Great Elder: How can there be so much potential within you?

Chen Mo stood in the center of the hall.

Information raced through his mind.

What about himself?

His base combat power was fifty thousand. With the King Kai Fist multiplied twenty-six times, it was 1.3 million.

1.3 million against 100 million.

He was short by nearly a hundredfold.

Going there would only make him dead weight. No, he did not even qualify as dead weight. He was a rock by the roadside—the kind that would shatter with a single kick.

Chen Mo's gaze settled on Grand Elder Moori.

The old man was curled up in an enormous chair. His skin was dry and withered, his antennae drooping. He looked as though he could die at any moment.

Yet his aura was fluctuating.

From 8,000 to something unreadable.

This old man still had strength.

An image suddenly flashed through Chen Mo's mind.

Planet Namek. The Frieza saga.

Krillin knelt before the Grand Elder. The Grand Elder placed a hand on Krillin's head, and a stream of light poured into his body.

Potential awakening.

Krillin had trained on Earth his entire life, yet his base combat power was barely over one thousand.

After the Grand Elder drew out his potential, it soared past ten thousand.

Tenfold.

An ordinary human who had trained on Earth for over twenty years had actually possessed ten times as much untapped potential within him.

Chen Mo's heartbeat accelerated.

What had he done on Earth?

Master Roshi's year of grueling training. The Ultra Divine Water trial. Two trips to the Hyperbolic Time Chamber. Weighted training. Ki-control meditation. Sparring matches. The repeated tearing apart and rebuilding of his body by the King Kai Fist.

The intensity of his training had far surpassed Krillin's back then.

Far surpassed it.

Over the past year or so, his body had been repeatedly destroyed, reshaped, destroyed again, and reshaped again.

Every King Kai Fist overload, every time he metabolized the Ultra Divine Water's poison, every collapse and recovery under ten times gravity in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber.

All of it was potential.

Potential locked within his body, waiting to be drawn out.

"Grand Elder."

Chen Mo's voice was steady.

Moori raised his clouded eyes.

"Can you awaken potential?"

The hall fell silent for a second.

Moori looked at him.

"You know of this."

"The Grand Elder of Planet Namek possesses the ability to draw out the latent potential within living beings," Chen Mo said. "Long ago, there was a martial artist on Earth named Krillin. The Grand Elder at the time awakened his potential. The results were remarkable."

Moori's expression did not change.

"That was the previous Grand Elder's ability."

"You can do it too."

Moori fell silent for three seconds.

"I can," he said. "But I have very little strength left. Maintaining the existence of the final Dragon Ball has already exhausted most of my magic. Awakening your potential... I can do it. But only once. And afterward, I will need at least three days of rest to recover."

"Once is enough."

Moori stared at Chen Mo.

"Are you certain?"

"I am."

"The effect of potential awakening depends on how much dormant potential lies within you," Moori said. "If your potential has already been fully developed through training, then there is nothing I can do."

Chen Mo shook his head.

"My training method is special," he said. "I use the King Kai Fist, a technique that raises combat power by instantly burning life force. Every use places an enormous burden on the body and causes severe damage. But my body recovers quickly. This repeated destruction and rebuilding accumulates a great deal of potential within the body that has yet to be released."

He was not lying.

The essence of the King Kai Fist was overexertion.

But his system made the King Kai Fist free of burden. That meant every use strengthened his body without truly wearing it down.

The strengthened portions kept piling up, yet there was no outlet.

It was all locked inside his body.

Like a reservoir. The inlet was always open. The outlet was blocked.

The water level kept rising.

Now, he needed someone to open the floodgates.

Moori looked at him for a long time.

"Come here."

Chen Mo stepped forward.

Moori reached out. His dry, wrinkled palm pressed against Chen Mo's head.

Android 18 leaned against the hall's doorway, arms folded as she watched.

"What is he doing?" she asked Trunks.

Trunks did not answer. He was staring at Moori's hand.

A pale green light seeped from Moori's palm, covering Chen Mo's head before spreading down his scalp. His neck. His shoulders. His chest.

Chen Mo felt it.

A heat that surged outward from deep within his bones.

It was something deeper than ki. As though every cell contained a compressed mass of energy, and someone had just lifted the lid.

Moori's hand trembled.

His expression changed.

From calm to surprise.

Then from surprise to shock.

"This..."

Moori's voice went off-key.

"What's wrong?" Trunks took a step forward.

Moori did not answer. His hand remained pressed atop Chen Mo's head as the pale green light grew brighter.

It shifted from dark green to bright green. Then from bright green to an almost white, luminous green.

The entire hall lit up.

The four elderly warriors outside rushed in.

"Great Elder!"

Moori raised his other hand, signaling them not to move.

His face was filled with pure disbelief.

"Inside your body..." Moori's voice trembled, "...how can there be so much?"

"How much?" Chen Mo asked. His voice was shaking too, not from pain, but because he could feel something inside him being released. Like a flash flood. Like an avalanche. Unstoppable.

