Curious About My Combat Power? You Should've Asked Sooner

Lin Chuan stood quietly to one side, watching Bulma work.

He didn't make a sound or move a muscle.

He was afraid of disturbing her and causing the modification to fail.

He knew nothing about this sort of thing, but he understood how difficult it was.

Bulma's every move made it clear just how precise the process and techniques were. There was no room for the slightest mistake.

After all, one slipup and the Scouter would be ruined.

Bulma really was both clever and capable. In barely twenty minutes, she had completed the final steps and restarted the Scouter.

From the triumphant smile on her face, Lin Chuan could tell she'd done more than just change the text.

"Hehe~~! I finally did it!" Bulma shouted excitedly. The next second, she put the Scouter over her left eye.

She turned it on again. The alien characters displayed on the screen had been changed to Earth's written language.

"I didn't expect you to finish the modification so quickly. I had a feeling you could do it, but seeing it with my own eyes, I can say you really are a genius." Lin Chuan praised her.

He made sure to let his admiration show, giving Bulma's vanity a little boost.

"Hmph-hmph~~! Now you know, right? My abilities aren't limited to just that." Bulma said smugly. A proud smile appeared on her face as she continued, "I didn't just change the text on this Scouter. I also improved its scanning capabilities to a certain extent, so it can calculate much higher Combat Power readings."

Lin Chuan perked up at that. "You increased the Scouter's upper limit? What's the highest reading it can detect now?"

"It's a makeshift prototype, but if the original Scouter could barely detect readings around twenty thousand, this one should be able to reach somewhere between forty and fifty thousand..."

"I added a chip I developed myself. It can't match the Scouter's main chip, but it can help with the calculations."

Bulma paused to think, then answered.

Earth's smart chips might not have matched alien high-tech chips in the past, but they were advancing rapidly. Under Bulma's handiwork, they had already become remarkably capable.

As a matter of fact, technology in certain fields on Earth was so advanced that even the Frieza Force couldn't match it.

For instance, Dr. Gero and the other scientists' work on the Androids, as well as their cutting-edge biotechnology...

"Forty to fifty thousand? That's on par with the latest advanced Scouters developed by the Frieza Force." Lin Chuan muttered.

The Scouters their group carried were old models that had been in use for decades.

The one Lin Chuan had taken from that guy had belonged to a relatively high-ranking scout, so it was an ordinary model, with an upper limit of only about twenty thousand Combat Power.

Based on what Lin Chuan knew, and the information from the Original Work, only high-ranking members of the Frieza Force had advanced Scouters at this point in time.

Those could detect Combat Power readings of fifty thousand to over a hundred thousand.

For example, Zarbon in the Original Work had an advanced Scouter, as did the members of the Ginyu Force who appeared later.

At this point, advanced Scouters were probably still in development. Even if they'd been completed, they were likely still in the testing phase.

That was why, a year later, most Frieza Force soldiers still carried Scouters with an upper limit of only twenty or thirty thousand Combat Power.

After hearing Lin Chuan's explanation, Bulma understood that Scouters came in different grades.

But when she thought about how she'd casually modified one to reach an advanced level, she couldn't help feeling proud.

Just then, another idea flashed through her mind.

Her curiosity got the better of her, and she pressed the button on the Scouter while pointing it at Lin Chuan.

"Beep-beep-beep-beep~~~~!!!"

The Scouter let out a series of beeps as it scanned. Lin Chuan froze slightly, caught off guard.

Bulma, meanwhile, saw a reading that left her stunned.

Combat Power: 100...

"That can't be right. Did it fail? Your Combat Power... is only 100?" Bulma pressed the Scouter's button again, baffled and unwilling to believe it.

In her mind, errors like this simply weren't supposed to happen.

If the modification had failed, the Scouter shouldn't even have turned on.

Hearing that, Lin Chuan realized Bulma wanted to know his Combat Power. The corner of his mouth tightened.

Her modification hadn't failed. He had simply suppressed his Combat Power to 100, so that was all the Scouter could detect.

For one thing, his ki cultivation had already reached a certain level, allowing him to control his aura at will.

For another, his Combat Power increased every second. If he constantly showed everyone his full strength, wouldn't his aura keep surging every moment? Who could stand that?

"Your modification didn't fail. I've just hidden my aura, so the Scouter can't detect my Combat Power."

"If you wanted to see my Combat Power, you should've just asked. If you want to see it, I'll show you—and we can test just how capable your modified Scouter is."

Lin Chuan smiled as he answered Bulma. The next second, he drew on the power within his body.

As his energy poured out and his aura surged, the Scouter over Bulma's eye began scanning and calculating at an incredible speed...

"Combat Power: 1,000... Combat Power: 5,000... Combat Power: 10,000... Combat Power: 20,000... It's—it's still going up... S-so amazing..." The figures on the lens left Bulma pale with shock.

Thanks to her research into Scouters, she knew their Combat Power readings weren't arbitrary.

Every range of readings had a specific meaning.

For example, a Combat Power of 1,000 was enough to easily destroy a small satellite, like the moon.

Once Combat Power reached several thousand, and then around ten thousand, it was probably enough to destroy a planet as large as Earth...

Combat Power over 20,000 was still classified as Planet-Destroying Level, but Bulma could no longer even imagine what that meant.

Lin Chuan's Combat Power continued to rise.

But the reading Bulma saw was no longer shooting up at the same speed as before. Instead, it climbed steadily.