Master Roshi: You Still Have Such Good Stuff?!

Dawn broke.

When Chen Mo sat up in bed, every muscle in his body was still protesting.

He washed his face, ate half a compressed biscuit, and retrieved the house capsule.

With a bang, the little house shrank back into the capsule.

Only a small patch of flattened grass remained in the open space by the shore.

He took out the scanner.

The green radar swept the area. The light dot was still seventy kilometers to the south. It had not moved.

Master Roshi was most likely still fishing.

Chen Mo put away the scanner and looked out at the sea before him.

Kame House Island was out at sea.

The jet car could not fly over the water, and it was far too conspicuous anyway.

A living person flying around in a jet car through the skies of the apocalypse was no different from running through the night holding a torch.

When Chen Mo had taken an extra box of universal capsules from the mall yesterday, he had casually checked the shelves in the vehicle section.

On the row beside the jet motorcycles, there had been underwater vehicles.

He pulled a capsule from his pocket. Its label read: "Single-Person Portable Submarine · Leisure Model."

He pressed the switch and threw it out.

Bang.

As the white smoke cleared, a yellow mini-submarine over two meters long appeared on the beach.

It had a streamlined shell, a round hatch on top, and a propeller at the rear.

The Capsule Corporation logo was printed on its side.

It looked a little like a tuna.

A fat tuna.

Chen Mo walked over and unscrewed the hatch.

There was only enough room inside for one person to sit.

A seat, control stick, small instrument panel, and oxygen circulation system.

He tossed his canvas bag inside, then climbed in after it.

The seat was a little cramped, and his knees pressed against the instrument panel.

He tightened the hatch shut.

The oxygen system started up with a hum.

He pushed the control stick.

The propeller began to spin.

The submarine slid from the beach into the sea and sank beneath the surface.

The world underwater was far quieter than the one above.

Sunlight refracted through the surface, dyeing the seawater a pale green.

Schools of fish occasionally darted past the hatch, scattering at the sound of the propeller.

Chen Mo secured the scanner beside the instrument panel.

On the green radar, the light dot lay south-southeast.

He adjusted his heading and pushed the submarine to top speed.

Around sixty kilometers per hour underwater.

More than an hour later.

He was close.

Chen Mo slowed down and gradually brought the submarine to the surface.

When the hatch emerged from the water, he saw the island.

It was tiny. Truly tiny.

It was just a coral reef rising out of the sea, with a few palm trees growing on it and a pink little house standing there.

The character "Turtle" was written on the front of the house.

Chen Mo had seen this house countless times in the anime.

But seeing it in person, his first thought was that it was even smaller than he had imagined.

The submarine approached the island's shallow waters.

Chen Mo opened the hatch and stepped onto the coral reef, jumping ashore.

He pressed the submarine back into its capsule and put it away.

There were sounds on the island.

The sound of waves, the cries of seagulls, and an old man humming a tune.

Chen Mo walked around the house.

On the beach behind it, an old man sat in a folding chair, fishing.

Bald head, white beard, sunglasses. He wore a Hawaiian shirt and beach shorts.

He held a fishing rod in his hand, with a bucket beside him containing two small fish.

Master Roshi.

The God of Martial Arts.

Master Roshi.

Founder of the Turtle School.

Goku and Krillin's master.

One of the strongest humans on Earth.

And the most famous old pervert on Earth.

Hearing the footsteps, Master Roshi turned his head.

Behind his sunglasses, his eyes sized Chen Mo up and down.

Then his gaze fell on the corner of the scouter sticking out from Chen Mo's breast pocket.

"That device." Master Roshi's voice was older than Chen Mo had expected. "Bulma made it."

"Yes."

"Yajirobe sent you?"

"He told me you were here."

Master Roshi turned back and continued watching his fishing rod.

"Go back."

Chen Mo did not move.

"I don't take disciples anymore," Master Roshi said flatly.

"Goku, Krillin, Yamcha—the disciples I taught, two of them died. Trunks wasn't my disciple, but I taught him some basics too. Now, I don't even know where he's run off to."

He gave the rod a tug.

The fishing line rippled across the water's surface.

"The people I trained all ended up going off to die. As their master, I couldn't protect even one of them."

His voice was calm.

"So I'm not taking any more. Find someone else."

Chen Mo stood where he was.

He thought for a moment.

Then he took two steps back, planted himself on the beach, and spread his feet shoulder-width apart.

"King Kai Fist."

A red aura exploded from his body.

Times two.

The sand on the beach was pushed away by the blast of energy, forming a shallow depression beneath his feet.

The red glow reflected off the sea, dyeing the shallows orange-red.

Master Roshi's hand froze.

He turned around.

Behind his sunglasses, his eyes narrowed.

"King Kai Fist?"

Chen Mo held it for three seconds before releasing it.

