บท 196: Ch. 196: Pandora's Box
It'd all started one year ago. Tien had just entered the main complex, on his way back from a mission, when he felt an incredible surge in ki. Running to the courtyard, he was just in time to witness an incredible clash between Goku and Hanna's fists, full Super Saiyan and everything. Then, a silver flash and Hanna was kicked away from Goku by her brother, crashing into a rock formation, but immediately getting her bearings, she managed to block Gohan's follow-up attack while another explosion of energy erupted at Goku's location, this time Goku's boot against Piccolo's arm.
Incredibly, the Namekian was actually holding his own against a Super Saiyan, not giving a single inch. After a moment, Tien realized why. Purple blood seeped through the pores of Piccolo's skin as his aura expanded, black instead of the normal silver of Silver Mode.
Piccolo was using a modified form of Silver Mode, one with a larger energy multiplier than the usual, but a lesser safety buffer, using his natural Namekian super-healing to make up the difference, and powering through the pain.
The Kaio-ken technique was incredibly powerful, but it came with two downsides. For example, a normal Kaio-ken times twenty would multiply your energy by twenty, but each motion you make would put twenty times the strain on your body, you'd end up tiring yourself out about twenty times faster than normal, and once the Kaio-ken ended, there would be a rush of energy that would inevitably damage the body, almost to the point of death. Since any mortal body had hard limits on the amount of damage it could take relative to its overall strength, it was basically impossible to go beyond a multiplier of twenty, no matter how strong you got.
With Grey Mode, that same multiplier of twenty would tire you out around thirty times as fast as normal, but the extra energy would greatly decrease the strain that it put on your body, maybe to twice as bad as normal or so, and the onrush of energy following a de-powering would be canceled out. There was still a hard limit on the amount of extra power you could pump out of your cells at once without causing irreversible damage, but a second or two at a multiplier of thirty wouldn't be too bad.
Piccolo's form of Silver Mode seemed to have a multiplier of around 35 or so, but it was around 25 times as straining, and consumed stamina around 40 times as fast. He could stand his ground against a Super Saiyan, to a degree, but he was literally destroying his body to do so. He was just barely putting enough energy into his buffer to tamp down the majority of the energy rush that would come with the inevitable de-powering.
As Tien watched, he felt a mixture of emotions, but the one that really stood out was jealousy. In their base states, Tien knew that he'd lose against everyone in that courtyard in one-on-one fights, but he'd put up a good fight.
But at this level? Not even Silver Mode would be enough to bolster him to the point where it'd even be a fight. He'd just lose, almost instantly.
Being so close to that incredible level, those titans, yet so far at the same time felt like enough to drive Tien insane. He began obsessing, looking for a way to break that barrier to the next level, but no matter how hard he tried, he simply couldn't figure it out. Then one day, he felt something strange, like all of the energy around him was leading him somewhere. Following the flow, he learned of Pigero's Spirit King technique, and it all seemed to just click into place.
"What you need is a battery."
"A what?" Pigero asked, not fully understanding Tien's suggestion, so Tien broke it down for him.
"My multi-form technique, it lets me split myself into separate, weaker parts. When those parts merge back together, though, the resulting version of 'me's' strength comes back, too." Tien explained. With that, Pigero understood what he was getting at.
"So you're saying that, instead of taking the energy for my Spirit King form from my surroundings, I should pour my energy into something, then pull on that instead... That way, my form won't be limited by the amount of energy around me!" This would end up deviating from the basics of the technique as King Kai had shown him, so he hadn't considered it, but he'd be able to use his Spirit King form without worrying about damaging the planet around him by taking too much energy that way. Immediately, he began pouring his energy into the most mundane of objects that he found lying around: A random, fist-sized rock that he'd found in the forest.
Watching him, Tien frowned. The technique was good. It'd allow Pigero to manipulate vast amounts of energy at once, but it wouldn't fix the basic problem that they faced. It wouldn't make Pigero stronger on the most basic of levels.
The Super Saiyan form didn't just magically multiply a Saiyan's energy. It also enhanced energy conversion. A Saiyan's cells were naturally primed for the extreme. They ate a lot, and every bit of it was turned into energy with very little waste. The Super Saiyan form was a latent ability that exponentially enhanced that process, giving stronger results than Kaio-ken with far less stamina drain, comparatively speaking. And since it was something their bodies were made with, that extra stamina drain could be lowered to almost nothing as they mastered the technique.
Pigero's new technique would allow him to manipulate vast amounts of energies at once, but it wouldn't enhance his natural recovery rate. While it would fix the stamina and strain problems of the Kaio-ken, it wasn't perfect. But it was still genius. In a life-or-death situation, like the battle against the Androids that was going to happen next year, it would allow him to access vast amounts of his own energy with virtually no strain. Even if it was only a booster shot, it was an effective one.
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