If Only I Could Take Huang Rong With Me

In pursuit of completeness, Barros left the island once more, throwing the entire martial world of The Legend of the Condor Heroes into turmoil.

Alone and unarmed, he stormed the imperial palace in Bianjing. Before the full court of civil and military officials and a thousand Imperial Guards, he seized the Song Emperor by the throat and ordered every imperial physician in the Imperial Medical Bureau to be summoned and escorted to Peach Blossom Island.

He then entered Shaolin Temple, which had remained sealed for a hundred years, its Buddhist chants long silent. With a flick of his finger, half of Mount Shaoshi collapsed with a thunderous roar, forcing the abbot to personally present the temple's treasured classic, the Muscle-Tendon Change Classic. Before the stunned eyes of the monks, he even pulled the original Nine Yang Divine Art from the hidden layers of the Lankavatara Sutra.

Afterward, he flew straight to the snowy lands of the Western Regions, punched through the main peak of Great Snow Mountain, and captured seventeen top Tantric grandmasters alive.

Time flew like an arrow, never ceasing in its flow.

In the blink of an eye, three months had passed.

Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms, Jade Sea Tide Melody, Muscle-Tendon Change Classic, Nine Yin Manual, Nine Yang Divine Art, Dragon-Elephant Prajna Art...

Perhaps because of that martial world dream from his youth, perhaps out of pure curiosity, Barros spent those three months devouring the world's finest martial arts, chewing them to pieces, and assimilating them into himself.

To be safe, he made no distinction between righteous and wicked. One after another, he captured several hundred skilled martial artists for testing—using the vast and mighty "ki" of the Dragon Ball World to forcibly open the one hundred and eight acupoints in their bodies, simulating the circulation pathways of this world's martial arts.

The result exceeded everyone's expectations!

When the three martial artists who had survived by sheer luck first gathered their strength and tested their moves, Huang Yaoshi and the others were frozen on the spot, speechless for a long while.

Though they were all at the Innate realm, Huang Yaoshi and the others could only shatter rocks and break stone tablets with their full-force strikes. Even when leaping, they could travel no more than a dozen zhang.

Yet every gesture of those three stirred wind and thunder. They could crush mountains and split peaks as easily as snapping dead branches. When they moved, their ki coursed through the void; with a single step, they crossed a hundred meters in an instant, as though shrinking the earth to inches!

By comparison, Huang Yaoshi and the others' cultivation was like a firefly before the bright moon—there was simply no comparison.

One of them casually performed a set of Grand Ancestor Long Fist on the beach outside Peach Blossom Island. Where his palm wind passed, a deep trench exploded across the sea's surface—over ten zhang long and more than two meters wide, exposing the pitch-black bedrock beneath the water. Huang Yaoshi and the others witnessed it with their own eyes, and every one of them was horrified.

Later, Ouyang Feng could no longer hold himself back and stepped forward to fight him. In just one move, he was blasted away with his organs displaced, vomiting blood as he flew.

Toad Skill against Grand Ancestor Long Fist, the Western Venom against an ordinary martial artist—he had lost without the slightest ability to fight back!

The higher vitality energy from the vast cosmos of the Dragon Ball World was not merely one or two levels above this world's so-called "inner force"—they did not even exist on the same plane!

Time was endless, but the period for cultivation would eventually come to an end.

Barros had finally comprehended every practical secret of this world—methods such as sustaining internal breath and holding one's breath to conceal one's presence—and it was time for him to leave.

Having gained so much, his joy needed no explanation.

Over the past few months, he had also come to fully understand why Huang Yaoshi and the others, despite reaching the Innate realm and possessing combat power in the hundreds, could only shatter stones with their bare hands and could not even leap over rooftops.

At its root lay the fundamental gulf between the two worlds—

Dragon Ball's "ki" was a torrent of energy capable of burning stars and destroying universes; this world's inner force was nothing more than the faint glow of a candle.

The gap between them was like that between an interstellar annihilation bomb and a matchlock musket—both were weapons, yet their destructive power differed as vastly as heaven and earth.

More importantly, the meridians of people in this world were pitifully fragile.

Of the several hundred test subjects, only three survived. The moment Barros's violent, boundless ki entered their bodies, their frail meridians and internal organs would rupture instantly, turning to dust.

Of course, this world was not without its merits.

Compared to the Dragon Ball World, where one relied solely on physical instinct to awaken ki and increase combat power, this world possessed supreme methods such as the Muscle-Tendon Change Classic and the Nine Yang Divine Art, which could draw in and circulate the primordial energy of heaven and earth.

If these techniques were brought to the Dragon Ball World, using ki as the guide and the cultivation methods as the framework, the speed of training would undoubtedly crush those peers who could only painstakingly temper their muscles and bones, waiting for the years to slowly make them stronger.

Still, Barros had no idea whether that notion would actually work.

