Encounter!

Smack...

Li Ming frowned as he stepped down from the spaceship. If they had not suddenly come under attack, he would have chosen to leave immediately.

"Where the hell did we fly to?"

He had now realized a serious problem: the ship Dr. Brief had built had never actually traveled through space, so its navigation system was incomplete.

Navigating according to the star map Tights had provided was like making the ship look at a map and find its own way!

Spaceship: "???"

There was no way in hell it could have reached Namek!

Looking at the ruined planet before him, Li Ming's face darkened. This was the first time Dr. Brief had screwed him over, and he had not expected to end up somewhere like this.

"Still, there are a few fairly strong ki signatures. Space pirates?"

The Frost Demon race had been infamous space pirates since ancient times. Even now, they were merely pirates calling themselves cosmic emperors.

Their nature had not changed; only their power had grown considerably. The universe itself operated on the law of the strong devouring the weak. The strength of Frost Demon bloodlines was beyond doubt—they were absolutely one of the peak races in the universe.

They were qualified to call themselves cosmic emperors. As for whether someone who disliked them might suddenly appear and beat them to death, that was another matter.

The landing had gone off course, and someone had even come looking for him. Li Ming did not plan to set off again right away. He decided to check things out. It would be even better if he could find something capable of locating Namek.

"L-Lord Dodoria! Sven's scouter has gone offline."

"Ho ho ho, is he dead? Looks like someone fairly strong has arrived. Have you detected his battle power?"

Dodoria's laughter grew more delighted, while the aliens around him broke into cold sweats. They knew exactly what kind of temperament Dodoria had. Like Frieza, he was mercurial; no one knew whether he might suddenly decide to kill them!

A purple-skinned alien, small and skinny, apparently a researcher, performed a series of operations before walking over with a detector.

"I've detected it. Ten thousand."

"Oh? Not bad. He could be useful to me."

Dodoria was somewhat surprised. That battle power was not weak by cosmic standards. Even he himself only had a battle power of a little over twenty thousand.

Most races in the universe had a very simple way of increasing their battle power: fighting. They fought again and again, recovered after being injured, then continued fighting.

Rather than cultivation, this method was more like struggling purely for survival. Usually, races with stronger bloodlines simply crushed weaker ones.

There was no suspense at all. That was why the Saiyans had been suppressed by Frieza for so many years, unable to resist even until their deaths.

In the end, as long as one understood the right cultivation method, even the weakest race in the universe could achieve something.

Whoosh!

A beam of light suddenly shot over from afar. The massive blast wave startled Dodoria, but when he looked up and saw that Li Ming was merely a Saiyan, his expression immediately returned to normal.

"Ho ho ho, I didn't expect him to be a Saiyan. What an unexpected delight. Did you escape from Planet Vegeta? What a shame. Since you're a Saiyan, I can't use you after all. Lord Frieza would be unhappy."

Dodoria stared gloomily at Li Ming in the sky and spoke with a strange laugh, as though looking at a dead man.

He had noticed Li Ming's appearance immediately. Earthlings were not well-known in the universe, but Saiyan traits had long since become common knowledge.

Li Ming looked at the aliens before him. The native aliens were probably the ones being held prisoner. They did not seem to have much battle power, so this was likely just an ordinary planet.

"Dodoria? One of Frieza's men? Looks like my luck isn't bad." Li Ming recognized him as well. Most alien races did not understand how to use ki, much less conceal it, so their strength was almost obvious at a glance.

At least, Dodoria did not seem particularly strong in his eyes. He was only at the level of being slapped to death.

Li Ming slowly descended to the ground. His height advantage made him practically look down on Dodoria. The other aliens did not dare make any rash moves. After all, a battle power of ten thousand was already very close to that of Lord Frieza's direct subordinates!

Boom! Pfft!

Suddenly, a surge of ki erupted! In an instant, it destroyed every scouter worn by the aliens present!

Plumes of white smoke rose up. Dodoria grimly crushed the scouter on his ear, half his face blackened by the smoke. The others were no exception. Only the purple alien holding the special detector stood behind Dodoria with a horrified expression.

He stared at Li Ming in terror, as if he wanted to say something, yet it was as though something had lodged in his throat, leaving him unable to make a sound!

"Now, there's no need to worry about so much."

