Hello, everyone! Sorry that this next chapter is also an update, but not to worry, I've got good news! I'm here to announce to you all that the Frost Demon Saga of Hermit will officially begin on December 29th, 2019! As it turns out, I had a lot more free time in the last few weeks of my first college semester than I expected to, so I've been able to get a lot done! It was pretty hectic towards the end, but now I've got over a month until classes start up again for the spring semester. With luck, that's more than enough time to wrap up the bulk of the story.

Currently, two chapters are more or less finished, and since we're going back to the regular schedule for this one, that's about a month of content right there, which I'm definitely feeling good about. I'm hoping that I'll get at least one more chapter finished between this update and Chapter 26, allowing me to kick the arc off with a two chapter buffer which I'll do my best to maintain. I couldn't quite guess at how many chapters the full arc will be. Based on the outline I have in my head, five doesn't feel like nearly enough, but I'm also not sure it'll take ten chapters to finish completely. We'll see how that plays out.

As for what comes after this...I'm honestly not too sure. The main hurdle is in deciding whether to depict the events of the future timelines as part of their own saga or as some standalone thing a la History of Trunks. I think it depends on the scope of events I want to cover. In any case, odds are I'm probably going to have to put Hermit back into hiatus once this arc is over, so that I can focus on college again. This likely won't be for a couple months yet depending on how many chapters this arc ultimately is, so hopefully the second hiatus will be shorter than the first hiatus has been.

With that said, no teaser this time, unfortunately. I don't really have anything already written that would work well, and the chapter's coming in two weeks, so I don't really see the point of writing a whole new thing just for this, I'm sorry to say. However, I am more than happy to respond to y'all's reviews!

Look what Jesus did says:

"That was hilarious reminds me a bit of the pre cell games interview on Abridged also that assistants poor poor hands"

Ha! I didn't even think about the similarities when writing that, that's hilarious.

Ash0011 says:

"Huh, I basically just found this and it updated almost immediately after I finish, neat

Only disappointment I had was from hoping gohan would go super saiyan either instead or as well, it seemed like that was something you were building up to. Granted that's nothing major, just a subversion of expectation I found mildly disappointing

Other than that (hell even including that) the story is great! I'm hoping Roshi figures out some more stuff to keep him relevant (permanent shapeshifting applied to grant youth?)"

Honestly? I legitimately thought about that, for quite a while, actually. My first idea was that Gohan and Goku would go Super Saiyan simultaneously, and...oh, God, Frieza would just be dead. I scrapped that idea fast because it seemed like it would really clutter the scene to have two characters achieving a new rage mode at the same time. Next I thought about Gohan achieving some kind of Pseudo Super Saiyan form, surprising Frieza but ultimately still getting beaten down, causing Goku to go full Super Saiyan. This likewise felt really cluttered and clashed with the tone of the scene, so I took that out. You'll notice a fragment of that latter idea in the scene itself, where Gohan gets a big rage boost but is still quickly cut down by Frieza. That Saga just wasn't the time for Gohan to get a super form, in my opinion. He needs more time.

As for Roshi, I had a brief idea a long time ago to make him wish for eternal youth around this time, but I scrapped that, so he's still gonna be old. Don't worry, though, he's working on some stuff along with Krillin, Yamcha, and Nail on King Kai's planet. Might not get to show off much of it in this arc(the whole, you know, being dead thing ;)), but I assure you, he will eventually. This arc, from what I have planned, is going to be the start of how the humans really make leaps and bounds in terms of their power level. Stay tuned.

Anonymously96 says:

"Please tell me this was a comedy relief chapter? :P
I mean zeno is supposed to be erasing galaxies and universes, why would he cower from King Cold?
Also is hermit back on track for updates?
Update soon"

Eh, partly. Last chapter was a preview of events to come, a showcase of just how much of a threat the arc's antagonist is...with some comic relief elements. ;)

As I explained before, this isn't Zeno, the child-like lord of the universe, but Zuno, a guy chilling near the center of the universe who has knowledge of anything and everything, past or present. And Zuno is very much not a fighter and very much easily killed by King Cold if he pisses him off, so yeah, he's cowering.

RKF22 says:

"Excellent work can't wait for more"

Glad to hear it, buddy!

GojiRanger says:

"Okay, first, good chapter and that ending? That was funny!

Second, your welcome for the compliment!

Third, Having King Cold visit Zuno for information was actually really clever, though it does make me wonder why, if Zuno was around and in business while King Cold was alive in canon, Cold didn't just kidnap him and force him to tell him everything he ever wanted to know, under the threat of execution?
I know the real world reason was that Zuno hadn't been thought up yet, or at least wasn't put into the series, but in-universe it's odd that Cold, or any powerful being or member of the Frieza family, didn't take advantage of Zuno's existence.

Anyway, hope you manage to update again soon, and congrats on submitting an original short. Hope it was well received!"

Thank you! I'm glad other people found that little bit as funny as I did.