The red aura faded away.

"How did you learn the King Kai Fist?" Master Roshi stood up. His folding chair tipped over onto the sand.

His tone had completely changed. "That's King Kai's technique. North King Kai taught it himself. Goku is the only person on Earth who knows it."

"It's a long story." Chen Mo caught his breath. "But I really can use it. I can use both times two and times three."

"Times three?" Master Roshi walked over.

He was half a head shorter than Chen Mo, but as he approached, Chen Mo could feel an invisible pressure.

Master Roshi reached out and pressed his fingers against Chen Mo's wrist.

"Pulse is one hundred and forty... no, one hundred and sixty. Tachycardia. Minor tears in the muscle fibers. With your physical foundation, using double power is already pushing you past your limit."

He let go.

"What's your battle power?"

"Five."

Master Roshi fell silent for several seconds.

"Five," he repeated.

"Five," Chen Mo repeated as well.

"Your battle power is five, and you're putting the King Kai Fist on yourself?" Master Roshi's sunglasses slipped down slightly, revealing the whites of his eyes above them.

"Do you know that the King Kai Fist's strain on the body stacks proportionally? Back then, Goku had a battle power of eight thousand, and using four times power nearly crippled him."

"With a battle power of five, using double power is like putting turbochargers on an engine made of paper."

"That's why I came to find you," Chen Mo said. "I need to build up my foundation."

"I told you, I'm not taking disciples."

Master Roshi turned and walked back to the folding chair, bent over to set it upright, then sat down again.

"Knowing the King Kai Fist is your own ability. But I don't take disciples anymore. You can go find Korin, or any martial arts school on Earth. Just don't come looking for me."

He picked up his fishing rod and cast it into the sea.

The fishing line landed on the water's surface.

"I'm just an old man who fishes."

Chen Mo looked at the back of Master Roshi's head.

He had run simulations of this scene in the basement.

Master Roshi would refuse. He knew that.

It wasn't that Master Roshi didn't want to teach him.

He was afraid to.

Every disciple he trained had died.

He was scared.

An old man who had lived for hundreds of years, watching the children he had raised with his own hands die one after another.

In the end, all he could do was sit on a small island and fish.

Pretending not to care about anything.

But Chen Mo couldn't rely on sentimentality to make him agree.

Master Roshi responded to softness, not force, but the kind of "softness" he responded to wasn't tears.

It was something else.

Chen Mo crouched down and opened his canvas bag.

When he had searched through things on the second floor of that mall, he had taken more than just capsules and glow sticks.

He had also visited the ransacked magazine section.

The food and medicine had been looted clean. Someone had taken the clothes and electronics too.

But there was one type of thing that nobody would take in the apocalypse.

Because in the apocalypse, nobody would think such things were useful.

Chen Mo pulled out a stack of items from the bottom of the canvas bag.

Three magazines. Their covers were brightly colored, and the women on them were not wearing much. To be precise, they were wearing very little.

Two videotapes. The boxes bore titles in West City language, which roughly translated to something like "Summer Tales."

And an envelope. Inside was a stack of photographs. There was no need to describe what kind.

Chen Mo arranged the items neatly on the beach beside Master Roshi.

Master Roshi's fishing rod stopped moving.

His head slowly turned around.

The eyes behind his sunglasses locked onto the stack on the sand.

"This..."

"I found them in a hidden compartment in the corner of the magazine section on the second floor of West City Department Store," Chen Mo said. "Pre-apocalypse stock. Brand-new and unopened."

Master Roshi's Adam's apple bobbed.

He reached out a hand. A trembling hand.

A hand that had fired a Kamehameha and blasted apart the moon was now trembling before a magazine.

He picked up the top magazine.

He flipped open the first page.

"OOOH!!!"

Master Roshi's nose started bleeding.

The blood shot two meters into the air, drawing a red parabola beneath the sunlight.

Clutching the magazine in both hands, he sprang out of his folding chair and hopped barefoot around the beach three times.

"This girl is incredible! This angle is perfect! This—ooh, this page is even better!"

He suddenly stopped on his fourth lap.

Then he turned to look at Chen Mo.

"You said you wanted to become my disciple?"

"Yes."

"What do you want to learn?"

"The basics of martial arts, how to use ki, everything."

Master Roshi stuffed the magazine into his floral shirt, so fast it was like a magic trick.

"The videotapes are for me too?"

"They're all yours."

"What about the photos?"

"All of them."

Master Roshi cleared his throat.

He straightened his sunglasses, puffed out his chest, and wiped away the nosebleed with his sleeve.

"Young man." His voice suddenly turned solemn. "I, Master Roshi, have always devoted myself to promoting the martial arts."

"I can see that your bones are exceptional. Though your aptitude is poor, your character is outstanding. You even managed to figure out a high-level technique like the King Kai Fist on your own. That proves you have potential."

