Mr. Popo drew back his finger and folded his hands in front of him again. His voice returned to its usual flat calm. "Move that rock. But this time—don't release your ki. Let it flow like water, calm and natural, through your body and into the rock. Then, the instant your ki touches it, let your ki tell the rock: It's time to move."
"Tell the rock...it's time to move?" Son Goku looked down at his palms.
Let his ki flow like water. Not crash around inside him, but simply flow through.
He closed his eyes.
Inside him, the white flames still roared. He could feel that wild power surging through his veins, every wisp of ki with a mind of its own.
Before, he'd never tried to control it. He'd just turned the switch all the way up and blasted everything out. But now—
He tried not to interfere with it.
Not suppressing it, not restraining it. Just...not fanning the flames.
He imagined the stream on Mount Paozu, the little brook that had flowed behind his cabin for who knew how many years. It didn't rush when the water rose in spring, and it didn't complain when it froze in winter. Water never fought rocks. It flowed around them, around tree roots, around anything in its way. But after hundreds or thousands of years, the rocks were worn smooth and the roots softened, while the water kept flowing.
His ki began to change.
It didn't grow weaker—it grew quieter.
The madly churning white flames slowed of their own accord the moment he stopped stirring them up.
One by one, the tongues of flame drew in, merging into a silent river that had formed without him noticing.
His body felt lighter, yet heavier. Light enough to be lifted by the wind at any moment, heavy enough that his feet seemed fused with the Jade Plaza beneath him. Both feelings existed at once, without contradiction—because he was no longer a "person standing on a stone slab."
Everything around him existed, and everything around him gave off a faint aura. The steady breath of the jade beneath his feet, the slow roll of the sea of clouds overhead, the hexagonal glimmer of a dewdrop that never fell from a distant pine needle.
And in front of him.
The rock's texture. Every coarse mineral grain, every inconspicuous crack, every layer of sediment laid down over millions of years. It wasn't a dead thing. Its structure, hardness, and center of gravity—its spatial relationships all appeared in Goku's perception as clearly as a blueprint.
He reached out and gently pressed his hand against the giant rock's rough surface.
He didn't exert any force.
He simply guided the river out through his palm. A gentle, steady, unbroken force flowed from his palm into the rock, like a trickle seeping into sand. He didn't "push" the rock. He let his ki find the gaps between each mineral grain, gently filling and enveloping it.
Then his ki resonated with the rock's "ki."
Then—
"Move."
He said it silently in his mind. It wasn't an order or a shout. It was a request, an explanation.
The stream didn't fight the rock or struggle against it. It flowed around it, soaked into it, and ultimately changed it through the patient passage of time.
The resonance between his ki and the rock reached its tipping point—
The giant rock trembled faintly.
Rumble. A deep, muffled sound.
Son Goku opened his eyes.
The three-meter-high boulder floated above his palm, three inches off the ground, no more and no less. It didn't spin or sway. It simply rested there in perfect stillness, as if gently supported by an invisible hand, precisely one palm's breadth above his small, rough hand. Air flowed slowly beneath it, blowing the fine dust on the ground into a circular ripple.
He'd done it.
Not with brute force or a burst of ki, but—
Is this what it means to have a mind as still as water?
He asked himself only once.
But he knew the answer. It wasn't "make your mind as motionless as dead water," but "make the surface so calm that it can reflect everything."
The rock moved, and his hand moved, but his mind didn't move with them. That was why he could feel every tremor in the rock and adjust the flow of his ki before it lost its balance.
No waste, no struggle, no sound, not even any exertion—just a gentle, unwavering force accomplishing in perfect calm what would normally take a roar and an explosive burst.
"Barely passing." Mr. Popo's voice came from behind him, as flat as ever, though the faintest hint of satisfaction seemed to lurk at the end. "But you only held it for three seconds. Put it down. Again."
The floating boulder settled gently back onto the ground with a muffled thud.
Son Goku looked down at his palms. A fine sheen of sweat covered them, not from exertion, but because he hadn't even dared to breathe during those three seconds. He wasn't afraid the rock would fall. He was afraid the flow of ki would break. Three seconds. The three seconds Mr. Popo had called "barely passing." He felt as exhausted as if he'd fought for three hours straight.
