Mr. Popo's Training

"Popo," Kami's voice called from far down the corridor. "This is Son Goku. From today on, you'll be guiding his training."

Mr. Popo's white eyes turned toward Son Goku and looked him up and down.

"Understood." Two words. Then he said nothing more.

Kami nodded. His white robes disappeared at the end of the corridor, leaving only the two of them in the courtyard.

Son Goku stood still, sensing the... presence around Mr. Popo. Or rather, his ki. He instinctively reached out with his senses, then froze. He couldn't sense anything at all. It wasn't that Mr. Popo was weak—it was that there was nothing there.

Mr. Popo stood before him, but his ki seemed to blend into the entire Lookout, the whole sea of clouds, every corner of the Heavenly Realm. It was everywhere, yet impossible to pinpoint.

At last, Mr. Popo spoke. His voice was as flat as if he were commenting on the weather. "You drank the Ultra Divine Water?"

"Yes."

"Did it unlock your potential?"

Mr. Popo fell silent, blinking his white eyes. Then—

"Too weak."

The three words came out slow and clear.

Son Goku nearly choked.

"Come with me."

Mr. Popo turned and walked ahead, his white robe whispering softly over the stone tiles.

They passed through the shadows cast by pine trees, then through another, narrower corridor, and finally stopped before an open plaza.

There was nothing in the center of the plaza. No training equipment, no targets, no wooden posts, no Turtle-shell weights. Only the wind and the churning sea of clouds overhead.

"This," Mr. Popo said, stopping and turning around. His white eyes fixed on Son Goku, his tone utterly flat. "Will be where you train for the next two years or so."

"Two years..." Son Goku looked around. The emptiness gave him the creeps.

In the original story, Goku trained at Kami's Lookout for three years. I came here early, so there's more time in the timeline, but Mr. Popo's meaning is clear—whoever comes, the training takes as long as it takes.

"Think that's too long?" Mr. Popo tilted his head. The white in his eyes seemed to hold the faintest hint of... amusement.

"No!" Son Goku clenched his fists. "I don't mind training for a long time! The longer I train, the stronger I'll get!"

"Good."

Mr. Popo raised a hand and pointed a black fingertip at a boulder at the edge of the plaza. It stood three meters tall, its rough surface radiating an ancient, weighty presence.

"Your first exercise," Mr. Popo said in his usual flat voice, "is to move it."

Son Goku froze.

Move a boulder? That's it?

He didn't say it aloud, but he couldn't help wondering. His battle power was already over a thousand. One punch from him could blast a hole the size of a swimming pool in the beach at Kame House. How hard could moving one rock be, even a big one? Moving rocks had been the first day of Turtle School training—and that had been nearly three years ago.

He strode over to the boulder. Up close, it looked even larger, its shadow swallowing him whole. He spat into his palms and rubbed them together, then grabbed a protrusion in the rock face where he could get a good grip. He lowered his stance and put his back into it—

"Ha!"

He let out a low growl. The muscles in his arms instantly tensed, veins bulging beneath his skin. The jade tiles beneath his feet gave a muffled thud.

The boulder didn't budge.

No, something had moved—his hands. His knuckles scraped against the rough stone, peeling away a layer of skin and leaving them stinging. Goku took a step back and glared up at the boulder as if it were something impossible.

How could this be?! With my strength, I should be able to move more than a three-meter boulder—even a whole mountain shouldn't stay completely still!

"Mr. Popo, is there some kind of mechanism in this boulder?"

"No." Mr. Popo's voice came from behind him. "It's just an ordinary rock."

"Then how can I not move it—" Son Goku refused to give up and tried again. This time, he released his ki, and white flames surged from his shoulders and arms. But the result was the same—the boulder sat firmly in place, like a block of iron that had been nailed to the ground for thousands of years.

"Don't use brute force." Mr. Popo slowly approached.

"The ki in your body is too chaotic."

Son Goku turned around. Mr. Popo stood before him like a black mirror without a ripple. His white eyes watched Goku without criticism or reassurance, simply stating a fact.

"Like a pot of boiling water. Like a tangled skein blown apart by the wind. Powerful, but without order. When you unleash it, the force is earth-shaking; when you rein it in, it's full of openings."

He raised a hand. Its five black fingers looked like withered branches soaked in ink. Then one fingertip gently touched Son Goku between the brows. The touch was cold, unlike skin—more like something that transcended the material world.

In that instant—

The world spun.

It was as if a layer of skin had been torn from the world. Son Goku felt his consciousness pulled bodily out of him and dragged into a directionless space. Then he saw it.

White flames.

They surged from the very center of his chest, so bright they nearly scorched his eyes.

But they weren't a uniform mass of flame. They were a storm, churning wildly with no order at all. Tongues of flame darted every which way, crashing into one another, some surging left, others right. Energy constantly exploded and collapsed at the outer edges, wasted into the void.

The ki flowing through his body was like a series of rivers swollen by a flash flood. The water struck a bend without turning, spilling over the banks and flooding in every direction.

Is this... my ki?

"Yes." Mr. Popo's voice echoed through the void. "The Ultra Divine Water unlocked your potential, but it also left your ki in this state. Right now, less than thirty percent of the power behind each punch actually lands on its target. The other seventy percent cancels itself out inside you or dissipates uselessly into the air."

Thirty percent. Son Goku watched the white flames waste themselves in the void and suddenly understood why he hadn't been able to move the boulder. It wasn't that he lacked strength—it was that his strength wasn't focused in a single direction.

"What you need to do isn't make it stronger, but make it obey."

The two words sank into him like stones dropping into a deep pool.

Son Goku's eyes snapped open.

The plaza was still the plaza, the boulder still the boulder, and Mr. Popo still Mr. Popo.

But something had changed. He couldn't explain what; he only knew that Mr. Popo's words were still echoing in his mind.