Master Roshi Was Right, Numbers Are Indeed Deceiving

Chen Mo did not move.

Neither did young Goku.

The two stood twenty meters apart on the white stone-brick plaza.

Between them was the stone platform, with the bottle of Ultra Divine Water resting on top.

Chen Mo's mind raced.

Young Goku. The period after he defeated King Piccolo and trained at the Lookout.

At this stage, according to estimates based on the original work, his combat power was roughly two hundred.

His own base combat power was one hundred. Double Kaio-ken made it two hundred. Quadruple Kaio-ken made it four hundred.

Numerically, he should have crushed him.

"Come on," young Goku said.

There was no unnecessary emotion in his black eyes.

Chen Mo took a breath.

"Double Kaio-ken."

A red aura burst from his body, spreading across a three-meter radius beneath his feet.

His physical capabilities doubled. His muscle fibers swelled, and his blood rushed faster.

He charged forward.

A straight punch.

Young Goku tilted his head.

He did not dodge. He simply moved aside just enough to avoid the sharpest line of the punch.

Chen Mo's fist brushed past his ear and struck empty air.

Then young Goku's foot came flying in.

A kick swept into Chen Mo's ribs.

Chen Mo was sent flying sideways, crashing into the stone bricks at the edge of the plaza and shattering two of them.

He rolled over and climbed to his feet. A sharp pain shot through his ribs.

That speed just now had not been slower than his. It had been even faster.

Their combat power was clearly the same. After Double Kaio-ken, he was at two hundred, and so was his opponent.

Why did it feel like he was just getting beaten up?

Young Goku was already pursuing him.

A fist cut in from the right. The angle was tricky—not a straight line, but an arcing path of attack.

Chen Mo raised his arm to block it.

But the impact against his arm knocked his center of gravity off balance.

Then came the second punch. The left hand. Straight at his abdomen.

Chen Mo sucked in his stomach and evaded, then drove his knee up in counterattack.

Young Goku ducked low and slid beneath his leg, then turned and slapped a palm into his back.

Chen Mo slammed face-first into the ground.

His face scraped against the stone bricks. A rusty taste seeped from the corner of his mouth.

He sprang back to his feet and pulled away.

Three exchanges. He had been hit three times. He had not touched his opponent even once.

Their combat power was clearly the same.

No. It was not the same.

The numbers were the same. But everything beyond the numbers was different.

This Goku, even if he was only a projection created by the consciousness space, had fully inherited all of Goku's combat experience up to the age of thirteen.

He had fought Yamcha. He had fought Tien Shinhan. He had fought King Piccolo. He had torn through the entire Red Ribbon Army headquarters. He had sparred with the God in the heavens.

Chen Mo had trained for one year.

One year against thirteen.

"You're so slow." Young Goku stood five meters away, tilting his head at him.

Chen Mo wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth.

Double Kaio-ken was not enough.

"Quadruple Kaio-ken."

The red aura surged.

But his power had doubled.

Four hundred.

Twice that of his opponent.

Chen Mo charged again. This time, he was noticeably faster. His right fist, wreathed in red aura, came crashing down head-on.

This time, Goku did not dodge.

He turned sideways and caught Chen Mo's fist with his right hand.

He caught it.

Despite a twofold gap in battle power, he had caught it.

Chen Mo's wrist was held by the other's five fingers. The grip was not strong, but it locked him at an incredibly precise angle.

His punch was guided off course, its force sliding away along that angle.

Borrowing force.

This brat was using force against force.

Goku's left fist struck at the same time. Chen Mo blocked with his left hand. This time, he stopped it, and the opponent's strength was clearly weaker than his own.

The absolute gap in strength under Quadruple Kaio-ken was real.

But Goku's fist did not stop after hitting his guard.

That fist slid up along his forearm, the palm turning into a grabbing motion as it clasped his elbow.

Then Goku spun halfway around.

Chen Mo was flung away.

His back slammed viciously into the stone tiles. Rubble flew everywhere.

He lay on the ground, taking two breaths as he stared into the endless darkness above.

Quadruple Kaio-ken. Battle power four hundred. The other side had two hundred.

He was twice as strong as his opponent.

Yet he still could not win.

Every punch he threw had its force dissolved by the other's angles and timing.

It was like smashing a hammer into water. No matter how hard he struck, once the water splashed apart, there was nothing left to hit.

What had Master Roshi said back then?

"Numbers cannot measure experience and skill."

At the time, he had thought he understood.

Only now did he realize that he had not understood at all.