After spending several months together day and night, Barros and Huang Yaoshi's group had long become as familiar as old friends.

Perhaps because he had appeared out of nowhere and taken away the three surviving "test subjects," Ouyang Feng and Qiu Qianren's obsession with the Nine Yin Manual and the title of "Number One Under Heaven" had gradually faded without them realizing it.

During these months, Barros studied acupoint diagrams and dismantled martial arts techniques, but what satisfied him most was eating dozens of meals personally prepared by Huang Rong!

The flavor was so fresh it could steal one's soul, so fragrant it could intoxicate one's senses. More than once, Barros had thought, How wonderful would it be if I could take Huang Rong with me?

Cooking that could make even the head of the imperial kitchens feel inferior was practically tailor-made for Saiyans with appetites comparable to black holes!

With the day of parting fast approaching, he made no announcement and told no one. He merely subdued the three men in silence, closed his eyes, focused his mind, and silently called upon the wheel—Return!

Light and shadow flashed before his eyes, and Barros had returned to the planet he had already conquered.

At his feet lay three limp figures—the three unlucky men he had just "invited."

Before they could even open their eyes to inspect this unfamiliar starfield, Barros swept them with an icy gaze. A dark blue energy sphere hummed into existence in his palm.

But just as killing intent was about to burst from his fingertips, his heart stirred slightly. His figure flashed, and he vanished once more—returning to the world of the Condor Heroes!

Bang!!

The instant his figure appeared, three muffled impacts erupted in succession.

Barros kicked the three men into the air, then flung out three ki blasts, detonating them amid surging shockwaves and shredding their clothes to pieces!

The Dragon Ball World did indeed have an underworld, but who could say for certain that these three mortals would truly enter the cycle of reincarnation after death? To be safe, he would rather make another trip and bring them back to the Condor Heroes world before killing them.

The next instant, before Huang Yaoshi and the others could arrive in response to the noise, Barros had already withdrawn and fled into the distance, vanishing without a trace.

Roooar—!!!

A long howl tore through the clouds, dragon thunder shaking the heavens!

Above the entire planet, countless phantom golden scales surged and writhed, dragon might vast and mighty as it spanned heaven and earth!

If Hong Qigong and the others had been standing here at this moment, their jaws would likely have dropped in shock—

For what he was using was the Beggars' Sect's ultimate technique: the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms!

Yet compared to Hong Qigong's version, the power of this palm strike had increased by not merely hundreds or thousands of times!

At first, Barros had learned it purely out of curiosity, with no intention of using it in actual combat.

But the more he practiced, the more astonishing it became. This supreme technique, known throughout the martial world for being "the king of palm arts, unmatched in fierceness," was far more powerful than he had anticipated.

Especially after it merged with ki blasts—every ki blast he fired carried the shadow of a roaring dragon; even more astonishingly, the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms' famed "stacking force" characteristic had not diminished in the slightest!

After merging with ki in this world, "stacking force" had gained a new name—charging ki!

Barros knew the course of Dragon Ball World's development by heart. Naturally, he remembered that scene from the early Z saga: Demon King Piccolo, with a power level of 408, had forcefully charged the Special Beam Cannon to raise it to 1,330—more than tripling its power and killing Raditz and Goku in one blow!

Now, while he still could not stack all eighteen palm forces and transform them into an eighteenfold ki blast of such world-shaking terror, he had already firmly mastered the method of triple stacking force.

The ki blast tore through the air like the roar of a true dragon, ripping apart the void—so Barros simply gave it a name: Frenzied Dragon Sky-Shattering Wave.

In the blink of an eye, half a year flew by.

Rumble! Rumble! Rumble!

Hundred-zhang peaks and sheer thousand-ren cliffs collapsed beneath Barros's palms, shattered stone raining down as dust and smoke blotted out the sky.

This planet he had been ordered to conquer had long since been razed flat—not a trace of majestic mountains remained. All that met the eye was scorched wilderness, as though a colossal god had plowed the world once over.

For an entire half-year, he trained without rest day or night, finally fusing the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms into one whole.

With that body of steel and iron, every raised hand carried palm intent, every thrown punch unleashed force; every movement contained the might of eighteen stacked forces!

If an opponent equal to him in power suddenly appeared now, they likely would not even have time for their pupils to contract before a single palm strike blasted their organs out of place, snapped their tendons and bones, and killed them on the spot!

And after his relentless day-and-night refinement, the fusion of the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms and ki blasts had also broken past the threshold of a sevenfold amplification.

On the surface, his power level had risen from 49,000 to 56,000, an increase that was barely respectable;

But his true combat strength had already undergone a complete transformation—

A fully charged Frenzied Dragon Sky-Shattering Wave launched at 56,000 power could instantly reach 392,000!

Looking across the present day, aside from Frieza and his father, Barros was practically without rivals.

Most crucially, after long immersion in the tempering of eighteen stacked forces, his mastery of Dragon Elephant Prison Suppression had also steadily risen, silently reaching the pinnacle of perfection!

