Heart Like Still Water (Seeking Recommendations)

"Second training." Mr. Popo pointed to the other end of the plaza. A row of stone pillars stood there, each as thick as a bowl, their surfaces smooth and reflecting a faint, grayish-white luster in the light. "Use your ki to carve characters into them."

"Carve characters?" Son Goku blinked. He looked at the pillars, then at his own fingers, the first image to cross his mind being himself poking holes into the stone.

"Carve the character 'Martial'." Mr. Popo took a yellowed piece of paper from his sleeve and unfolded it. A single character was written on it—'Martial'. The brushwork was as vigorous as if cut by a blade or axe, a sense of oppression radiating from between the strokes.

"Use ki as your brush and the stone pillar as your paper. The depth must be consistent, the strokes fluid, and there must not be the slightest deviation." Mr. Popo folded the paper back up and tucked it into his sleeve. "Begin now."

Son Goku had underestimated the task of carving.

He walked to the first pillar, took a deep breath, and concentrated his ki at the tip of his right index finger. A white light ignited at his fingertip, blindingly bright, much like when he had lunged at Master Roshi with a punch. He carefully touched his glowing finger to the surface of the pillar—"Ssh—"

Stone chips flew. A crooked, jagged mark appeared on the pillar, uneven in depth; the starting point looked as if it had been gnawed on, and the ending point hadn't even brushed away the dust.

Stone powder coated his face, making him cough violently. That character—if it could even be called a character—looked more like two earthworms struggling painfully on the stone surface.

He stepped back and scrutinized his "masterpiece," his expression complex.

What is this? Have I forgotten how to write?

Mr. Popo took a look. Just one glance, then he pointed expressionlessly at a brand-new pillar nearby: "Again."

"...Yes."

In the second month, Son Goku ruined two thousand eight hundred and sixty stone pillars.

The pile of rubble in the corner of the plaza grew layer by layer. Every time Goku pushed the cart to transport the debris to the corner, Mr. Popo would stand there, watching him push the cart without moving a muscle. He didn't say "keep it up," nor did he say "too slow"—he just watched. For a time, Goku highly suspected that he was intentionally making him do extra manual labor.

The first problem was force. Carving into stone with ki and shattering stone with a punch were two different things. A punch only required pouring all your power in at once, and the stone would shatter in its own way—but you couldn't control the direction of the cracks. Carving was different. Carving required the ki at every point to be precise to the millimeter—you had to ease off the power at the turns of the strokes, maintain a steady output where the strokes lengthened; horizontal lines had to be level, vertical lines straight, and the diagonal strokes couldn't drift. It took Goku an entire month to realize he had never known his fine motor control over his fingers was this poor.

The second problem was breathing. When carving the first character, he held his breath to finish a horizontal stroke, but ran out of air at the start of the second, causing a visible gap in the middle of the stroke. Mr. Popo stood before that pillar for a second, said "The ki was broken," and walked to the next one.

In the third month, the first pillar without a crack appeared. The 'Martial' character was carved crookedly, but Goku held up Mr. Popo's model and compared them—at least it was recognizable as the same character. He stood before the pillar, staring at his work, stunned for a long while.

Just this one character—it took three months. But—it actually looked pretty good. No, not "good," just... pleasing to the eye.

In the fourth month, Mr. Popo looked at the six hundred and first pillar he had just finished—the 'Martial' character on it had fluid strokes, consistent depth, and sharp starts and ends. Then he said something that nearly made Goku drop to his knees on the spot: "Barely passable. Switch to the character 'Dao'."

"...Yes."

Son Goku walked to the next blank pillar, raised his hand, and a gentle light ignited at his fingertip. He mentally flipped through the brand-new model, memorized the stroke order once more, and then steadily pressed down the first stroke. This time, it only took him half a month to carve the entire pillar. And he only scrapped three.

One day at the start of the fifth month, Mr. Popo walked slowly past the row of pillars he had finished. Twenty pillars, each with a 'Dao' character, the brushwork uniformly neat without exception. He stopped in front of the last one.

"'Martial' is power, 'Dao' is direction. Power with direction begins with a seed. It grows slowly, but once it takes root, it will no longer be blown askew by the wind. You already know how to speak to stone. Next—"

Mr. Popo raised his hand and pointed to the sky.

"Catch that bird."

Son Goku looked up.

Above the sea of clouds, a white Divine Eagle was circling. Its circling posture was leisurely and carefree; with a casual flap of its wings, its form would appear hundreds of meters away, appearing and disappearing within the clouds.

"That is the Divine Eagle of the Heavenly Realm," Mr. Popo's voice came from behind him. "Its speed is ten times that of an ordinary eagle. Your task—without bursting your ki, grab its tail feather."

