Cherreads

Chapter 4 - "Training Begins."

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Morning sunlight poured over the sea like molten gold. Flocks of seagulls skimmed across the waves, and the warm glow made the water shimmer. Wisps of colored clouds drifted overhead like threads of golden silk.

"I didn't notice it yesterday, but this place is gorgeous. Honestly, living here for a while doesn't sound bad at all."

Broly stared at the scenery in surprise. Whatever foul mood he'd carried from yesterday instantly disappeared. Even the fact that Master Roshi had shamelessly tricked him felt like something he could pretend never happened.

Beautiful sights always brighten the heart. Broly felt like every cell in his body was cheering, ready to start his first day of training.

Then he remembered how his Flight Technique had failed yesterday. He immediately summoned the system and gave it a long and thorough scolding. Only after that did the system sprite explain that any skills obtained from the system had to be practiced several times before they would function properly.

"Why didn't you tell me that earlier?" Broly roared.

"You… didn't ask," the system sprite mumbled. "Just remember to practice next time you redeem a new skill."

"!@#¥…" Broly suddenly had nothing to say.

"Broly, when I saw you yesterday, I could already tell your martial arts foundation was extremely solid," Master Roshi said as he sat cross-legged on the back of the giant sea turtle. "So instead of my usual introductory Turtle School training, I'll teach you directly about controlling and using ki.

Once you can fully grasp it and use it naturally in battle, I'll teach you the ultimate Turtle School technique, the Kamehameha. How about that?"

"Sounds good to me."

A day later, Broly could already control his ki freely and even hide it without relying on any tools.

A month later, he could bring out his full power perfectly. Before Roshi's guidance, Broly could only draw out around seventy percent of his strength with a punch—sometimes even less. Now he could unleash everything, even beyond that.

It reminded Broly of martial arts from his previous life. Roshi's teachings were simple yet profound. The method was similar to certain power-generation techniques he'd heard of before, but also different.

You stabilize your stance, gather scattered force with ki and send it to the waist, twist the waist slightly to pass the power into the spine, then use the spine and torso to accelerate the forearm and fist.

Train long enough and your arms become like iron whips, your fists like iron hammers. When that power erupts, the damage to the human body is brutal.

The spine is the heart of it, followed by total body coordination. If the coordination is off, all that force falls apart instead of gathering into a single strike.

But Broly wasn't satisfied. In novels from his previous life, there were concepts like short power bursts and hidden force. He suddenly wondered what would happen if he combined Roshi's techniques with those ideas and used them on an enemy.

And then there was the "inch punch"—the best technique for close combat. The idea was to unleash maximum power from the shortest distance. Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do was built on this principle: simple, fast, powerful, fierce.

Back when he watched Dragon Ball in his past life, Broly always thought the fighters didn't concentrate their strength well enough. Too much power leaked out. As a result, most of their attacks failed to fully land on the enemy, and the wasted power blasted apart buildings or mountains instead.

If he could master these techniques, he could deal the greatest damage with the smallest effort.

Of course, that was just how Broly saw things at the time. Years later, when he actually fought strong opponents, he realized the truth: it wasn't that Dragon Ball warriors failed to concentrate their power—it was because they could form a layer of ki protection around their bodies.

Unless you shattered that ki barrier with overwhelming force, most of your power wouldn't reach their bodies. Instead, the collision generated shockwaves that blasted outward.

It was exactly because Broly mastered hidden force that he later learned how to deal devastating damage with less effort. But that's a story for another time.

For now, he acted on the idea immediately. He flew to a nearby city and bought a huge pile of soft tofu. He cut it into fist-sized cubes and set each cube on top of a rock. The goal was simple: punch down and shatter only the rock beneath the tofu while leaving the tofu completely intact.

At the beginning, tofu flew in his face every time. The entire first day ended in failure. But Broly's determination didn't waver. If one day wasn't enough, he'd train for ten, or a hundred—however long it took.

Slowly, the tofu splashed less and less, and the rocks beneath broke more and more…

Days passed. Years passed.

In the blink of an eye, three years were gone. Broly was now ten years old and already close to 1.6 meters tall. Maybe it was the Saiyan bloodline—he was growing fast. In his previous life, Broly had been over two meters tall.

And the training paid off. Now, when he punched through tofu, it didn't even tremble. The rock underneath looked untouched on the outside, but if you tapped it lightly, the whole interior crumbled like an empty shell.

Master Roshi admitted he had nothing more to teach. Broly would have to rely on himself from here on. He did teach Broly the Kamehameha during the first month though.

Broly claimed he could learn a technique just by watching it once. Roshi didn't believe him. So he showed technique after technique: Afterimage Fist, Thunder Shock Surprise, Paralysis Technique, even Mind Reading. Broly learned them all.

Roshi sat there speechless for a long time before collapsing back into his beach chair, defeated, and returning to studying "human body philosophy."

Broly wiped cold sweat from his forehead. He'd almost been exposed. The first three were fine, but mind-reading was a supernatural skill he definitely couldn't learn instantly. Thankfully, the system sprite stepped in just in time—it cost him 100 points, but since it was a "lesson" and not a skill exchange, it wasn't too expensive.

Meanwhile, Broly's power level advanced rapidly. When he first arrived on Earth, his power level was 50. Because the wild fury in his bloodline was dormant, his Legendary Super Saiyan constitution didn't automatically increase his power during these three years. After intense training and intentional suppression, his maximum power level had only reached around 200.

It seemed like a waste of such a powerful Saiyan body, but Broly understood: without a solid foundation, explosive growth wouldn't be stable.

"....."

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