Aeris flew up a short distance above Goku, then came crashing down hard. She repeated that a few more times before finally stopping.
By the time she was done, the place where Goku had landed had already turned into a massive crater.
Aeris rose back into the air, lifted a hand, and was just about to fire another energy blast at Goku.
Only to be interrupted.
At some point, Piccolo had appeared not far from her.
Aeris looked at him with a teasing smile. "What, your turn to tag in now? Well… whatever. It won't make a difference. Bring it as many times as you want. In the end… trash is still trash."
She kept casually dumping one insult after another on Piccolo.
But right then, while Aeris was focused on mocking him, Goku burst up from below and landed a kick on her.
Boom.
Because she hadn't been paying attention, that kick connected cleanly and sent Aeris crashing down into the ground.
"Piccolo!"
Piccolo immediately understood what Goku meant and rushed in with a follow-up attack. Goku joined in right after, pouring on more attacks toward the spot where Aeris had fallen.
"Cough… cough… very nice attack…"
Aeris pushed herself up with one hand against a nearby rock, then noticed there was actually a thin line of blood on her face.
"Oh my… I'm bleeding."
Of course, that was on purpose.
She couldn't let the fun end this soon.
Then Aeris raised her hand again and made a grasping motion in the air, seizing Goku. The moment Piccolo saw that, he hurriedly attacked her.
Aeris simply lifted her other hand and made the same motion again.
Piccolo was seized too.
Then, as if she had just thought of something fun, she gave them a thoroughly nasty smile.
The next second, she slammed them toward each other face-first.
And just like that, she got to watch Goku looking completely confused and Piccolo looking utterly horrified.
"Son… Son Goku! Turn your face away!"
Too late.
Before Goku could react, the two of them smashed straight into each other.
Face to face.
Mouth to mouth.
Piccolo's face turned so green it almost looked radioactive.
"AAAAAAAHHHHH! You damned woman! I'll—! You actually made me and Son Goku—! I swear I'm gonna—!"
Even if the exact words were impossible to make out, one thing was clear.
That was some filthy language.
Aeris burst out laughing.
"Hahahahaha! Oh, this is priceless…"
Piccolo was so enraged by what had just happened that he forgot Aeris's terrifying power entirely and charged at her without a shred of caution.
His battle power practically shot up on the spot.
Goku attacked right behind him.
At that point, Aeris no longer had any interest in treating this like a serious fight. She had already decided she was done with that. Now she just wanted to see where these two idiots' limits actually were.
That way, she could tailor the next phase of their training properly.
————————————————————
On a small island more than ten kilometers away from where they were fighting, huge waves were crashing all over the place because of the shockwaves from their battle. The people on the island were staring toward the direction of the fight in fear.
"There are three incredibly powerful auras clashing over there. Two of them are Goku's and Demon King Piccolo's. The third one… is unfamiliar. But it's many times stronger than either of them."
Master Roshi's expression was unusually grave.
Krillin, the little bald monk, was already so scared his legs had given out, leaving him sitting limp on the ground.
"Master Roshi… are Goku and Demon King Piccolo fighting that person together?"
Roshi nodded.
"From the look of it, yes…"
Then he hesitated for a moment before continuing.
"But the fluctuations of that third aura are so vast that if that person truly wanted to kill Goku and Piccolo, it should be easy. And yet…"
Krillin blinked. "So… Goku and Demon King Piccolo know that person? And they're sparring with them?"
Roshi stroked his beard.
"Mm. And that person's aura is lowering now, while Goku's and Piccolo's are gradually getting stronger. So my guess is… that person is feeding them moves. Letting them learn through the fight."
Krillin fell silent.
At that point, he honestly wished Master Roshi would stop talking.
Because hearing it only made his chest hurt.
————————————————————
Right now, Aeris was mostly just dodging their attacks. At most, she only hit them once in a while. Goku and Piccolo noticed that pretty quickly.
Just like that, more than ten minutes passed.
Aeris got bored.
The trash talk had stopped working on these two idiots, and since that was half the fun, the whole thing had become dull.
In that case…
She didn't feel like playing anymore.
She already had a decent grasp of their level, and dragging this out any longer would just be a waste of time. Aside from Piccolo's precise ki control, there really wasn't much else worth looking at.
"Alright, that's enough. We're done for today."
Aeris waved her hand casually, and in an instant both of them lost the ability to keep fighting. All they could do was collapse onto the ground and gasp for breath.
"A-Aeris… just now… it felt like you turned into a completely different person…"
Goku said that between heavy breaths.
Piccolo nodded too.
"Call it… some kind of side effect, I guess," Aeris replied indifferently.
"I see… but Aeris, you're really strong. If you hadn't held back, Piccolo and I wouldn't have been able to touch you at all."
"Strong?" Aeris let out a quiet laugh. "I'm not strong at all. In the universe, there are plenty of people stronger than me. At best, I can barely protect myself."
To be fair, that wasn't even false.
After all, Frieza, the so-called Emperor of the Universe, was really only the entry threshold for true powerhouses.
The genuinely terrifying monsters weren't loud and flashy like him.
Without a God of Destruction backing him, Frieza would've been dealt with a long time ago.
"Alright. Get some proper rest today. We'll continue gravity training once your injuries are healed."
After saying that, Aeris flew away without looking back at the two of them.
This time, she could clearly feel her bottleneck.
If the scouter's readings were anything to go by, her limit was around ninety million. She couldn't push any further.
And if she didn't find the key to breaking through that wall, then this might be as far as she would ever go.
She had felt something like a breakthrough once before, somewhere out in the universe.
But back then, she hadn't paid attention.
She had only cared about venting her rage.
So what exactly had that feeling been?
Aeris had the nagging sense that she had overlooked something important.
————————————————————
Not long after Aeris and the others ended their fight, Master Roshi and the others arrived where Goku and Piccolo were.
"Goku, are you alright?"
Roshi asked with concern.
Krillin hurried over too, helping Goku up. Goku tiredly said he was fine and just needed some rest.
Piccolo ignored all of them and flew off on his own.
His physiology was different from Goku's, and he recovered much faster, so there was no reason for him to stay.
He didn't want to waste time.
Just now, he had clearly felt that Son Goku had gotten stronger again.
And not by a little.
Piccolo had to admit it—Aeris's gravity training was absurdly effective. In just two days, it had already produced more results than years of his previous training, and not by a small margin either. The improvement was obvious.
So now he wanted Aeris to guide his next stage of training.
And with that thought, Piccolo flew off in the direction Aeris had gone.
...
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