“There are other remote regions on this planet…or do you want to travel to another?”
“I’ll stay here for now, but bring our ship in. I’m tired of using the local food and gear.”
“We’re getting low on it anyway,” Cal-com said. “Do you want me to go get the ship?”
“We’ll both go,” Paul said, referencing their hidden starship that was programmed not to respond to comms. They’d have to make physical contact to unlock it and the cloaking device…or to look at the messages it was collecting from the comm grid. They’d done that to get further disconnected from the empire, though now it was a bit inconvenient. “Leave the tent and excess gear. But rig up some pole that will stay above the sand to let travelers know this is here if they need it.”
“Are you strong enough to walk?”
“Advice or no, I need to do some running. Stagnation is still my enemy, and if I don’t have something to rest from I won’t be able to relax. We’ll take some water and foodstuffs in a light pack each and leave everything else here. We’ll go straight back and not stop until we get there.”
“The sand will sap the strength from your short legs.”
“I’ll handle it,” Paul scoffed at him.
“Will your friend be coming as well?”
“I don’t know where or what he is, but he’s been on two different worlds. So maybe he’s hitching a ride with us.”
“We don’t know how he travels, so running might leave him behind.”
“I doubt it, though I don’t have a logical argument as to why.”
“Does it not concern you the damage that he is able to inflict on you?”
“It does, but I can’t control that and I’m not dead yet. The appeal of the breakthrough and everything else that is going on with me is enough to distract from the danger. Besides, the sooner I figure this out the sooner I can develop a defense. So there’s no point in lingering.”
“We’ve been blindsided.”
“By something that was probably there all along and we just didn’t realize it. Better a scared knowledge than ignorant confidence.”
“We have no choice but to be reckless then?”
“Afraid not. Fun, isn’t it?”
“It is not,” Cal-com said, moving off to create a makeshift pole to mark the site as Paul stayed put looking at the horizon as the local sun began to creep toward breaching the horizon, preceded by a glow that expanded outward eating into the visible starfield above.
Paul sighed. “It’s gonna be a hot day for a run.”
Wilson slapped his palm down on top of Davis’s desk, half waking up the drowsing Director as he was looking over some stats in between sparring sessions with the trailblazers…which were keeping him half exhausted at all times.
“Got it!” he declared.
Davis saw a datapad left behind where his hand retreated from. “Got what?”
“Essence use dulls our connection to the body.”
Davis frowned. “How?”
“I can’t be too specific, but it’s necessary to connect our Core to our body. If we diminish the amount, we diminish the effect. If we take on someone else’s Essence, it’s the wrong ‘frequency’ and doesn’t match until we convert it. Either way, there is an inefficiency until we get back to 100% full.”
“But 100% has changed over time.”
“Yes it has. In response to us being low, we adapt to create more in order to compensate. That’s why we didn’t notice a problem. But when we stop drawing it down, we see an increase in ability.”
The Director raised an eyebrow as he stood up and brought the datapad with him, staring at it as he began to pace around his office as a rainstorm dumped gallon after gallon of water onto the panoramic windows that would eventually see it run down and rejoin the Pacific Ocean below.
“I’m not seeing any ability increase,” he said as he scanned the obstacle course runs and the summary notes added to the stats. “This is coordination related?”
“Weapon familiarity. Gloves versus no gloves,” Wilson replied short hand. “Precision increase leads to Ultra Instinct with remarkable frequency.”
“But they only got to this point by using Essence all these years?”
“True. But it was slowing them down as they did so. And it’s speculation now, but I think it hindered their ability to adapt to training.”
“Precision,” Davis echoed, knowing that Training Effect required repetition, and if your movements were different each time you wouldn’t get as much effect. So the more precise your training was, the bigger bang you would get out of it when you were doing repetitions to induce an upgrade.
“It may not seem like much, but I’ve always suspected there was something there. You can choose to keep increasing your Essence well, or to use your physical abilities at full power. You cannot do both simultaneously.”
“And we didn’t get Essence until we got Saiyans,” Davis said, cringing. “That covered the speed slowdown with the speed increase.”
“Good catch,” Wilson admitted. “I hadn’t put that together yet, but you’re right. They were growing more than they were being held back, so we didn’t see it. And if it dulls their precision of the body, it may also be dulling their minds as well.”
“Hence the pouting.”
“I wouldn’t call it that. Their vision has been obscured and they can’t see their way beyond doing the same thing over and over again. I can see a universe of possibilities ahead of me. They can’t. That’s not pouting.”
“It’s pithy and angers them, so I’m saying ‘pouting’ until they figure it out. A little payback for the beatdowns they’re giving me,” Davis said as he continued to look over the limited data, then he
