The Dark Menace

That night, Karnel experienced an extraordinary celebration in the Yardratian village. The feast featured an array of exotic foods with flavors unique to Yardrat, while the villagers performed magical displays that created stunning visual spectacles unlike anything he had witnessed in his travels.

The celebration continued for a full day and night, the Yardratians' enthusiasm and gratitude proving almost overwhelming for Karnel. Even Leader Supa, in his well-intentioned hospitality, attempted to arrange a female Yardratian companion for their honored guest. Alarmed by this unexpected matchmaking, Karnel politely explained his need to continue his journey and bid farewell to the generous people of Yardrat, using his newly acquired Instant Transmission to depart from the planet.

In a flash, Karnel materialized in a lush green forest on a distant world. Before him, a tribe of primitive humanoids with bare upper bodies and leaf-wrapped lower halves were busy butchering an enormous beast whose massive body lay cooling on the ground. Two injured tribespeople sat nearby, blue blood seeping from wounds in their abdomens as younger members of the tribe tended to them, their pained moans filling the air.

When the indigenous people witnessed Karnel appear out of thin air, they froze. The apparent leader began uttering sounds in a language Karnel couldn't comprehend, then led his people in bowing deeply before their unexpected visitor. Even those tending to the wounded paused to show reverence.

Karnel frowned as he observed the tribal leader speaking rapidly in his incomprehensible tongue. Despite his extensive travels, this language was entirely foreign to him. From the way the entire tribe had prostrated themselves, it was clear they believed him to be someone, or something, of great importance.

"They must think I'm some kind of deity," Karnel realized with growing discomfort.

When the tribespeople grew increasingly vocal in their excitement, Karnel raised his hands and commanded firmly, "Quiet! Silence!"

The effect was immediate, dozens of indigenous people trembled, covering their mouths with their hands and falling into fearful silence.

After a tense moment, the tribal leader cautiously approached and managed to stammer out, "...God! God..."

"Great," Karnel thought with resignation. "Just as I suspected." Aloud, he tried to correct them: "I am not a god..."

"Ah! God..." the leader insisted, shaking his head firmly, conviction unwavering on his face.

"No point arguing about it," Karnel sighed to himself. His attention shifted to a young tribesman whose life seemed to be ebbing away from his wounds. Without hesitation, Karnel approached the injured man, retrieved a senzu bean from his dimensional pocket, and gently placed it in the wounded tribesman's mouth.

The effect was dramatic and instantaneous. The tribesman's cells regenerated at an astonishing rate, his wounds closing completely in less than a second. After tentatively touching his now-healed abdomen, the young man leapt to his feet in astonishment. He dropped to his knees before Karnel, grabbing his hand in gratitude while excitedly speaking words Karnel couldn't understand.

"That's enough, please," Karnel said, gently extricating his hand. "I can't understand what you're saying anyway."

Looking around at the tribe, Karnel observed their primitive hunting tools and the dangers they clearly faced in securing food. "I see how difficult survival is for your people," he said, though he knew they couldn't understand him. "Getting injured while hunting could mean death. Here, take these."

From his dimensional pocket, Karnel produced a small bag containing about a hundred senzu beans. He placed it in the tribal leader's hands and, without waiting for further displays of worship, activated Instant Transmission and vanished.

Behind him, the young healed tribesman picked up one of the miraculous beans, raising it skyward as he called out to Karnel's vanished form: "God! God!"

Karnel continued planet-hopping, using his new technique to explore numerous worlds. Most were primitive planets with pre-technological civilizations, but he found each fascinating in its own way as he broadened his understanding of the universe's diversity.

After about a dozen instantaneous jumps, Karnel realized he had reached the boundary between the North and West Galaxies. He materialized on a planet with unmistakable signs of technological advancement, Durastar.

This unusual world was populated primarily by rabbit-like humanoids standing less than a meter tall who walked upright. Though their general technology lagged decades behind Earth's, the rabbit people of Durastar possessed one technology that surpassed even the most advanced civilizations in the Northern Galaxy: cloning.

As Karnel learned from a friendly rabbit citizen, their reproduction didn't follow typical biological processes. When a rabbit couple desired offspring, each provided a drop of blood from which their best genetic traits were extracted and combined using advanced cloning technology to create superior progeny. This wasn't a closely guarded secret but common knowledge throughout their kingdom.

"Fascinating," Karnel thought as he strolled down a bustling street, guided by his informative rabbit host. "Even a species that seems unlikely to evolve beyond basic survival has developed an entire civilization with unique technological achievements. The universe truly is full of surprises."

The streets, though small by his standards but appropriately sized for the rabbit inhabitants, were lined with various establishments: clothing shops, restaurants, supermarkets, and other businesses. Most pedestrians were rabbit-folk, though Karnel spotted a few beings from other worlds who had apparently settled on this hospitable planet.

What Karnel found particularly amusing was the culinary monotony, every restaurant, without exception, specialized in carrot-based cuisine. Carrots prepared in dozens of ways: roasted, steamed, pureed, formed into noodles, baked into bread, even fashioned into desserts. The creativity was impressive, if somewhat limited in its foundational ingredient.

___

High above Durastar's atmosphere, Turles observed the planet with cold calculation. Once a soldier in the Saiyan army years before Planet Vegeta's destruction, he had discovered the Tree of Might and several of its seeds on what appeared to be a dead world during a routine conquest mission.

The Tree of Might was a parasitic organism that absorbed energy from living worlds, gradually transforming fertile planets into barren husks while producing fruits that dramatically enhanced the consumer's power. After tasting the first fruit, Turles had been consumed by an insatiable hunger for greater strength. He abandoned his loyalty to Vegeta and began roaming the cosmos, seeking life-rich planets where he could plant the Tree of Might and harvest its power-multiplying fruits.

"This planet looks perfect," he murmured, dark eyes gleaming with anticipation. "The Tree of Might should produce several exceptional fruits here." His laughter echoed through the small spacecraft as he prepared to descend to the unsuspecting world below.