Tommy flew south from the campsite where the two Celatus ships had landed. There was only one gathering of energy in that direction, and the flight wasn't long.
Still, even though his village in question wasn't too far, Tommy was fully aware of his low chances in this particular race to pass Namek's trials.
After all, he was the lowest in his little group's pecking order. Even though nobody ever said it, the ten-year-old Saiyan was well aware of that fact.
Now that Pepper's raw power had surpassed the rest of them, Tommy's power level had been the lowest on the team. To top it off, with every second that he and his siblings trained on Namek, the gap between him and the other two seemed to double.
Out of the team, every single one of them had something unique that they could bring, in Tommy's mind.
Tarble went without saying. He was smart, smarter than any Saiyan Tommy had ever met, and strong to boot. His energy felt fundamentally different, deeper than the rest of them. Almost untouchable.
Then, Pepper. She may have started out the weakest of them, but she also grew the fastest, and had the best instincts. She picked up everything that Tarble taught them, and had even recently learned how to use the incredible Power Ball technique that the triplets didn't even have the raw power to attempt yet.
Tater was stubborn, but smart, and strong. He had instantly recognized the power difference between them and Dodoria, and Tarble had trusted him back then. And he'd also been the first to attempt to learn from the Namekians' fighting style. He had always been the strongest of the triplets.
Even Lynn had things that made her better than Tommy, beyond her speed and overall raw power being notably above his own. She had been the first one to adjust to life on Celatus, and the first one to think to poke at Tarble's brain for the answer to the 'empty lake' problem.
Compared to the rest of them, Tommy didn't have much to contribute, and it dug at him to no end. He'd been proud of himself when he'd been the first one to figure out the Namekian's little riddle, but he'd only been seconds ahead of Lynn, Tarble had figured it out instantly, and even Tater would've figured it out by the time they'd gotten to the village, as soon as he'd stopped being stubborn and complaining about Tarble.
So, Tommy's little achievement really wasn't worth much of anything in his mind.
As Tommy's mind began to go down the rabbit hole of insecurity, though, he caught a flash of white just beyond a nearby mountain, which pulled him out of his thoughts. Before long, he was descending right into the center of a village of Namekians who had clearly been told to expect him, because they were already gathered around his landing site.
"You must be one of our Saiyan guests, here to prove yourself worthy of the Dragon Ball, yes?"
"Y-yes, sir. I would like this village's Dragon Ball." Tommy replied to the old Namekian with a nervous nod.
"Very polite, aren't you? Well, then. Let's not waste time. I am Elder Tsuno. Welcome to my village, child. We have already prepared the trial for you to begin. Please, come this way."
Tommy found himself following the old Namekian into small, Namekian-style white building deep on the edge of the village. One look at the building told Tommy that this particular building wasn't used very often. It didn't even seem to have windows, and the inside was lit only by five candles placed in a pentagram formation in the center of the room inside.
Elder Tsuno took a seat opposite the doorway, gesturing for Tommy to sit in the center of the room. "I suggest that you take your shirt off for this. The ritual required for this trial can be… rather severe on the body."
While Tommy removed his armor and the undershirt beneath it, the old Namekian opposite him pulled out a wooden bowl filled with some sort of grasses and began incinerating them with his energy, causing the smoke to drift into Tommy's nostrils, making the boy wrinkle his nose a bit in disgust.
"What is that?" Tommy wondered.
The Elder raised his arm, directing the smoke with his energy as he answered the young Saiyan. "An herb mixture discovered by my ancestors. They utilized it to go on vision quests to strengthen their spiritual fortitude, long ago." He explained with a grin, "Nowadays, though, we've learned to utilize them in a different way…"
The old green man's grin grew wider, as he stretched his arms out beside him. "When combined with our own magical abilities, they can aid us in peering into a target's mind…"
He smacked his hands together, as the five candles surrounding Tommy simultaneously erupted in a purple light, "And creating a world inside, tailored especially for them!"
With a shout, Tommy's vision flashed with a white light, and everything went dark.
When Tommy came to, he found himself standing in the middle of a long hallway with wooden floors and dark, nearly-black walls. The young Saiyan pulled his bunched-up left sleeve back down in discomfort as he examined his new surroundings, which glowed softly, despite not having any lightbulb-type fixtures anywhere nearby. The ceiling was milky and grey, seeming to subtly shift color tones every time Tommy looked at it.
"RRRAWWWGH!"
The ground beneath Tommy seemed to literally shake with the force of the roar that originated somewhere behind Tommy, nearly knocking the young Saiyan off of his feet.
"Gotta get out of here!" Instantly recognizing that roar as that of an out-of-control Oozaru, Tommy didn't waste a second on hesitation. Without even looking back to see if there actually was a giant ape behind him, the young Saiyan began sprinting in the opposite direction from the roar's origin.