Son Goku's Lecture Tour

When Son Gohan received the formal invitation from the Supreme Kai of Universe 12, he was in the archive room at Kami's Lookout organizing the third revised edition of his healing technique teaching materials. The room had originally been a storage chamber at Kami's Lookout, but after Dende succeeded Guru, he had transformed it into an inter-universal documentation center. Every wall was stacked from floor to ceiling with materials sent from various universes—ancient scrolls on Planet Namek's sealing arts, rubbings of Saiyan ki patterns, organic crop cultivation manuals from the Saiyan base in Universe 6, a guide to the safe application of destruction energy compiled by the Pride Troopers of Universe 11, and Capsule Corp technical white papers Bulma sent over every month. Son Gohan's desk was squeezed into the middle of it all, piled with several stacks of paper files taller than his head, while several moisture-proof, temperature-controlled archive cabinets imported from Universe 3 were stacked in the corner. Dende carefully placed the invitation in the only empty spot on the desk. Three full pages had been neatly written on cream-colored handmade paper in Hit's language, and the golden seal of Universe 12's Supreme Kai was stamped at the end.

"They want me to give a lecture tour." Son Gohan read the invitation from beginning to end, his tone caught somewhere between honor and nervousness. "The first stop is the Sacred World of the Kai in Universe 12, where I'll speak about frequency calibration for healing techniques on non-humanoid species. The second stop is the academic research institute in Universe 2, where I'll discuss combat-medicine applications of near-death recovery mechanisms. The third stop is Universe 8—they say there's an indigenous race there with semi-energy bodies. Healing techniques are completely ineffective on them, and they hope I can conduct a field study to see whether a new treatment can be developed for semi-energy life-forms."

Ji Ming sat on an old sofa in the corner of the archive room, holding a cup of sencha brought from Mount Paozu. The sofa was a discarded piece Bulma had moved over from West City; its springs had sagged a little, and it creaked whenever someone sat on it. As he listened to Son Gohan read the invitation, he noticed that Son Gohan's voice rose slightly when he reached "semi-energy life-forms." His fingers lightly tapped the edge of the letter without thinking, and several opened reference books lay piled beside his feet.

"What do you think?" Ji Ming took a sip of tea, his tone much the same as when he asked at the dinner table whether Son Gohan wanted pumpkin.

"I want to go." Son Gohan set down the invitation. His glasses slid halfway down his nose; when he pushed them up, they slid down again. "But once I'm gone, who'll cover Dende's sealing arts training? The Saiyan medical team in New Vegeta City has a joint drill next week, and they need me there to supervise data collection. And Bulma's biomechanical module for the Gravity Chamber has just finished its first-stage adjustments and hasn't been inspected yet—" He rattled off every item on his to-do list in one breath, then paused to catch his breath and looked at Ji Ming.

"Piccolo can cover Dende's class. He's even more thorough than you when teaching the fundamentals of healing techniques. Bulma can handle the Gravity Chamber inspection herself; just leave her a note." Ji Ming set his teacup on the armrest, rose, and walked to Son Gohan's desk. From the piles of documents, he precisely pulled out the Gravity Chamber inspection form, the medical team's drill plan, and Piccolo's teaching résumé, placing them separately before Son Gohan. "As for the lecture tour—you spent a long time writing those materials. From the combat data from the Tournament of Power to clinical feedback from medical teams across the universes, every chapter went through at least three revisions. Now someone's asking you to teach it. You should go."

Son Gohan fell silent for a while, then folded the invitation again and slipped it back into its envelope. "Then if there's an emergency during the tour and I need to return—"

"You have Instant Transmission. And Nail and Dende are both at Kami's Lookout. If something really happens, they'll be faster than you." Ji Ming pressed a hand to his shoulder. "Go. Teach your healing techniques. I've got things covered here."

The first stop of the lecture tour—the Sacred World of the Kai in Universe 12—was far grander than Son Gohan had expected. He had assumed it would be a small academic presentation, with the Supreme Kai and a few medical officers sitting in a conference room while he spoke for a few hours, followed by tea and snacks. But when he arrived at the Sacred World of the Kai through a dedicated wormhole passage, an entire auditorium awaited him. It was semi-open-air, its dome formed by a transparent energy membrane through which the Sacred World of the Kai's distinctive golden sea of clouds could be seen churning overhead. Hundreds of medical representatives from all twelve universes filled the seats below. Some wore formal academic robes, some were still clad in the ballistic vests of battlefield medical teams, and some clearly looked like military doctors fresh off the front lines, carrying the faint scent of disinfectant.

Son Gohan's fingers trembled slightly as he stood at the podium and activated the holographic projector. He took a deep breath, then began. He started with the basic energy pathways of healing techniques, then moved on to differences in how various species' physiological structures responded to frequencies, the combined use of Saiyan near-death recovery mechanisms and healing techniques, and how the hundreds of sets of battlefield medical data he collected during the Tournament of Power had been turned into universal treatment protocols. He did not speak quickly, but every sentence was precise, without a single unnecessary word. When he reached the Saiyan near-death recovery mechanism, he brought up Ji Ming's battle-power recovery curve after Jiren's heavy blow during the Tournament of Power, drawing a wave of low murmurs from the audience. A mechanically augmented medical officer from Universe 3 raised a question about data collection accuracy. Son Gohan spent a long time examining it with him, working from sensor error to the attenuation coefficient of bioelectric signals in high-energy environments. In the end, the two of them derived a superior data collection model together on the whiteboard.

