On the night Tabu successfully transformed into a Super Saiyan for the first time, Ji Ming sat on a boulder atop Mount Paozu for a long time.
The sencha Chi-Chi had brewed for him had gone completely cold, but he did not return inside. He lowered his head and looked at his open palm—ever since he had blasted through Yushen's heart with Crimson-Gold Ultra Instinct, the Crimson-Gold Light Core within him and Ultra Instinct had no longer violently rejected each other. Whis had said during their last call that the rejection rate had fallen to less than a tenth of what it had initially been. Only one final step remained before complete stability. Yet over the past several days, he had repeatedly tested Crimson-Gold Ultra Instinct's stable form in the Gravity Chamber, trying to truly merge the two powers at the instant he threw a punch, only to fall short every time—not because the power was insufficient, but because the rhythm was wrong. The Crimson-Gold Light Core pulsed slowly, like a heartbeat; Ultra Instinct's frequency was fast, like breathing. He had kept trying to make his breathing follow his heartbeat, his heartbeat follow his breathing, but every time he thought he had found the point of synchronization, they would drift apart again in the next instant.
Tonight was different. Tonight, he did nothing at all. He simply sat there and watched the stars.
The golden blaze that had erupted when Tabu transformed kept replaying in his mind. He knew that blaze well—every Saiyan's first transformation erupted in that dazzling golden light, the first flash born when rage and unwillingness were compressed to their limits. But what he had seen in Tabu was not rage. It was something that came before it. Those late nights punching before the wall of sandbags,