Kai stood alone in the gravity chamber, surrounded by silence so dense it felt like it had weight. Fifty times Earth's gravity pressed down on his skin, his bones, his blood. Breathing felt like inhaling through stone. Every movement dragged like his body was buried in a mountain.
And he welcomed it.
His muscles screamed, his vision tunneled, but none of it mattered. He pushed through it, again and again. Sweat dripped off his chin in slow motion, drops flattening on the floor like raindrops hitting steel.
A flicker in the back of his mind.
[Adaptation Engaged: 50x Gravity Baseline Stabilized]
He didn't even blink. Just kept moving.
He spun into a high kick, flipped mid-air, slammed his fists into the ground and launched back up. Every strike pulled more from him than the last—but that was the point. He wanted the resistance. The fight. The edge.
The system said nothing else. It never did when he was like this. When he was completely locked in. When his body was no longer struggling, but evolving.
The chamber had been upgraded late yesterday.
It was night now.
Bulma had watched him train earlier, shrugged, called him a maniac, and left. He assumed she thought he'd passed out by now. That he was sleeping like a normal person.
But he didn't need sleep anymore. Not really.
Sleep was for recovery. His body didn't need that now. Not when every wound sealed, every muscle rewired, every broken rib stitched itself together within seconds.
He hadn't told her. He wouldn't.
No one could know.
Another flash behind his eyes.
[Microfracture Recovery Complete. Circulatory Optimization In Progress.]
He exhaled slowly. It sounded like a sigh of relief.
Then he threw another punch. And another. And another—until the air itself whined.
When the chamber finally powered down, it wasn't because he stopped. It was because someone else did.
The emergency override flashed red on the wall panel. The pressure dropped in an instant, slamming silence into his ears like a gong. He blinked. Turned.
Bulma was at the door, fire in her eyes and her slippers still on. She marched into the room with the rage of a sleep-deprived hurricane.
"What the hell is wrong with you?!"
Kai blinked. "…Good morning?"
"You're BLEEDING!"
He glanced down. There was some blood on his forearm, a split along his jaw. It was already fading.
"I was," he said.
"You were training all night. You didn't stop. You didn't even breathe! Do you know how insane that is?! You could've passed out! You could've died! Do you care about your own body at all?!"
Kai shrugged, wiping his jaw with the back of his hand.
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine, you're—you're…!" She threw her hands in the air. "You're the worst liar I've ever met! At least pretend to care about your health!"
He started to say something. Thought better of it.
There was no answer he could give her that wouldn't lead to more questions. He couldn't explain the system. Or the fact that his body was becoming something far beyond human. He couldn't tell her that he couldn't stop now—that the pressure, the punishment, the pain—it all worked in his favor. He just had to keep going. Keep adapting.
So he said nothing.
Bulma stared at him. Her anger faltered, then shifted to something else. Something quieter. Maybe frustration. Maybe worry.
"…You're going to burn yourself out."
He didn't respond.
She didn't wait for one.
She turned around, marched back toward the exit, and slammed the door behind her.
He stood there in the hollow silence.
Then slowly—deliberately—he got back into stance.
And resumed.
Because the Saiyans were still coming.
And his body wasn't done.