"Alright!"
Facing Aira's invitation, Rhode readily agreed. The construction site was running smoothly without his constant oversight, and with no other pressing matters, training was the natural choice. Come to think of it, while they'd both been on Yardrat, their training had been largely separate—different masters, different focuses, different spaces. They hadn't truly trained together since their early days.
With this thought, Rhode stepped into the Gravity Chamber first, Aira close behind. She immediately cranked the dial to its maximum setting: 100x Earth's gravity.
The heavy, oppressive force settled over the room.
"It feels like nothing now," Rhode remarked, standing easily under the crushing weight that would have once flattened him. Their bodies had adapted far beyond this chamber's limits.
The Time Chamber they'd wished for from Shenron had gravity manipulation up to 10,000x. Even during their training on Namek, they'd surpassed the 100x threshold. Their current tolerance was far higher.
But the Time Chamber came with a steep cost: accelerated time. To use its gravity function, they had to accept that internal time dilation. Growing from children to adolescents within its confines had been a necessary, one-time investment in their foundational growth, a step towards their physical peak.
Now, as young adults entering their prime, the calculus had changed. Squandering their precious, finite youth within that sterile, timeless void for marginal gains was a fool's bargain. Saiyans weren't a long-lived race. Rhode had already decided privately: no more extended stays in the Time Chamber unless facing an existential threat, not until he had solved the problem of mortality itself.
Wishing for immortality from the Dragon Balls was a possible shortcut, but he feared it might cap his potential, placing an artificial limit on a growth that should be boundless. He would pursue eternal life through his own understanding and power, or not at all.
"We really have gotten stronger," Aira echoed, feeling the same negligible strain. Her thoughts mirrored his. She, too, had become wary of the Time Chamber's temporal tax. A Saiyan's drive was for battle and conquest, not for whiling away a lifespan in solitary grinding. She had used it out of desperation when the gulf between her and Rhode was a chasm. Now, with their powers closer and their growth rates in their prime already blistering, such a costly shortcut made no sense. Draining the pond to catch one fish was the height of foolishness.
As Rhode surveyed the now-ineffective chamber, a whimsical, experimental thought struck him. He looked at Aira. "What do you think would happen if we opened a Space Gate to the Time Chamber inside here? Would the chamber's gravity affect the space inside the gate?"
"This..." Aira's expression froze, caught off guard by the bizarre question. She hadn't tried it and had no frame of reference. After a moment's hesitation, she ventured, "It... probably wouldn't affect it, right?"
"Only one way to find out."
Acting on impulse, Rhode raised his hand. A silvery spatial gate shimmered into existence in the center of the Gravity Chamber.
The effect was instantaneous and chaotic. The chamber's indicator lights began strobing erratically. Rhode felt the gravity field on his body become wildly unstable—lurching from 1x to 100x and back in random, jarring surges. One second he weighed nothing, the next he was crushed under ten tons of force.
BZZZT-WHIRR-CLUNK!
An alarm blared. With a final, protesting groan from its overstressed systems, the Gravity Chamber's field collapsed entirely, stabilizing at a bland, normal 1x Earth gravity.
"The Gravity Chamber is broken!" Aira snapped, her eyebrows furrowing in irritation as she shot a glare at Rhode. The experimental curiosity had just vaporized a multi-million-zeni piece of advanced hardware.
Before Rhode could offer a sheepish apology or a defense of scientific inquiry, the chamber's comm system crackled to life. It was Dr. Brief's voice, tinged with confusion and concern from the monitoring station.
"Rhode? Aira? Is everything alright in there? My sensors are showing a massive power surge and a complete field collapse in Chamber One. Did... did something explode?"
Watching the flickering lights die and the machinery groan to a halt, Rhode just chuckled and scratched the back of his head, utterly unbothered. "Haha, seems like it!"
Honestly, it was no surprise the chamber broke. It was designed to generate a uniform field within a sealed, defined space. Introducing a portal to an infinite void like the Time Chamber inside it was like asking a car engine to also power a spaceship—the systems weren't built for that kind of paradoxical load.
"Forget it. If it's broken, it's broken. Training in normal gravity for a bit is fine. We could use a break anyway," he said airily, waving off Aira's deepening scowl.
After a moment's thought, he leaned in closer to her, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Seriously, being wound this tight all the time isn't the best path to power. You know, while I was studying that half-finished time machine I got, I... caught glimpses of the future. I learned the conditions for becoming a Super Saiyan."
"Super Saiyan?!" Aira's eyes snapped wide, all irritation forgotten. She searched his face intently, looking for any hint of deception.
Rhode met her gaze squarely, his own eyes clear and steady, holding no trace of a lie. "It's a transformation. A legendary one."
Seeing her belief solidify, he continued, his tone becoming instructional. "To achieve it, three conditions must be met. First, a sufficiently high base power. We've already cleared that bar, but the higher it is, the easier the trigger. So, increasing power is still right.
"Second, you need a high concentration of S-Cells. These cells proliferate in a state of peace and stability. A calm life, proper rest—these aren't luxuries; they're necessities for growth.
"And the third," he paused for emphasis, "after meeting those two foundational conditions, you need an intense emotional trigger. A surge of powerful feeling—rage, despair, protectiveness—something that acts as the final spark."
Since his own mindset shift, Rhode had been waiting for the right moment to share this. He was confident in his own eventual ascent. While Aira met the power requirement, she likely fell short on the other two. Her fiery temperament meant the emotional trigger wouldn't be hard for her to find, but cultivating the S-Cells through a life of peace? That would be her true challenge. In his estimation, even with her emotional volatility, she'd need a year or two of stable living to build the necessary biological foundation.
Seeing Rhode speak with such earnest, unreserved sincerity, Aira's outward calm cracked. A faint, involuntary sheen of moisture gathered in her eyes, and a complex storm of emotions—gratitude, renewed determination, a flicker of vulnerability—churned within her. He wasn't just a rival; he was a guide, sharing the very keys to the zenith of their race's power.
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