"Regret? No, no, no, I'm doing quite well now," Tam shook his head and turned to Ninn, who was busy observing the projected Earth. "Ninn, do you regret not learning martial arts from Grandpa?"
Without looking up, Ninn replied, "Why would I regret it? Training is so exhausting!"
Tam spread his hands toward the old man in front of him and said, "See, my daughter takes after me." After a pause, he continued, "Training through the coldest winters and the hottest summers, enduring wind, frost, rain, and snow, never faltering, day after day, year after year... and even then, there's no guarantee of success. Why bother? I know you mean well, Dad, and I'm aware of your incredible abilities, but... it's fine, really. Even as an ordinary person, one can live a happy life. Why spend so much energy chasing something that might not even have an end or a result?"
Taro was staring at the glowing dot marked "279" on the projected Earth, thinking that this must be Tsuru's ki. At the same time, he focused his own senses and indeed detected Tsuru's ki in the same location shown on the projection. Perhaps due to his sealed memories, Tsuru's ki lacked the usual dark, malevolent edge.
279... If a fight broke out and Tsuru unleashed his full power, his combat strength would likely exceed 300. Even if King Piccolo hadn't been killed by Taro back then, by the time he was resurrected in his old age by Pilaf and his gang, as in the original timeline, he would have been no match for someone like "Tsuru."
"Mm, I understand," Taro turned back, not saying much. "I've never blamed you. I just worry that you might blame me in the end..." He shook his head.
Tam chuckled lightly and said casually, "Everyone has their own destiny, old man. I heard from Mom..." He leaned in and whispered, "You're over two hundred years old, right?" Then he sat back up and added, "If I lived that long without your kind of discipline, I'd probably go crazy sooner or later." He also shook his head.
Taro's calm gaze fell on Hathaway. The afternoon sunlight streamed through the glass window, casting a golden glow around her as she stood bathed in its brilliance. Hathaway, too, smiled softly as she looked at her husband, noticing the fragmented sunlight reflected in his time-worn eyes. What lay hidden in those eyes? Even after more than fifty years of marriage, Hathaway wasn't sure she fully understood him. Sometimes, she felt he was a cold, detached "god", unwilling to open his heart no matter how scarred he was. Other times, he seemed like a lonely child, wrapped in an immense sense of isolation, as if the world itself were a stranger to him...
Ninn suddenly spoke up, "Grandpa, where's your 'dot'?" She had already zoomed in on the projected Earth, focusing on West City, where they were currently located. She even magnified the scale to the skyscraper they were in, this 95th-floor room! But... one, two, three, four—there were five people here, plus Phoenix, so why were there only four glowing dots?
Jarvis didn't respond. Without permission, it wouldn't communicate with anyone other than Taro and Fibuli, even though it was observing everything in the room through all the electronic devices.
Taro answered, "Jarvis won't display my or Phoenix's ki... or combat power, that is." In fact, neither he nor Phoenix ever fully unleashed their ki, keeping it below 500 at all times. Even if it were projected, it wouldn't be anything extraordinary.
"Why?" Ninn blinked, asking.
"Little girl, you sure have a lot of questions..." Taro smiled. "If Jarvis were to display my and Phoenix's true power..." Time seemed to freeze for a second, and in the next moment, everyone in the room felt as if the world had shifted. When they looked back at the projected Earth, they saw an enormous glowing sphere appear in West City!
It was like another Earth!
Incredibly bright—so dazzling it was almost blinding!
It was as if the sun, a massive furnace, had descended onto the Earth's surface!
Whoosh! Ninn, Tam, Lavinia, and Hathaway all snapped back to reality, gasping for breath.
When they looked back at Jarvis's projected Earth, it was calm and unchanged. There was no "sun" to be seen.
What they had just witnessed was an illusion created by Taro using his psychic magic.
"What was that just now? Grandpa's... power?" Ninn patted her chest, her eyes wide with shock. "That's... that's insane! So... so huge?!" Tam's hair was practically standing on end as he looked at his father, laughing bitterly. "I should've known. Someone who can travel the universe with a spaceship barehanded... how could they be normal? But this is just... too much..."
Lavinia still seemed dazed, her delicate brows furrowed as she glanced at her mother-in-law, silently asking, "?"
Hathaway smiled. Though she, too, had been stunned by the vision of the sun crashing into the Earth, she had been somewhat prepared. She had long anticipated her husband's unimaginable strength. However, Taro's comment about Jarvis not displaying his and Phoenix's ki left her slightly puzzled, and she quickly began to speculate about what it might mean.
The combat power detection system installed in Jarvis was technology Fibuli had brought from space, something Hathaway, as the second-in-command at the island research institute, was well aware of.
"Won't display"... Did Taro *order* Jarvis not to display it? For what reason? Was the data too vast, meaningless? Or... could it be that Jarvis simply couldn't detect Taro's ki? And Phoenix's as well? What common traits did these two "beings" share?
Powerful. Extremely powerful.
Even Phoenix was incomparably strong. Hathaway knew this all too well. Back when Tam was just a little boy, she had witnessed Phoenix battling massive sea creatures on the ocean more than once. She had also seen Phoenix proudly commanding all the beasts in the forest, even prehistoric dinosaurs, on multiple occasions...
That Kami with a combat power of over 300, and that mortal with a power nearing 300—Hathaway guessed this person was likely Taro's junio, whom they had encountered earlier—couldn't even compare to Taro, let alone Phoenix, right?
So... why was Taro hiding this kind of "power"?
Hathaway glanced at her calm husband and silently asked with her eyes: *Are you worried about... Frieza?*