"So, young Cell, you never got my name, did you?" I heard the yellow alien say as we walked into his temple, making me blink as I turned to stare at him before realizing that he never did introduce himself.
I can faintly remember Goku saying his name, but I was so stuck in my own inner turmoil that I didn't pay attention to what he said.
The flash of surprise in my eyes must have been amusing as he chuckled while sitting down with his legs crossed while gesturing for me to do the same.
"I see you were too busy with your own problems since you did not hear Goku say my name. Well, I am Pybara, great Elder of Yardrat."
"And I am Cell, though you already knew that. It is a pleasure to finally meet you in full, sir." I spoke with a bow, hearing Pybara's chuckle before sitting back upright to see him nodding back.
"Indeed, it is. Now, your training will consist on one thing: Meditation."
"…What entails this meditation exactly?" I asked, knowing that something in Dragon Ball is not always what it seems. It was also the correct question as Pybara gave an approving smile before continuing.
"Good question and the answer is quite simple: Nothing. You will simply be meditating."
"So, no Image Training, no ki manipulation. Just meditating?" I asked with a raised eyebrow and Pybara chuckled.
"I will answer your question with one of my own. What happens when you keep on putting your body through intense training?"
"It will either be burnt out by all the strain placed upon it or it will grow to the point that no further results will come from doing so."
"Precisely. Now, what does ki do for your body?"
"It's energy in its purest form, enhancing your physical & mental prowess to the utmost limit that you can handle without breaking it down. However, the more physical training you do, the more ki your body can handle and the stronger you become. However, there are techniques that can push your body even further beyond at the cost of breaking it down."
"Now, what does meditation help you achieve? Other than helping you run fighting simulations against others?"
"Well, I know it helps you learn to control your ki more efficiently in your body and with more control…"
"The more ki you can exert in your body, which means that your body grows even further. Now, with Image Training & other forms of fighting simulations, you are actively using your ki in these simulations which, while helping with control, does not help at all with being able to get used to your ki flow when it's calm & serene."
"So, during battle, the calmer your ki is, the more power & control you will have at your disposal?" I asked, grinning as Pybara smiled and nodded.
"Precisely. Now, for the foreseeable future, unless you can fight without your ki raging like a lunatic, you will be focusing on nothing but meditation."
"Day in & day out?" I asked, humming as Pybara nodded before blinking as he stood up while motioning for me to do it as well.
"However, we of Yardrat believe that the more stressful the meditation is, the calmer you will be when you get used to it. Now, follow me to our meditation grounds."
"…Are you serious?" I asked with wide eyes as I looked up at the five giant stalagmites rising up from the ground, turning as Pybara chuckled before watching him nod.
"Yep, you must balance yourself on a Pillar of Serenity without falling off while also meditating peacefully. Like Hatska over there." I turned to where he was pointing at to see the smaller green alien that greeted me when I first came here, a bit amazed at his peaceful meditation while balancing by simply holding onto the tip of the stalagmite with just the points of his feet.
"…How many broken bones & bruises will I have by the end of this training?"
"Truthfully or hopefully?"
"Both." I answered as I began to stretch, hearing Pybara hum before sighing as he answered with a happy tone.
"Hopefully. Four. Truthfully…a lot."
"Of course." I muttered before smirking as Hatska finally saw us and waved, though that broke his concentration and we watched him crashing into the ground with a huff.
"I'm okay!" His voice came from where he was hidden behind a Pillar and Pybara chuckled while I looked back at the one in front of me before taking a deep breath.
Well, I guess this is the start of my journey.
"M-Master Pybara, I have a question." I gritted out while taking deep breaths as I stood on the tip of a pillar, my legs shaking as I strained to keep my grip on its point.
"Ask away."
"Y-You said that all beings had a limit when it comes to exerting ki. H-How does that work w-when you look at the Saiyans and their S-Super Saiyannnn-!" I nearly lost my footing and quickly scrambled upwards to keep myself at the top, taking a deep breath while ignoring Hatska's laughter.
"You wish to know how Saiyans can handle the excess ki that floods their body the moment the Super Saiyan transformation is activated?" I nodded at Pybara's question, hearing the alien hum before blinking as I heard him chuckle.
"That is actually one of the mysteries that most can't figure out along with their ability to gain enormous power from deadly battles while most other species would gain moderate increases in power at best. It's quite literally a miracle of the divines."
'Damn, so even in-universe, Saiyans are seen as god's gift to mortals. Well, isn't that great?'
'Inner peace. Inner Peace. Itchy nose. Scratch nose with tail. Ah, finally. Inner…peace.'
"Would you look at that? What took Goku five months, you managed to get in less than two. Not bad." I smiled as I heard Pybara's voice from behind me, not easily disturbed by it anymore as I spun on my tail's stinger to face him with a smirk.
"Yeah, didn't think that meditation would be that calming."
"Most don't until they actually undergo it. Speaking of calming, how does your ki feel now compared to when you first started?" He asked and I smirked as I looked down at my hands, clenching them as I felt energy rushing through my body.
