For the sake of teaching, I picked up Energy Blade and its variables. Then purchaed Vegeta's signature Galic Gun, powerful with minimal wind up but higher ki cost. Thirdly I then picked up the i-fucking-conic OG Kamehameha and it's variants. Compared to the Galic Gun it was much more stable, can be very much amped up, but more wind up and charge required though less ki cost versus output.
The only minus was that it wasn't its future Z-variant Super (aka Final) Kamehameha which had very minimized charge-up in a pinch.
Apparently that warranted its own purchase later. Cuz of course.
That alone cost three hundred fucking points. Fuck me.
And then I grabbed Grow Senzu as well as Time Dilation training. Fifty and one-twenty.
Regeneration was pretty solid, though not super combat regen worthy at the moment and was definitely worth further investment. But even so, that was then and not now.
Because emergencies would happen and there was no point in not being more prepared. I'd just have to wheedle my allies to make things as painless as possible.
Because sometimes I wouldn't be available to reach them and having an emergency full heal that wasn't me was going to be a godsend.
All in all, 52 SP left. Just enough to buy a Senzu plant itself.
Yikes.
Well, not far from being able to have two, though.
Also, strengthening my Yūki with my recent new mind control resistance exercises somehow seemed to have made learning Time Dilation easier. Only passed out for a hard night, rather than a week.
My soul's capacity for forbidden knowledge expanded? Was it not just the brain, the physical, storing the information? Was it also the soul?
I did suppose that might make some sense.
How would a soul remember without a brain, after all?
I had prioritized Healing Ki above senzu for a pretty important reason. I hadn't picked it sooner, for those who knew the lore, was that Senzu were notoriously difficult to grow, requiring AND taking four months give or take PER bean.
And that was in optimal conditions raised by Master Korin who'd been doing so for a very long time. With experience.
I didn't blame any fan for just kinda glossing over that, as it was pretty passing info from Toriyama, even if it was mentioned in the manga itself.
Still four months for a single bean was kinda really hard to justify spending all my personal time on nurturing. I'd need help no matter what.
Multi-form was an option… but I really preferred it if I didn't have to hard split my attention like that. Also since it was only ever really used in battle in short bursts and I didn't know everything about it, I just couldn't risk the possibility of it splitting my mental decision making power.
Or my ki if an Endbringer showed up.
As costly as it was in some ways it was just easier to spend 30SP and swallow a bean in some situations. That didn't mean I shouldn't try to have my own backlog since the system made it possible.
Some things never elaborated upon by the manga, anime, and Toriyama began clearing up, however.
While altitude was useful, it was more specifically the purity of air from being away from the pollution below that was more important. While a variable, that was generally easier to accomplish.
Also the Senzu plant wanted a LOT of light. It needed more than a normal day's amount or it would even begin to wither or enter a dormant state where it looked totally fine and normal but was infertile. Being as high up as Korin Tower was helped maintain those conditions, stretching out dawn and dusk via elevation alone.
Unlike other plants, the Senzu plant, while delicate above ground, desired small amounts of toxic bacteria for its roots to feed upon. While stalk and leaves were still susceptible to disease, mold, and pests, the energy created by the Senzu plant by purifying the various pathogens and parasites in the soil were necessary to its own harvesting of healing power.
While the plant could die for any number of reasons, it was never by the roots, as they were particularly potent.
One of the ingredients to naturally create Ultra Divine Water was even Senzu plant roots.
And why Master Korin's own feces, as a cat whose gut was lined with pathogens, was particularly useful in helping grow Senzu.
Nothing particularly else was important about water, however, but the soil needed to be pretty rich in nitrogen and phosphorus. And it needed some ki source nearby, but not just any ki. It required trace amounts of divine ki or moderate amounts of healing ki.
Korin, being a divine cat, provided both, but his very presence allowed the former, even if his godly ki was so small that it could not be accessed.
I could only do healing ki, but that'd have to be good enough. Any slowed growth to be placated via some time manipulation shenanigans, hopefully, and that was why I'd picked that up.
So my goal was threefold.
Create a spot where I manipulated the mountain's Seiki to ignore gravity change conditions to protect the plant and in turn brought it the cleanest and sweetest air. Have rich soil and give it clean water that's essentially micro-dosed with small concentrations of toxic bacteria. And ideally of all, have it given a light-source that could even keep feeding the plant with light all day, just not so strong it dried the plant out excessively.
And all of this would be even sweeter if automated by something that wasn't tinker-tech that could be reliably engineered and left there for long periods of time and require little to no maintenance. Especially considering that it would suffer time dilation and rapid aging whenever interacting with the plant.