"Too much," Moori said. "I have unlocked the potential of countless Namekians. Young warriors. Geniuses. Descendants of the Dragon Clan. Not a single one had potential density like this. You're an Earthling—what kind of training have you undergone?"

Chen Mo did not answer.

He could no longer speak.

Because his potential was erupting.

From the inside out. Every muscle. Every bone. Every meridian.

Chen Mo's Scouter hung from his waist, its screen facing outward.

Trunks saw the numbers on it.

His expression changed.

The numbers were jumping.

Sixty thousand.

Eighty thousand.

One hundred and twenty thousand.

They climbed faster and faster.

One hundred and eighty thousand.

Two hundred and fifty thousand.

Three hundred thousand.

"Impossible," Trunks said quietly.

Android 18 saw it too.

She straightened up from the doorframe.

Her blue eyes fixed on the scanner's screen.

Three hundred and fifty thousand.

Four hundred thousand.

Four hundred and fifty thousand.

Moori's hand left Chen Mo's head.

The old man leaned back in his chair, breathing hard, his face pale.

But the number was still rising.

Because the release of potential no longer needed an external push. Moori had opened the floodgates, and the torrent was pouring out on its own.

Four hundred and eighty thousand.

Four hundred and ninety thousand.

Five hundred thousand.

It stopped.

The number stabilized at five hundred thousand.

No one spoke in the hall.

Chen Mo stood where he was.

He lowered his head and glanced at his hand.

Then he clenched his fist.

He did not use any force. It was just an ordinary clench.

The air compressed with a dull boom, like a small bomb being crushed in his palm.

Five hundred thousand.

A base battle power of five hundred thousand.

Equivalent to Frieza's normal strength in his first form.

He had gone from trash with a battle power of 5 to someone standing on the same starting line as the Emperor of the Universe.

No.

He still had the King Kai Fist.

After all the training in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber and during space travel, along with the accumulated emotional energy, the King Kai Fist's multiplier limit had already been pushed to thirty times.

Five hundred thousand times thirty.

Fifteen million.

Fifteen million.

What did that number mean?

Frieza's final form had a battle power of one hundred and twenty million.

This was already enough to survive on the battlefield.

"You..." Trunks stared at Chen Mo, his mouth hanging open.

He had trained with Chen Mo for a year in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber.

A year ago, Chen Mo's base battle power had been five thousand. A year later, it had become fifty thousand.

He had thought Chen Mo's ceiling was somewhere around there.

Five hundred thousand.

Ten times higher.

Just because an old man had placed a hand on his head?

"So you'd been hiding it all along," Trunks said.

"Not hiding it," Chen Mo said. "It was locked away. Now it's been opened."

Chen Mo turned to Moori. The old man was still leaning back in his chair, his breathing not yet steady.

"Thank you, Grand Elder."

Moori waved a hand.

"Don't thank me," he said. "That potential was yours to begin with. I only opened the door." He paused. "But in over three hundred years of life, I've never seen a member of a non-combat race hold potential on this scale. Your body has been forged over and over by something. This isn't ordinary training."

Chen Mo did not explain.

Some things could not be explained.

All of it combined turned his ordinary Earthling body into a gold mine of potential.

Moori had merely opened the mine.

Android 18 had said nothing.

From the moment the numbers began to climb, she had stood at the entrance of the hall without moving.

Now, she spoke.

"Five hundred thousand."

Chen Mo looked at her.

Android 18's face was expressionless.

But something was changing in her eyes.

The system displayed a message.

[Emotion Collected: Shock (Intense), Reassessment (Deep), Possessiveness (Sharply Rising), Unease (Faint).]

[Emotion Points +2400.]

[King Kai Fist Multiplier Limit Updated: 30x.]

Android 18 walked over.

She stopped in front of Chen Mo.

They were very close.

She reached out and poked Chen Mo's chest.

But Chen Mo felt the force in her finger. She was probing him, sensing the change in his body's density.

"Interesting," Android 18 said.

"Just interesting?"

"Don't get cocky." Android 18 withdrew her hand. "Five hundred thousand is nothing special. It's enough to look at, not enough to fight with."

"I still have King Kai Fist."

"How many times can that red trick of yours multiply your power at most?"

"Thirty times for now."

Android 18 paused.

Five hundred thousand times thirty.

"Fifteen million?"

"That's right."

Android 18 fell silent for two seconds.

Then she smiled.

"Not bad," Android 18 said, lowering her voice. "You finally qualify for me to give you a second look."

The system displayed another message.

[Emotion Collected: Approval (Rare), Desire (Rising), Possessive Conflict (Intensifying).]

[Emotion Points +1600.]

Chen Mo ignored the system.

He turned to Trunks.

"Leave the Dragon Balls to Android 18 and me. Stay here and guard the last one. If Shigula's army comes, don't hold back."