Dragon Ball Roshi

Taro traveled at a leisurely pace, walking like an ordinary man on a long journey, avoiding flying altogether. He climbed mountains when he encountered them, crossed rivers when they blocked his path, traversed deserts, and wandered across plains. He shared company with wild beasts in the forests and did not deliberately steer clear of human activity. With his long, unkempt hair and a red pigeon perched on his shoulder, he looked peculiar, though not ragged or wild like a hermit. Most people who saw him avoided interaction, considering him an odd figure.

During the day, Taro walked. Though to say he was "hurrying" would be inaccurate—he had no destination to hurry to. While walking, he often immersed himself in refining the Muken. By the time he perfected a move, he would look up to find the starry night sky had already replaced the day.

He would often stop right there, whether in the forest or by a riverbank. If in the woods, he sent the phoenix to fetch some game; if by water, it would dive in to catch plump fish. Roasting meat and conjuring a jar of aged wine, Taro drank alone under the moon, gazing at the stars and letting his thoughts drift. Occasionally, he poured half a cup for the phoenix, teasing it. Whenever the phoenix choked and flapped its wings in a panic, Taro would laugh heartily.

The nights were spent in meditation. As his mastery of the Muken and the eye's technique advanced, he grew increasingly aware of the importance of mental strength. Back when the Muken reached a tenfold multiplier, Taro had already begun to feel the strain on his mind. Now, with the technique far surpassing tenfold, the mental fortitude required to wield it was exponentially greater.

Taro did not know the limits of the Muken, so he never let up on tempering his mental strength.

He had long abandoned normal human sleep, substituting it with meditation. This was not an easy feat, as meditation only rejuvenates the mind, not the body or brain. In the beginning, even Taro found it arduous. Over time, however, he adapted. Now, even after a night of meditation, he could lower his brain activity to mimic sleep, allowing for sufficient rest.

Interestingly, during his solitary journey, Taro discovered something peculiar about himself. At one point, he became so engrossed in a critical breakthrough in the Muken that he lost all sense of time, moving purely on instinct. He walked down the wrong path, and when a thousand-foot cliff loomed ahead, the phoenix on his shoulder would chirp softly, warning him. Their bond was so deep that even in his subconscious, he responded to its signals and corrected his course. When he finally emerged from his trance, he realized half a month had passed without feeling particularly hungry.

He couldn't help but laugh. Had his "God-tree" physique turned him into a true tree? Like the Namekians, surviving only on sunlight and water? Still, Taro didn't dwell on it. He continued to eat meat and drink wine, refusing to live as a detached sage, forsaking earthly pleasures.

One day, Taro arrived at a great waterfall.

It cascaded from a thousand-foot cliff, its waters tumbling into a deep pool below, creating a spray of white mist. The thunderous roar of the falling water was deafening, even to Taro's ears. Standing near the pool, he could hear nothing else—only the overwhelming sound of water crashing into the depths.

Amid this cacophony, Taro's ears began to adjust, and the noise faded into silence. The phoenix had already flown off, unable to bear the din. Now, only Taro stood by the waterfall, staring at the vertical sheet of white water for a long time. In this silence, faint sounds gradually emerged.

The rustling of bushes—perhaps a fox darting through them. The chirping of birds—maybe a mother bird tending to her chicks in a treetop nest. The soft movements on the ground—perhaps a line of ants carrying a fallen seed. These sounds painted vivid scenes in Taro's mind, like individual strokes on a blank canvas, slowly filling his surroundings.

He could even hear the snapping of dry branches, the wilting of flowers, and the rippling of a lake under the wind's caress...

Faintly, Taro felt as though he was brushing against an elusive realm—a state like light, invisible yet ever-present, just out of reach.

The thunderous roar of the waterfall returned, snapping him out of his reverie. Taro blinked, and it was as though the world had reset. Time resumed its flow, and the sounds of bushes, foxes, birds, ants, withered wood, falling flowers, and wind-swept lakes vanished. Only the overwhelming cascade of the waterfall filled his mind once more.

