Disclaimer: I don't own Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT, Dragon Ball Super, or anything else related to the Dragon Ball universe, or any of its characters. They are all owned by Akira Toriyama.

If there was one lesson that had been driven repeatedly into his mind recently, it was the importance of being calm, and patient.

Gohan opened his eyes and glanced over to his right.

Twelve tallies, carved into the cave wall greeted his gaze.

This was his fifth day in a row of making almost no progress whatsoever in his training, despite all his best efforts.

He was seated cross legged on the floor of his cave, next to a slowly dying fire. The fire's crackles were the only sound that could be heard in the area.

The sun had gone down about an hour ago by his estimate, and he had eaten dinner a few hours before that.

He had yet to carve today's tally as well. The thirteenth. But he'd wait until he was ready for bed before doing that. There was still too much on his mind to even consider sleeping just yet.

He had put so much effort into his training over the last few days, only to come out with nothing to show for it. Something that had been frustrating him to no end.

He had made steady progress during his first week out in the forest, just learning how to survive, but now he had seemingly plateaued. Maybe it was unrealistic expecting immediate results on his movement re-learning training, and on figuring out how to draw out his Ki, but it was still frustrating when he didn't improve as fast as he did before.

Over the past five days, he had two goals that he pursued with absolute determination. There was no moment in the day when he was not either thinking about, or directly attempting to achieve them.

He wanted to re-learn how to move so that he was silent all the time, and he wanted to be able to draw out his Ki without being in mortal danger.

The only things that he ended up learning so far, were that these were much harder to do than he had originally thought, and that it was completely impossible to achieve either of them while he was angry, or irritated about anything.

Moving around with perfectly controlled movements became impossible if he was upset. His irritation would create a subtle tension throughout his entire body that he simply could not work around, no matter what he tried.

And as for Ki, he wasn't even sure of what he had to do to bring it out, but he suspected that the reason he kept on failing had something to do with his irritation at the situation in general, as well. Over the past few days of trying, he hadn't learned anything new about what he had to do to succeed with his Ki, so he could only speculate at what the problem was.

Now that he had recognized that his anger may have been impeding his progress however, he had begun working to correct it. He was calmer now than he had been over the last few days. Possibly calmer than he had ever been in his life.

This was simply due to the fact that he had taken the day off training, so that he could try to figure out how to solve his problems, and so that he could try to relax.

The previous few days had seen him getting up at the crack of dawn, moving through the forest to collect everything he needed to keep living out here in the wild, going through an elaborate, multi-hour, strength-and-flexibility training routine that he had come up with, followed by working on accessing his Ki until going to bed. Throughout the entirety of his routine, he gave his absolute best effort to move as silently, and with as much control as possible.

Other than being a bit more flexible, he had made no visible progress.

With each failed, silent movement, he became more frustrated, which made him fail even more moves. It was a vicious cycle that he needed to break out of. He had too much tension that he needed to deal with, so he had decided to take a break.

He had yet to leave his cave today, and it was almost time for him to go to bed.

He had collected a spare set of firewood yesterday, and a day's supply of berries and fruits so that he wouldn't have to leave the cave for any reason other than going to the bathroom.

Or this forests closest equivalent anyways.

He had spent the whole day just letting his thoughts wander. He was thinking about his home, about his parents, about this place, and how peaceful it was. Some of his dreams for the future too. But mostly about how to solve his Ki problem.

Just sitting back and relaxing, was something that he had never really indulged himself in, in the past. There seemed to always be something that he had to do that always kept him too busy to relax.

At home, it was always studying, from morning until night, regardless of how ridiculously far ahead he was in his education for his age. Out here, it seemed to be training, as hard, and for as long as he could, so that he could fight the saiyans in a year.

This was the first time in a long time where he could just be left alone. Possibly the first time ever. He hadn't even noticed how stressed out he had been until now.

He released a sigh. The silence was something that he was grateful for. He could see why his dad spent so much of his off time just relaxing. He himself hadn't seen the appeal of it until now.

He had lazed around the whole day just thinking, and occasionally falling asleep. He had never felt more at peace. For the first time, he was actually grateful to have been dropped out here by Piccolo.