"Okay. Again." He brushed the stone dust from his hands, pressed his palm back against the boulder's rough surface, and closed his eyes.
Day after day passed.
"Bang!"
The boulder slammed into the ground, sending up a few wisps of dust.
"Your ki broke for half a breath. Again." Mr. Popo stood at the edge of the plaza, his voice as flat as if he were listing dishes on a menu.
"Boom!"
The rock rose four inches off the ground, but wobbled like a drunk.
"Your balance is off. Again." Mr. Popo didn't even raise an eyelid.
"Crack—"
This time, it wasn't the muffled thud of a rock hitting the ground. A thin fissure spread from the bottom of the boulder, then the three-meter rock split in two and crashed down with a rumble, sending chunks of stone rolling everywhere.
Son Goku stood frozen, both hands still held out as if supporting something. He stared at the training equipment's gruesome demise and swallowed.
"The rock broke. Again." Mr. Popo pointed to the other end of the plaza. A whole row of identical boulders stood there, neatly lined up in front of the pine-tree wall, as if waiting their turn to get beaten up.
Son Goku resigned himself to walking over to the next rock.
In the first month, he thought the rock was the archenemy of his entire life. In the second month, the rock began to feel lighter—no, the rock hadn't grown lighter. The ki inside him had finally gone from boiling water to warm water, then from warm water to a river so steady it barely rippled. By the third month, he could keep a rock aloft for an hour, two hours, and then an entire morning.
One day, at the end of the third month, he held up a boulder with one hand and suddenly said, "Mr. Popo, can I try holding one in each hand?"
Mr. Popo was silent for two seconds. "There's another one over there. Go get it yourself."
Son Goku lowered the rock in his right hand and jogged to the other end of the plaza to fetch a second one.
The two boulders hovered above his palms, one on each side. He could feel his ki splitting into two streams inside his body, like a great river branching into two channels in its middle course. Neither rushed nor faltered as each flowed steadily into a boulder.
He suddenly smiled. It wasn't a proud smile, but the pure happiness of doing something he hadn't been able to do before. It felt completely different from winning the World Martial Arts Tournament. Winning was an explosion, a boiling point, a release in an instant. Holding up these two rocks felt like...peace. A peace so deep in his bones it felt almost as natural as breathing.
"The morning in the Heavenly Realm is really beautiful," he said suddenly.
Mr. Popo didn't reply. But Goku felt that, just then, those white eyes seemed to curve ever so slightly.
In the fourth month, Mr. Popo spoke up.
"Your boulder training is over."
Son Goku gently lowered the last rock back to the ground.
At some point, a shallow, five-finger-shaped indentation had appeared on its surface. He hadn't squeezed it. The ki flowing over it day after day had worn it down.
"Your ki no longer fights itself." Mr. Popo stepped in front of him, his white eyes scanning him from head to toe. "But all you've done is calm the storm within you. Next, you must learn how to reclaim that seventy percent of your power from elsewhere. The graduation test for your first training exercise is one question. Answer me now. What is ki?"
Son Goku sat cross-legged on the ground, chin in hand, and thought for a long time.
Master Roshi had said ki was life energy. Korin had said ki was an extension of one's battle instincts. But Mr. Popo seemed to mean something else. He'd had Goku use his ki to hold up a rock, not as a weapon, but as another hand. Hands weren't just for hitting people. They were for feeling.
"It's...an extension." He spoke slowly, turning each word over in his mind before saying it. "Not an extension of a tool. An extension of touch. Like having an invisible extra finger on your hand, or even lots of them. You use them to touch the rock, and you can feel inside it—not just the surface, but every grain of sand within." He looked up at Mr. Popo. "Were you asking me to use my ki to feel the rock?"
Mr. Popo was silent for a moment. Then he did something Son Goku had never seen him do before—he gave a slight nod.
"Pass."
Son Goku sprang to his feet, his tail drawing an irrepressible circle behind him.
At the sight, the corner of Mr. Popo's mouth twitched almost imperceptibly.
"Now, we'll begin the second training exercise."
Before you continue