Chapter 6: Before Leaving the Mountain

Four days later.

"Tsuru, go find Taro. Didn't you two agree to take that thing down the mountain today?" Fanfan said, while preparing breakfast. She noticed Tsuru was practicing his punches, wearing only a single layer of clothing in the front yard.

Tsuru ended his training with a grunt, then walked directly into the mountain.

He wasn't in a good mood.

It had been seven days since he returned, and he hadn't made any progress with his 'Ki'... and if you counted from the moment Master officially taught him the Ki technique, the time had been even longer. How could someone with his pride feel at ease with this?

Ki, the mastery of Ki, was the ultimate goal for countless martial artists. Only a handful of people in the world could learn to control their Ki.

In the past, Master had taught them to lay a solid foundation, and once they had built enough strength, he would guide them on the path to Ki. Tsuru had always followed his master's arrangements, training his body alongside Taro, day in and day out for over twenty years.

But now, standing before that great gate, he couldn't even push it open a single inch. How could he be at ease with this?

However... if he was stuck, then surely his perverted, gluttonous senior wouldn't have made any progress either. He probably hadn't learned to control his Ki. What would Tsuru think if he knew that, more than three hundred years in the future, a little girl named Videl could develop a sense of Ki in just a few hours and learn to float by midday?

Tsuru walked the familiar, rugged mountain path with ease. There were only a few places suitable for martial arts training on the mountain that he and his senior brothers were familiar with, so it didn't take long for him to spot Taro's figure near a cliff edge.

---

As the morning sun rose, Taro stood at the edge of a sheer cliff. Streams of heat emanated from his body, and beneath his thin, single-layer clothing, the muscles on his body were clearly defined, flexing and stretching like flowing water with each movement.

After finishing his morning training, Taro relaxed, exhaling slowly towards the rays of sunlight breaking through the mountain. The breath he released was long and steady, like the great waves of the Yangtze River, flowing continuously for dozens of seconds, a truly astonishing sight.

He gazed at the distant sunrise, partially obscured by thick mist. Suddenly, he raised his left palm, and a halo of light appeared around it. The light gathered towards his palm, slowly forming a small, white Ki ball, about the size of a third of a fist, in the center of his palm.

The white Ki ball seemed to stick to Taro's palm, even though there was no direct contact. It moved with his hand as he casually waved it in the air.

"Four days of work, and I've barely managed to get this far... The Ki has only just separated from my body, let alone the Bankoku-Bukkiru-Shou or Kikoho. I'm probably even worse off than the Kamehameha."

Taro retracted his gaze from the distant sunrise and looked at the small white Ki ball in his left palm. His brow furrowed slightly, clearly dissatisfied. He muttered to himself,

"If I disregard the lightning attribute transformation of the Bankoku-Bukkiru-Shou... then, with just the pure Ki technique, how... can I make this tiny amount of Ki unleash greater power...? Where is the key to this...?:

In the original story, the Turtle School's Ki blast could consistently be a signature move for the Dragon Ball warriors, especially Son Goku, which naturally means there must be something unique about it. The most significant characteristic of the Kamehameha, if Taro's assumptions were correct, was that it could use the smallest amount of "Ki" to produce the greatest effect!

This was also the realm Taro had been pursuing for a while.

He was currently troubled, unaware that just a short distance behind him, a pair of eyes were filled with shock.

"Ki? That's... Ki?!... No mistake, that's Ki! I can't believe you've already managed to control Ki?!"

"Am I really only able to rely on the power of my right eye...?" Taro frowned lightly, shaking his head. Without considering the nonsense like "I can't rely too much on the Sharingan in the Dragon Ball world," the side effects of using the Mangekyō Sharingan alone were enough to give him a headache.

The Mangekyō Sharingan is a special eye that only the elite of the Uchiha clan can awaken, and each pair of Mangekyō Sharingan usually has different abilities. For example, Uchiha Itachi's left eye holds the genjutsu "Tsukuyomi," while his right eye contains the immortal flame "Amaterasu"; Uchiha Shisui's one eye holds the strongest genjutsu "Kotoamatsukami," which can completely change a person's will, and his other eye has a special power that influences others' subconscious...

Taro's Mangekyō Sharingan gives him the ability to "absolutely control Chakra" in his left eye, and his right eye grants him the ability to "maximize the use of Chakra."

In his previous life, he was not particularly outstanding when it came to the amount of Chakra he could control. In fact, his body's Chakra was far below the average level. But ever since he awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan, with the two abilities in his eyes, the amount of Chakra he had stopped being a limiting factor.

With the "absolute control of Chakra" in his left eye, he could perfectly grasp every bit of Chakra in his body, without even a slight leak or waste. Combined with the ability in his right eye, "the maximum utilization of Chakra," he could perform ninjutsu with normal power while consuming far less Chakra than the standard required.

Taro casually waved his left palm down towards the ground. The third-of-a-fist-sized Ki ball disappeared into the ground beneath his feet. "Puff," the ground appeared as if it had been burned by flames, leaving a scorched patch. However, in reality, it didn't cause much destruction—at most, it just lifted a small bit of earth.

"Hmph... It seems that it's all just for show. He hasn't grasped the key to the Bankoku-Bukkiru-Shou at all... Compared to the demonstration my master gave back then, this level of skill is laughable..."

Taro's expression remained unchanged as he closed his eyes tightly. He extended his right palm, and with a hum, a light sphere of the same size as the previous Ki ball appeared in his palm. Suddenly, Taro's eyes snapped open, revealing eyes resembling a pair of four-pointed shurikens. His right eye was bloodshot, with a line of dark red blood silently trickling down his cheek.

He raised his right hand, with the white light sphere floating above his palm, aimed at a stone a few steps away. Then he made a pushing gesture with his palm towards the stone. "Whoosh!" The light sphere shot like an arrow towards the stone!

"Boom!" The stone was instantly shattered into pieces.

"...…"

The same amount of Ki—yet the previous attack could only scorch a small patch of ground, whereas this time, it directly shattered the stone. Taro retracted his right hand, his blood-streaked right eye closing. He murmured softly to himself:

"I'm still a bit unfamiliar with controlling the new energy, Ki... This probably only reached about six or seven times the normal level…"

Thinking back to the times in his previous life when he had to rely on his eyes' abilities in the ninja world to unleash bursts of power, sometimes twenty times more intense in an instant... Taro silently sighed, his expression a mix of helplessness. He removed the blood-red color from his eyes, quietly thinking to himself.

"The worst part is, not only is the risk of blindness still there, but using the Sharingan normally... also heavily drains my mental energy..."

Mental energy. Even after living and fighting in the ninja world, Taro still found this concept unfamiliar. In his mind, it was something only the "mages" in novels dealt with.

And now, here he was, a retired ninja and active martial artist, about to experience the painful consequences of mental exhaustion... The headache and mental fatigue were truly unbearable.

"Looks like I need to be cautious with the Sharingan, especially the Mangekyō... at least until I figure out a way to get the Dragon Balls."

Taro took a black cloth from his pocket and wiped the blood off his right cheek. His ears twitched slightly, and without turning his head, he said indifferently,

"Tsuru, when did you start secretly watching me practice?"

Tsuru stepped out from the shadows, staring at Taro's back with an expression that was both dark and displeased.