As the days passed, Barros thoroughly comprehended the acupoints throughout his body and the Dragon Elephant Prison Suppression technique, allowing them to confirm and complement one another.

Dragon Elephant Prison Suppression was already an unparalleled divine art of body tempering taken to the extreme. Condensing acupoints was naturally extraordinarily difficult and profoundly mysterious!

Each acupoint he condensed marked a limit of the physical body, as well as the measure of the peak he could reach in the future!

To that end, after nearly a year of repeated consideration, he finally made his decision: he would temper his acupoints with the stars of the heavens!

And for "acupoints condensing stars," one thing was required—

A star core!

He had heard of it and seen records of it in ancient texts. He knew that they formed deep within planets, yet he had never known how to obtain one.

Left with no choice, a year later, Barros could only return to Planet Vegeta and seek advice from those veteran cosmic scientists on how to extract star cores!

If that truly did not work...

He would have to head to Earth, or simply make straight for Namek!

After spending a full fifteen days, Barros returned to Planet Vegeta.

The several autonomous cleaning machines in his home were still diligently operating. Though the place had stood vacant for months, the floors gleamed like mirrors, the windows were spotless, and not even a speck of dust could be found in the corners.

He played the voice message Xuesaiya had left behind. After listening to it, the corner of his mouth twitched as he silently shook his head.

He was not surprised that Xuesaiya and the others had evacuated Planet Vegeta; as for their safety, he had not given it a single thought.

If Frieza truly sent the Ginyu Force to ambush them, then as long as either Xuesaiya or Xuesaili completed her Great Ape transformation under the moonlight first, that elite squad, once feared by countless star systems, would be buried forever in the cold silence of space.

After taking a shower and sleeping soundly, he felt completely refreshed.

Early the next morning, Barros rose into the air and headed straight for the depths of Planet Vegeta—the location of the Star Core Research Institute.

Star core.

As its name implied, it was the lifeline of a planet!

At the dawn of the universe, whenever a planet was born, a star core would quietly condense within its center, sustaining its gravity, magnetic field, geothermal heat, vitality... all the foundations that kept the world from falling apart.

Pure, condensed, and eternal, it was the most fundamental and irreplaceable soul of an entire planet.

Yet it was extraordinarily difficult to find.

Destroying a planet was as easy as turning one's hand—there were as many powerful beings and divine weapons in the universe capable of crushing planets as there were stars.

But precisely locating a star core? That was harder than ascending to heaven.

It lay buried in the darkest depths of the planetary core, neither glowing nor releasing energy, unresponsive to all conventional detection. It existed only to steady the breath and heartbeat of the entire planet.

For that very reason, even when a planet was blasted into dust and its civilization reduced to ashes, the star core often remained unscathed—it merely lay silent, like a forgotten heart, slowly pulsing amid the ruins.

And because the energy it contained was vast to the point of near violence, countless top scientists had spent thousands of years obsessively studying it, hoping to decipher its structure. Even more martial fanatics had risked everything, seeking to refine it for their own use and ascend to the pinnacle in a single step.

Unfortunately, once a star core was separated from the planet sustaining it, its energy instantly spiraled out of control, like an unbridled wild horse or boiling magma. The slightest mistake would see the experimental chamber—and the entire surrounding starfield—burned into vacuum by the flames of its backlash!

And the instant a star core was detonated on any planet, all life, buildings, mountains, rivers, atmosphere... even time itself would be completely erased within one-tenth of a second, leaving no trace behind.

Over time, star cores gradually withdrew from the ranks of practical combat resources.

Now, their only "proper use" was being sealed within planet-destroying bombs by top military-industrial institutions—specifically to hunt beings that stood above star systems.

No one dared swallow one as a tonic anymore, much less burn one as fuel.

A month and a half later, Barros accepted a high-level bounty and quietly left Planet Vegeta.

He had gotten what he wanted.

Although those white-robed scientists had been unable to teach him the mystic art of "locking onto a star core with a single glance," they had pointed him toward a bloody path—the only viable method of extracting star cores available to all major powers in the Milky Way:

First, pierce through the planetary core and trigger the planet's self-destruction countdown;

During the final three minutes before the planet completely exploded, the star core would briefly "reveal itself" due to the imbalance—its energy would become chaotic and its frequency spectrum would spill over. At that point, a specially made resonance detector could lock down its location!

However, out of reverence for the true nature of star cores—and with full awareness of the terrifying impact capable of tearing space apart when a planet collapsed—the old scientists repeatedly warned him:

He had to evacuate two minutes before the explosion!

Even if a Saiyan spherical spacecraft was ten thousand times faster than a meteor, so long as he fled one second too late, the destructive storm sweeping across the entire sky would crush anything that failed to escape the stratosphere—including its molecular structure—into a blank void cleaner than nothingness.