But that was still better than forcing all this accelerated time wear-and-tear on a living breathing individual.
So I took all these rough sketch blueprints and requirements and showed them to Dragon.
"...To be clear. You're not growing cannabis with this. Right?"
"Why the hell would I do that?"
"...Tell me what you think of cannabis."
"Overly demonized and overall kinda harmless once you're past, what twenty three? Six? That's like the absolute end of brain development and cannabis's only downside is the hampering of brain development. Also, I'm eighteen, not going to touch dope even if my life depended on it. A warrior's body is a temple, it's sacred. I can't fuck that up for some high. I'll train instead. Now the high of hard work is a real earned one."
"...What is it that you're trying to grow?"
"It's special. And I'll tell you more about it when I'm done."
"Saiyajin."
"Ok, ok. It's… well I named it the Senzu plant. Truth is, despite having and being adept in the use of healing ki, I can't use it to heal myself. It's sort of the act of giving and sharing oneself that makes the healing possible. To heal oneself would be a selfish act and against healing ki's principle at the core. But there is a plant that Tinfoil Steve once found or engineered, or whatever I don't really recall, that has some miracle cure properties which only became apparent in the presence of my ki. I only had the two beans I used in the Endbringer fight that I used as absolute emergencies."
"And you didn't mention this, why?"
I threw my hands up.
"Because I didn't think it was a viable commitment? Because I'm a meathead and I forget about things all the time? Because I thought about it, then forgot? Because I'm still kind of just a dumb kid sometimes? I don't know, but I'm trying to fix it! Just help me out here. I could look up how to rig most of this myself just using the internet, outside of any robotic caretaker bullshit, I just want to minimize the amount of time I have to invest into it myself. I'm already going to be super busy training people and whatever public relations stuff I'm gonna have to force my way through eventually!"
I sagged, deflating at the thought.
"I grew my own root crops, I know I got the thumb for it, but I can't sit around and grow plants, or tie one to my back for four months at a time and maybe get a single bean, because it takes FOREVER. I'm gonna try to do something to cheat-y accelerate it, but that can't be moved. But hell, maybe we'll be able to get production going one day so that we'll have emergency full-heal beans spread in small amounts throughout the country!"
Dragon let out a sigh.
"So. Getting this straight… No robotics advanced enough to require tinker-maintenance and can last a long time to maintain the plant and harvest the bean. A light system to simulate all the waves of sunlight, a rudimentary irrigation system just to maintain moderate moisture levels, but you need some harmful bacteria for the plant to feed on somehow. What else?"
"Just needs good fresh air and ki. I can supply that in small amounts or via this."
I clenched my hand, condensing my ki into small hexagonal ki shields that compiled and layered on itself again and again. Then filled it with additional healing ki. And focused, and pressured, and pushed and stay the damn hell in there, you little brat!
There.
"Ta da~ Super condensed, crystalized ki! I just need to figure out how long it really takes before diffusing, because you can already see it beginning to degrade a bit. I don't think ki likes being condensed to the point that it takes physical space, but the crazy thing is, it's massless. I tried it on a scale, but maybe it's just superlight, but it feels like I'm holding a light pebble in my hand. Thing makes no fucking sense."
Dragon's drone began scanning the crystal as it faintly let loose small sparkling gas, as if melting in the very air.
"...Remarkable. But how? I thought it was a raw life-energy."
I nodded.
"It is. I… I actually don't know if anyone else can pull this off. It's partly a maximally realized aspect of my Imperial Jade Armor and I think the way my ki works is different than most people's. Either because it's just me or because of Case 53 or who knows what the fuck else. It's also super duper fragile even with my reinforcement of it."
I picked up a pebble off the ground and lightly placed it on top of the crystal for it to slowly weigh down and crush the ki crystal into fine powder, diffusing quickly into the air.
"Also takes a decent amount of ki for that small bit. So outside of Senzu farming, I've no current use for it. Might change in the future, I don't know."
"Hmmm. Well, since you showed me something curious, I'll put something together for you. Once you can stabilize it more, I'd like to test some samples."
"Sure, sure." I nodded happily. "Just keep me in the loop for any ki based experiments. I'm technically the world's foremost expert at the moment. I'd hate for that to be so easily usurped."
I winked, clearly indicating that I was joking.
"Yes. Although at some point, I'd like to comb over the remains of Tinfoil Steve's lab's ruins. See if we can't find anything of note."
I snorted.