Out here he didn't have to worry about his mom forcing him to study all the time. She may have meant well, but he was already working on high school level material. College level even, in some areas of math and physics. Those two subjects were his favorites, and what he spent most of his time learning about after all.

He was pretty sure that he would be ready for any university that he applied to when he finally got to that age. He still had over a decade to study until then too. He really didn't need to study as often as his mom made him, in his opinion. She may have had his best interests at heart, but it was still just a bit too much sometimes.

Sometimes, he wished that she would just tone it down a bit. He already liked math and science, and would continue to study them on his own even without her influence, but if he was ever forced to study them more often than he could handle, it would become a chore and he likely wouldn't enjoy them anymore.

That would be depressing.

It had already happened a few times in the past too, the most notable of which, was after he was forced to write one-too-many essays on various literary 'masterpieces' from the past, for his English studies. He used to like and respect those books. They were usually good reads. But now, the repetitive and nonsensical inferences that he highly doubted even the original authors had known about, or intended to put into their story, that he had to write about and analyze, had forever killed any interest he could have had in English literature.

Now, every time he saw one of those books, he would see the huge stack of essays that he would have to write, if he read it, and would promptly decide that he had better things to do. His fear of essays was an irrational one, even by his standards, but he couldn't help it. It was called irrational for a reason. It didn't make any sense.

In short, his mom had killed his love for books with her fanaticism. At least the non-science-textbooks anyways. He didn't ever want something like that to happen again, especially for his love of science.

She had never really listened either, and always seemed to flip out if he ever complained about having to study too much, too.

He loved his mom as much as anyone could, but she could be really hard to deal with.

But out here at least, he didn't have to.

He was in a situation that used to terrify him, at first. Being alone in a forest, having to fend for himself. It was only recently that he could see that there were at least a few upsides.

Out here, at least for now, despite how bad it made him sound, he wouldn't have to deal with his mom. He could take a break from his constant studying.

There was nobody around that would try to tell him what he can and can't do.

For the first time ever, he could do anything he wanted to.

He let out a final, contented sigh, then readjusted his position into a stereotypical meditation position. He did it mostly to get into the right frame of mind for what he was about to do, than to get any actual benefit from sitting like that.

He was sitting cross-legged, with his hands intertwined, and resting in his lap.

He took a deep breath and relaxed.

Like all good things, his 'vacation' from training had to come to an end at some point. He had sat around doing nothing for long enough. Though, he definitely had plans for making more time to laze around again in the future. He could afford a few days off here and there over the next few months, as long as it didn't become habit.

He closed his eyes again. He had been starting to get bored anyways. Even he could only spend so much time alone just thinking, before his thoughts started repeating themselves, or started to get irritating. He was pretty sure he knew exactly what was impeding his training progress now anyways, so he needed to confirm it.

He had been lazing around for over twelve hours now. Probably closer to sixteen actually, now that he thought about it, and he had never felt so calm and relaxed. He had needed the break. But, it was time for him to work on his Ki again.

With his eyes closed, he just waited. He took notice of every part of his body and kept each part as relaxed as possible. He had no idea what he was waiting for, but he was hoping for some sort of sign, or clue on what he had to do to get started.

He had no idea what it felt like to bring out his Ki, but he knew that he had brought it out in the past on multiple occasions. He just couldn't remember those times very clearly, at all. He was pretty much banking on his body being able to do most of the work on its own.

So much depended on him learning how to do this. He had to figure it out.

He continued waiting. Keeping track of all of the feelings in his muscles, and trying to remain as relaxed as possible. He waited, and waited, and waited, and when still nothing happened, he started to try 'stuff'.

He didn't know what else to call it.

He wasn't even sure of what he was doing himself, but it felt to him like he was trying to mentally pull something out of his body. But, in any case, whatever he was doing, it clearly wasn't working. All it did was make him start seeing flashes of white, and small specks of light on the back of his eyelids.

