"Heh, the World's First Martial Arts Tournament?" Tam chuckled, leaning back in his chair, taking the lightweight notebook from his wife, and placing it on his lap casually. He then glanced at Taro and asked, "Old man, compared to the other martial artists on Earth, what level would the strongest one be at if we were to compare?" His right hand lazily swiped across the screen, clearly the notebook had a touchscreen.
"I? If you compare me, there's no point," Taro replied without lifting his eyelids, finishing his last sip of tea.
"Grandpa, you're too immodest!" Ninn, sitting on the sofa and holding Hathaway's arm, stuck her tongue out and made a funny face.
"Don't be so cheeky to your grandpa," Lavinia, sitting across from her, glared at Ninn. As her stepmother, she couldn't be too harsh, but luckily, Ninn was a well-behaved child, with no worries about her studies or daily life.
Taro just smiled and didn't mind, "Aside from me, the strongest would probably be the Kami in the sky." He paused for a moment, sensing the energy from the direction of the Lookout and murmured in surprise, "Didn't expect that after all these years of hard cultivation, they've actually made some progress…" He shook his head, sighing softly, "But a broken body is still a broken body, and they've long since aged…"
Tam continued browsing through the news casually, asking, "Are there really a Kami?"
"There are. They've existed since ancient times, passed down from generation to generation," Taro leaned back in his chair.
"Then who's stronger, Kami or Grandpa?" Ninn asked while replying to a message on her phone, hiding the curious gaze of the Phoenix in her arms. Hathaway, seeing this, took the phone from her granddaughter, locking the screen and setting it aside. "Stop playing with this thing all the time. You're just like your dad when he was a kid, glued to it non-stop." As for Ninn's question about who was stronger, Kami or Taro, Hathaway wasn't interested and didn't think there was any suspense.
Over thirty years ago, the Emperor of the Universe who controlled the galaxy wasn't even a match for her husband, and Taro had casually chatted with the Grand Kai, who surpassed the Emperor of the Universe. It wasn't that Hathaway looked down on the god of her homeplanet, but the facts spoke for themselves. The Earth god weren't much of a threat to Taro.
"Who's stronger, me or Kami? Let me think..." Taro pondered for a moment. Seeing that his granddaughter and son seemed interested in this discussion about who was stronger among Earth's martial artists, he closed his eyes and said, "I'll have Jarvis prepare a chart for you to look at. Fabeli just installed a battle power analysis system for him... Jarvis?"
"Yes, Mr. Taro. How may I assist you?" A middle-aged male electronic voice sounded in Taro's mind, in the notebook on Tam's lap, on everyone's phones, and any other connected device in the room.
Tam shrugged slightly, gesturing to the others. Earth's only super-intelligent system, Jarvis, could exist in any corner of the world through the network, appearing in any connected device, but only Taro could contact the main program located in an underground research facility on a remote island overseas without any device.
"A battle power analysis system?" Ninn mumbled, her eyes flashing with curiosity.
"Display the battle power of everyone around the world," Taro ordered, pointing to the metal ring on Hathaway's wrist next to the sofa. "And mark the data as well."
"Understood, Mr. Taro." Jarvis responded instantly, and with its calculation speed, massive amounts of data were analyzed almost instantaneously, and the next moment, a faint glow emanated from the metal ring on Hathaway's wrist.
A huge 3D projection of the Earth appeared before them, slowly rotating in mid-air above the coffee table.
On the surface of the projected Earth, countless small points, some tiny, some glowing, appeared. These represented the energy, or battle power, of everyone on Earth, with the size and brightness of the points indicating the strength of their energy.
"Are these the martial artists in the world? So many?" Ninn stepped off the sofa, barefoot on the polished wooden floor of her dad's office. She gazed at the rotating Earth projection with wide eyes, reaching out to touch two small dots in the "sky" but passed right through them.
"Everyone has energy; martial artists are just people who learn to use this internal power," Taro explained softly. As she touched the dots, two values popped up next to them: 360 and 235. Taro continued, "Ordinary adults are probably around '5'. Those who exercise regularly might have '10'. That's about it."
"Such a big difference?" Lavinia was surprised and covered her mouth, pointing at the two bright dots in the "sky" that Ninn had touched. "So the Kami on Earth are this powerful?" The difference between two or three hundred and five or six hundred was something anyone with elementary school math skills could easily compare.
Tam also stood up and walked toward the 3D Earth projection, which looked like an art piece. He extended his hand, spinning the projection as if manipulating a real globe. As he spotted brighter and larger light points on the continents, he would stop the projection, spread his fingers to zoom in, and then tap the light points. Immediately, corresponding battle power values would pop up.
"76."
"54."
"66."
"279"…
Tam suddenly stopped, staring closely at the light point's geographical location. It was in a rural town near North Capital. "Such a high number?" He spun the Earth projection around, bringing it back to the Kami location that Ninn had previously pointed out. Tam tapped on the points labeled "360" and "235." The one with 235 battle power was unknown, but the one with 360 battle power was surely the Earth's Kami Taro had mentioned. A Kami with only 360 battle power, yet near North City, in this small town, there was a human with "279" battle power…
"Truly a hidden gem," Tam muttered, then turned to his father, who was sitting across from him. "Dad, can an ordinary martial artist, through this... cultivation you spoke of, surpass even a Kami?" After scanning around again, not finding any higher light points than the "279," he returned to his seat and asked with a hint of doubt and amazement.
"Of course. But it's not easy," Taro glanced at his son. "What's wrong, regretting it? You were so unwilling when I had you practice martial arts with me when you were little."