Outdated Version BOSS, Turles

After ending the Frieza Force's communication call, Chen Mo turned his attention back to the scanner.

A small star map sat in the lower right corner of the navigation screen, displaying the distribution of celestial bodies within three light-years of the current route.

Most of them were uninhabited star systems.

Small gray dots, without any labels.

But one dot was different.

It lay to the lower left of the route, about 0.3 astronomical units from their current position.

It was not far. At this warship's speed, they could reach it twenty minutes after dropping out of warp.

The life signal shown on the scanner was weak.

There was only one.

Combat power reading: 470,000.

Chen Mo stared at that number for three seconds.

470,000.

On a desolate little rocky planet at the edge of the universe, there was someone with a combat power of 470,000.

That number would have counted as top-tier on Earth.

But by his current standards, it was merely a fraction.

Chen Mo did not care about the combat power.

What caught his attention was another set of data beside the scanner.

The rocky planet's atmospheric composition was abnormal. Its oxygen content was extremely high, far beyond that of an ordinary inorganic planet.

Furthermore, there was a massive plant colony signal on the surface.

There should not have been anything like that on a barren planet.

Unless someone had planted something there.

A name flashed through Chen Mo's mind.

The Tree of Might.

He looked at that combat power reading again. 470,000.

Turles.

A low-class Saiyan warrior who looked as though he had been cast from the same mold as Goku.

In the original movie, he had traveled the universe with a bunch of cannon fodder, planting Trees of Might, draining planets of their life force, and harvesting their fruit.

His original combat power had been just over 30,000.

After eating the Fruit of the Tree of Might, it had soared into the hundreds of thousands.

That had been many years ago.

By this era, after so much time had passed, Turles had repeatedly supplemented himself with the Fruit of the Tree of Might until his combat power had risen to 470,000.

Saiyan physiology was naturally suited to this sort of thing.

A low-class warrior could pile up his stats with external resources, but this was about as high as his ceiling went.

But the Fruit of the Tree of Might itself was meant for gods to eat.

Not warriors. Not Saiyans.

It was fruit meant for deities.

King Kai. Supreme Kais. Beings of that level.

What would happen if an Earthling ate it?

Chen Mo did not know. But he knew one thing: his training had reached a bottleneck.

With a base combat power of 500,000, the rate at which conventional training could raise it was getting slower and slower.

He had already drunk the Ultra Divine Water. He had already received the Grand Elder's potential unlock.

He had entered the Hyperbolic Time Chamber twice.

He was nearly out of conventional methods.

And the Fruit of the Tree of Might was a path beyond the conventional.

Chen Mo raised his head and glanced at the co-pilot's seat.

Android 18 had her eyes closed, her breathing steady, still clutching that nut in her hand.

He quietly stood up and went to take a look in the rear cabin.

Trunks was dozing while leaning against Moori. Moori's chest rose and fell faintly. He was still alive.

Chen Mo returned to the cockpit.

He adjusted the navigation system. The route shifted slightly, turning at a very small angle toward that rocky planet.

Then he activated the spaceship's deceleration sequence.

The warp engine gave off a low hum.

The streaking starlight returned to mere points of light.

Android 18 opened her eyes.

"Why did we stop?"

"We're passing a planet," Chen Mo said. "I'm going down to stretch my legs. Eleven days cooped up in the ship have left my body stiff."

Android 18 glanced at him.

"Stretch your legs."

"Yeah. I'll go down, run a couple laps, throw a few punches. I'll be back in an hour."

"You're going down alone?"

"It's just a barren planet. There's nothing on it."

Android 18's gaze lingered on his face for several seconds.

Chen Mo maintained a relaxed expression. His heartbeat remained within its normal range.

That was experience he had accumulated over more than a year with Android 18.

She could hear heartbeats, so he couldn't get nervous when lying.

"One hour," Android 18 said.

"One hour."

"If you go over one hour..." Android 18's voice was flat.

"I know."

Android 18 said nothing else.

She put her legs back on the console and closed her eyes.

Chen Mo went to the cargo hold, put on a ki shield, and opened the side hatch.

The rocky planet lay below.

A vast, incongruous patch of green covered its grayish-brown surface, visible even from orbit.

Chen Mo jumped out of the hatch, free-falling through the vacuum for several seconds before adjusting his direction and diving toward the surface.

The closer he got to the ground, the clearer that green patch became.

It was not ordinary greenery.

It was a tree.

A tree absurdly huge.

Its trunk was hundreds of meters thick, and its canopy spanned most of the visible horizon.

Purple roots were embedded in the ground like veins, spreading outward in every direction.

Wherever the roots reached, rocks shattered and the ground cracked open.

Every mineral and trace element had been drained away.

The Tree of Might.

A cosmic parasitic plant. Once it took root, it drained the life force of an entire planet before bearing fruit.

Chen Mo landed roughly five hundred meters from the trunk.

His feet touched the cracked rock. The air was thin, but still breathable.

The oxygen produced by the Tree of Might sustained the bare minimum of an atmosphere.

He looked up at the canopy.

Several fruits hung among the highest branches.

Golden, fist-sized, and radiating a gentle glow.

That was it.

Just as Chen Mo was about to take off, a figure dropped from the canopy.

It crashed down thirty meters in front of him. Rocks shattered, and dust billowed into the air.

When the dust settled, a man stood in the crater.

Black hair standing upright. A face identical to Goku's, but with an entirely different expression.

Cold. Arrogant.

Carrying the superiority of someone who had long stood above the weak.

He wore a dark purple Saiyan battle suit, its armor marked by scratches and patches. A brown tail was wrapped around his waist.

Turles.

"Hm?"

Turles tilted his head, sizing Chen Mo up.

"An Earthling?"

Chen Mo said nothing.

Turles's scouter beeped.

He glanced at the old-style battle power detector on his left ear.

Turles raised an eyebrow. "Interesting. An Earthling. How did you end up in a place like this?"

"Passing through," Chen Mo said.

"Passing through," Turles repeated.

His gaze swept past Chen Mo.

The Frieza Force's purple warship was clearly visible in orbit. "Flying a Frieza Force ship through my territory."

Turles smiled.

"Do you take me for an idiot?"

Chen Mo studied him.

A battle power of 470,000.

About the same as his base level.

But he had the Thirtyfold King Kai Fist.

Fifteen million against 470,000.

A complete crush.

No technique was needed.

But Chen Mo did not attack immediately. He was looking at the fruit in the canopy.

"How many fruits has your Tree of Might borne?" Chen Mo asked.

Turles's expression changed slightly.

"You know about the Tree of Might?"

"I do. A cosmic parasitic plant. Once it takes root, it drains a planet's life force dry. The fruit it bears contains the essence of the entire planet. It's food fit for a god."

Turles stared at him.

"Who exactly are you?"

"An Earthling passing through. I want to buy a few fruits from you."

Turles fell silent for two seconds. Then he laughed.

His laughter rang loudly across the empty wasteland.

"Buy?" Turles doubled over laughing. "Is there something wrong with Earthlings' brains? Do you know how much a Fruit of the Tree of Might is worth? Frieza once put a bounty on these things."

"So you won't sell."

"Why would I sell them to you?" Turles stopped laughing, his tone turning cold. "And you're an Earthling. You want to eat Fruit of the Tree of Might? Can your body even handle it?"

"Whether I can handle it or not is my business."

Turles tilted his head and looked at him for several seconds.

"Interesting."