"RAAAH!" With a scream, my energy exploded upward, my muscles bulging as the hill beneath me completely gave way, leaving me floating in midair.
"...Over a hundred thousand." I muttered to myself, before my muscles deflated back to the thin, delicate-looking muscles they'd been before of their own accord.
"You still can't hold it?" Pepper asked, walking up to me, now that the coast was clear.
"It just… slips through my fingers. Have you managed it?" I asked. She shook her head, obviously irritated.
During the fight against Dodoria, I'd managed to defeat him by tapping into the power of the Great Ape while in my base form.
In other words, I'd managed to tap into the Ikari state, if only for a moment. Since then, I'd been trying to replicate it, to master the form.
Though I hadn't made much headway, I had managed to figure out how to access it. For a few seconds, at least.
When I accessed it, my scrawny little body bulked up, making me look twelve or thirteen, actually making me a bit taller than the girls, even though Lynn had already gone through the second growth spurt (the one that only happened to female Saiyans), and Pepper was in the midst of it, both looking like they were around preteen height, where they'd stay until they were around 15 or 16.
Tapping into the Ikari state also made my hair stand on end and turn green, while my eyes turned gold. It felt rather like a discount Super Saiyan, but Pepper was absolutely captivated by it, which made sense. Even though I could barely access it, just tapping into that power multiplied my own power level by four or five for short increments, putting my strength notably over 100,000 until the form inevitably collapsed.
Still, just the fact that I could access it at all was absolutely thrilling for me. The Ikari state was something that, in the original timeline, had only ever been accessed by Broly himself. It was even possible that it was the key to unlocking the Legendary Super Saiyan transformation.
I desperately wanted to master it.
But just as Pepper stepped back to watch me try again, observing to see if she could figure out some sort of breakthrough from my own attempt, I sensed three energy signatures flying our way.
"Guess we're taking a break." I noted with a shrug.
Pepper watched as Tater, Tommy, and Lynn descended toward us. "They're alone. Did they fail?" She asked, cocking her head.
"We didn't fail, Pepper." Tater called out in an irritated tone. "Shut up." He added after a second, proving that what Pepper said had touched a nerve.
"There's nothing down there but rocks and fish." Lynn spat with the same irritated expression as Tater on her face, "Three damn weeks for nothing…!"
Tommy said nothing, but the look on his face proved without a doubt that he was in complete agreement with his siblings.
We ended up talking more over a meal.
Apparently, that was actually the main reason that the triplets had come back to camp. They'd be going back to the Namekian village soon, but the stress of their task was beginning to make them lose their minds. Combine it with the fact that, since Namekians survive on nothing but water, they'd been eating nothing but fish for the last month straight, At this point, they were literally ready to eat dirt, so long as it wasn't fish. They were grateful for the Namekian Dinosaur buffet that we laid out for them.
That wasn't to say that the last month here on Namek had been entirely worthless. While Pepper and I had been acclimating to our newfound power after our strength had exploded due to the Dodoria fight, the triplets had been doing their own unorthodox training, Namekian style.
The whole 'limited breath underwater' thing had made them learn to be more efficient with their movements. Staying in the Namekian village had taught them a bit on how Namekians see the world, helping to calm the raging sea of Saiyan instinct that they'd been born with, clearing their heads and making their ki notably easier to control.
In fact, all three of them had undergone a qualitative leap in just about every aspect. Even Tommy, the weakest of the three, now had a power level notably over a thousand.
Still, though…
"There's nothing freaking there! 'Ancient treasure' yeah, right! I swear, I'm about this close to blowing up the whole lake just to…" Tater ranted.
I couldn't help but laugh, even as my mind raced.
Something wasn't quite adding up in my head.
Had the triplets missed something? For some reason, I seriously doubted it. With their Saiyan bodies, specifically their great senses and incredible lung capacity, a day was more than enough time to search most of the lake that Kacai had directed us to, much less a whole month.
So, did that mean that Kacai was lying, and that there was nothing there, like the triplets seemed to be starting to believe? Again, I seriously doubted it. We'd had quite a bit of contact with the natives over this past month. They didn't seem to be any different from what I remembered from the original timeline, kind-hearted and generous. They weren't the type to lie and send us on a wild goose chase.
…No… What were Kacai's exact words again? 'Ancient Namekian treasure,' huh? What was a Namekian treasure, though? The Dragon Ball? No, they kept that in the village…
My mouth curved into a big smile as the realization finally hit me.