"Heh…"

Taro shook his head with a wry smile. Was this the so-called "enlightenment" often extolled in fantasy cultivation novels? He had always found such plot devices tiresome, especially when some meddling character inevitably interrupted the protagonist's enlightenment to prevent them from becoming too overpowered. Yet here he was, voluntarily stepping away from such a moment. Did this make him dense and unworthy of insight?

The faint smile faded from his face as his gaze drifted, memories pulling him back to a distant past. Though he had lived three lives, objectively speaking, his first life as an ordinary Earthling and his second as a Uchiha elite ninja were both relatively short. Even combined, those lives were dwarfed by his time in the Dragon Ball universe.

Time could erode many things. He had thought himself long detached from his first two lives, but now, unexpectedly, fragments resurfaced.

Squinting, Taro recalled the young man named Wu Taro from his first life. During his mundane existence, what dreams had he occasionally clung to? Had they truly existed, or had they already faded into oblivion?

Lost in thought, he stood silently by the waterfall for an unknown length of time. Eventually, a sketchpad and a charcoal pencil appeared in his hands. Holding the pad, he began outlining the towering waterfall and the vast expanse of cascading water on the blank paper.

As he sketched, fragments of the auditory "illusions" he had experienced earlier involuntarily surfaced in his mind. Guided by his profound mastery of mental techniques, his emotions flowed into the drawing, endowing the waterfall with a vivid realism that seemed to immerse the viewer in nature itself.

Before long, the sound of laughter rang out amidst the roar of the falls. Carrying the finished sketch, Taro turned and departed. Overhead, the red phoenix, which had been circling, flapped its wings and followed.

---

West City.

A metropolis always rebuilds. Though half-destroyed by the Demon Clan warriors, a year of restoration had largely restored the city's infrastructure. Most residents had resumed their normal lives as if the Demon Clan had never appeared.

On a large LED screen mounted on the glass facade of a shopping mall, the new king's speech was being broadcast. As for the previous king, after being resurrected by the Dragon Balls, he was deeply dissatisfied upon learning of the so-called Master Muten. Believing that the authority of the state had been undermined, he implemented policies to control public opinion, heavily promoting the government's image. He himself gave endless speeches, ultimately exhausting public patience. Following waves of protests, demonstrations, and incidents where senior officials were unceremoniously stuffed into trash bins by "unknown citizens," the old king was forced to abdicate.

The new king, showing wisdom, chose not to challenge the Master Muten. Instead, he acted as if the Demon Clan and the Master Muten were bygone topics, focusing solely on governance. Since Master Muten remained out of sight, it was as if he had vanished from public memory.

Of course, a few opportunists pretended to be the Master Muten, only to be tested by enthusiastic strongmen seeking proof. These impostors were swiftly dealt with, their fates unknown.

"How could they forget the Master Muten?" grumbled a woman exiting the shopping mall, holding a small girl's hand. She cast a dissatisfied glance at the screen displaying the king's speech.

"It's understandable," said the man beside her. Though he had witnessed the Master Muten's miracles and was grateful for his family's resurrection through the Dragon Balls, he still preferred to keep his distance from such extraordinary beings.

"Hmph!" The woman glared at her husband. He hadn't spoken this way when she and their daughter had just been revived. Tugging the little girl's hand, she said, "Hannah, let's leave Daddy behind, shall we?"

"Okay! Let's go! No more Daddy!" chirped the girl, her face smeared with ice cream as she skipped happily beside her mother.

The man smiled helplessly and followed. "Don't run too fast; there's traffic!"

The family of three strolled down the bustling street, soon reaching an underpass.

"Look, Mommy, there's a poor old man over there!" The little girl tugged on her mother's hand, pointing to someone under the overpass with a sketch pad set up on an easel. He seemed to be making a living by doing quick sketches. Though his face was obscured by the canvas, the girl somehow decided he was an "old man."

She licked her ice cream, tilted her head, and asked, "Mommy, what's he doing?"