"Without bursting my ki?!" Son Goku widened his eyes. "How could I possibly catch it! Its speed—"

Before he could finish, he flew out.

The first day of the chase was a one-sided slaughter—Goku was the one being slaughtered. When the Divine Eagle flew over his head, it didn't even consider him a pursuer worth taking seriously; it was just doing its daily flight, while Goku couldn't even touch its shadow. Several times he accelerated to his limit to try and catch up, only for the Divine Eagle to perform a simple side-roll and shake him off.

He didn't touch it on the second day. Or the third. On the fourth day, he changed his strategy, trying to predict its flight path. On the fifth day, he discovered the wind was changing—the wind in the Heavenly Realm was different from the mortal world; the air currents didn't move in straight lines. They swirled around the colonnades of the Lookout, changed direction suddenly above the plaza, and pushed the Divine Eagle's wings into irregular drifts.

On the morning of the seventh day, when the first ray of light from an unknown source stained the jade of the plaza a pale gold, Son Goku stood in the center of the plaza, eyes closed.

He did not move.

The Divine Eagle circled above his head three times, thinking today's pursuer hadn't woken up yet.

But Goku wasn't looking at it. He was looking at the wind. Those transparent, invisible ribbons were emerging from every corner of the Heavenly Realm—winding around the dome of the Lookout, passing through the pine needles, and weaving into a three-dimensional, complex web in the open space above the plaza.

He couldn't catch the Divine Eagle, but he could read the flow of this web.

The Divine Eagle had to fly within the wind. Wherever the wind turned, its wings would tilt accordingly. The wind was its track. As long as he read the trajectory of the wind in advance, he would know in advance where it would appear.

A gust of wind came from the east, about to intersect with a wind coming from the south around the pillars at the northeast corner of the plaza.

There. In the next second, the Divine Eagle's left wing would be lifted half an inch by the eastern air current; it would involuntarily tilt to the right, and then be pushed head-on by the wind coming from the south, sweeping across the plaza from that angle.

Now.

He didn't burst his ki. He didn't charge up. Just a fraction of a second before the air currents intersected, he leaped lightly. His body glided, pushed by the southeast currents, his posture almost as leisurely as the eagle's own, and he stopped steadily directly in front of the Divine Eagle's flight path. He extended his right hand, fingers pressed together, and gave a light pinch.

A flawless, snow-white tail feather was held between his fingertips.

The Divine Eagle let out a short cry—whether of surprise or dissatisfaction—tilted its wings, and flew away.

Son Goku landed slowly back on the plaza, looking down at the tail feather in his hand.

In this moment, he suddenly had a clearer physical sense of the achievement he had realized after months of long-distance running—he hadn't caught this Divine Eagle through speed or power, but through a "calm heart." Only a heart sufficiently calm could read the trajectory of the wind web; only movements sufficiently steady could appear in the right place at the right time without error.

"Barely passing." Mr. Popo's voice came from the direction of the pine trees—Goku could sense he was standing in the shade of the trees, twenty-three steps away, without needing to turn his head.

Mr. Popo's speaking speed was a fraction faster than usual, as if mentioning tomorrow's extra lesson in passing: "Tomorrow—two of them."

Son Goku took a deep breath and dove back into the sea of clouds.

The twelfth month. All the foundational training had come to an end.

Mr. Popo no longer made Son Goku move rocks, carve characters, or chase birds. In their place was a more peculiar daily regimen: meditation in the morning, martial arts practice in the afternoon, and more meditation at night.

During meditation, he was forbidden from thinking of anything; during practice, he was forbidden from stopping for any reason. He had to meditate until he could hear the sound of his own blood flowing, and practice until he could sprint through the colonnades of the Lookout with his eyes closed without hitting a single pillar.

Day after day.

Son Goku found himself growing quieter and quieter.

It wasn't the weary silence born of exhaustion from training, but a deeper, profound stillness that seeped from his very bones.

In the past, whenever he sat still, he would feel an itch all over, and his tail would flick back and forth involuntarily. Now, he could sit under a pine tree for two or three hours at a time, and when he opened his eyes, he would find his tail had long since wrapped itself around his waist and fallen asleep.

The Gravity Suit hadn't been increased much over these twelve months; even now, he had only adjusted the gravity to fifteen times the norm.

He hadn't told anyone this number—Mr. Popo didn't need him to say it; one look was enough. Under fifteen times gravity, he could maintain a state of absolute composure while completing all his meditation and training tasks. But actual combat—that, he hadn't tried yet.

That day, Mr. Popo stood in the center of the plaza and spoke two words to Son Goku, who had just opened his eyes from his morning meditation.

"Combat."

Son Goku's eyes lit up. The shell of silence cracked open with a snap, and the desire for battle that had been suppressed for an entire year surged out like molten lava: "Combat?! With whom—"

"Me."