Those flashes and specks were familiar though. He had seen them before on a number of occasions when he had been unable to fall asleep after he went to bed. When he would just lay there, trying to fall asleep with his eyes closed, but being unable to, due to having too many things on his mind, he'd suddenly start seeing various lights, and shapes moving around on the back of his eyes. The same ones he was seeing now. They would also occasionally show up if he ever rubbed his eyes too hard, or put any kind of pressure on them.

It happened when the blood flow in his eyes got messed up.

They also showed up quite often in many of his previous attempts at drawing on his Ki. All of which had failed, since he wasn't actually doing anything other than tensing his muscles. In other words, he was doing it wrong, again.

Concentrating on his body, he realized that he had indeed tensed up again, and his eyes had scrunched up.

At least that explained why he was seeing those lights in his eyes now. He needed to relax.

He took in a deep breath of air, held it in for a few seconds, and then let it out. With it, he relaxed all of his muscles again.

Every single attempt so far had failed, and every single attempt had also ended up with his muscles tensed up, and his body anything but relaxed. Maybe there was a pattern there.

He was just going to sit still and wait. No matter how much he wanted to move, he wouldn't. If he still ended up failing, then at least he'd be able to cross another possibility off his list of 'ways to access Ki'.

So that's what he did. He waited.

Sitting perfectly still was actually a lot harder than he thought it was going to be. The minute he told himself to not move for anything, his body started getting minor itches all over that were really beginning to grate on his nerves.

Why?

He wasn't itchy thirty seconds ago, but now that he didn't want to move, his body had to put up a fight.

Why couldn't this just be simpler?

Well, he supposed that if it were easier, then everyone would be able to do it.

Telling himself not to scratch those itches was really starting to get difficult. They just kept increasing in intensity gradually. Especially now, since he was paying attention to them.

It completely shattered any concentration he could've had.

He let out an annoyed sigh, and proceeded to scratch all of the itches that had shown up on his body, seemingly for no reason other than to annoy him.

Attempting to calm down again, he returned to his previous sitting position, and relaxed.

What was he doing wrong?

He had tried forcing his Ki out somehow, and he had tried relaxing and remaining calm to draw it out, but neither 'method' seemed to work for him. He was still doing something that prevented him from accessing it.

But what was it?

He looked back on all of his previous attempts.

What were the things that he was doing during both methods?

In one method, he remained perfectly calm, in the other, he had made no attempt to relax. They sounded like complete opposites. At least, at first glance.

Well, in both methods he had to try and concentrate and-

…

'Oh…'

His eyes opened wide in surprise at the revelation.

Could that be what the problem was?

It turned out that there was something that he was doing during all of his previous attempts at bringing out his Ki. Something that could have, quite easily, impeded his progress. This had been the first time that he had even considered it as a possible problem.

During each of his attempts, he had been concentrating on what he was doing, but most importantly, the likely source of his problems was that he had been thinking too much.

His thoughts were wandering. Even now they were. His body may have been relaxed but his mind definitely wasn't. Maybe he had to clear his mind first, somehow.

He had to not think.

Well, that was going to be difficult.

He was always thinking, or trying to solve a problem. Pretty much every waking second of his life was spent mulling over one thing or another. Most of the time, without control. Whether it was a difficult homework problem from his books, or trying to figure out how to train effectively, he was always thinking. It was just what he did.

His ability to just lose himself in his thoughts for potentially hours at a time was one of the things that he liked most about himself. He could keep focused on any problem for as long as he wanted to without stopping, or taking a break.

Even if he did need to take a break, his break was spent further pondering the problem.

He had just sat in a cave for almost sixteen hours without moving, with nothing but his thoughts to occupy himself. And he wouldn't have had it any other way.

He would be the first to admit, at least to himself, that he was pretty shy around other people. But, just because he was quiet outwardly around others, didn't mean that his mind was the same way. No, his mind was almost always reeling.

He would rather sit alone, lost in thought, then talk to someone that he didn't know, any day.

He had a powerful imagination that was always at work, sometimes without him even noticing it. Sometimes even to the point of becoming detached from reality entirely. Being completely unable to pay attention to anything around him, unless something changed, or moved in his surroundings. Despite this, it was something that he didn't ever want to change about himself. It was too useful a skill, in his experience, to try and get rid of, and it had caused him to come up with some pretty awesome ideas in the past.

