Gohan's eyes snapped wide open. His expression and the entirety of the young teen's body language switched from a state of serenity into a dire and forceful deluge of power. Shimmering with brilliant starlight, Gohan drew his hands back and thrust them forward. "Kamehameha!" he cried out, firing a bright energy beam with a starlit outline emitting drizzles of reflective dazzle. The beam curved out and tunneled toward the unfathomable void of the macrocosm before thinning out and vanishing.
"This is impressive," King Kai nodded in approval. "You're definitely grasping the basic concept of the technique, however… I still don't think where you should be if you wish to call yourself a master."
"Huh? Really?" Gohan exclaimed, stumbling back in surprise. "But that last blast was so powerful! I felt this incredible warmth oozing into me. It's like the universe itself cradled me with its trust, convincing me that everything was going to be alright. I thought this time for sure…"
"As I've said, this was, no doubt about it, Spirit Succession. However… I think that, surely, it should be even more powerful than this," King Kai nodded to himself, scratching the bottom of his hefty chin. "Keep practicing. If you feel your skin drying up, just apply some elbow grease!"
Gohan knew better than to not join his master in the chuckle. Recently, it has occurred to Gohan that perhaps King Kai has never tutored a student for quite this long before. That was because while Gohan had no trouble commending his master on his puns and jokes, no matter if they were good or not, it was becoming increasingly difficult to tell when something was supposed to be a pun or not. In other words, King Kai's humor was becoming increasingly bad.
"Now, it's about time for your master to do some drifting, but don't go drifting about yourself…" King Kai pointed his stubby fingers at Gohan before breaking into laughter, wrapping himself up in the cradle of his own arms so that he didn't collapse.
"Heh, I see… Drifting… Excellent wordplay, King Kai-sama," Gohan scratched his chin awkwardly with a kind-hearted but a little uncomfortable smile.
With excited pep in his step, King Kai bolted off to rev up his precious Red 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air Hardtop. Gohan clapped his hands together and sat down, closing his eyes to feel the wellness energy all around him to dry and draw from. It felt wrong to draw from a being's own wellness. The odd thing was that the last time, when Gohan did by far the best he's ever done with Spirit Succession, it was as if he did nothing at all. The wellness just flowed through him without the need to draw any from anywhere. It's like it just came to Gohan.
"Alright!" Gohan opened his eyes and stood up, drawing his arms back and then thrusting them forward. Just as Gohan was about to fire the Kamehameha, an ethereal white sparkle distracted him. The teen turned his eyes toward the glint, noticing Bubbles shimmering with white splendor, almost as if incredible wellness was swelling up within the monkey. It was as if the power of the universe was flowing through Bubbles, and the monkey contained inside the power of a Spirit Bomb of its own.
"Oh, dang it!" Gohan winced, realizing that the wellness flowing through him was being wasted, drawing and then thrusting his arms again. "Kamehameha!" he exclaimed, firing an azure energy beam. His timing was completely off, though, hampered by the distraction. The tunneling energy wave was careening straight toward King Kai, prompting Gohan to grab hold of the energy beam and send a wave across it that turned the beam upward. King Kai bellowed in dread, skidding away from the incoming beam that hooked upward and narrowly missed the Red 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air Hardtop, detonating in the sky and coloring the boundless macrocosm with a white flash.
"Have you lost your mind!?" King Kai shook his fist over his head. "You nearly obliterated your own master! Do you have any idea what it would be like for me, a Kai of the Northern Quadrant, to die? I'd be the laughingstock of the Kais!"
"Sorry, King Kai-sama…" Gohan winced, scratching the back of his head and repeatedly bowing his head in apology. "I guess I just got distracted, that's all. Although it's tough to concentrate and train with you driving around the hemisphere of this tiny planet."
"Oh, are you saying that my planet is too small for the two of us? Are you evicting me, the great King Kai, the Lord of the Northern Quadrant of the entire Universe? Is that it?" King Kai bounced out from his car and skittered up to Gohan with his tiny legs, stepping up on his toes to glare angrily into Gohan's apologetic eyes.
"Sorry, King Kai-sama, what do you say I gift you a chocolate record player? Sounds pretty sweet, right?" Gohan shrugged, feeling warmth flushing his cheeks in boundless embarrassment.
"A chocolate record player…? Sweet…!" King Kai stuffed his hands into his mouth, convulsing with forceful attempts to refrain from laughing.