Oh, shoot, I said this in the teaser, but perhaps I should've clarified: King Cold's only known about Zuno for a couple days as of that teaser. The Frieza Force as a whole has only known about him for a couple weeks, when the two low-level soldiers assigned to monitoring his planet noticed that a whole lot of ships were visiting the place despite it having nothing worth going that far into the center of the universe to get. These soldiers made the trip over there and got an audience with Zuno, leaving them to believe that he was a nigh-omniscient being. It took time for their report on Zuno to move up the chain of command, until it finally came to King Cold's attention, prompting him to see Zuno for himself. So, yeah, nobody in the Frieza Force really knew about the guy until recently, so they never thought to make use of his knowledge before now. As for why Cold doesn't just kidnap him...stay tuned.

It, uh...they haven't sent anything to me after I submitted it. In over a month. But, hey, you know, something might happen with it still! ...Maybe.

LordAries34 says, back in Chapter 23:

"I wish these ending parts weren't so drawn out."

I've noticed that some of this fic's criticism is kind of...vague. Like, people just kinda type out what they find wrong in a sentence or two and don't really leave me with anything else. It kinda ticks me off, because I'm sitting here like, "...What do I do with this?" How can I address criticism and make this story better when said criticism doesn't even fully explain what I'm doing wrong? Like, please, if you have an issue with my story, lay it out! I want to address people's criticisms, but when they're vague like this, I don't really know what to do.

The way my brain works, I need something more concrete. Something like "You don't need two paragraphs of text here; one would do" or "Goku wouldn't do this; I believe he would do this in this situation, and here's why I think that." Details that like will really help me to understand what you guys find wrong with this story, which I can then keep in mind when I write the story going forward so that it will hopefully be more enjoyable for as many people as possible. So please, elaborate on this kind of stuff. I want to get better, but if I'm going to do that, I need more information, alright? Thank you. Sorry for derailing a bit, this has been in the back of my mind for a while.

CosmoCatte says:

"Well then! That was definitely a crazy read, especially since I binged it all in the course of 24 hours!

Let me say first and foremost that I really like your writing style. Even earlier on when there was a bit of a greater saturation of TFS references it never really bothered me too much, and it almost felt like you sourced some of the more exaggerated personality traits that DBZA often produced in order to make the characters in your story feel more distinct.
It worked really well, in my opinion, given that your writing has the distinct quality of characterizing them all very nicely.

I take some small issues with just how many times Zenkai boosting was used in your Namek saga, however at the same time I'm also likely to have to do the same when I get around to taking my story outline and turning it into actual chapters, so from one writer to another I'll just say it's clever use of the Zenkai mechanic :)

I think that your Namek saga was an interesting read, as at any given time the story deviated enough from the original that I could be left wondering if it would ever get 'back on track', so to speak. However, I also find it somewhat interesting that you chose to still loosely adhere to each of the benchmark points of the Saga.
- Kaio-Ken x20 not enough
- Spirit Bomb is used, but fails.
- Frieza comes back, mortally wounds Piccolo, and kills Goku's friend(s, in this case)
- Goku goes SSj, proving too much for Frieza
- Goku lets Frieza go to 100% (Except that Frieza killed all of Goku's friends and his son, making this a bit more OOC even for SSj Goku)
- Namek explodes
- Frieza is cut by his own Death Slicers
- Goku obliterates Frieza (but actually, in this case)

After a certain point, around the Spirit Bomb, I realized that you planned to hit these beats and it definitely took a bit out of the story for me since I effectively knew what would happen next. At the same time, the Frieza fight is inherently, painfully restrictive on the merit that he has to go through each of his forms, then to his final, etc.
So all in all, despite adhering to those bulletpoints you still made a read that kept me going from chapter to chapter over the course of the day.

The humans definitely got shown some love here, however I can't help but wonder how they're going to catch back up, so to speak. Goku is actively about 60-70% stronger here than he was in the show at the same time, Gohan is already probably at his Android Saga level, and it seems like Kamiccolo is on the fast track to continued power growth.

While none of these things are an issue, for a story that was meant to have a large focus on not only the humans but Roshi specifically, it's been lacking a bit in that regard. Still, I have to imagine you have a plan to get them in the runnings, and I'm pretty excited to see what that is.

If you'd like to discuss my review or just have a discussion in general, feel free to hit me with a PM. Consider me a new follower of this story!"

I already responded to his review in a PM, so honestly, I just want to know you guys' thoughts on Cosmo's points here. Do you agree with certain things, disagree with certain things? Has my story been a little too close to canon for you guys, or do you feel it is distinct enough to have its own identity? Do you feel that my characterization of certain characters is true to their canon counterparts, or are there issues I need to work out? I'm really interested to hear what you guys think!

Honestly, the more I think about it, maybe Hermit wasn't the best title for this fic, considering that Roshi is dead for what is currently three fifths of it. Still, I think it mostly works since Roshi being trained on the Lookout and training the others was the catalyst for almost every modified event that followed, and really, you can't completely change the title of a fic that's over a year old, lmao.

Also going to take this time to say: check out Cosmo's story, Dragon Ball: New Days! It's a What If fic like this one, based on the idea that a bunch of small changes can lead to massive consequences. I mean, hell, that pretty much sums up this whole fic, so it should be of interest to some of you. It's in the early chapters yet, but it has promise!

Anywho, with all that said, thank you all for being patient. Have yourselves a fantastic day, and take care. See you in two weeks!