I started my new quest to master my body by first mapping it out. I decided to take a page out of Dune and try to implement Prana-Bindu practices into my current situation.
Since movement was currently out of the picture, I instead shifted my attention toward awareness. I pushed my perception inward, trying to sense anything at all within my still-developing, numb body.
It was tedious. It would have been torturous if not for the Flame.
It allowed me to pour my absolute all into the task, persistently observing my body without distraction.
At first, there was nothing. Or rather, there was too much nothing. No clear sensations, no defined boundaries, only a vague sense of existence suspended in darkness.
So I decided to narrow my focus.
I began with what little anchors I had: the slow, rhythmic pressure that I now recognized as a heartbeat. I followed it not with ears or touch, but with intent, observing how each pulse rippled outward. From there, I traced subtle variations in pressure and warmth, faint differences that hinted at structure beneath the numbness.
Soon, patterns began to emerge. My body's structure and outline became more apparent to me, piece by piece, as I mapped myself within my mind's eye.
The more my awareness grew, the more I realized how small and fragile my new body was, Unfinished. Systems were present but incomplete, like blueprints still in the process of being filled out. I could not influence them, but I could observe them, catalogue them, and commit them to the Flame.
The Flame made the repetition bearable. No, more than that, it made it meaningful. Each cycle of observation refined my understanding. Each pass revealed details I had missed before. What would have been mindless tedium became deliberate refinement.
As my awareness sharpened, I noticed inconsistencies. Proportions that did not align with human anatomy. Muscle clusters arranged in unfamiliar ways. Nerve pathways denser in places they had no reason to be.
And then I found it.
At the base of my spine was something extra.
I traced it carefully, once, twice, again, ensuring it was not a mistake born from inexperience. But the structure was undeniable: muscle, bone, and an unusual concentration of nerves, coiled and dormant, yet very much a part of me.
A tail.
The realization settled in with eerie calm. The Flame absorbed the initial shock, while the Void stripped away any unnecessary panic. What remained was clarity.
I was not human.
Or perhaps not completely human.
I had a suspicion of where I might be, but there was too little information to confirm anything yet.
For now, I continued analyzing my body. Understanding my new vessel had become vital. I needed to know how different it was from my previous one and adapt accordingly.
I mapped every system I could perceive, storing each discovery within the Flame and organizing my thoughts with growing efficiency.
It was a slow process, coming to understand this new body. I was grateful to the Flame for granting me photographic memory. It allowed me to recall the biological knowledge I had glossed over in my past life and cross-reference it with my body's current, incomplete developmental state.
At the very least, I could identify that I was quite similar to the human race—so similar that I might simply be a variant, or perhaps something more evolved.
…
It had been two months since my awakening, and I was slowly becoming familiar with another source of energy within my vessel.
Ki.
Or at least that was the best word I had for it. Similar power systems in other novels called it aura, qi, or stamina, but for all intents and purposes, it was life energy.
It was not the same as the life embodied by the Flame, yet it was still life in its own right.
As my awareness of this energy grew, it began to bolster my fetal movements. Through the supernatural awareness granted by the Flame, combined with my growing perception of ki, I was finally able to attempt moving parts of my body.
More than that, my awareness expanded exponentially.
I could now observe my blood vessels, trace their branching paths, and even glimpse faint outlines of my developing nerves through my mind's eye.
This heavily sped up my progress with my bootleg Prana Bindu progress as Prana-Bindu, as I understood it, was not a technique in the conventional sense.
It was a discipline.
In the stories that inspired it, the practice centered on absolute bodily awareness and microscopic control. Every muscle fiber, every gland, every involuntary response was meant to be understood, isolated, and eventually mastered. The body was not something to inhabit passively, but a system to be known in its entirety.
Prana was life itself—the breath, the current that animated flesh and sustained motion.
Bindu was the point—the smallest unit of focus, the indivisible moment where awareness and action met.
Together, they formed a philosophy of control so precise that even instinct became optional.
Practitioners were said to regulate heart rate at will, alter blood chemistry through intent alone, suppress pain, heighten perception, and command their bodies down to the cellular level. Nothing was left to chance. Nothing was unconscious.
Of course, I was not a practitioner.
What I was attempting was a crude imitation, stripped of ritual, tradition, and proper instruction. I lacked the maturity, the training, and even the fully formed body required to attempt such a thing properly.
But the principle still held.
Awareness preceded control.
If I could perceive a system clearly enough, if I could isolate its function and observe it without distortion, then—even without authority—I could begin to interface with it.
The Flame provided the clarity.
Ki provided the medium.
