The Moonlight Box's Urgency

At noon, Sha Wujing was chopping wood at the kitchen entrance.

His movements were slow, yet with every swing of the axe, the logs split neatly into two.

Zhi Zun Bao sat on a rock not far away, watching Sha Wujing work. He suddenly felt that there was an indescribable rhythm to the man's actions—quiet people did things in a quiet way.

"Old Sha, what did you do back in the Heavenly Palace?"

Sha Wujing did not stop his work. "I was the Curtain-Lifting General."

"The Curtain-Lifting General? You mean you just lifted the door curtains for the Jade Emperor?"

"Mm."

Zhi Zun Bao did not know what to say.

A man who lifted curtains for the Jade Emperor had been banished to the mortal realm for breaking a Glazed Lamp, only to spend years eating sand in the Flowing Sand River.

It sounded like a joke, but Zhi Zun Bao could not bring himself to laugh.

"Do you think..." Zhi Zun Bao began, weighing his words, "do you think I look like Sun Wukong?"

Sha Wujing stopped his axe. He was silent for a moment, then said something that took Zhi Zun Bao by surprise: "You look like yourself."

Zhi Zun Bao was stunned. "What do you mean, 'like myself'?"

"Sun Wukong... I never saw him when he was wreaking havoc in the Heavenly Palace. By the time I met him, he was already wearing the Tight-Fillet Spell." Sha Wujing looked down at the axe in his hands. "Back then, he looked like a dragon that had been leashed."

He paused.

"You are not leashed."

Zhi Zun Bao remained silent for a long time.

A banished Curtain-Lifting General, a Great Sage Equal to Heaven who had lost his freedom, and a bandit who did not know who he was—they were all being pushed along by fate.

Yet Sha Wujing said he was not leashed.

"Old Sha, once I figure out who I am, I'll help you settle that debt for the Glazed Lamp."

Sha Wujing did not speak.

But his chopping motion faltered for a second before he continued. The force behind his swing was heavier than before.

In the afternoon, Goten continued his rock-lifting practice.

He combined his Saiyan energy with his primordial energy, lifting the massive boulder again and again. Each time, he lifted it a little higher and held it a little steadier than the last.

Several hours later, he was able to hold the boulder above his head for over a dozen breaths. As the sun dipped below the horizon, he dropped the stone and collapsed onto the ground, exhausted.

Yet his mind was still turning over the words Patriarch Bodhi had spoken that morning: "You shouldn't try to control the primordial energy; you should perceive it, then guide it."

He changed his approach. He covered his body in primordial energy, then used his Saiyan energy to "pluck" the surrounding energy, much like plucking the strings of a harp.

The primordial energy rippled outward in invisible waves.

He scrambled up and was pleasantly surprised to find that when he threw a punch, the added vibration of the energy increased its power by at least thirty percent.

He threw a punch at the air a yard away.

Unlike a Kamehameha, he did not release any raw energy, but the primordial energy around him was pushed forward by the strike, turning into an invisible shockwave that pierced the air a yard away. A small tree in the distance shook violently.

He froze.

Patriarch Bodhi, watching from afar, also froze—it had been a long time since he had been stunned by anything.

But in that instant, he had sensed a power older than any Immortal Art—the Primordial Battle Will—awakening in a boy who had been training for less than a month.

Goten did not notice the Patriarch's expression. He looked down at his own fist; in that moment, he had felt the wind. It wasn't that he had been blown by the wind—it was that he had made the wind move.

"This is... the essence of energy."

At dusk, Goten sat under the old locust tree with the Moonlight Box resting on his knees.

He didn't place it there to use it, but simply to be near it. The surface of the Moonlight Box shimmered with a faint, ghostly purple light in the twilight.

"Do you have something you want to tell me?"

The Moonlight Box did not answer.

But Goten felt it—the power sealed deep within the box responded to his call like a faint heartbeat.

He closed his eyes and probed the box with a sliver of primordial energy. He wasn't trying to open it; he just wanted to listen.

Then he heard it. It wasn't a sound, but a feeling. An urgent sensation, as if something were urging him on—not now, but soon—to go somewhere, to do something.

"Five Finger Mountain, right?"

The purple light of the Moonlight Box flickered slightly.

Goten gripped the box tightly and looked toward the distant mountains. That was where Sun Wukong had left something for him.

It wasn't just the Golden Cudgel, and it wasn't just power—it was a truth he had yet to uncover.

He looked down at his hands. After seven days of running up mountains with stones on his back and a full day of lifting, his hands were covered in calluses. But he felt no pain, for with every new callus, he was one step closer to the truth.

"Wait for me a little longer," he whispered. "Once I have the strength to open that door, I will come for you."

The light of the Moonlight Box, as if understanding his words, slowly dimmed. It was like someone who had finally set their mind at ease, drifting into a peaceful sleep.

And all of this... was merely the beginning.