Li Ming had done this as a precaution. These scouters were quite capable—one could even say extremely powerful. Not only could they quantify battle power, but they could also be used to communicate and transmit information.

This was not the time to confront Frieza head-on. One careless mistake could be very dangerous.

Crack!

"Damn Saiyan, you've angered me! Die!"

Dodoria could no longer hold back. He stomped on the ground, his body turning into a dark blur as he charged forward! He was extremely fast. With a battle power above ten thousand, he already possessed the ability to destroy some small planets.

As Frieza's right-hand man, Dodoria naturally could not be weak. He was merely slightly inferior to the Ginyu Force.

Bang!

"W-What?!"

"Lord Dodoria!"

Li Ming did not want to waste any more words on him. Delays could bring unforeseen complications. Moving at a speed too fast for the naked eye to perceive, he drove a fist into Dodoria's stomach.

The immense force instantly bent Dodoria's bloated body into an arch, while an exaggerated bulge appeared on his back. His eyes bulged out as strange purple blood sprayed from his mouth.

"N-No way! You stinking Saiyan monkey, how... how can you be this strong?!"

Clutching his perforated stomach, he staggered back several steps. If he let go, his intestines would probably spill out.

"That's something you don't need to know. It's a pity, but you should die now."

"Pwah! Lord Frieza won't let you get away with this! Saiyans, damn Saiyans! Your Planet Vegeta was destroyed by Lord Frieza himself! Hahaha!"

On the verge of death, Dodoria spat out another mouthful of blood. His expression grew increasingly ferocious as he roared madly, revealing the truth of what had happened back then. It seemed he wanted Li Ming to fight Frieza and get himself killed.

Unfortunately, Li Ming was not a pure Saiyan—at least, not in soul.

"Then that's truly a pity. You won't live to see that day."

With a raise of his hand, a surge of ki appeared, and an overwhelming pressure spread outward!

The purple-skinned alien trembled even more violently. On the specialized scouter in his hand, the numbers continued to soar wildly! Thirty thousand, forty thousand, fifty thousand... one hundred thousand!

Boom!

A terrifying ki blast shot out in an instant, its white radiance engulfing everything on the planet!

Dodoria turned to ashes amid his screams. The ki blast continued straight into the distance, carving a ravine across the ground that stretched as far as the eye could see!

Two years had passed since his first beam clash with Goku. How could Li Ming possibly have made no progress? At the very least, he had achieved modest success in controlling his ki.

That attack even overturned Dodoria's spaceship. However, the exterior seemed undamaged. The aliens watched the scene in horror, all collapsing to the ground.

Tap...

"Eek! Spare us! Please spare us, sir! We were forced into this too! Please, let us go!"

"Spare us!"

Dozens of aliens fell to their knees. Looking at Li Ming, who had appeared before them at some point, they had already been scared out of their wits!

"Who can repair a spaceship?"

"Gulp... I-I can."

The purple alien beneath his feet struggled to lift his head. His distorted features painfully forced out a sickening expression, as though he were in great agony.

"Good. Come with me." Li Ming took the purple alien and flew toward his own spaceship. As for Dodoria's spaceship, honestly, he did not dare use it.

Boom!

Just then, as the other aliens breathed a sigh of relief, another terrifying ki blast came hurtling toward them! Before they could even scream, they and their spaceship were reduced to dust on this planet.

Leaving them alive would only invite trouble. They were Frieza's subordinates, after all. Whatever they might have been before, they now had every reason to die. Li Ming felt no guilt over it.

After spending a day having the purple alien make adjustments and calibrate the star map's coordinates, Li Ming set off once again.

"M-My lord, I absolutely won't try anything. Please don't kill me."

The purple alien did not dare disobey, but he feared Li Ming would kill him afterward, so he kept begging for mercy.

"Is there a way to disable the scouter's communications and tracking functions?"

Li Ming did not kill him right away. Instead, he examined the specialized scouter in his hand. The fact that it had remained intact even after he released all his ki showed that its detection limit was very high.

"Y-Yes!" The purple alien did not dare delay. He immediately understood, took the scouter, and began removing its communication and tracking components.

Li Ming placed him in a corner of the spaceship while he continued training alone in the gravity chamber.

Although he had offended Frieza, this trip had not been entirely fruitless. At least he now knew roughly where his combat strength stood, giving him some advance sense of security.