Internal Competition Cultivation

Eight months later.

The morning sea breeze, carrying a salty tang, swept over the dilapidated roof of Kame House. Waves crashed against the coastal reefs, emitting a rhythmic, splashing roar.

"Ha!"

"Hey!"

Two youthful, explosive shouts rang out almost simultaneously. A tall figure and a short one crisscrossed on the beach in front of Kame House. The muffled thuds of fists and feet colliding were as dense as a drumroll, causing the air to hum with vibration.

Krillin—that little bald monk—performed two backflips in the air and landed steadily. His feet carved two long furrows into the sand. Fine beads of sweat had already seeped onto his forehead, sliding down his smooth scalp. He stared at the spiky-haired boy opposite him, who was equally breathless yet grinning brilliantly, and a complex emotion welled up in his heart.

This guy... he's gotten stronger again.

We eat the same food, do the same training, and sleep the same amount. I crawl out of bed at four in the morning to practice extra punches, and he's up at four too. I sneak out to the reefs at night to meditate and practice ki, and he's sitting on the reef right next to me. I add five hundred punches to my routine, he adds six hundred. I eat five bowls of rice, he eats six...

The kicker is that he doesn't even seem tired! Every time I feel like I'm about to catch up to him, we spar the next day, and the gap has only grown wider!

"Krillin! Again!" Son Goku grinned, revealing a set of pearly white teeth. His tail swayed excitedly behind him, tracing arcs in the sand.

"Bring it on! Who's afraid of you!"

Krillin gritted his teeth, pushed off the ground, and launched himself forward like a spring. His striking technique was at least a tier more cunning than it had been eight months ago—a feint with the left, a solid strike with the right, followed by a knee strike; the three-hit combo was executed in one fluid motion.

But Son Goku's body merely swayed slightly, slipping through the gaps in the three attacks. His movements weren't flashy, but they were terrifyingly precise—it was the Saiyan combat instinct taking the lead, the muscle memory forged through thousands of repetitions under ten times gravity.

What Krillin didn't notice was that beneath Son Goku's blue martial arts uniform, his black gravity-weighted undershirt was emitting faint golden patterns—the gravity multiplier: ten times.

Every step taken, every punch thrown, felt like struggling against invisible pressure at the bottom of the deep sea. His bones emitted faint pops audible only to himself under the heavy load; his muscle fibers were constantly strengthening through a cycle of tearing and repairing; his heartbeat was as heavy as a war drum. The sweat on his forehead was three times more profuse than usual, sliding down his cheeks and into the collar of his uniform.

Still not enough.

Son Goku silently felt the surging power within his body.

The transmigrator's prophetic vision acted like a searchlight, illuminating the dark timeline ahead—he knew that in a few years, a Saiyan named Raditz would descend upon Earth. That was his own flesh-and-blood brother, and the first formidable enemy to make him taste the bitterness of death.

Raditz. Vegeta. Nappa. Frieza. Cell. Majin Buu.

These names were like increasingly towering peaks pressing down on his heart.

As I am now, I should be quite a bit stronger than the Goku from the original story at this point, right?

He made a quick mental calculation. The original Goku's power level during the Raditz arc was approximately 416. After these eight months of "involution-style" cultivation—Turtle School training under ten times gravity, day-and-night sparring with Krillin, and the accelerated growth rate of his Saiyan bloodline being triggered early—his current power level had likely approached or even broken the 500 mark.

500. At this point in time, there shouldn't be a warrior on Earth stronger than him.

Furthermore, stimulated by his "hardcore gamer" style of training, Krillin was also significantly stronger than in the original work. The current Krillin could now hold his own for a hundred moves against Master Roshi without being defeated.

But, at 500... I can't beat anyone, it's still not enough!

Moreover, on a cosmic scale, 500 wasn't even a rounding error. Frieza's 530,000—the mere thought of that number made his scalp tingle. Not to mention the later Perfect Cell, the terrifying regenerative abilities of Majin Buu, and existences like God of Destruction Beerus, who operated on an entirely different dimension.

"Get stronger. Must get even stronger."

"Goku! What are you spacing out for!"

Krillin's fist was already closing in on his face. The wind from the punch grazed Son Goku's cheek, stirring a few strands of black hair.

His body moved before his consciousness—this was the conditioned reflex forged by taking hundreds of thousands of punches every day for the past eight months. He tilted his head slightly, and Krillin's fist brushed past his ear, the scorching wind causing his eardrum to hum. In the same instant, he countered with a hand-blade strike toward the back of Krillin's neck; the speed was neither rushed nor slow, but the angle was impeccably cunning.

"Bang!"