Goku walked over.

Unhurriedly. With both hands behind his back, as though he were taking a stroll.

"Your punches are heavy," Goku said. "But before you throw them, I already know where you're going to hit."

"..."

"You look at my eyes before you attack." Goku crouched down. "Your shoulders move before you punch. Your center of gravity shifts before you kick."

Chen Mo clenched his teeth.

He got up and adjusted his stance.

Don't look at the eyes. Don't move the shoulders first. Don't shift his center of gravity.

He charged again.

His right fist was a feint. The real attack was a ki blast from his left hand.

The Kamehameha was compressed to the size of a fist and fired straight from his palm. The distance was too close. Goku had no time.

Goku took one step to the left.

The ki blast flew past his ear and struck the edge of the plaza, blasting open a crater.

How had he known?

"When you gather energy in your left hand, your fingers curl in," Goku said. "It's obvious."

Chen Mo nearly cursed out loud.

He noticed something.

Although that punch had missed, Goku's reaction time had slowed.

He was starting to see certain things.

For example, whenever Goku moved, his right foot always moved first.

And when he dodged, he habitually dodged to the left.

For example, whenever he counterattacked, his first move was always a kick, never a punch.

Chen Mo charged forward again.

This time, he did not throw a punch first. He closed in, entering striking range, then waited.

Young Goku's right foot came flying toward him.

Just as expected—a kick.

Chen Mo had already positioned his left hand to block. He caught it.

The force traveled through him. Young Goku was only half as strong as he was. This time, Chen Mo received the blow steadily.

Then Chen Mo threw a right punch.

It landed.

It slammed solidly into young Goku's chest.

Young Goku flew back three meters, his feet carving two trails into the ground before he steadied himself.

He lowered his head and looked at his chest. There was a fist mark on his martial arts uniform.

Then he raised his head.

The smile on his face changed slightly.

"You learn pretty fast."

Chen Mo said nothing.

He had predicted his opponent's attack patterns. He had arranged his defensive position around those patterns. He had used the difference in their strength to land an effective hit.

He had not learned this at Kame House Island.

After being hit five or six times just now, his body had memorized it on its own.

Combat experience.

Master Roshi had taught him the basics for a year. Techniques, ki control, martial arts.

But combat was something you could not learn without taking hits.

Goku had thirteen years of fighting experience.

Chen Mo was going to use this battle to make up for what he lacked.

"Continue," Chen Mo said.

Young Goku smiled. There was something more in that smile than before.

He charged in.

His speed increased.

His power level of two hundred was fully unleashed. Every punch came from the most vicious angle.

Chen Mo blocked the first punch.

The second struck his shoulder.

He twisted aside to avoid the third.

He blocked the fourth with his elbow while driving his knee forward.

Young Goku ducked beneath it and swept his leg at him.

Chen Mo jumped over the sweep, then fired a Kamehameha straight down from midair.

Young Goku rolled away. The ki blast struck the stone tiles, sending fragments flying everywhere.

"Afterimage Fist!" As Chen Mo landed, his figure flashed, and three afterimages appeared around young Goku at once.

Young Goku's head moved slightly.

He closed his eyes.

Then he turned around and punched through the afterimage to Chen Mo's left. Immediately afterward, he kicked backward with his right foot, striking Chen Mo squarely in the abdomen.

Chen Mo doubled over.

"I can use Afterimage Fist too," young Goku said. "Just close your eyes and sense ki. Afterimage Fist can only fool the eyes, not ki."

Chen Mo coughed twice.

He knew. In the original story, Goku had mastered these basic techniques early on.

Afterimage Fist, Kamehameha, Solar Flare—these things came as naturally to Goku as eating.

Then what about Kamehameha?

Chen Mo brought his hands together and pulled them back to his waist.

"Kame..."

Young Goku made the same motion.

"Hamehameha!"

Two blue pillars of light collided.

Chen Mo's was a Kamehameha boosted by Quadruple Kaio-ken. Its energy was twice that of his opponent's.

The point where the beams collided was being pushed toward Goku.

Chen Mo gritted his teeth and increased his output.

He pushed it over. The collision point crossed the midpoint. Five-fifty became seventy-thirty.

Goku's feet carved two trenches into the ground.

His own energy wave pushed him backward.

"Mm." Goku's voice came from behind the beam. "You're stronger than me."

Then he withdrew.

He let go with both hands and darted to the side. Chen Mo's Kamehameha shot straight through, striking the darkness beyond the plaza before its light vanished.