He clasped his hands behind his back and lifted his chin, his white beard fluttering in the sea breeze.

"From today onward, you are the final disciple of my Turtle School."

A voice spoke from nearby.

"Master, thirty seconds ago, you said you weren't taking any disciples."

Chen Mo turned to look.

A sea turtle was lying on the beach. It was enormous, its shell wider than a tabletop.

The skin on its neck was pale green and deeply wrinkled.

Its eyes were half-open, and it looked thoroughly exhausted.

Master Roshi's old companion—the thousand-year-old sea turtle.

"Shut up," Master Roshi said without turning around.

"You only changed your mind because he brought all that indecent stuff," the turtle said slowly, as though it had been soaking in water for a thousand years.

"Nonsense!" Master Roshi said righteously. "I saw that this child had talent! The King Kai Fist! Do you know what level of technique the King Kai Fist is? It was personally taught by North King Kai! You could count the people on Earth who know it on one hand!"

"But you agreed right after he put those things on the ground."

"Coincidence."

"You refused when he demonstrated the King Kai Fist earlier."

"I hadn't seen his true aptitude clearly then."

"And what let you see his aptitude clearly was a magazine featuring scantily clad women."

"You're a thousand years old! Watch your tongue!"

The turtle sighed and pulled its head back a little.

"When Goku and Krillin came to become your disciples, this was what you asked for too. Decades have passed, and you haven't changed at all."

"Classics never go out of style." Master Roshi swiftly gathered up the other two magazines and the videotapes. "Oh, right."

He turned to Chen Mo.

"Is there more?"

"There's still plenty in stock in the magazine section of that mall," Chen Mo said. "I'll go haul back another load when I have time."

Master Roshi patted Chen Mo on the shoulder.

"Good disciple," Master Roshi said.

The turtle withdrew its head completely into its shell.

"I don't know him," came a muffled voice from inside.

Under Master Roshi's guidance, Chen Mo moved his things into the little house.

The house was small. The living room, bedroom, and kitchen were all crammed together.

The television was an old model, its antenna crooked and unable to pick up any signal.

Several calligraphy paintings hung on the walls, along with a group photo.

There were many people in the photo. Goku, Krillin, Bulma, Yamcha, Tien Shinhan, Chiaotzu... Everyone was smiling.

Master Roshi noticed where Chen Mo was looking.

He walked over, took the photo off the wall, and placed it face-down in a drawer.

"Training starts tomorrow." Master Roshi's voice returned to normal.

There was none of his earlier joking around, nor the refusal from before that.

He was simply a teacher speaking to his student.

"Your physical foundation is far too poor. Power level five. The worst of any student I've ever taught. Goku had at least ten when he came. Krillin was even higher."

"Forcing yourself to use the King Kai Fist right now is like using an eggshell as a cannon barrel. I need to replace your eggshell with an iron pipe first."

"How?"

"The Turtle School's basic training." Master Roshi held up one finger. "First, weighted training. Wear a turtle shell, starting at twenty kilograms. With your build, any heavier and you'll get flattened."

"Second, sensing and controlling ki. You know the King Kai Fist, but you don't know how to control ki. The King Kai Fist is a technique that compresses ki and unleashes it. You barely have any ki to begin with—what exactly are you supposed to compress?"

"Third, combat awareness. When there's time, I'll spar with you. Don't worry, I won't hit too hard."

He paused.

"If I hit too hard, you'll die."

Chen Mo nodded.

"Starting tomorrow, we begin at five in the morning every day. Understood?"

"Understood."

Master Roshi gave a grunt, took the stack of things into the bedroom, and shut the door.

Extremely suppressed laughter came from inside.

The turtle passed by the doorway and glanced at Chen Mo.

"Your choice of master." With that, he slowly crawled away.

Chen Mo sat down on the sofa in the living room.

He took out the scanner.

The green radar swept across the area.

The sea was calm. There were no abnormal energy signals within fifty kilometers.

He adjusted the range to its maximum.

Two hundred kilometers.

To the north.

Three points of light.

Previously, there had only been two extremely weak signals far to the south.

Now there were three. And their direction had changed.

They were coming from the north.

The three signals were moving south at high speed.

Chen Mo stared at the three points of light on the screen.

Their signal signatures differed from ordinary living beings, with severe frequency shifts that landed squarely within the android electromagnetic frequency range Bulma had configured.

Three androids.

Android 17. Android 18. And a new one.

Android 16.

She had brought Android 16 out.

And she was searching southward.

Chen Mo put the scanner back into his pocket.

He glanced at the closed bedroom door of Master Roshi's room.

Light shone through the crack beneath the door. Every now and then, a snort came from inside.

Chen Mo closed his eyes.

He did not have much time left.