Ch. 92: Riley's Travels - Red

"A vacation?" Riley repeated Chelsea's words, confused. She understood the theory, but wouldn't that just end up putting her on edge more? Going to a place where she couldn't keep tabs on Mistress at all? To Core Girls, being useless to Mistress while she was in danger was something absolutely terrifying. A vacation would simply make Riley even more wound up.

"I'm calling it a vacation, but it's actually an important job for Mistress's sake, Riley. You don't need to worry so much." Chelsea assured her little sister. "Do you remember those planets that Mistress dropped the Tree of Might fruit and the Saibamen on?"

"Of course. The ones that share the solar system with us." Riley answered. The solar system that the Core was in had eight planets, not counting moons or the sun. Their orbits were as solid and perfectly circular as Hanna could make them in order to ensure that they didn't overlap each other. In order from the sun, there were Planets: Red, Green, White, The Core, Blue, Yellow, Grey, and Black. Each planet named after a color had Saibamen of that color on it. Since the sun was created by Hanna herself, its heat reached all the way to Planet Yellow before dropping to the point where it wasn't comfortable to stand on the planet's surface. 

"It's been a little less than two months real-time since they were created. In Core time that translates to a year-and-a-half, roughly." Chelsea began to explain. As she told it, they'd been having Core Girls check up on the planets every day, but the reports weren't exactly comprehensive. Riley's job would be to check up on the planets and give full reports on their respective emerging civilizations, as well as their general power levels and how the environment was affecting their respective species.

"All right." Riley agreed to do it.

...

Riley decided to start with the planet closest to the sun, Red. Red was home to the barbaric Red Saibamen. As the adjective 'barbaric' implies, this strain of Saibamen had been created with a focus on power and resilience over style. On top of that, planet Red was so close to the sun that, even with the atmosphere that the Tree of World provided (The Tree of Might, modified to provide life to the world it was placed on, then profit off the excess energy that the life that it supported created), the temperatures on the planet's surface reached upwards of two hundred degrees on a cold day. 

Basically, the planet was a sweltering hellscape. The only greenery on it was the Tree of World, and the only food was created from the tree, which created more as the Saibamen's population rose. On top of that, since the tree was the only thing creating oxygen, it was harder to breathe the further from the tree you got. The other side of the planet was, while not quite a vacuum, had only a minimal atmosphere. 

The final nail in the coffin that made Red such a hellscape was the fact that all the water on the planet was gaseous due to the high temperatures. Part of the alterations that they'd made to the Tree and the Saibamen made it so that they were able to 'breathe' the water from the air and turn it into liquid on their own, but it was a horrible place, unsuitable for 'normal' life to grow.

Luckily, Red Saibamen weren't 'normal' levels of durable. They were insane.

"Seriously?" Riley looked down at the 'city' that the Saibamen had created at the base of the tree. 

They seemed to worship the tree that allowed them to live, understandably so, but these Saibamen didn't 'create.' Their homes were holes in the ground that they'd excavated with haphazard energy attacks. Their place of worship was a hole that they'd created, excavating underneath the Tree's humongous roots. Basically, they pulled themselves out of their holes, worshipped the Tree, ate its fruit, then went to a bigger hole in the ground to fight among themselves until they were totally burnt out. Rinse and repeat. 

They had a culture for sure, but one entirely centered around combat. As a result, these red Saibamen had pretty incredible strength. The first generation's power levels had already overcome the 10,000 wall.

Meanwhile, the second generation was still in its infancy.

Due to the Tree's fruit, the Saibamen's genetics were being modified by the day, allowing them to adapt to the harsh environment that they had been in. As a result, the second generation of Red Saibamen were far different from their predecessors. 

"They look... pretty human, but they're still children." The second generation Red Saibamen had more humanlike features. In fact, they looked almost exactly like human, with a few notable differences.

First off, their eyes were pure black. Riley suspected that this was due to the sun's proximity and its effect on their irises. Their eyes probably adjusted easier than human eyes. Secondly, they had red skin, like almost exactly the color of rust. The iron content in their blood was likely pretty high. And thirdly, they gestated underground differently from their predecessors.

While First Generation Saibamen had grown from the ground like plants, these second generation Red Saibamen matured entirely differently. They were born from a seed, true, but they grew into children roughly the size of human toddlers underground, before bursting to the surface with their own strength. After that, they grew at roughly twice the rate of the average human.

Most of the Saiba-kids that Riley saw were roughly as grown as the average three-year-old human child, with strength that grew at a pace that far outstripped even Saiyans. Even three years old, most of the second generation were around half as strong as their parents, and twice as brutal. At this rate, though they'd end up extremely violent, their average power level would break 100,000 in less than a decade Core time. It was incredibly impressive. Most of it was probably due to the influence of the Tree, but still, that was incredible for a normal race. In two or three generations, their powers would likely end up equaling a Frost Demon's concealed state. Their champions may even grow to the point where they could take Frieza on in a fair fight, as insane as that sounded.

Riley made a mental note to keep an eye on these guys. It was possible that they'd evolve to be capable of surviving in a vacuum. An even more dangerous species than the Frost Demons themselves. If that were to happen, they'd likely immediately move to begin conquering the other Saibamen-populated planets, which would be a pain to deal with.