"Rather you not. He was… pretty private. Plus he was paranoid and buried anything worth anything and made like five to seven riddles about it, only one to two of which usually meant anything. If I ever recall something he mentioned, I'll go digging about. See if I can't find it and bring it back for study. I still lived with him for four years or so, I know vaguely how he thinks. That was how I dug up the orb in the first place."
"Well, I suppose that is a reasonable enough request. I'm sure he'd find it less offensive for you to dig for his treasures than me." Dragon agreed pleasantly.
"Alright. Then once the growing station for the plant is ready, I'll go and find a growable sample. They don't fruit without the right conditions, so I'll be able to sort it out with my ki sense."
"If you say so. However I would not be adverse to a comparison non-fruiting plant for scanning just to see if I myself can detect the difference." Dragon's drone gave a nodding motion. "Then if you'll excuse me, I have been having some fascinating tests in 10Gs."
"Have fun!" I waved, turning to leave Dragon's side of the mountain compound. "I'll be training my students in some real ki techniques as we move into proper martial arts sparring!"
"I'm still a little miffed you won't let me observe and record that data yet. While the physical training is one thing, I still lack clarity on the meditative elements required for accessing ki."
"Later once I'm more solidly settled. At least with the second or third wave of outer students, some of it I'm still figuring out myself cuz people are so different." I waved off, not willing to let the Dragonslayers get their hands on ki teachings, "Besides, let me maintain my wise sensei mystique a bit longer, yeah?"
Dragon let out an odd sound, halfway between a hum and a snort.
I pretended to not have heard that as the drone quickly ducked into her lab.
"Well. Back to the grind."
Though I was also focusing a bit on my own growth on the side, having plenty of zenkai growth from fighting with Behemoth, I had been training my cute little students for a week now.
I hadn't been able to squeeze in any healing, though as some BS bureaucracy something was going on, but I still took a day to check in on Pitstop.
I sort of empathized with her struggle more now, being somewhat still emotionally distraught post-Behemoth. It helped me a lot more than I was willing to admit, letting off stress in other ways too.
As odd as the situation was just letting go of everything and finding something warm was comforting, even if a bit prearranged.
But now most of the auxiliary students were awoken to ki, with only three to catch up, the rest of the students all cheering them on. I could feel they'd get it soon.
Aegis had reached mastery enough to also get a full inner student gi. All versions of it now had a simple red line in the middle of the black sash in memory of Redline to boot while the monkey on the sash held a skull in contemplation in memory of Pryzrak. The rest of the gi remained the same.
Once the last three reached outer disciple status, I'd promised a trip and party back inside the city on my stipend and dime. I'd been sending money and prepayments aside at a big restaurant for it. At first I thought it's theme might have been worrisome, but they were confirmed to be out of gang pockets by PRT screening and the fact the owner was half-jewish.
And 'Corrin' had decided to commit to being an inner disciple so I could have the excuse of teaching him some advanced techniques too.
Today especially, the outer disciples would be meditating and helping the last three hit ki awakening while I did some one on ones with my inner disciples.
The wind at Mount Agamenticus was brisk, but the sun shone hot. The 3pm cut off for physical training into meditation had arrived, so it was time for my due diligence of personal teachings today.
I casually flew upwards, eyes closed. The soft hum of my ki resonated outward from me like a second heartbeat, invisible but unmistakable to anyone attuned.
Sensing the five to begin on their journey as ki fighters. How exciting. A section of the mountain faced away from the city, cordoned off as an area originally meant for officers. Thus now for inner disciples.
I descended casually, smiling at the lot of them. All dressed in the now unweighted versions of their inner disciple gi plus helmets (sans 'Corrin' who thought it best they treat him as an older student and companion than their boss) were Aegis, Triumph, Clockblocker, 'Corrin', and Dean—Disciple, the alias holding for now.
There was a decent chance he'd be rebranded one way or another. Him being named Disciple made me sound a bit Teacher-y.
"Yo. Y'all excited?"
"Yes sensei!" They all replied, making me grin.
"Alright then. Today, we go deeper," I said without ceremony. "You've stopped tripping over yourselves on the path of ki. Time to learn how to fall with style."
Clockblocker raised his hand.
"Ooh! Mememememe!"
"Yes, Clockblocker?"
"We getting actual style tips now? Because I still want to dye my aura red. Basic white is fine, but I wanna experience real-body RGB."
God he was such a little nerd. I loved it.
"A bit early for the Kaiō-ken." I chuckled. "If anything, once you learn and control that at a, say, times three state, since that's the limit of the technique before it starts to really break your body, you'll be considered a master in your own right. Though I'd always be available for further training, you can consider Kaiō-ken to be what separates the journeyman from the master."
