Understanding Ki

In the cave, a ray of sunlight slipped through a crack and fell across Reke's face.

A small figure lay motionless on the ground inside, covered from head to toe in dark red blood.

It was impossible to tell whether he was alive or dead.

After an unknown amount of time, the figure's fingers twitched. His eyes slowly opened, and his consciousness returned.

Pain throughout his body began hammering at Reke's nerves.

His torn lips moved, but he couldn't make a sound.

"I'm still alive!" That was Reke's first thought, filled with relief.

"It hurts! Damn, I really got myself into a mess this time." That was his second thought, steeped in regret.

"You piece of trash, just you wait. Sooner or later, I'll kill you." That was his third thought, filled with an abiding hatred for the monster.

"What am I supposed to do?" Reke stared blankly at the ceiling of the cave.

"I'm in such bad shape that even moving is difficult. Am I going to die in this cave?"

"No. I can't just sit here and wait to die."

Reke gritted his teeth against the pain and tried to move his body.

Unfortunately, after trying for ages, he was still unable to move, and all his strength was spent.

Exhaustion washed over him. His body resisted, and he slipped into unconsciousness.

He didn't know whether two or three days had passed.

Reke kept struggling in the cave. Whenever he woke, he tried to move his body; when he couldn't hold on any longer, he fell asleep again.

Even he found it strange.

He hadn't eaten or received any medicine for so long, yet he hadn't starved to death. His body was even slowly recovering.

He'd managed to prop himself up and sit with his back against the mountainside.

With his eyes closed, he felt the ki inside him, hoping to find out whether speeding up its flow could help his body recover faster.

During the days Reke spent recuperating, the area within a hundred miles around him had filled with beasts again.

The traces left behind by the monster were slowly erased by time, too.

Only the hundred-meter-deep crater at the center bore witness to the horrifying events of that night.

The chirping of insects, the calls of birds, and the roars of beasts gradually filled the air around Reke once more.

Reke stood up and clenched his fist in disbelief, feeling the ki within him had grown several times stronger.

Once again, he experienced firsthand how terrifying Saiyans were.

Since he couldn't leave during this time, he'd devoted nearly all his attention to his body.

It turned out that speeding up the flow of ki within him couldn't speed up his recovery. Instead, it had helped him realize why Saiyans' battle power increased dramatically after they were near death or badly injured.

He discovered that when his body recovered on its own, energy surged from his cells. While some of it repaired his body, most of the rest remained within him and turned into ki.

At first, he'd thought it was the so-called S-Cells, but then he remembered Akira Toriyama's setting and dismissed that idea.

He'd only spent a month cultivating with a calm mind here, so even if S-Cells existed, he wouldn't have many.

In other words, he'd doubled his battle power using ordinary cells.

He'd also come up with his own theory about S-Cells.

Why did Saiyans' battle power increase dramatically after they were near death or badly injured in the early stages, but that effect disappeared once Kakarot and the others became Super Saiyans?

Perhaps Saiyans could use ordinary cells to reach the threshold of becoming Super Saiyans. But after transforming, they needed S-Cells to make a major leap forward.

Otherwise, whether in their normal battle power or transformations, they would reach a bottleneck. Only by breaking through it could they make rapid progress.

That also explained why the original story had several levels: Super Saiyan, Super Saiyan 2, and Super Saiyan 3.

They had to build up their S-Cells in the early stages so they could later control their division and achieve breakthroughs.

These thoughts only flashed through Reke's mind. It wasn't the time for him to investigate them any further.

After feeling the ki within him for a while, Reke walked out of the cave.

Facing the direction of the stream, he bent his knees. Whoosh! Reke vanished from the spot and appeared beside the stream, twenty kilometers away, in less than a minute.

He was moving about ten times faster than before.

Reke did some rough calculations with his less-than-stellar math skills. The result was terrifying: his speed was already approaching the speed of sound.

"Holy crap, have I become Superman? I wonder how far behind I am compared to the one with 3,000 battle power." Reke stood by the water and muttered to himself.

At the thought, Reke closed his eyes and sensed the area around him.

He discovered that he could sense ki now. Within his range, countless ki signatures of different sizes appeared.

He focused on the direction of the one with 3,000 battle power. A massive ki signature entered his senses, like a glowing sphere a hundred meters in diameter.

Comparing his own strength to his opponent's, he realized his ki was about one-third as strong. A smile spread across Reke's face.

The corners of his mouth lifted higher and higher, until he opened it and burst into loud laughter. "Hahaha..."

The emotions he'd been bottling up all this time finally came pouring out.

At that moment, he'd completely forgotten about Frieza.

He hadn't expected to gain so much from coming so close to death. He was happy, but also deeply shaken.

To be honest, he didn't approve of this approach. He was all alone, and he'd survived this time by sheer luck. Next time, he might die without anyone even noticing.

Thinking back, he was certain the monster from a few days ago was the same creature whose 3,000 battle power he'd sensed before.

That also cleared up one of the questions he'd had.

"Just you wait, you bastard." Reke gave the monster's location one last sinister look and said the words aloud.

Then he pushed the thought to the back of his mind, waiting for a chance to strike again.

He was the type to always take revenge. Before, when he'd had no power, he could endure being wronged. But now that he'd experienced strength like never before, his outlook had changed.

Reke sensed the ki around him, quickly hunted some prey, then sat openly beside the stream and started roasting it.

He had no seasoning, and his cooking skills weren't great.

But a Saiyan's stomach didn't care. He devoured each bite with gusto.

After eating several hundred pounds of meat, Reke lay down comfortably and rested for a while.

His thoughts drifted to Planet Vegeta.

"I wonder if Kakarot has been born yet. He should be born sometime this year, but I don't know which month."

He didn't feel any particular attachment to Planet Vegeta, and he didn't think the Saiyans deserved to survive.

Ever since he'd heard Toad Head say in the nursery that his parents in this life were already dead, he'd decided that once he reached Earth or Namek, he would bring them back to life.

Once he'd repaid them for what they'd done for him in this life, he wouldn't care whether they lived or died after that.

Of course, all of this depended on him staying alive. Otherwise, there was no point thinking about it.

So the thought only crossed Reke's mind and didn't stay for even a second.

What he really cared about was the fate of the forces Frieza might send after him.

Everything so far was just speculation. There was no guarantee Frieza wouldn't send someone over.

If Frieza really sent people to conquer this planet, it would throw his plans into disarray.

He might have to keep hiding in some corner of the planet.

He'd have to wait until he became a Super Saiyan or Frieza was killed by Kakarot before he could leave the planet again.