The Moon, Earth's satellite
Gohan had barely returned to Earth when a thought struck him so hard he didn't even go home.
It was tied to Whis's advice about staying the Super Saiyan course.
He would try to awaken Super Saiyan 4 again.
This time he didn't rush it. He sat cross-legged, closed his eyes, and steadied his breathing, letting ki and spirit recover to their peak.
The clash with Toppo had looked brief, but the danger in every exchange had drained him dry. Senzu Beans could mend the body, not refill spent willpower. If he was going to succeed, he needed his condition perfect.
Super Saiyan 4 was not simple. The requirements were brutal:
A tail. Without it, there was no Great Ape, and without Great Ape there was no path forward.
Reason within rage. After transforming, he had to keep his mind from being shredded by the ape's feral instinct.
Gohan met both conditions. Truthfully, he had been capable of retaining reason since birth, the product of two souls fused into one, though he hadn't known at the time. Later, he even asked Porunga on Namek to strengthen his soul. So holding on to sanity did not worry him; he had already tested it once.
He had also evolved divine power and reached Super Saiyan God, which meant that even in base, his spirit was quietly growing stronger.
The biggest hurdle was the third condition: a body that could take it, and a base power high enough to bear the load.
In GT, Goku's base most likely broke past the hundreds of billions, which is why his Golden Great Ape was the clear prelude to SSJ4. Once he regained his reason, he pushed through. Vegeta, by contrast, skipped the sanity step entirely, using Bulma's tech to bathe in intense Blutz Waves, and transformed smoothly.
Gohan had not planned to attempt SSJ4 so soon. His base had only just crossed a hundred billion. The pain from last time was hard to forget.
But Whis had said it plainly: his life level had already risen.
That one line gave Gohan a thin, crucial sliver of confidence.
He would restore his spirit and push his base even higher.
One day later, his mental strength was back to full. Gohan's eyes snapped open. He rolled the ring on his right ring finger.
Bang.
The gravity chamber unfolded.
Next step: build the body and the base.
With his life level elevated, the ceiling on his "base" cracked again, and power began to surge. Gohan buried himself in relentless training inside the chamber.
Sit-ups. Push-ups. Frog jumps. Over and over.
Time trickled by. His physique hardened rapidly; potential and foundation poured out from deep within, converting into raw combat power.
Put in terms from his previous life: the Super Saiyan path is a road of sanctifying the body. It is harsh, but the battle power it yields is terrifying.
The divine path is the cultivation road, built on insight. The difficulty of comprehending godly power proves how vital perception is.
Gohan advanced on both roads at once. In this world, his body was a walking bug report, bottomless in potential, and since soul and soul had fused, his comprehension chased his physique step for step. The two paths did not hinder each other. They accelerated each other.
A full month later…
Gohan stepped out of the chamber at last.
"Fifty billion points of battle power. That should do it," he murmured.
That month of grind had flushed out the power unlocked by breaking his base limit and converted it fast. After reaching fifty billion, the gains slowed, so he ended the session.
That was not a true limit. With divine power seeded inside him, his foundation would keep deepening even without transforming, just not as explosively as right after a breakthrough.
He took a long, blissful shower, then stowed the chamber.
"Super Saiyan 4… here I come."
He teleported into deep space, finding the spot where Blutz Waves bathed him strongest. The moon gleamed largest here.
Beast heat pooled in his eyes. His heart hammered like a drum.
Cloth tore. Muscle swelled.
In under a minute, a colossal ape stood in the dark.
"Rrroar!"
Sound shouldn't carry in space, and yet in Dragon Ball it always did. Beerus had held entire conversations with Whis out here while erasing stars.
"Next, turn this Great Ape… into a Super Saiyan."
Gohan stirred the S-cells within him. Wild, violent energy geysered out of that gigantic frame.
"Rrroar… aaaargh!"
Brown fur flashed to gold. Power flooded him in a raging tide.
"Hold… it…"
His teeth clenched. The force was too savage. Pain burned bone and nerve.
But he did not stop. He kept pushing.
The entire ape blazed gold. Dark-gold ferocity wrapped him up, then compressed into a sun-bright cocoon.
Inside that blazing sphere, Gohan felt his body shrinking, while the roaring sea of power did not fade. It compressed with him, refined and densified.
On Earth below, fighters felt it at once.
"What is it, Piccolo?" Goten stared at his uncle's cold sweat.
Piccolo did not answer. He simply looked up, trembling.
In a distant city, Raditz paused mid dojo-challenge, a petite girl at his side. "What is it?" she asked, startled by the fear in the warrior who had always seemed steady, calm, and quietly unstoppable.
Off-world, Goku, Vegeta, and Nappa sensed nothing directly, but Vegeta's body shivered once and then went still.
"What's wrong, Vegeta?" Goku asked, his fist hovering.
"No idea. A sudden chill. It's fine. Keep going."
He shook it off, and the spar resumed. Thanks to the three of them, Universe 7's worst villains were dwindling fast.
Back in space…
The dark-gold cocoon dimmed, then winked out.
Gohan emerged: black hair, black eyes, dark-gold sparks flickering across his skin.
Thick red fur covered him from neck to wrist and ankle, leaving eight chiseled abs bare. His black hair was much longer, strands falling to his shoulders.
He still had a youth's frame. He wasn't eighteen yet, so unlike GT's kid Goku exception, his height didn't change. Vegeta's SSJ4 height had also matched his base.
"Strong. Crazy strong."
Joy flared in Gohan's eyes.
His multiplier had leapt to a monstrous 8,000×.
Eight thousand.
He thought it through and understood. It was the anomalous qi in his body. Ever since the mutation born from brushing the Rule of Destruction, every Super Saiyan stage had its magnification doubled.
At 8,000×, the math got silly. A 50 billion base meant 4 quadrillion.
Absurd. In the best way.
He lasted a minute, then fell back to base with a ragged breath. He simply could not maintain it. The drain was savage. The base was still too low.
From memory, the normal SSJ4 boost sat around 4,000×, roughly on par with Super Saiyan God. Full-power red-fur, red-hair SSJ4 should hit around 7,000×.
And SSG was only at its initial stage; as divine power deepened, the ratio would rise as well.
Only after transforming did Gohan fully grasp the balance. Super Saiyan Blue was not weaker than SSG. In sheer combat power, it could surpass SSG. But Blue sacrificed a portion of God Ki to convert into fightable output. The dimension dipped a notch, yet endurance soared and the stamina cost plummeted.
Everyone has a road of their own. Goku's Blue plus Kaio-ken and Ultra Instinct, Vegeta's Royal Blue and Evolved Ego those were personal chances and personal understandings.
As long as you keep growing without betraying your heart, the road is the right one.
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