Goku had already switched moves from the side.

He raised his right hand, pressing his index and middle fingers together and pointing them at the sky.

A golden ki blast gathered at his fingertips.

It wasn't a Kamehameha.

Chen Mo's mind raced through everything he knew. That movement. That stance. Index and middle fingers together, a ki blast gathering at the fingertips.

The golden ki blast shot from his fingers.

It wasn't just one.

One blast split into more than a dozen.

A barrage of golden blasts swept toward him, filling the sky. Every one followed a different path. Some flew straight, some curved, and some rose before diving down.

Chen Mo's body reacted instinctively.

He dodged left. The first blast grazed his right shoulder.

The second struck his thigh. A burning pain flared.

He knocked the third aside with his arm.

The fourth, fifth, and sixth arrived almost at the same time. He had no time to block them one by one.

He crossed his arms to shield his head and chest.

The golden ki blasts struck him.

Bang bang bang bang bang.

Each one was not particularly powerful. But together, their effect was completely different.

Chen Mo was driven back five steps. His arms were covered in red marks, and part of his gi sleeve had been burned away.

Goku lowered his hand. "I learned it in the Heavenly Realm. You split a ki blast into many smaller ones, and each can be controlled independently. They won't kill you, but they can seal off every route you could take."

Chen Mo steadied himself.

He stared at Goku's right hand.

Heaven and Earth Piercing Wave.

He had not learned that move on Kame House Island. Master Roshi did not know it either. It was taught by the Guardian.

But he had seen the principle behind its launch clearly just now.

A ki blast gathered at the fingertips. It was not released all at once; it gathered first, then scattered.

It was one blast while gathering, then at the instant it was fired, it was split into many with a thought. Each remained connected to an independent thread of ki, its trajectory controlled by the user's mind.

The principle was not complicated.

The execution was extremely difficult.

Because it required controlling more than a dozen threads of ki at once. It demanded incredibly precise control over ki.

But Chen Mo had trained ki control on Kame House Island for an entire year.

One hundred Kamehamehas every day. Two hours of meditation every day. Ki-control and moving exercises every day.

Master Roshi had tempered his ki control bit by bit using the clumsiest methods possible.

"Do it again," Chen Mo said.

Goku tilted his head.

"You're not down yet?"

"Use that move again."

Goku looked at him for three seconds. Then he raised his right hand, pressing his index and middle fingers together.

A golden ki blast gathered once more.

This time, Chen Mo did not dodge.

He stared at that ki blast, watching the entire process from its formation to its split.

The instant it split, he saw it.

When the single ki blast became more than a dozen, there was an extremely brief "spreading apart" phase.

During that phase, the gaps between all the smaller ki blasts were at their narrowest. There was only about ten centimeters of space between them.

Only afterward did they scatter in different directions, following different trajectories.

In other words, if he intercepted them before they spread apart...

The ki blasts came flying.

Chen Mo charged forward.

He did not retreat. He did not dodge to the side. He met them head-on.

Quadruple Kaio-ken, full power.

He raised his right hand, pressing his index and middle fingers together.

The exact same motion as young Goku.

A red ki blast formed at his fingertips.

"Copying me?" young Goku's voice came from behind the ki blasts.

Chen Mo did not answer.

He fired the ki blast.

One shot.

It did not split.

He still could not make it split, but he had managed something else.

His single ki blast struck the exact center of young Goku's cluster of ki blasts.

That "spreading apart" phase—the instant when the dozen or so smaller ki blasts had just separated, with the smallest gaps between them.

The red ki blast crashed into them.

A chain explosion.

All the small golden ki blasts detonated in midair. Golden and red light blended together, and the shockwave threw both of them back.

Chen Mo took three steps back.

Young Goku took five.

The smoke dispersed.

Young Goku looked at his right hand. Smoke still rose from his fingertips.

"You saw the flaw," he said.

"One last move," young Goku said.

He raised his right hand again.

This time, he did not press his index and middle fingers together.

He clenched his entire hand into a fist.

Golden ki flames rose from his fist.

The density was higher than ever before. All his ki gathered within that single fist. There was no dispersion, no barrage.

One punch.

All his power compressed into one punch.

Something flashed through Chen Mo's mind.

Spreading apart was the Heaven and Earth Piercing Wave. Compressing it was...

Dragon Fist.

No, not yet. It was not Dragon Fist.

Dragon Fist was a technique Goku used later on.

This was the prototype of Dragon Fist.

