A New Crisis

The fog that morning was thicker than it had been the previous few days. The sea was covered by a dense grayish-white mist, obscuring the outlines of distant reefs and the coastline. Only the sound of waves striking the beach drifted out of the fog. Krillin stopped at the edge of the shore and glanced into the distance. "Swimming is canceled today. The fog's too thick—we can't see where the reefs are."

Lin Chen stopped beside him as well. Visibility in the fog was poor. The nearby edge of the beach was clear enough, but several dozen meters farther out, everything became a grayish-white expanse, as though the ground simply ended at some boundary. The air was damp, and the fabric of his martial arts uniform clung to his skin. He could feel a fine layer of moisture coating its surface.

"Then what are we doing this morning?" Lin Chen asked.

Krillin thought for a moment. "We'll run as usual. When we get back, we'll check the roof. Two tiles fell off during the wind a few days ago." He turned and began running along the coastline, his pace as steady as ever. He soon became a blurry silhouette in the fog, and after a little farther, the silhouette faded until it seemed to blend into the mist. Lin Chen ran after him. By the time they reached the turnaround point, the fog had thinned slightly, letting daylight filter through.

By the time they returned to Kame House after their run, more than half the fog had dispersed. At least they could make out the outlines of the reefs on the sea. Lin Chen did a set of stretches in the yard, then carried a ladder out of the tool shed and leaned it against the wall beside the house. Two spots on the roof were indeed missing tiles, exposing the wooden slats and waterproofing beneath. He climbed up, cleared away the broken tile fragments around the gaps, selected two suitably sized tiles from the pile of old ones by the wall, then climbed back up and fitted them into place. He pressed along the edges of the new tiles to make sure they were secure. The sea breeze swept along the slope of the roof, rolling a few dead leaves down the ridges.

[ Ding! Obtained Mechanical Repair Fragment ×1. Current Mechanical Repair Proficiency: 9%. ]

A brief warmth spread through his fingertips, similar to when he had repaired the Gravity Room before. He put away the ladder and leaned it back in the corner by the wall. Just then, a sound came mixed with the wind outside—the hum of an engine. It was not loud, but it was drawing closer. He turned and saw a sleek small aircraft flying in low from the west, its shape gradually emerging from the mist. The aircraft hovered above the beach about twenty meters in front of Kame House. The airflow from its rotors scattered sand in every direction before it slowly descended onto the shore. After landing, the rotors gradually slowed and finally stopped. The hatch opened, and a young girl with blue hair jumped down. Her heels sank into the sand as she landed. She wore a light-gray cropped jacket, with several small tool pouches hanging from her belt, and carried a silver-white instrument in one hand. She was the blue-haired girl they had met while registering for the World Martial Arts Tournament.

She swept her gaze over the surroundings, looking first at the roof of Kame House before her eyes settled on Lin Chen near the edge of the yard. "Oh, it's you. You live here now?"

Lin Chen leaned the ladder against the outer wall of the tool shed. "Who are you looking for?"

"You." She stepped closer and raised the instrument in her hand. "I'm Bulma. I measured your readings during the World Martial Arts Tournament, and the more I thought about it after I went back, the stranger it seemed. Your energy readings kept fluctuating. It didn't look like normal physical fluctuations—it looked more like you were absorbing something. Later, I detected spatial anomaly signals several times nearby. The source was around here—have you been using something?"

Lin Chen did not answer immediately. At that moment, Krillin came out of the house with a coil of rope in his hand. He paused when he saw Bulma. "You're here?"

Bulma glanced at him. "You're here too? Perfect. You two know what you're doing, right?" She waved the instrument. "This thing has been picking up abnormal fluctuations for several days straight. They're very faint, but their frequency matches the signal I detected at the World Martial Arts Tournament. This isn't a good sign, and the source is somewhere near this area. Even if it isn't dealt with now, it could attract other things later."

Krillin set down the rope. "What kind of signal?"

"It doesn't seem like an ordinary energy signal." Bulma looked down at the screen of the instrument. "It's closer to the fluctuations released when spatial structures are disturbed—sort of like the residual waves from energy transmission or release. I'm not a specialist in this, but data doesn't lie. If it keeps going, someone might detect it from far away." There was no particular emotion in her voice. She was merely stating what she had observed, as though describing a set of confirmed data records.

Lin Chen stood at the edge of the yard, watching the waveform on Bulma's screen clearly visible in the light. Both its amplitude and frequency were constantly changing. Wind blew in from the sea, lifting the fallen leaves in the yard before letting them fall again, spinning them around the edge of the stone steps.

"I understand," he said. "There have indeed been some changes before, but the range was small."

Bulma looked at him. "If you need help dealing with it, I can make some signal-shielding devices."

Krillin glanced at Lin Chen. "What do you think?"

Lin Chen considered it, then nodded to Bulma. "You can make the shielding devices. What materials do you need?"

Bulma gave him a list of materials. Lin Chen took it, read through it once, folded the paper, and put it in his pocket. Bulma packed the instrument into her tool pouch and turned toward the aircraft. "I'll bring the shielding devices over in two days. Until then, try not to use that ability in open areas—the signal can be detected."

She jumped into the aircraft, the hatch closed, and the engine started again. The craft briefly kicked up a cloud of sand on the beach before rising into the air and flying west. The sand gradually settled after it took off, falling back to the ground. The faint smell of fuel in the sea breeze quickly dissipated.

Krillin remained where he was, watching the aircraft become a black speck in the sky. "She's been here a few times, and every time she brought equipment. But those abnormal fluctuations she mentioned really do exist, and it hasn't happened only once."

Lin Chen did not respond. He stood in the yard, glanced once more at the fading trail left by the departing aircraft, then turned and went inside.

After lunch, he took out the list Bulma had left and read it a second time. There were not many items on it. Most were electronic components and shielding materials. Some could be bought at ordinary electronics stores, while others might have to be acquired through specific channels. He folded the list and put it in a drawer without doing anything further.

The wind was weaker than it had been that morning. Sunlight had pierced the last wisps of fog, casting clear boundaries between light and shadow across the yard. Master Roshi sat beneath the porch, looking out at the sea and still drinking his tea. When he set the cup back on the armrest of the bamboo chair, its bottom lightly tapped against the wood. In the distance, a seabird flew low, the feathers at the tips of its wings skimming the surface and leaving behind a fading trail of water. It then climbed higher, becoming a tiny black dot in the field of view.