"Please forgive me, King Kai-sama! I'm just your foolish, naïve pupil! I'm so thick I only know 25 letters, I don't know Y!" Gohan clapped his hands together, wincing with the whole right side of his face and bowing in apology.
"Bwahahahahaha!" King Kai burst, collapsing on the ground as if he had been disemboweled and struggled to contain the spread of his innards. Gohan stroked his forehead with the back of his hand. He hadn't seen King Kai laughing this hard in a while, so he wagered that his position as King Kai's pupil was secure. "Maybe you should take a break and take a relaxing afternoon drive with me. It should clear your head up and you can resume your training in the evening?"
"I don't mean any offense by it, King Kai-sama, but…" Gohan wondered if it was okay for him to tread such dangerous waters, but decided to risk it and go for it anyway. He had a couple of demeaning to himself puns stored in his head for a dire hour and he felt confident that he could pull himself out of a tough spot that way. "Why do you drive around on this tiny planet all the time? Isn't the Snake Road just one boundless road for you to drive around on? There are cleaners and other ogre maintenance staff roaming the place, then there's Princess Snake's palace… There are so many people you can meet, and so many landmarks you can see on your way. It just feels like a much more entertaining drive than to drive around your small planet non-stop…"
"Watch what you're calling small!" King Kai pointed at Gohan, looking scorned at the demeaning remark, but then he looked up, pondering deep in thought. "However… Maybe taking a different destination for once in a few thousand years might be entertaining. I can really let this girl cut loose and feel the wind caressing my hair…"
"What ha…" Gohan was about to ask, but then pressed his hands to his mouth, turning blood-red.
"What was that?" King Kai turned to Gohan, tilting his left eyebrow.
"I just wanted to ask you what has more letters than the alphabet - the post office!" Gohan managed to salvage the situation by coming up with a quick pun that matched the offensive jab he almost took, despite meaning no offense by it and merely reacting to King Kai's reply with genuine and immediate confusion.
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!" King Kai curled up, squirting out some thick tears from the eyes behind those round shades to where the divine martial artist had to tilt his shades to wipe his tearful eyes with his robe. While Gohan was curious to see what King Kai's eyes looked like under the round black shades, he didn't risk overstepping his boundaries and ruining the good impression he had formed with his master so far. "You should be careful telling superb jokes like that. I know you don't have a driver's license yet, but distracting the driver with some hilarious zingers can cause a crash. I'm just minding basic road safety rules here."
After being continuously encouraged to take a seat in King Kai's invaluable Red 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air Hardtop, Gohan sat down in the front passenger seat and heard Bubbles whooping and chattering as it rested in the back seat and started dancing with its signature sky-pumping moves. "You better buckle up in there, Buster!" King Kai turned around and pointed with a warning at Bubbles. "We're taking a drive off the planet and onto the Snake Way, so I might cut a little loose and push the pedal to the medal, so to speak…"
"King Kai-sama, I think the expression is "putting the pedal to the metal"…" Gohan corrected his godly martial arts master, despite knowing full well that it was going to backfire on him immediately.
"Nonsense," King Kai waved his hand in dismissal. He turned the key in the ignition and sped off the edge of the planet, whipping its antennae to set off a telekinetic pulse that directed the Red 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air Hardtop right onto the pathway of the Snake Way. "Why would putting the pedal to the metal mean going fast? Don't you win a medal for being fast? That's why you push your pedal to the medal, not metal…"
"Heheheh, I see…" Gohan scratched his cheek, chuckling awkwardly. "You're very wise, King Kai-sama…"
"Oh, well… When you reach my years, you'll learn to see the world differently as well. You're a very astute young man as well. Bright one the likes of which you wouldn't find even with the aid of a lantern," King Kai observed while speeding across the Snake Way as hard as his vintage collector's delight car allowed him. "That's why I chose to train you because I saw your bright and open mind. That and your superior taste in comedy."
"I see…" Gohan nodded, thinking it might have been for the best not to engage in too much talk with his martial arts master, given his position on not distracting the driver. Also, if he said something King Kai would have considered offensive, Gohan wouldn't have been able to salvage it by telling a good joke without worrying that King Kai would steer them off straight into literal Hell.