A swallow of anticipation followed.
After all, I'd already told them all as inner disciples, the Kaiō-ken was their birthright. Something they'd all be taught once ready.
Disciple smiled, but there was tension behind it. A few had noticed it—the sleepless look in his eyes, the way he practiced late into the night when he thought no one watched. I did. And I shut the dumb punk down too before he destroyed himself.
I destroyed them within rebuildable limits. Anything done outside of that eye until they reached the rank of a beginning master was heresy. So sayeth god-king of monkeykind. Heh. Jokes aside, I had a question from my students.
I pointed to Corrin's raised hand.
"What does that mean to you exactly, the Kaiō-ken?"
"Kaiō-ken. The World King's Fist. It's a technique rare in that it is not based in Shōki or Genki, but in Yūki. It is a technique meant to declare: I am the one who rules the world, thus all things obey my hand. Through the dominance of your Yūki, your soul's own willpower, your courage, you shape reality to suit you. For your power is beyond your personal reality. Thus you can multiply your power output."
"That sounds much like a Trump power."
"It better," I joked, "wouldn't make much of a Trump Card otherwise. Jokes aside, its power comes at a cost. Your soul is enforcing a personal reality on the world. One where you are multiplicatively stronger. That comes at a cost. Because the world fights back."
"Is that why you almost died after returning to being human on the video of the Endbringer fight?"
"Well yes and no. I was maintaining a times four Kaiō-ken at that moment. Pretty rough, but more than bearable where I am. Problem was it was an Oozaru-based Kaiō-ken times four. And the Oozaru is easily ten times stronger than me. So as I shrank I got fucked up by what was now to me a times fourty Kaiō-ken in essence. It, uh, shattered both of my femurs instantly. I'm lucky to be alive, honestly. Without my Imperial Jade Armor I a hundred percent would have died." I shook off the chills at the memory. "I got waaaaaay lucky there. So be mindful when you finally get there that the Kaiō-ken isn't to be treated lightly. Ok, students?"
"Yes, sensei!"
"Alrighty. I've decided what to teach each of you for now. Eventually we'll rotate what we know and the previous student can also assist in teaching the technique, helping the next student learn from their mistakes faster. First, Aegis!"
Aegis stood forward, eyes gleaming.
"Yes, sensei!"
"You've had a lot of time with ki blasts. You've mastered the basics of it well enough too. On top of that, your redundant biology seems to be cooperating way more with genki production the more you master your own ki."
Aegis nodded.
"Yes, sensei! I'm a bit surprised by it, but… honestly ki suits me well, I think."
Whether the Shard was sharing its energy and providing a rudimentary Genki, or shaping Aegis's body so it naturally became a Genki battery was unclear. However what was clear was that his power was very interestingly suited for handling ki, as it easily produced Genki like a small generator.
And it was only getting stronger at it. Ramping up naturally and consistently.
If this was a cultivation world, I'd call his physique the Eternal Sun Constitution as it seemed to just radiate with Genki.
"You've got a lot of raw power and the majority of your training is based on control, so you have a lot of stability as is. That's why I'm gonna teach you the Galic Gun."
"Galic? Like garlic? Sensei, what's with you and edible vegetables?"
"Ha ha." I flicked Aegis's mask. "Here, watch me."
I amped my ki, forming energy between my hands as they stretched in front of me, fingers spread loose but faintly curled as if becoming claws.
The Galick Gun was aggressive and powerful, drawing the full potential of the body's ki output and channeling it through the arms and out of the hands. Its nature meant that the shot had very little wind up, flew faster than standard beam-type ki blasts, and was powerful out the get-go, even if unruly and a bit less accurate.
For a warrior's pride was unruly and wild at the core.
"GALIC!!!!" My aura took on a fuchsia hue, crackling with minute teal-jade electricity around the edges, "GUUUUUUNNNNN!!!"
The beam flew off into the horizon, eventually exploding like a firework far above the ground as I cut off the ki flow.
"Whew!" I wiped a bit of sweat off my brow. I was actually kind of dangerous right now. Maybe it was my saiyanhood, but that probably could do some serious damage to the Earth if I fired it directly downwards.
I turned to my students, who'd broken out into a bit of cold sweat, as they were proficient enough with ki to feel the power of that attack. The current depth of my ki.
They'd been ready for a lightshow, but not the level of ki behind it.
"Wha?" Aegis swallowed hard. "I'm gonna learn that? No way I can handle that."
I knocked him on the head.
