Snake Way

The sunlight in West City was a little dazzling.

Son Goku lounged beside the luxurious rooftop pool at Capsule Corporation, took a huge gulp of iced watermelon juice, and let out a heavy sigh.

Living off a rich woman really was nice.

With a base power level of three million and a girlfriend who was basically the richest person in the world, he could now swagger through this newbie village called Earth without a care.

Piccolo had had his worldview thoroughly reshaped after being pinned into the mud by him. Krillin and the others had entered the gravity chamber and begun their hellish training grind, while Raditz, who would have caused trouble in the future, had turned over a new leaf. For the time being, Earth was practically impregnable.

Still, this easy life made Son Goku feel a little uneasy.

His current capital was certainly enough to crush weak opponents in the early stages, but in the cosmic meat grinder of the later stages, it would not even make a splash. No matter how much money he poured into upgrading the gravity chamber's hardware, it could at most help him gain another million or so in power. It simply could not pierce that crucial paper-thin barrier to becoming a Super Saiyan.

Did he have to follow the original route?

Son Goku rubbed his chin and secretly shook his head.

According to the setting, becoming a Super Saiyan required extreme rage—commonly known as sacrificing one's beloved friends and family to the heavens. But that process simply would not work for him.

As a transmigrator with a modern soul, he did have friendships with Krillin and the others, but they were not close enough for him to be heartbroken as though they had grown up wearing the same pair of pants. If Krillin were crushed to death right in front of him, he might howl a couple of times for show, but there was no way he could unleash the pure fury from the original story.

As for Bulma? She was his absolute bottom line. If anyone dared touch even a single hair on that rich girl's head, he would blow this planet apart before he even needed to transform.

If his emotions were not enough, then he could only make up for it with a massive leap in power.

Son Goku ran through all the resources in Universe 7 in his mind. The only one left that could forcibly raise his upper limit was that fat man at the end of the Other World—North Kai.

The Kaio-ken in that old man's hands was a top-tier cheat skill that could overclock ki into an explosive, multiplied burst. If he could get his hands on it, perhaps he could force his numbers high enough to blast through the critical threshold of his bloodline.

But how was he supposed to get to Planet Kai? Did he really have to die once and run Snake Way?

Of course, he knew that the entrance to Snake Way was built directly behind King Yemma's desk, but the problem was that he did not know the man's ki.

"King Yemma is a workaholic who has to stamp hundreds of thousands of documents every day. His ki definitely carries the resentment of a wage slave who never gets a day off," Son Goku mused inwardly with his eyes closed. "I'll try sensing him first. If I can't find him, I'll go ask the Kami for a pass."

"What are you thinking about? Your heartbeat suddenly got so fast!" Bulma keenly noticed that he had drifted off. She raised her head from his arms and stared at him suspiciously with those beautiful wide eyes.

"Nothing." Son Goku smiled and reached out to smooth the loose strands of hair at her collar. "I was just wondering whether I should take a trip to the underworld."

"Where?!" Bulma jumped in fright and grabbed his arm. "Why would a living person like you go to a place for dead people?"

"Don't worry. I'm just taking a back door to handle something." Son Goku lightly patted the back of her hand, his tone relaxed. "I'm looking for an old senior to give me some pointers and see if I can break through my bottleneck."

"Fine, then. How long are you leaving for this time?" Bulma knew his temperament. Once he set his mind on something, not even nine oxen could pull him back. She could only sigh.

"Hard to say. Maybe a few days, maybe a few months."

"Goku." Bulma carefully smoothed out the wrinkles on his chest, then shot him a fierce glare. "I'm warning you: if you dare flirt with any pretty female ghosts in the underworld, I swear I'll smash all your training equipment into scrap metal!"

Son Goku laughed and lowered his head to plant a firm kiss on her smooth forehead.

"Don't worry. No one can compare to you."

Son Goku released her and stood, stretching his limbs. He closed his eyes and opened his ki sensing to its fullest. His consciousness pierced through the barrier of the living world, spreading like an invisible net madly into the depths of vast nothingness.

A few minutes later.

Within the endless darkness, he precisely caught a huge, dense source of energy that carried an air of irritation and short temper. He knew that feeling all too well—it was exactly like when he had been a wage slave in his previous life.

There was no mistake. It had to be King Yemma!

"My luck is pretty good. Got it in one try." Son Goku grinned.

He turned toward Bulma on the sofa and pointed at his wrist. "If you miss me, press the communicator. I can come back anytime."

As soon as he finished speaking, Son Goku pressed two fingers together against his forehead.

Whoosh!

With a faint burst of air, Son Goku vanished from the room and shot straight toward the underworld at the intersection of yin and yang.

King Yemma's Palace in the Other World.

The moment his feet touched solid ground, Son Goku's ears were immediately flooded with the shouts of ghost attendants escorting dead souls, along with the heavy thump-thump of stamps being pressed down.

As far as the eye could see, souls waiting in line for judgment were packed together in dense masses. Each one had a halo over their head, crowding shoulder to shoulder along the road to the underworld like sardines.

Before an enormous redwood desk, King Yemma, whose body was as massive as a mountain, was sweating profusely as he processed mountains of paperwork. Several stacks of ledgers of life and death taller than people sat beside him, and the intense workload had left him too lazy even to raise his head.

Suddenly, he stopped writing, his huge nose twitching hard twice. Then his bell-sized eyes locked onto Son Goku, who had appeared out of thin air before his desk.

With the stamp in his hand suspended in midair, King Yemma froze completely.

"The smell of a living person?! Who are you? How did you get into King Yemma's Palace?!" King Yemma's voice boomed like thunder, shaking dust from the ceiling of the great hall. Several elderly ghost souls standing in line were spun around three times by the roar, their halos knocked crooked.

"Guards! Where are the guards?! Quickly check the ledger of life and death! Did this kid wander onto the wrong set?!"

The ox-headed and horse-faced guards around them finally snapped out of their daze. They drew their spears and steel forks and rushed forward in a noisy swarm.

"King Yemma, don't be nervous. I'm just borrowing the road."

Son Goku did not bother with these underworld wage slaves at all. Facing the several spears thrust toward him, he did not even make a move to dodge. His figure merely swayed slightly, and the weapons passed directly through the afterimage he left behind.

Because they had used too much force, two ox-headed guards crashed straight into each other. Their weapons scattered across the floor, and they tumbled into a heap.

"Impudent! Do you think King Yemma's Palace is a place you can come and go as you please..." King Yemma roared in fury, extending a palm as large as a fan to grab him.

Son Goku did not waste a single word. He lightly tapped the edge of the massive desk with his toe.

Crack!

King Yemma's huge hand slammed down. Not only did it grab nothing, it snapped off the corner of his beloved mahogany desk.

Son Goku, meanwhile, sprang into the air like a swallow, vaulting straight over the meat-mountain-like head and landing steadily behind him.

Bang!

Son Goku shoved open the towering, heavy mahogany doors.

Beyond them stretched an enormous road paved entirely with yellow, scale-like stone slabs, winding its way into an endless sea of clouds. Beneath the clouds lay a bottomless abyss, and a faint, pungent smell of sulfur drifted up from below. Down there was the Blood Pool Hell, a place of eternal damnation. One wrong step, and he would fall in and become a wandering ghost forever, never to rise again.

"A million kilometers..."

Son Goku landed firmly atop the enormous snake head. Looking over Snake Way, which stretched beyond the limits of sight, he rolled his neck, his joints cracking sharply. Then his body became a straight streak of light as he plunged headlong into the vast sea of clouds.