Far off in the distance, a massive plowing machine was clearing out the lemon-colored clouds that obstructed the path and made it difficult to see what one was running, or, in King Kai's case, driving on. Seeing a wimpy-looking ogre seated in the driver's seat of the massive plow gave Gohan an idea. He turned to King Kai and pumped his fists with excitement.
"Could you please stop for a little bit, King Kai-sama? I want to talk to that ogre," Gohan asked.
"Eh? Not sure what's gotten into you, but… Sure, just don't take too long. It's probably for the better that we let this guy plow through the clouds and make our path clearer," King Kai nodded and pulled to a neat stop by the side of the Snake Way where the road was still visible.
Gohan vaulted through the side of the open-roof car and flew off toward the plowing machine, which was just doing its thing. The ogre clerk seemed baffled by this martial artist just flying up to him out of nowhere and nearly lost his glasses from jumping up, needing a few seconds to pull them back up on his big, blue nose.
"Hello, hello!" Gohan greeted the ogre, only for the befuddled infernal cog of the Other World After Life service machine to gulp and nod in a voiceless, intimidated greeting. "Say, would you know where I could get my hands on some books in the Other World?"
"Oh, my… B-Books, you say…?" the ogre pulled up his glasses and pressed his hands tightly around the wheel of the plowing machine after stopping it until the conversation with Gohan was finished. "Well… I'd have to say that the copy of every book and every document ever made, or ever to be made, lays inside the drawers of King Enma. If you need a particular book or document, I can get it for you, but I won't do anything I could get in trouble for, like fetching you the driver's license you'll get in the future so that you can drive that 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air Hardtop yourself."
"No, it's nothing like that!" Gohan laughed out, stroking the back of his head before borrowing a crinkled sheet of paper lying somewhere inside the car and a pen that the ogre had tucked in the pocket of his jumpsuit. "Do you think you could find and get me this?" he wondered, showing what he wrote down on the crinkled piece of paper to the ogre.
"W-Why yes… I believe I could," the ogre nodded nervously.
"Could you do me a favor and deliver it to King Kai's planet? I want to give it to King Kai-sama as a gift," Gohan clapped his hands together with a polite request, bowing his head.
"W-Well… If it's for King Kai-sama, then… I suppose so…" the ogre nodded repeatedly with nervous ticks.
"Cool, thank you!" Gohan exclaimed in cheer and flew off to the stopped and parked onto the side Red 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air Hardtop, swooping down into the front passenger seat and resting beside King Kai.
Gohan punched the air, sprinkling sweat off of his weary and tensed-up arm, before quickly returning to a defensive stance and then exploding with a barrage of punches and kicks again. Sparkling with a starlit white aura, similar to that of a Spirit Bomb being channeled and contained within one's own body, Gohan continued to shadow box by trying to learn to contain the wellness energy channeled during the Spirit Succession within his body while fighting.
"H-Hey!" a high-pitched, incredibly nervous voice reached Gohan, prompting the youth to turn around and rush to the edge of the planet. King Kai and Bubbles followed him there, similarly taken aback by the fact that his remote planet had a visitor. "H-Hey already!"
"Hello!" Gohan waved and hopped off the edge of the planet, flipping over his front before landing behind the shaking and incredibly stressed ogre, who clenched a stack of books in his hands. "Ah, ogre-san, you've come!"
"Y-Yes… Well, h-here are the books you asked for. Please let King Kai-sama know that we wish him long and cheerful years!" the ogre bowed and handed Gohan the stack of books, looking relieved after handing them over and jumping back into his plowing truck. "You take care now."
"Thank you, you be well too!" Gohan bowed and waved the ogre clerk farewell, seeing him off as the ogre drove off. After the cloud-plowing ogre vanished beyond the range of vision, Gohan kicked off the ground and flew over to King Kai's planet, walking up to King Kai and extending the stack of books to him.
"10,000 Embarrassing Dad Jokes to Make Your Daughter Change Her Last Name? What is this?" King Kai scratched the back of his head as he took the books off Gohan's hands and placed them on the ground, picking one up off the ground and skimming through it. "When does a joke become a dad joke? When it becomes… Apparent?"
"These are joke books, King Kai-sama. I figured they'd be more your style. I've seen some of those in the school library, but nobody really reads them, because they don't help you prepare for the exams at all. I hoped maybe they would help you brighten up your day when I'm gone and you've got no one to bounce jokes off of," Gohan smiled, hoping that King Kai would like his present.
