing had happened, chatting and laughing with his wife and granddaughter. Often, after they left, Hathaway and Ninn would still think they had arrived at an uninhabited planet like the ones they had stayed on before, just thinking it seemed a bit desolate, but it seemed desolation also had its own beauty?
About twelve more Earth days passed.
On the twenty-fourth day after leaving Earth, Taro brought the spherical spaceship to a long-missed, giant green planet: Namek.
---
"It's been a long time, Earthling," the Grand Elder seemed to have aged as well, but he showed a smile when he saw Taro, whom he hadn't seen for a long time. The current Grand Elder was already sitting on the huge chair in Taro's memory, the huge chair in the house at the peak in the original work, which matched the Grand Elder's already enormous size.
"Yes, it's been a long time," Taro's tone contained a faint sincerity and genuineness. The turning point of his life, it could be said, was achieved on Namek. If it wasn't for that year, when he obtained the seven Dragon Balls here and made three wishes...
Cosmic survival physique? No. God Tree physique? No. A place for spiritual cultivation? Of course not.
Then what would his future development have been like?
Without a doubt, due to the limitation of his strength, King Kai wouldn't have developed a deeper friendship with him, and Grand Kai wouldn't have taken a liking to him either. In fact, he wouldn't have had anything worthy of Grand Kai's attention. In addition, because he didn't have a space survival physique, Taro's range of activity would have been limited to Earth, that small corner of the world, like a domestic pig trapped in a cage waiting to die, at least that's how it would have been for him, knowing the Dragon Ball plot.