If I had to compare the flow now to before, it's like a river flowing rapidly down a creek now compared to it rushing frantically & splashing around sporadically like a cascade when I first started.
Energy was still lost no matter how hard I try, but my control over it was now so much better that it was minimum.
"It's…calm."
"Exactly. Congratulations on passing the basics of Spirit Control. Now, you are ready to learn the harder exercises & skills. With this." I blinked as Pybara reached into his pants before pulling out a long rag and four…ear plugs?
"A blindfold to cut off your sense of sight and plugs to cut off your sense of smell & your sense of hearing. You are now going to live through only your sense of touch & taste. That way, you must learn to actually feel ki. Also, no using ki sensing."
"So, I'm about to go back to square one?" I asked, watching as Pybara nodded while holding the items out before letting out a soft sigh as I took them.
Plugging up my nose & ears, I took the blindfold and tied it around my eyes, making sure I could see nothing through it before slowly looking around.
"Wow, this is…so hard."
"Indeed it is! Now, follow me!"
"Okay, but first…I got to find you."
Ducking under a force that shook the air above me, I frowned as I leapt back to dodge another attack before flipping over a third one, landing in a split to duck a double attack from both sides while my tail stretched out to catch the sixth.
Rolling forward & out of the split to dodge a seventh attack from above while pulling Attacker #6 into #7, I kip-upped to my feet and leapt into the air, corkscrewing through the air to dodge a flurry of attacks from all sides.
"Stop!" Pybara's voice came from my side and my tail lashed out to help me land with ease, the final attack barely missing me by a few centimeters as I felt the wind caressing my face.
Reaching up to take off the blindfold, I smirked at the sight of ten Cell clones standing in a circle around me, their tails held just inches from my face before they all disappeared like mirages as I took out the plugs from my ears & nose.
"A month and you picked it up with ease. Incredible is an understatement of your progress."
"Thank you, Master Pybara. What's next?" I asked with an excited grin before blinking as he chuckled.
"Patience. Why don't you first send a small ki blast up into the sky?"
'Oh, I can remember Vegeta aiming to use a weaker Galick Gun in the manga and it caused a giant attack instead.' I thought with a frown as I pointed a finger and condensed ki to my fingertip.
However, instead of the golfball-sized energy sphere that I wanted it to be, my eyes widened as the energy was instead the size of my basketball and it was only thanks to my quick thinking that I pointed my finger upward just as the energy flew off.
Watching as it sailed up high into the sky, both Master Pybara & I watched as the beam exploded in a scarlet blaze, making me blink as I watched the explosion died down before slowly looking back in excitement at Pybara, who simply looked amused as he nodded.
"Exactly. Before we can start with learning our techniques, you must first learn to get better control over your ki once again, which means one thing." I just stared at him before sighing as I turned in the direction I knew them to be before flying off towards the Pillars of Serenity.
Time for more meditation.
"And with that, you now know every technique of the Yardrat race. Well done!" Pybara clapped along with Hatska and the rest of the Yardratians that I met over the past year, all of them barely numbering 50 in total as I stood up from my kneeling and smiled at them.
"I thank you for the training and lessons, Master. And thank you everyone for the fun time I've had on Yardrat."
"Make sure to rest as much as you train, okay?"
"I will, Master. Now, I believe it's time for me to set my plans into motion."
"Your plans on universal domination?"
"Universal correction." I corrected Hatska, making him giggle while I rolled my eyes before taking a deep breath as I expanded my ki sensing as far as it could.
'Damn, this…this is amazing.' I thought with a grin while placing my right index & middle finger to my forehead, feeling the billions upon billions of lifeforms in my ki sensing range before grinning as I locked onto the closest one.
"You said the New Namek was about fifty lightyears east, right?"
"That was where I last felt them being teleported." Master Pybara said with a nod and I smiled before nodding in thanks.
"Thank you. It's been fun, everyone, but I must be going. Until we meet again."
"See you when we see you, Cell." Pybara spoke with a goodbye wave, which I reciprocated before I felt my very being pulled through space & time as I appeared on a barren wasteland, standing next to a six-legged dwarf-like man who only had a nose on his face & a wide grin on his face.
Before they could even turn towards me, my surroundings shifted rapidly as I used Instant Transmission to teleport away once more, repeating the process a few more times and making me nauseous with the rapid surrounding changes before gasping as I finally appeared at my destination.
Looking up at the three suns hanging in the light green sky, I looked at the green scenery around me and was surprised by how fresh the air was as I took a few deep breaths.
Shaking my body and waiting a few moments until my vision finally stopped spinning, I stretched my ki sensing across the planet and smirked as I felt hundreds of energy signatures clustered all around the planet.
'Energy memorized.' I thought with a smirk as I memorized every energy on the planet, making it so that I no longer had to do rapid teleportation to find them.