"Hmm?" King Kai's lips became long and wobbly, waving like the surface of a stormy sea while tears began sprinkling from the bawling deity's eyes in cartoonishly large droplets. "Whaaa!" he cried out, making it the first time that Gohan saw his esteemed martial arts master cry.
"Eh?" Gohan scratched the back of his head, looking baffled. "Are the jokes in these books that bad?"
"N-No… I… Love it…" King Kai wiped the tears with his sleeve after tilting his shades before pointing at Gohan with his newly ignited fighting spirit. "But this is no time to joke around! Get yourself together and master that Spirit Succession technique! You're the greatest pupil I've ever had, Gohan, if you can't do it–no one can!"
"Wh-What? What's this all of a sudden?" Gohan freaked out by the sudden ignition of passion behind his martial arts master. Then Gohan saw it–the shimmering white aura, the sparkling stardust, similar to that Gohan saw in his dad when he was channeling the Spirit Bomb back on Planet Vegeta when it was getting massive. It was then that Gohan knew that he could do it. Only when he saw the warm white shimmer in both Bubbles and King Kai did Gohan finally unconditionally trust the voice of the universe telling him that everything would be alright.
"You're right, King Kai-sama. It's now or never!" Gohan exclaimed, clenching his arms together and adopting a wide-legged, balanced stance while clenching his fists and bringing them off to the side with his arms bent. The Saiyan teen closed his eyes and regulated his breathing. There was no effort on his part at all! It was like the wellness of Bubbles and King Kai just poured into his very being. Without even needing to become a Super Saiyan at all, Gohan felt the most powerful he's ever been. It was like he could do whatever he set his mind to.
It was like everything would be alright.
"Ka… Me… Ha… Me…" Gohan breathed out with each breath he exhaled, cupping his hands together and drawing them back to his side. Then, Gohan's eyes opened with serene tranquility, as he brought his hands out. "HA!" he exclaimed, casting forth an indomitable, tunneling force of energy that washed across the entire macrocosm, imbuing everyone with Gohan's will for wellness and, had it encountered any trace of evil without a speck of purity in its heart, Gohan knew, his Kamehameha would have obliterated it without a trace.
"This is it! This is Spirit Succession!" King Kai began hopping around, pumping his fists into the sky before grabbing hold of Bubbles' hands and beginning to skip and dance around with his pet monkey.
"I've finally gotten the hang of it… Spirit Succession…" Gohan looked at his hands in disbelief. In terms of power, he didn't feel like he was in a whole different world of power. Training on King Kai's planet and its increased gravity certainly toughened Gohan up some, but it was nothing close to the training in the Room of Spirit and Time with his father. Still, Gohan felt like he could do anything he set his mind to with this power. Almost as if the amount of power he had didn't matter one bit. He was invincible all the same. A staunch protector of all that was good, and a fierce, inevitable punisher of all that was evil.
"I see, so that's what was missing all this time," King Kai nodded. "The Spirit Succession doesn't have you draw the wellness energy from willing sources, they surrender it to you without their knowledge merely by believing in you and your strength. It's a perfect power for an inspiring young man such as yourself. The more people believe in you, the more amazing your Spirit Succession will become!"
"I see. Bubbles, King Kai-sama... Thank you, thank you for believing in me!" Gohan pumped his hands in excitement, grabbing hold of Bubbles' hands and dancing around in a circle before Bubbles hopped onto Gohan's face and crawled over on the teen's head, going wild with cheer.
"Yes, yes… This is good, however, it's equally important that you believe in yourself. Unless you believe in the version of you that the others see when you inspire them, there will be a drastic mismatch between the wellness energy and their positivity and your negativity will cancel each other out. What's more, your despair risks corrupting the wellness of others too. Come to think of it, Spirit Succession is an incredibly dangerous technique. I shan't teach it to anyone ever again," King Kai became sullen and turned away before finishing his intense reflection and turning to face Gohan with congratulatory cheers again.
At long last, Gohan tapped into the newest, most amazing technique that King Kai had ever invented–the Spirit Succession. Its potential felt as boundless as that of Gohan's own, making it feel like it was a perfect fighting style for Gohan. Son Goku's gut was right to trust King Kai, wishing Gohan to train with King Kai instead of with his own father. Even if it didn't feel like it at first, eventually this risk paid off with unimaginable dividends.