Pepper stared deeply at the fruit hanging from the tree in front of her. It mocked her. Hanging there like she could just pluck it off and bring it to the Namekian, finishing the trial instantly.
Unfortunately, that couldn't be further from the truth. She knew that, the moment that she touched it, it'd wither up and die.
Unless she managed to achieve a higher level of control over the massive amount of energy inside of her.
Pepper found herself thinking back on the first lesson in ki that Tarble had ever given them.
It'd been the day after they'd found themselves living with the Hyperions back on Celatus.
They'd been sitting outside in a field near Hyperion City. Tarble had made them sit down on a hillside like they were in a classroom, not even allowing them to stand until he'd slammed the theory into their brains over and over again, so that they completely understood it.
"Alright, guys. Explain something to me. What the heck is this?" Tarble asked the four sitting Saiyans, conjuring an energy ball above his outstretched palm as casually as breathing.
"You're gonna show us energy blasts?!" Pepper'd asked excitedly.
"No!" Tarble replied cheerily, tossing the blast into a nearby hillside, which basically vanished. "I'm talking about the energy itself. What is it? Do any of you actually know?" He asked.
Four confused faces stared at him in reply. "Seriously? Even a single guess, come on?!"
"Power?"
"I'm part of an entire species of morons…" Tarble muttered to himself.
"Hey!" Lynn interjected.
"Tater's not entirely wrong. It's internal power. You can also call it ki, or chi. Ki's the word I tend to go with. Can anyone tell me what it can do?"
"Explode?"
"Besides that!"
"Well… It lets us fly?"
"Not what I was going for, but that's good enough. Yeah it's not just destructive. Ki is something that you need to fully understand, because if you do, then you can do just about anything with it… in theory." Tarble explained.
"How will that make us stronger?" Tommy wondered.
In reply, Tarble raised his arm and released another energy blast. This one carved a long ditch in the ground that stretched out to the horizon.
He wasn't even breathing hard as he lowered his arm. That said more than words ever could. The four older Saiyans all stared at Tarble in rapt attention, the show of raw power more than enough to prove that he had something that could make them stronger.
"Alright, guys. Ki is basically life force. It's the energy that we create simply by living. Or, more like a product of it. That means that it's heavily influenced by three things." Tarble raised one finger. "Body. As Saiyans, that's actually our natural specialty. Genetically, we're basically born the second strongest beings in the universe."
Whether that was true or not could be hotly debated, but it couldn't really be debated that the only mortal species with more genetic potential than Saiyans were the cheat-like Frost Demons.
Moving on, Tarble held up two fingers.
"The second influence is the mind. It's not just focus, but mental state as well. If you have a weak thought process, such as overconfidence, or basically anything that we always saw back on Planet Vegeta, then you'll actually find yourself genuinely weaker. A clear, present mind is the best. Anything less than that is going to actually weaken you."
"So, it's not our specialty as Saiyans?" Lynn joked.
"Should be. It doesn't need for someone to be smart, just clear-minded. With how combat-focused we naturally are, that really should be a Saiyan's specialty, but our species is full of useless bastards like our parents."
The other four all rolled their eyes. They all had their own reasons for hating Planet Vegeta and the people on it, but listening to Tarble rant about how useless and stupid the entire Saiyan race was really irritating. It'd been two days, and there'd already been two such rants.
The triplets had lived on the streets for almost five years, their father dead in some battle and their mother wishing that they were born dead, with how weak they were. They'd only finally been acknowledged by their mother when she'd volunteered them for Tarble's squad…
A suicide squad. They'd thought that their mother was finally giving them a chance, when she'd simply offered them up to be killed.
Pepper's story was closer to Tarble's, though. Absentee father (due to his constant staying at the palace, training Tarble, but he hadn't been interested in her anyway), and constant abuse, both physical and verbal, from her mother, all finally culminating in her father offering her up to be sacrificed in the first time he'd ever really acknowledged her at all.
Apparently, this was a common thing among low-class Saiyans, though usually the chances of survival were a bit higher.
Shaking his head, Tarble held up his third finger, moving on to the final thing that influences ki.
"Look, the final and most important influence for your ki is your spirit. That basically means character and willpower. Who you want to be, and how strong your resolve to become that person is. For example, my father doesn't care who he becomes, as long as he's king. He's got no resolve at all, so, despite having a uniquely strong body, he's never going to get any stronger. That's why Saiyans tend to stagnate, because they tend to be weak-minded."