"Now, time to get that Radar." I muttered with a frown as my ki sensing stretched out once more, scanning the entire southern side of my range before grinning as I vividly felt Goku's energy.
With a single thought, I was gone from Namek and outside the atmosphere of Earth, scanning the entire planet in the span of a millisecond before finally locking onto Bulma's.
In the blink of an eye, I was right besides the scientist and out of her lab before she could even notice the air shifting besides her, a wide grin on my face as I appeared on Namek while staring at the gadget in my hands.
Why she had it on the counter, I'll never know, but as I turned on the Dragon Radar with a click of a button, I looked in anticipation at the seven orbs spread out far from each other before taking a deep breath as I raised two fingers to my forehead.
Time for a Dragon Ball hunt.
'Damn, that…was intense.' I thought while taking a deep breath as I appeared on a barren wasteland, a simple kiai leaving my body & eradicating everything around me within a few dozen meters as seven basketball-sized Dragon Balls floated behind me & another seven smaller Dragon Balls the size of tennis balls floating above me.
I'm pretty sure that no one had to teleport as many times as I did and I was so thankful for the fact that I was far faster than the average Namekian & that I could suppress my ki to the point that it was nigh-undetectable or else it would have been a massacre for every human & Namekian that found me.
"Okay, first the Namekian Dragon Balls." I muttered as I placed the Namekian ones softly on the ground while making Earth's float behind me, taking a deep breath before raising my hand to the sky as I scanned my own memories of my past life.
"Great Dragon of Dreams! Come forth and grant my wish!" The Namekian Language flowed fluently from my mouth and I watched as the Dragon Balls began pulsing, standing back a bit as the light surrounding them intensified before I grinned as a bright golden light erupted from them.
Within seconds, I blinked as the ground began shaking & dark clouds gathered above me before my eyes widened as a stream of light rose up to the heavens, expanding as it near the clouds before it began to transform.
Taking the form of a large & muscular behemoth, green scales covered the shoulders, outer arms & sides of Porunga while his belly was covered in beige-coloured scales, his eyes nothing but a vivid scarlet abyss as he looked down at me and I had to admit one thing.
The sheer presence from the Divine Dragon left me speechless for a few moments before I finally shook off the shock as he began to speak.
"I am the Dragon of Dreams Porunga. You have gathered seven Dragon Balls and as it is written, you now have three wishes. What is your first wish?"
"Uh, right. Great Porunga, first I wish that from now on, my tail is able to absorb & assimilate the essence of any living or non-living being into my being without them getting the chance to take over my body from the inside, whether it be magical or non-magical, organic or inorganic, divine or non-divine." I shouted, watching as Porunga's eyes looked at me before they turned a bright scarlet.
"Your first wish has been granted." I blinked as his eyes turned back to their dull red before my eyes widened as I felt…something shifting in my body.
I couldn't exactly explain what it was, but where I would have looked at Android #16 before and thought nothing of him, now it felt as if I could absorb him to get his abilities & skills.
"Great! My second wish is for you to make it so that once I absorb a being, they are never able to escape my body ever again, no matter what methods, skills, abilities or tricks they try to use."
"Good thinking. Your second wish has been granted." His eyes glowed and while I didn't feel anything this time, I also knew that it would work for some weird reason.
'Huh, that's weird. Well, nothing I can do about it. Hah, here's to hoping he does the final memory.'
"Did you perhaps have any attachment to the former elder of your people?"
"Is that a wish?" He asked and I chuckled as I shook my head.
"Think of it as me wanting to learn more about you."
"He was my creator, the one who gave birth to me. I hold him in the highest regards of all the beings that I have met. Now, what is your last wish?" Despite my surprise at Porunga's response and his raised eyebrow, his words made me a bit hesitant before I spoke.
"Then my final wish is this. I wish…" I was probably the first being in history to shock an Eternal Dragon as I finished speaking my wish, Porunga's shock quickly disappearing as an inquisitive look entered his gaze.
"…The only reason I do not deny your wish is that I sense nothing but curiosity & hesitance in your voice. However, I will warn you that it is not for the kind-hearted. Are you sure?" He asked and I sighed as I scratched the back of my head before nodding.
"I am. I wish to watch the memories of the one named Guru from the moment that he was born to the moment that he died."
A/N: And Cell has made his wishes! I know there are people that are going to take my wishes & make them better, but at the time that I wrote this, these were the only ones that came to mind so I kept them.
Also, before anyone complains that Cell took too long to learn those moves when Vegeta took only a day, it was both to make a year pass in the timeline and because Cell was taking his time to learn it whereas Vegeta had to learn them before Moro arrived on Earth. Hope that makes sense.
And now, like always, you can go to my Pat-reon-.-com-/-KingCrimsonNova to read ahead on this as well as many other stories(Not many. Just three at the moment). If you want to, you are free to, but if you don't want, all's good as I will still be uploading here. This is just me trying to get some extra cash.
As always, read, enjoy, review and until next week...
Ba-Bye~!