Originally posted by Q99
Training with King Kai, that can account for a lot.
It can only count up to how much Goku grew minus a bit, which is about 8000, at the most.
Goku trained for an entire year with King Kai and Piccolo and the others only got to train for almost 2 months.
Goku was also given more specialized training.
This leads me to believe Piccolo was between 3500 (his powered up form against Nappa) and 20,000. That's a generous jump from 3500 using the "8000" number. I should say he could be, at the most, only (8000 * 1/10) + 3500 = 4300
Why 1/10? Cause the trip to Namek took one month, it took them several days to leave right after the fight, and several days passed on Namek while they were there:
http://www.mangareader.net/105-2894-1/dragon-ball/chapter-245.html
That scene shows Bulma visiting the ship very shortly after the fight ended (she was transported from the hospital where Gohan was, to that site.)
She said that they would leave in 5 days but it changes to 10 days, here:
http://www.mangareader.net/105-2894-6/dragon-ball/chapter-245.html
Then here it says it took them 37 days:
http://www.mangareader.net/105-2895-14/dragon-ball/chapter-246.html
So 37 +10 = 47 days since Piccolo died.
Goku went from earth to Namek in 6 days. Total days so far: 53. Since Goku arrived on Namek AFTER the Ginyu force, 53 is how many days passed before Piccolo was revived....54 at the most.
Here, we see how much time has passed during a dozen or so chapters since this arch started: half a day.
http://www.mangareader.net/105-2909-11/dragon-ball/chapter-260.html
So we know they weren't pissing around for many days before Piccolo came back.
But we must continue...
Here, the Ginyu force will take 5 days to arrive on Namek (this would put it around 52 days).
http://www.mangareader.net/105-2913-5/dragon-ball/chapter-264.html
But Vegeta thinks it will be 3 or 4 days, here:
http://www.mangareader.net/105-2919-3/dragon-ball/chapter-270.html
Let's go with the high end estimate...so total days are after 5 days have passed would be 52 days.
Four days pass since that cave scene.
http://www.mangareader.net/105-2919-13/dragon-ball/chapter-270.html
So our total days are at 52, not 53. The Ginyu force arrived very shortly after that statement.
http://www.mangareader.net/105-2921-1/dragon-ball/chapter-272.html
And in the same day, Piccolo is brought to planet Namek.
http://www.mangareader.net/105-2943-1/dragon-ball/chapter-294.html
It looks like night because they just summoned the dragon (Namek didn't have any nights.)
So a total time of 52 days passed. POSSIBLY 53 days if you want to add more time for the trips across Namek (which seemed to take 4 hours, full speed, for Krillin, before he got a power boost (2 hours after)).
Goku's power, during his fight with Raditz, was around 420-480 (I forget.)
He increased it to 8000 with his training on Namek in one year.
Piccolo only got 53 days, at the very most. Goku's special ability, if he can be said to have one, is his enormous growth speed. I do not think Piccolo could grow to close to 1 million, which is around what Freiza's second form was supposed to be, in only 58 days. His power growth is not as steep as Goku's. If Nail's power was added to Piccolo's, that means that Piccolo would have to have been very close to 1 million, already, because 42,000 + x ~ 1,000,000. X has to be close to a million and x is Piccolo's power level. Piccolo does NOT have the Saiyan ability to become significantly stronger than his previous form, right after near death. Vegeta went from 18,000 to 24,000 after his near death recovery from fighting the Z-Warriors on Earth. So that's a jump of 33% each time. That could be exponential growth, for sure. But Piccolo does not have that ability.
On another thought, let's see how far Goku went in his training till he fought the Ginyu: His power rose all the way to 180,000. He DOES say "Kao Ken" so his power may be just 90,000.
But let's see if the numbers work out for 180,000, first, then we'll go lower end estimate.
His power against Vegeta and Nappa was 8000.
He got a Senzu Bean from Yajirobe or Korrin (I don't remember) when he was in the hospital. So that's a 33% growth, there.
Then, he had 7 left for his trip in space, for his 6 day flight to Namek. He used 4 and had 3 left (which he used to revive Gohan, Krillin, and Vegeta.) So that's 4 other instances of 33% growth for a total of 5 instances. Easy power growth...
8000 * (1.3333333333333333^5) ~ 33712
Does 33712 equal 180,000? No.
Does 33712 equal 90,000? No.
So, as I stated, Goku's special ability is his ability to grow faster in strength. If we go to the low end, we could use logs to figure out Goku's level up to 90,000.