"Alright, let us move on to the next phase of training!"
After roughly an hour of teaching the fundamentals of ki—once he felt the students had sufficiently digested their breakfast—Dumbledore gave Goku a knowing look. Goku immediately initiated the second stage of the curriculum.
The second stage of Turtle School training involved tilling the fields with one's bare hands. This exercise was designed to drastically build strength in the hands and arms; in a battle between martial artists, the speed and power of one's strikes are paramount.
However, considering the students' physical constitutions were far inferior to what he and Krillin possessed at the start, Goku modified the exercise. Instead of tilling hard soil, they were tasked with digging through sand. Dumbledore temporarily transfigured a large section of the lawn into a deep sandpit.
Yet, even with sand, the young wizards wailed in agony. Many snapped their fingernails or rubbed their fingertips raw until they bled. If not for Madam Pomfrey's immediate medical intervention, most of them wouldn't have been able to attend any other classes for the rest of the week.
Lunch was eaten right there in the sandpit. After a short nap, the lesson resumed at two o'clock.
The afternoon session was equally grueling. The students had to swim from one end of the Black Lake to the other and back again. To ensure they didn't slack off, the Merpeople and Grindylows were "encouraged" to give chase, stimulating the students' survival instincts to push their physical limits.
By four o'clock, the practical combat phase began. Forbidden from using any magic, the students engaged in one-on-one hand-to-hand brawls using the basic Turtle School stances Goku had demonstrated.
By six o'clock, the day's Ki Magic course finally came to an end. The young wizards dragged their battered bodies to the Great Hall for dinner and then collapsed into their beds. They were beyond exhausted.
While Madam Pomfrey's spells and potions could soothe physical fatigue, they couldn't mend the mental drain. They had been frightened half to death several times throughout the day.
Unsurprisingly, upon waking the next morning, a large portion of the students decided to drop the course. Even the promise of great power and massive house points couldn't outweigh the sheer terror and physical pain.
The dropouts were primarily from Slytherin and Ravenclaw. The Slytherins felt the training process was "undignified" and beneath their status. The Ravenclaws argued that magic should be studied from books, not through manual labor and fistfights.
Many also voiced doubts about a twelve-year-old teacher, claiming that being a strong fighter didn't make Goku a capable educator. Of course, these were mostly excuses; the truth was it was simply too hard, too tiring, and too scary.
Even among the brave Gryffindors and hardworking Hufflepuffs, only a minority chose to continue. Among those who stayed, however, were Harry, Ron, and Hermione.
"Are you both really going to keep going?" Harry asked his friends.
They both nodded simultaneously.
"We believe in Goku," Ron said, shaking his fist. "Besides, I get to punch Malfoy!" During the previous day's combat training, he had been paired with Draco and had managed to beat the annoying boy until he cried. But that wasn't his main reason.
Ron felt that this course was helping him find his own confidence. His brothers were all legendary wizards; no matter how hard he tried in standard magic, he felt he could never surpass their shadows. If he could achieve something in Ki Magic, it would be a path that was uniquely his.
"I need to earn points for Gryffindor," Hermione added. She had her own reasons; she used her academic success to prove her worth and mask the lingering insecurity of her Muggle-born status. She wasn't about to give up on a valuable, high-scoring course, no matter how grueling it was.
"Then I'm with you," Harry said firmly. He wanted to stand by his friends, and as the famous Harry Potter, he didn't want to be seen as a coward—especially not by Malfoy. Furthermore, since he wasn't allowed to use magic during the summer holidays, this training would give him the physical strength to deal with the Dursleys.
Most importantly, he knew from Hagrid that Voldemort was still out there. To avenge his parents, he needed every scrap of power he could get. Standard magic might not be enough, but Ki Magic offered a terrifying potential for the future.
...
At six o'clock Sunday morning, the trio arrived on the lawn.
"Good. More than I expected," Dumbledore noted, standing beside Goku. Nearly a hundred students had shown up for the optional early morning session. Though he knew more would drop out eventually, seeing this many stay was heartening.
Two months passed in a flash.
The morning routine remained unchanged, but the number of participants had dwindled from a hundred to just thirty. Most of them were lower-year students who had more free time and a greater obsession with house points. After two months of conditioning, they could now navigate the obstacles and complete the lap around the lake with relative ease. Moreover, they were now all wearing twenty-kilogram turtle shells on their backs.
"First place for first-years: Ron. Ten points to Gryffindor!"
Ron, who had consistently taken the top spot for weeks, smirked at Malfoy. Draco looked like he wanted to bite through his own teeth. He was currently the only Slytherin first-year still in the program, solely to keep Ron from sweeping the points, yet he hadn't won a single race.
After the morning session, Goku and Dumbledore went to the Headmaster's office. After a large breakfast, the magic lessons began.
"Goku, today I am going to teach you Occlumency. This magic is vital for you, so you must study it diligently." Dumbledore handed him a book titled Occlumency: From Beginner to Master.
Goku took the book and flipped through it quickly. In the past two months, Dumbledore hadn't just taught him spells; he had taught him common sense. Goku now understood that the gate in the white space didn't just take him to different places, but to entirely different *worlds*. Dumbledore had repeatedly warned him that in the future, he must not tell anyone about his experiences between worlds.
Though Goku didn't think it was a big deal and didn't really care about secrets, he had listened enough to remember the gravity of the advice.
***
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