The second stop was the academic research institute in Universe 2. The institute had been built deep within the crust of a dwarf planet, its entire structure assembled from white stone that automatically regulated its temperature. The audience there was no longer made up of clinical medical officers, but scholars devoted to theoretical research. Their questions were more challenging than those at the first stop—some questioned whether the sample size for near-death recovery mechanisms was too small, some argued that the energy conversion efficiency of healing techniques had a theoretical limit, and one even mathematically derived a set of boundary conditions under which healing techniques would completely fail in extremely low-energy environments. Son Gohan debated with them for a long time and was not stumped even once.

The trip to Universe 8, the third stop, was what weighed on Son Gohan's mind most throughout the entire lecture tour. Universe 8 was home to an indigenous race called the Askali. Their bodies consisted of semi-energy matter; they had no fixed organ structures, no circulatory systems, and even their definition of "injury" was completely different from that of carbon-based life. In their culture, "illness" was a disruption of the energy field, while "death" was the complete collapse of that field. Universe 7's healing techniques had been developed around energy repair of the cells and tissue structures of carbon-based organisms. Using them on semi-energy life-forms was like trying to repair a motor made entirely of light with a wrench.

Son Gohan spent many days in an Askali settlement. It was built upon a cloud of energy floating high in the sky, with no ground, no walls, and no ceiling. The Askali were masses of gently flowing luminous mist, their colors shifting with their emotions and health—healthy individuals were pale gold, while those with disordered energy fields turned dark gray. They could not speak; communication was carried out entirely through contact between energy fields. When Son Gohan first attempted to use a healing technique on an Askali patient, the green glow passed directly through the patient's body, like it had gone through real mist, touching nothing at all.

He sat at the edge of the energy cloud with a notebook spread across his knees, reviewing his first two failed attempts from beginning to end. He changed the healing technique's energy output from a fixed frequency to a variable one, altered its energy form from point output to broad-area coverage, and tried using Saiyan aura as an intermediary to carry the healing technique's wave energy. Over the following days, he repeatedly adjusted countless parameters. At last, he achieved a breakthrough with an Askali elder who had volunteered for the experiment—the green light of the healing technique no longer pierced through the mist. Instead, the mist actively wrapped around it, absorbed it, and let it slowly spread through the energy field. The elder's dark gray body gradually returned to pale gold. The process was slow, like an ice-covered lake thawing little by little in spring.

Son Gohan used a cross-universal case-recording camera to document the entire process beside him. The Askali gathered in a silent circle to watch. No one made a sound, but Ji Ming later said that he had never seen so many lights softly resonating in the air at once. The final lesson of Son Gohan's lecture tour was not delivered from a podium, but completed atop that floating energy cloud. The Supreme Kai of Universe 8 sent him a letter of thanks especially for it. Its wording was exceptionally humble, and it ended with only one sentence: Askali children would be able to grow up healthy from now on.

When he returned to Earth, smoke from Mount Paozu's cooking fires was rising above the pine forest. Chi-Chi had received his message in advance and knew he was coming home, so she upgraded dinner from two dishes and a soup to six dishes and a soup. Ji Ming waited at the courtyard gate, holding half a cup of cooled sencha. Son Gohan jumped down from the spacecraft in a slightly wrinkled white coat, his hair a complete mess, but his eyes brighter than they had been before he left. He looked at Ji Ming, broke into a wide smile, and said that he seemed to have found something even more amazing than fighting Cell. Ji Ming handed him the sencha and told him to go inside and have something hot. Chi-Chi had steamed crab roe soup dumplings.

That evening, when Son Gohan spoke about his trip to Universe 8 over dinner, he talked much faster than usual. When he explained that the Askali could not communicate through hearing, and that contact between energy fields was an entire river of emotion, he got so excited that his chopsticks nearly flew into Krillin's bowl. Vegeta maintained his head-down, rice-shoveling posture from beginning to end, only inserting one question during the discussion. "Can a semi-energy life-form's energy field withstand a casual blow from a Saiyan?" Son Gohan seriously told him it could not, then reminded him that every race in Universe 8 was protected by a peace treaty. Ji Ming sat in his usual seat, eating tempura shrimp from his bowl. He remembered how, years ago, Son Gohan would blush when questioned by a Supreme Kai. Now, he could calmly debate experts and professors from every universe and bring a new medical solution to a semi-energy race that had never even encountered carbon-based life.

Late that night, Ji Ming went to the archive room at Kami's Lookout to retrieve the sencha cup he had left there during the day. He found Son Gohan sitting at his desk, gazing out at the starry sky of the World of Void. A thick stack of notes lay spread across the desk. On the title page was written: Universe 8 Askali Case Summary—Healing Technique Variant for Semi-Energy Life-Forms (Provisional Name). He picked up the teacup and paused for a moment, his gaze resting on Son Gohan's back. Then he gently pulled the door shut.