"Well even with your convenient Genki battery of a body, you don't have the same level of ki as I do. The point is that you learn the technique. You have a lot of excess Genki all the time since your body changed to adapt to its own ki generation and growth and quick-firing is a lot more conducive to your body-state. That's why we're playing to your strengths here. Your redundant physiology can quickly bring out max output even faster than me right now. So take the stance, I'll help guide your flow of ki. Once you get that feeling, just let'er rip."
After guiding him through the simple stance and steps, guiding the flow of ki, and some other words of advice, I telekinetically lifted a boulder and held it out about two hundred feet away.
"There's your target. Try it out."
He exhaled and brought his hands out front. The purple energy began to gather, swirling like a whirlpool around his arms and body.
Good color, nice first draw. Plenty of power, but…
"Galick..."
He hesitated. A spark broke free and burned across his arm, causing him to flinch. The whole mass destabilized and shot off at a 45-degree angle on a downward curve. I threw out a hand, a thick hexagonal Imperial Jade Armor fragment absorbing and diffusing the energy.
"...Gun," he muttered, more embarrassed than angry.
I clapped.
"No, no. That was a pretty good first shot. But, let's get the headspace right too. Remember, actualized Ki is made of three ki energies. Genki, physical energy which you're generating constantly thanks to your new redundant biology power's adaptation to your ki reserves, Shōki your mental ki, made up of righteousness and the desire to do good, and Yūki your soul ki, the willpower and courage to change the world. You brought plenty of Genki to the table, did that right, but you need to guide it more with your Shōki."
"Uh, yeah! Sure. I know how to do that. Kinda. Uh… how do I do that?"
I laughed, shaking my head. Sometimes I forget that my instinctive grasp of ki was more than I gave it credit for.
"Part of the ki blast exercise was to just build confidence and pride in your ability to form the ki properly. That's one of the reasons that force awakening ki tends to do a little growth stunting. You always internalize the reality that there were some skipped steps on the way up. Something feels missing. It's hard to take pride in your ki. The other reason I want you to master the Galick Gun, is that fundamentally, it's a ki blast technique that at its core, utilizes a compressed beam born from forceful, prideful ki."
"Oh, uh, that doesn't sound too much like me." Aegis admitted sheepishly. "You sure this technique really suits me, sensei?"
"No, you're responsible to a fault. A good kid. But what you need to stoke your warrior's spirit is some pride. Not a fool's pride, nor such pride that it becomes a weakness in your armor, but pride in yourself as a defender, a protector. A warrior of the people. That you can throw yourself forward to help without hesitation. And that's the thing. You already do that with your body."
I grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him in a bit closer, maintaining eye contact through the slit in his mask.
"Listen to me. You don't hesitate. I've seen an old clip of you from Triumph where you threw yourself in the way for a kid crossing the street after a lost ball on one of your Wards patrols. You took that hit with your body to protect him. Zero hesitation, all reflex. It's all there. Your mind, your Shōki is already there. Get it? You just need to project that into your ki mastery. This is your wall to overcome. And you can do it. I fucking believe in you man."
Aegis took a deep breath. Nodded. And after I let him go, he took the stance again.
"I… need intention. A bladed shield… is still a shield. I can do this. I can do this. No… I will do this."
His ki flared, white flaring into fuschia.
He exhaled through his nose and focused again. He was starting to get it. It wasn't about screaming—I'd told him that before with his regular ki blasts—it was about intention. Meaning every action must be carried with intent. That even a finger must be lifted because that was what he wanted. That nothing happened without his intervention or allowance.
A crackle of ozone.
"Galick GUUUUNNN!!!"
The condensed beam flickered, a little unstable, as it curved slightly, but still clipped the edge of the boulder, exploding into diffusing energy as it did so, the rest extending into a thinner tree and blasting it in two. The beam wasn't super powerful as far as ki wave blasts got, but had a decent half foot diameter. Definitely enough to fuck up a truck even so.
"Nice! NICE! ALRIGHT!" I clapped Aegis on the back heartily. "A little shaky, and a bit more unstable than even the base nature of the Galick Gun, but good job. I'd say that your current proficiency is like mmmm maybe one in three shots level of consistency right now, but don't get me wrong, that's great for being so new to it."
I settled the cracked boulder to the side.
"Focus on blasting that thing to bits for now, and we'll move on to Clockblocker. Feel free to listen in between shots, just when you do take a shot, focus in hard and don't let us distract you, yeah?"
"Yes, sensei!" I could feel Aegis smiling from behind the mask. "I won't let you down!"
I reached back over to share a low five, smiling.
After all, I'd known since our first fight, the boy had a warrior's pride.