"Darn it. Master told me that my senior brother would be in the tournament too, but I don't see a single sign of him. What the heck?" Krillin muttered,
All the training that Master Roshi had put him through, the chores, the meditation, the specialized combat training until he dropped six or seven times a day, was all for this tournament… but so far, Krillin wasn't particularly impressed.
Sure, it was scary at first, but after his first battle, when he blew the guy who'd once bullied him at his old temple away with a single palm strike, Krillin's fear had mostly given way to boredom. All of these people's posturing and shouting… were actually really weak. Much weaker than him.
There were exceptions. Two notable ones, the two guys in the green and yellow. Both were incredibly strong, and both made a point of sneering at Krillin after their matches.
He wouldn't face them until the quarter-finals, though.The preliminaries seemed like they'd fly by pretty easily.
…
I slid into the seat beside Zeck, behind Tater. Lynn chose the seat directly behind me, where Pepper leaned against her shoulder without a word, letting herself be lazy.
"You're not competing, Tater?" I asked the big Saiyan.
Tater shrugged. "Too boring, fighting weaklings like that."
I leaned back, biting my lip. Honestly, I agreed with him. Technique was a nice thing to have, but getting my butt beaten by my wives all those months ago taught me something very important.
The best fights happened at full strength. And sometimes, you lost them. It was the greatest feeling in the world to go all out and still lose.
I finally understood why Goku had been so flippant about all of those enemies who'd threatened to destroy Earth. Fights with everything on the line, where you pushed yourself to your limit and used every single card up your sleeve, still worrying about loss… They were great.
Other than my fights with Dodoria and Mel all those years ago, I'd never had battles like that one before. I'd held SSJP back against Tater during the last tournament, and it'd still been the most fun I'd ever had at the time.
The fact was, just like Tater, I craved a fight at full strength. One where I could push myself to and past my limits and still find that my opponent can take it.
The problem was… I was the only person on the planet who couldn't have a fight like that.
Lynn, Pepper, and I were each notably stronger than Tater. After our fight, we'd all gotten basic boosts to our base power levels, allowing the other two, in their respective transformations, to catch up to my own SSJP power level in theory.
But… reflecting on that battle brought me breakthroughs in my combat abilities that completely tipped the scales in my favor, when I really got serious. Even together, they weren't my match right now. Not anymore.
Not that they could fight together, since there was no way that Pepper could fight at full strength without harming the baby, no matter how tough the little Saiyan inside her was.
As long as I was the strongest, everyone else could have as many battles as they wanted where they went all out and still lost. They could push their limits over and over until they shattered… But I couldn't.
I needed a stronger opponent. I needed to fight someone capable of swatting Ten Million-class opponents like flies.
Perhaps it was finally time to confront Frieza.
I'd been thinking about that for quite a long while. My power didn't measure up to 120 million. Definitely not if he had any control of it… but he was also the perfect grindstone to help me break into the next level. Maybe even unlock the regular Super Saiyan form.
I was brought out of my thoughts by Lynn's foot nudging against my back. "Huh?" I jolted.
"Did you really not look at the plans at all?" Zeck asked.
"Huh? Plans?" I wondered.
"I was asking you about the upgrades to Novem's arm. The overheating issue." Zeck reminded me.
"You fixed it? I thought flushing the thermal energy interfered with the structural density of the tri-argentum polymer over time?"
"Yeah, which is why-" Zeck and I started talking about Novem's arm. A lot of her parts were extremely sensitive to thermal fluctuations, meaning that her internal heat mapping was a delicate process.
Zeck's fix for the problem wasn't a bad idea, but it wasn't perfect. I immediately noticed a problem that could theoretically compromise her internal durability, which was one of my greatest concerns.
It felt like trading one problem for another, smaller problem.
Maybe that was the essence of engineering. Minimizing the problems to create something better.
Machines were nice, in that aspect.
"Speaking of durability enhancements, Tarble, are you still working on that project of yours?" Zeck asked.
"You mean-"
He nodded, "Yeah. I was wondering if you could send me your data on the subject."
"Why?" I asked. The project that he was asking about was actually my real specialty, something that I'd obsessed over for years. Compared to that project, Novem was a sideshow, honestly. Something nice, that I could actually see progress with in real time. This particular research was more of a long slog, something that I enjoyed looking into, had even done a bit of looking into during my honeymoon, a multiple-month period during which I'd ignored everything except for my wives and my training.
Which meant, naturally, that Zeck was a long way from understanding it. It'd be a long, painful slog if he wanted to understand even a small bit of what he was asking for.
I didn't understand why it'd be worth it to him.
"Well, thanks to Bulma's help, I made a breakthrough. Which you'd know if you checked your messages- not the point." Zeck gave up on chiding me for that as soon as he considered it. "Still testing, but I've found a deeper flaw. I think that particular research might be the key to overcoming it."
"That research…" I bit my lip, considering Zeck's point of view. The implications were staggering. I'd never even considered what he was talking about, and it did make my eyes widen, but… "I don't know. It might just… not work the way you're thinking, Zeck."
"Failure is an interesting step on the road to success, Tarble." He replied with a smirk.
"Please don't quote the stupid things I say." I rolled my eyes.