Prana-Bindu was the bridge between them.
...
Now, with Ki helping boost my perception, I no longer have to rely purely on inference. I could see where life pooled, where it thinned, and where it struggled to circulate through my still-forming body. Each observation refined my understanding, turning vague sensations into precise reference points.
Through this new metaphysical sense, I was able to start nudging my body via ki, not commanding it, but nudging.
When I focused on a developing muscle bundle, ki responded faintly, gathering there for a brief moment before dispersing. When I shifted my attention to a blood vessel, the flow sharpened, ever so slightly more defined.
However, I could not direct the energy yet, but I could feel how it responded—how it naturally gravitated along certain pathways, how resistance formed in undeveloped areas, how fragile the balance still was.
Ki flowed easily where life was already strong.
It hesitated where growth was incomplete.
That alone told me a great deal.
The changes caused by Ki were subtle, almost negligible, but they were consistent.
That consistency was everything.
I began timing my focus with the rhythm of my heartbeat, synchronizing awareness with circulation. Each pulse became a marker. Each cycle is a reference point. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the connection between intent and response grew stronger.
Not control.
Recognition.
When I concentrated on a forming muscle, ki subtly gathered there. When my focus drifted, it dispersed. The reaction was weak, barely noticeable—but it was consistent.
That consistency mattered.
Prana-Bindu was not something to be forced. Especially not in a body still under construction. Any mistake now would echo forward, locking flaws into my foundation.
So I settled for familiarity.
I learned how ki wanted to move.
I learned where my body was resilient and where it was vulnerable.
And somewhere along the way, fetal reflex became intention.
A finger twitched.
Not much. Barely anything at all.
But it was mine.
...
A few Months have passed, and my control over my body has increased exponentially as I developed. What had once required intense focus became instinctive. Muscles responded more readily. Reflexes sharpened. Ki no longer felt like a foreign current brushing against my senses, but a familiar presence flowing in concert with my intent.
I also made a new discovery of my weird biology; I had a full head of hair in the womb itself. Not wisps. Not the fine, barely-there fuzz typical of human infants.
A full head of it.
Even through dulled prenatal sensation, I could feel its weight along my scalp, the subtle drag as I shifted.
Quite weird, I say, if you realize normally we normies come out of the womb looking wrinkly ugly, and bald.
Human infants were not built like this. Hair growth at this stage was minimal, temporary, and often shed before birth.
This was neither minimal nor temporary.
I filed the observation away without dwelling on it. One anomaly among many.
Moving along, I am now able to kick quite easily, and my ki flow is now completely smooth as most of my systems have now grown, and I have recently taken a new practice to begin.
Cognitive conditioning.
Until now, the Flame had carried the overwhelming majority of my mental load. Memory storage, perception enhancement, pattern recognition—all of it offloaded to something far more robust than an undeveloped brain. Necessary, but inefficient in the long term.
If my mind were to grow alongside my body, it needed stress.
Carefully measured stress.
I began partitioning fragments of my consciousness back into my fetal brain. Only a small amount at first. Roughly five percent of my active awareness (which has been enhanced since my enlightenment from the flame, so it's probably around more of 20% of a baseline human) to my underdeveloped brain.
This is quite risky and dangerous territory, as an undeveloped neural structure could not handle strain the way a mature one could.
Therefore, I monitored constantly.
Instinct, ki flow, and awareness worked together to define the safety threshold. When strain approached dangerous levels, I pulled back. When recovery began, I reinforced it.
Ki became the catalyst.
After each stress cycle, I circulated ki deliberately through my brain, promoting healing and encouraging adaptation. Blood flow sharpened. Neural activity stabilized. Slowly, resilience increased.
It was conditioning.
Not unlike the spice trials described in the stories that inspired me, though far more restrained. Where spice overwhelmed to force growth, I applied pressure in increments, allowing my mind to adapt rather than fracture.
Even so, the results were undeniable.
Each cycle expanded my tolerance. Each recovery left me marginally sharper, marginally faster. The infant brain began to shoulder burdens it was never meant to carry—yet instead of breaking, it adapted.
The Flame still watched.
The Void still shielded.
But for the first time, my body—and my mind—were beginning to carry themselves.
I was no longer merely observing my growth.
I was participating in it, and it felt Glorious.
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Author Here
Let me know if you guys are perchance looking for any potential powers Gohan would be gaining, also I would like to warn you that there will be crossover elements, as well as that this fic is placed in a very AU setting while respecting canon.
Let me know your thoughts, as that motivates me, and if you find any errors, feel free to point them out, and I will correct them if needed.