He considered himself lucky being born with such a skill. There was no situation, in which having a super active imagination was a problem. Until now apparently, that is.

Now, it might be working against him. His thoughts were wandering without his control, and as a result, he was unable to access his Ki.

Trying to stop his thoughts was against his nature. It was going to be incredibly difficult for him to do so, if not impossible.

But, he was going to try either way. If stopping his thoughts somehow, was the solution to his Ki problem, then he would try it.

If only, in an attempt to prove it unnecessary. His thoughts were too valuable to want to cut them off for any length of time. He really hoped that it wasn't required.

He had to sit perfectly still, and now he had to cut off any new thoughts that entered his-

…

He took a deep breath, recomposed himself, and then exhaled.

'No more thoughts…'

Not knowing what else to do, he pictured a white void, and stared off into it, while monitoring his muscles to make sure that they didn't tense, and remaining alert enough to notice any sudden changes, or signs in his body that might show him how to bring his Ki out. Then, he put all of his remaining attention and focus on the white void he pictured.

There was no way he'd be able to just stop thinking, so he didn't even try. He had to have his focus on something.

He would just sit back, and look into the void, while he waited.

He took one final deep breath, and exhaled.

It was time for the hard part.

He began cutting off all of his thoughts right as they started forming, then he looked into the void and just waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And after a very difficult few minutes, in which he was constantly cutting off every forming thought, he felt it.

There was a change. A big one.

During the past few days in his meditation sessions, he had mentally gone over, repeatedly, the feelings of every single one of his muscles and nerve endings. He knew exactly what every single part of his body felt like all the time, both when tensed, and when relaxed. He had mentally searched throughout his whole being extensively, in his search for his Ki, and knew himself intimately as a result.

Yet, everything he had ever felt throughout his life, the way it felt to move around, the pain during the few times he had hurt himself, the way it felt to be happy, or angry, all of his emotions, the way it felt to just exist, to think, his whole conscious experience, paled in comparison to this new feeling.

It was like he had been staring at the sky his whole life, on an intensely cloudy day.

And now, for just a moment, there was a hole in the clouds that revealed the sun. Now that he could see it for the first time, it was impossible to not look at.

It was immediately evident that this thing that he was feeling, was the only reason that he was alive. It was like looking at his own soul. His life force.

It was his Ki. Something like this just had to be. He had found it. Or more accurately, it had found him.

As quickly as the feeling came, it left. The clouds had covered the sky again. He had only been able to see beyond them for a moment, but that moment had been enough.

How had it ever been possible for him to not notice it?

Finding his Ki had been a completely new experience. It was strange, finding out that he had another thing linked into his nervous system that he had overlooked his whole life.

It was like noticing for the first time in his life that he had an extra arm sprouting out of his stomach, made out of fire.

It literally felt like that. He had been able to feel the heat inside him. The way it moved around and flowed was like he was controlling a limb. A really weird limb that could expand and change its shape freely. He could feel it exactly like it was part of him, but it acted and moved around like a fire did. Or possibly even a liquid of some sort.

He could only sit back in shock, still floored at the revelation, and at what he had felt.

How was it even possible for something as noticeable and obvious as that, to hide from him?

It didn't make any sense how he couldn't feel it anymore. It had completely changed his whole perspective on the universe, and now it was like it was never there at all.

He needed to feel it again.

Calming his breathing once again, he repeated his previous exercise. He stared into an imaginary white void, and waited, while cutting off all of his thoughts.

It was a much harder task this time, due to the fact that he was pretty eager to feel that again. He was forced to repeat his efforts several times, and spend a few extra minutes calming down completely before he felt it again.

This time when he felt it, he forced himself to not react in any way. His surprise had completely shattered his concentration in his previous attempt. He didn't want the same thing to happen again. So instead, he put all of his attention on the new feeling inside him and mentally reached towards it.

He wasn't sure exactly what he was doing, or why, but his instincts were guiding him now. It was almost like his body knew exactly what he needed to do. So, he followed his body's advice.

He grabbed a piece of the energy within him, and pulled.