"He's drawing pictures for people," the woman said, glancing over along with her husband. A small crowd had gathered around the artist, and murmurs of admiration occasionally broke the silence.

"I want one too! I want one too!" The girl suddenly dropped her ice cream craving, shaking her mother's arm in a pleading tantrum.

The parents exchanged helpless smiles. Their daughter's demands were law, after all. Hand in hand, they walked over to the artist. Only then did they get a good look at him: a man with long, untamed black hair, his face lined with wrinkles, giving him the appearance of a middle-aged man. In his hand was a simple charcoal pencil, with which he calmly and skillfully sketched on the canvas before him.

The woman wanted to ask how much a portrait would cost, but standing before him, she found herself tongue-tied. Like her husband, she chose to stand quietly to the side, observing with curiosity. Even the usually excitable little girl fell silent, nibbling at the remnants of her ice cream.

Though the woman wasn't an art expert, the man's drawing seemed to possess an inexplicable charm. The strokes of his charcoal pencil carried an almost mystical allure, pulling viewers into his work as if they could feel his emotions with each line he drew.

"Does his art... have a soul?" A dazed thought seemed to echo in the minds of all the onlookers.

After watching for a while, the crowd began to disperse, each person suddenly struck by an odd, unspoken urge to leave. Among them, the family of three was about to go when the man's voice called out behind them.

"Wait a moment."

"Huh?" The woman and her husband turned back, puzzled. The artist swiftly made a few final strokes on his sketch, smiled, and pulled the top sheet from his pad. He approached the little girl, gently patting her messy, fluffy hair.

"Here you go. This is for you."

"Thank you, Grandpa!" The girl beamed, eagerly reaching out to take the paper.

"Your hands are dirty!" The mother instinctively moved to snatch the drawing away, worried her daughter's sticky ice-cream-covered hands would ruin it. But to her surprise, when the girl received the sheet, her hands were spotless, clean as if freshly washed.

The girl held the picture close, gazing at it with delight before proudly showing it to her parents. "Daddy, Mommy, do I look pretty?" She tilted her head high, her expression brimming with pride.

The woman blinked in confusion. Hadn't her daughter's hands just been sticky? Was she imagining things?

The parents leaned in to examine the drawing. It was a vivid charcoal portrait of their daughter, capturing her lively and innocent charm with incredible precision. The likeness was uncanny—so much so that it felt as if their daughter had leaped into the picture, her sketched figure animated and full of life, even seeming to wave at them.

As the family walked away with the crowd, the parents suddenly froze in realization, their hearts racing as they exchanged a look of mutual alarm. "When... did we agree to let him draw her?"

They wracked their brains but couldn't recall the decision. Mystified and uneasy, they continued on, each holding one of their daughter's hands. Oblivious to their concerns, the little girl skipped and laughed between them, her joy as bright as the sun.

Years later, when the works of the mysterious "Soul Painter" became priceless treasures sought after by collectors worldwide, Hannah—no longer a little girl but a grown woman with children of her own—refused to part with the cherished portrait, no matter the price offered.

---

Under the overpass, Taro packed up his easel, sketch pad, and pencil. The phoenix-like bird perched nearby helped him gather his supplies with its claws. Earlier, when the crowd had gathered, the bird had cleverly hidden itself, wary of the attention it always attracted. In the beginning, it had enjoyed the novelty of being admired and fussed over, but that had long since worn thin.

Suddenly, someone stopped in front of him. The immortal bird instinctively darted behind Taro, peeking cautiously from behind him. Seeing it was only one person, the bird hesitantly poked its head out again.

Without looking up or pausing in his movements, Taro spoke as if to himself. "There's a decent little shop nearby. Let's grab a bite together."

After finishing his packing, he slung his belongings over his shoulder and looked up to meet the weary, bloodshot eyes of Tsuru, who stood frozen before him. Smiling faintly, Taro said, "It's been years since we last met, hasn't it?

---

If you can, support me on pa treon:

Pa treon. com/ RightTranslations (No spaces)

Up to 50 chapters ahead on the four novels i am translating.