Krillin narrowly blocked the strike, crossing his forearms to shield his neck. But the force far exceeded his expectations—it was like being rammed head-on by a charging wild bull—and he was sent stumbling back three steps, his heels carving two deep trenches into the sand. His arms felt numb and painful, as if he'd been thrashed with a club.

"G-great strength!" Krillin's eyes widened as he shook his numb arms. "Goku, did you sneak in extra training again?"

Son Goku tilted his head, looking innocent. "Nope, just normal training."

"Normal my foot!"

Krillin roared internally. This brat's so-called "normal training" included, but was not limited to: waking up at four in the morning for a fifty-kilometer weighted run, completing the hellish training menu with Master Roshi during the day, adding a thousand extra punches after dinner, and meditating to practice ki for two hours before bed. Last week, when he got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and passed Son Goku's room, he found that this guy was actually doing sit-ups in his sleep—eyes closed, breathing steady, definitely asleep, but his abs were moving up and down without stopping. This level of training intensity couldn't be explained by the word "normal"!

"Ah—so noisy!"

The wooden door was kicked open, and Master Roshi walked out slowly, leaning on his cane. His floral shirt was missing a button, and his sunglasses were perched crookedly on the bridge of his nose; he had clearly just been woken from his sleep.

"You two brats! Making such a racket early in the morning, can't you let an old man sleep in! Do you have any idea that I was watching aerobics programs until two in the morning last night!"

Krillin and Son Goku stopped simultaneously and stood at attention.

Master Roshi yawned and pushed up his sunglasses. Then, he walked toward the two of them at a leisurely pace. The gaze behind his sunglasses paused on Krillin for a moment before slowly shifting to Son Goku. His expression didn't change, but his gaze lingered significantly longer.

This brat Goku... something's not right.

He had been teaching the Turtle School training system for decades and had trained countless disciples. He knew the growth curve of every single one of them like the back of his hand—no matter how fast they progressed, there was a limit. It was like pouring water into a cup; the mouth of the cup was only so wide, so no matter how strong the flow, it couldn't fill up any faster.

But Son Goku was different. He wasn't a cup. He was a well. No matter how much water you poured in, it never filled up.

What... exactly kind of body do you have?

"Goku," Master Roshi said slowly, the laziness in his voice fading slightly. "Your rate of progress over these eight months... to be honest, it has already exceeded the scope of my decades of knowledge."

Son Goku's heart tightened slightly.

Crap, did he figure it out?

It was only a matter of time before Master Roshi became suspicious of his training progress. The Saiyan growth rate was too abnormal; any martial artist who had seriously trained disciples would notice something was wrong. But he couldn't tell the truth—how would he explain it? "I'm an alien, my race is born to get stronger the more we fight"? If he said that, Master Roshi would probably think his brain had been damaged from training.

"However," Master Roshi changed the subject, his expression unreadable behind his sunglasses, though the corners of his mouth curled up slightly, "the World Martial Arts Tournament isn't won by strength alone. Power, speed, technique, experience, mindset—you can't afford to lack any of them."

He stretched his neck to lean in toward the two of them, his sunglasses sliding down to the tip of his nose to reveal a pair of sharp eyes: "When facing an opponent weaker than yourself, you must not underestimate them. When facing an opponent far stronger than yourself, you must not fear them. The truly formidable ones aren't the ones with the most power, but the ones who are still standing on the ring at the very end."

He paused, picked at his ear with his pinky finger, and blew on it: "So—how are you two preparing?"

"I'm ready whenever!" Son Goku puffed out his chest, his eyes burning with a scorching flame. That gaze wasn't just a child's passing impulse, but a desire that had been settling for eight years, becoming clearer with every passing day.

Krillin also clenched his fists, his knuckles turning white: "This time... I will definitely beat Goku! At least land five hits on him—no, ten!"

Master Roshi looked at Krillin, then at Son Goku, and suddenly threw his head back in a hearty laugh. His white beard twitched with excitement, his laughter carrying far across the surface of the sea: "Good! That's the spirit! Krillin has spirit! Goku has spirit too! Since that's the case—"

He reached behind his turtle shell and fumbled around for a while, eventually pulling out two crumpled sheets of paper.

"The 21st World Martial Arts Tournament opens in one month!"

Son Goku reached out both hands to take the thin registration form. The sea breeze made the paper flutter, and as he pressed his fingertips against the surface, he felt something surge from the paper and into his veins.

The World Martial Arts Tournament.

He had seen it countless times in the anime, so familiar with every opponent and every matchup that he could recite them by heart. But "watching from the sidelines" and "personally standing on the ring to feel the cheers of thousands" were two completely different things.

"It's finally here."

He took a deep breath, carefully folded the registration form, and tucked it into his shirt. His heart pounded in his chest—not from nervousness, but from a certain thrill, as if he were about to step up to the starting line.