He felt a comforting warmth around his stomach, as well as a wave of numbness that moved directly from his center, and down his arms. There was a small pressure build up in his hands, that he instinctively relieved by willing it out of his palms.

He opened his eyes when he felt a wind on his face, and heard a small humming sound.

Immediately, he felt a small strain on his mind that was somehow linked to what he was seeing.

He was still seated in his meditative position. He was cross-legged, with his elbows resting on his knees, and his hands open with his fingers curled. Almost as if he were holding a ball in front of him. Something that wasn't too far from the truth.

In the space between his hands he could see a small orb of yellow light, about the size of a marble. It was giving off a low humming noise.

It looked exactly like what he had seen his dad do in the past, only on a much smaller scale.

This time, the feeling he was getting was a lot stranger than it was before.

Before, it had felt like there was a fire in him, and it still did. However, now he could feel the energy in his hands. It felt like it was just as much a part of him as his hands were. He had to actively concentrate, on keeping the ball still.

Somehow, the energy in his hands had a connection to his nervous system despite no longer being within his body. A fact that went against everything he had ever learned in his biology textbooks. There was no physical connection between himself, and the ball of energy, so there shouldn't have been any reason at all for them to be linked. But they were. Technology could create a link between two things wirelessly, but people and animals couldn't, and certainly not to this extent.

This energy felt like it was him. It was like having another body part.

This was huge. He had just discovered that the nervous system can function outside the body somehow.

Wanting to test the limits of this, he focused on the ball of energy, and slowly lowered his hands. As he expected, the ball remained where it was. Still floating in the air, softly humming, exactly where his hands had been.

So, despite the energy ball originally coming from his hands, his hands weren't needed to keep it still. He could feel the connection to the energy in front of him. It felt almost like the link was coming from his forehead.

Clenching his jaw, he put all of his effort into attempting to 'push' the ball of Ki forward.

It moved a lot faster than he expected it to. Crossing the cave in less than a second he had no time to react when the energy hit the wall, and popped.

It didn't explode in a fiery flash of light like he thought it would. It just popped like a bubble, and fizzled out on the wall, leaving a small burn mark, and a crack.

There was a few moments of near silence in the cave, filled only with the still crackling fire, where he sat still and processed everything that had just occurred.

Now, if this were a few weeks ago, he'd probably want to jump up and cheer at his success since nobody was around, and he could be himself. But, for some reason, he didn't really feel like it anymore. He didn't even really feel all that cheerful. Not when he realized that he had mixed feelings about what had just happened.

He was confused mostly. A little irritated at how much effort he had to put in for such a small explosion of energy, and a lot happy at his success after almost a week of constant failures.

He had questions. Lots of questions. And he was pretty excited about finding the answers too.

He had so much on his mind that he would have to work out, so he just continued to stare at the wall where his energy ball had popped, with wide eyes.

What could he do with his energy?

Why was he able to move it around externally, without him actually touching it physically?

Now that he succeeded in his Ki endeavors, could he now succeed with his movement training?

How could he use his Ki to augment his strength?

What was Ki? It acted almost solid, and the way it popped reminded him of a water balloon. It was like no state of matter he had ever read about.

Why did he have to put in so much effort to get such a small amount of energy, when in the past, when he was in danger he had destroyed mountains with ease?

Why did that small exertion noticeably tire him out?

He let out a yawn. He was actually surprisingly tired now.

He had just made a huge breakthrough in his training, but ended up with more questions than answers. His whole view of reality had changed. Sure, he had known about Ki beforehand because of his dad, but experiencing it himself was totally different. There were way more factors involved then what his dad had let on.

He needed to think. He needed to think, and he needed to sleep.

He was already tired from doing nothing all day. His recent exertion of Ki just made it worse.

He'd deal with it all tomorrow, after he had slept on everything he had just seen.

Making his decision, he stood up, still in a confused daze, walked over to his bed, and dropped down onto it.

He wasn't sure how he felt about everything yet, he needed some time to figure it all out.

Closing his eyes, he went to sleep for the night.

He'd mark a tally in the wall in the morning.

A/N: Please excuse any grammar and spelling errors, as I have no beta reader at this time.

- LeviTamm