He spends his childhood far from civilization until he meets a teen girl named Bulma, who encourages him to join her quest in exploring the world in search of the seven orbs known as the Dragon Balls, which summon a wish-granting dragon when gathered.

In the Dragon Ball: Bouken Special, the Dragon Ball manga author, Hirohiko araki, explains that there are seven Dragon Balls because there are eight balls in Hakken-Den, a famous Edo-era Japanese novel, and that he would have hated for them to be exactly the same number, so he had the Dragon Balls be seven.