The reverse application of the Heaven and Earth Piercing Wave—turning the technique of dispersed control around and using it to compress and amplify a single-point attack.

Young Goku charged at him.

One punch.

A golden punch, carrying all two hundred points of battle power compressed into its fist.

Chen Mo clenched his right fist as well.

Quadruple Kaio-ken. Four hundred points of battle power. No dispersion. All of it compressed inside.

Red light flared around his right fist.

The two collided head-on in the center of the plaza.

Red and gold crashed against each other.

Fist met fist.

A shockwave erupted between their fists. Stone tiles exploded outward from the point of impact, shattering ring by ring like a stone thrown into water.

The stone pedestal was overturned by the blast. The bottle of Ultra Divine Water flew into the air.

Chen Mo's fist pushed forward an inch.

The gap in strength was real. Four hundred against two hundred. Absolute power made the difference at the final moment.

Kid Goku's fist was forced back.

His body flew backward. Like a cannonball, he slammed into the darkness at the edge of the plaza.

He vanished.

Chen Mo's right fist remained extended in the position of his punch.

The red aura flickered around him twice, then went out. The time limit for Quadruple Kaio-ken had run out.

He dropped to his knees on the shattered stone tiles. There wasn't a single part of his body that didn't hurt.

The bottle of Ultra Divine Water landed three steps away from him. It rolled twice, then stopped.

Chen Mo crawled over. One hand braced against the ground while the other grabbed the bottle.

The liquid inside was transparent. It looked no different from clear water.

Chen Mo pulled out the stopper.

The liquid had no smell.

He tilted his head back and gulped it down.

One second.

Two seconds.

The third second.

Chen Mo's body curled up.

"Kaio-ken—"

The red aura flared to life again.

The poison entered his bloodstream.

His cells' overclocked metabolism activated. The poison was broken down. Expelled. Broken down. Expelled.

But the pain did not lessen.

The system had said so. The poison would not kill him, but the pain would not be reduced by even the slightest bit.

Chen Mo curled into a ball on the shattered stone tiles, biting down on his own sleeve.

His teeth pierced the fabric.

Blood ran from the corner of his mouth. Not from the poison. He had bitten himself.

The white plaza began to disappear. Darkness surged in from all sides, and fragments of stone tile sank into it one by one.

The consciousness space was collapsing.

He had won. The trial was over.

The pain was not.

Chen Mo's consciousness drifted upward through a churning sea of agony.

At last, he felt the wind.

Real wind. The wind above the clouds at the top of Korin Tower.

Sunlight fell across his face.

He was lying on the platform of Korin Tower.

Beside the black earthen jar.

Korin stood above his head, looking down at him.

"You're back," Korin said.

Chen Mo opened his mouth, but no words came out.

Pain.

Every cell in his body hurt.

But he was alive.

Korin looked over his condition, then glanced at the black earthen jar.

"Do you know how long you stayed down there?"

Chen Mo shook his head.

"Nine hours," Korin said. "Goku took three days back then. You took nine hours."

He paused.

"Maybe because you already knew the rules of the trial. Or maybe because you're more afraid of death than Goku was."

Chen Mo wanted to laugh, but even the slightest pull at the corner of his mouth hurt.

"What about the toxins?" Korin asked. "You threw up a lot of stuff down there just now. All of it was black. That was residue left behind after the toxins broke down. Normally, after drinking Ultra Divine Water, a person needs to lie down for three to seven days before recovering. But your body is continuously metabolizing it."

Korin leaned closer and examined his complexion.

"Your metabolic rate isn't normal. It's absurdly fast. At this rate, you'll probably... be able to move again in six hours."

Chen Mo closed his eyes.

Six hours.

He had no idea what was happening with the battle outside. Whether Android 18 and Broly had finished fighting. How far Cell had gotten. Whether Paragus had escaped.

"Don't move anymore," Korin's voice came from above. "Moving even once right now means shortening your lifespan."

Chen Mo did not move again.

He lay atop Korin Tower.

Sunlight shone over him.

The clouds lay beneath his feet.

Pain filled every inch of his body.

Yet the index and middle fingers of his right hand drew slightly together.

A thread of red ki emerged from his fingertips.

It was weak. Nearly invisible.

But that shape, that trajectory.

It was the opening stance of Heaven and Earth Piercing Wave.

He had learned it.

After taking so many beatings in that consciousness space, he had finally learned that technique.

Korin noticed the movement of his fingers. The old cat narrowed his eyes.

"You learned something new down there?"