Dragon Ball: A Better Bulma

"Ah... this book doesn't do anything, is it alive?" wondered Goku, who kept poking at the book in Bulma's hands with his wand, but when he saw that the book didn't react, he got bored. 

"It doesn't react! Maybe it's just hungry, but it doesn't have a mouth to feed it," Arale had brought an apple near the book, but it just stood still, boring Arale with her attempts to feed it.

"Surely it knows magic? I only see scribbles," said Doctor Norimaki, who had looked at the book but saw strange glyphs with no specific meaning. 

"It seems that the book is used to test someone's talent if you don't understand its words, you have no talent, I would like to know how it does that," said Bulma, who could read those strange words, and on the first page was a sentence that made Bulma smile. 

"'Don't get lost in the power of magic', what a... strange sentence, but yes, magic is always presented as a source of trouble in these stories," Bulma murmured and turned the page.

As strange as it might seem, the feel of the page felt like another person's skin, she could even feel a slight 'heartbeat' coming from the book itself, indicating that it was indeed a living creature that had fallen into a dream for some reason. 

"Will it be dangerous to learn magic?" asked Oolong, paying attention to Bulma's words. 

"I don't think so, but you always have to be careful with the mysterious aspects of things. You know, maybe learning magic has its risks, just like ki training or developing psychic powers," Bulma replied to Oolong, but that only made the people around them more curious. 

"It seems kind of boring," Arale said, making Oolong nod next to her.

"That's why my teachers had so many warnings in class..." Oolong started to think about some things from his past in class.

"Are there risks in training Ki? But I feel good," Goku said, wagging his tail like a little cat. 

"The injuries, the damage you can take when training a technique or fighting other people, that would be the risks, I guess that would be it, right?" explained Chi-Chi, making Goku understand and nod. 

"I guess so, Grandpa always tells me to be careful, but I can learn all the techniques easily, so I never fully understood his words," Goku replied, not knowing that his words might be considered arrogant by others. 

But in reality, he was sincere. Goku was a genius at learning new techniques, probably coming from a race based on fighting and conquering had influenced him a lot in that aspect. 

In the future, Goku was even able to partially replicate the Hakai without having to go through the training to develop the energy of the Gods of Destruction, perhaps that was just a taste of what would later be the pinnacle of his talent, the Ultra Instinct.

"Ki training is dangerous if you don't have good guidance, or if you do a technique that consumes a lot of energy, or if your body can't withstand the strain of a technique. 

There are also training that can go wrong or fights that can ruin you unless you have resources to recover, which we do," Bulma added because although she was interested in studying the book in her hands, she was paying attention to the dialog around her. 

"Wait, do psychic powers have risks? Wouldn't it be bad for my son to have them?" asked Doctor Norimaki with some concern, but Bulma shook her head. 

"Turbo is right, the risks of psychic powers come from excessive curiosity and mental aspects. Psychics, if they train certain aspects, can get out of control if they grow up without restraint or education, but your son is fine," Bulma explained, reassuring Doctor Norimaki. 

He may be an eccentric scientist, but he is a man who cares about his family, so he takes care of his son's education and gives him a warm home to grow up in, so he has no more worries. 

"What kind of things could a psychic do out of control?" asked Oolong, a little scared because his technique was of the psychic type in a way. 

"The influence of the mind on psychic powers is vital, a damaged or broken mind can cause a psychic to perform erratic, unethical, immoral, and outright illegal acts. 

A telepath might become obsessed with reading minds, and in doing so might blur his or her own identity or accelerate the growth of darkness in his or her heart. Since emotions are part of psychic power, these dark desires would only make them stronger by giving them a false idea. 

Madness, insanity, and evil can make a psychic reach a very high power, to the point... of being able to warp reality, but it never ends well," Bulma said this knowledge, not because she made it up, but because there were ancient records of this very thing in the past, in addition to Galaxy Patrol reports. 

In Earth's past, there had been some dangerous people who had a lot of potential to channel their energy into psychic power, and due to lack of control, trauma, or various events, they ended up being dangerous people. 

But they didn't last long... because they were consumed by their unbridled power. This made Bulma think of a certain great villain with psychic abilities, Freezer. 

Freezer was probably aware of his inherent evil and decided not to explore his mental powers too much because the same story had happened many, many times in the universe. 

Many people with inadequate minds, but quite high talents in psychic powers, indulged in evil in their hearts and corruption of their thoughts, wreaking havoc in the Northern Galaxy. 

The same could be said of magic, but it seemed that neither on Earth nor in the universe were there many people who abused magic, and those who did were terrible people, such as Moro, Bibidi, and his son, Babidi.

While on Earth, only in the distant past had the typical 'evil wizard' appeared, presumably defeated by a dragon, and knowing that if there were 'dragons' on Earth, it had a certain ring of truth to it, though that story had to be taken with a grain of salt. 

"What are the dangers of learning magic? That's what the book was supposed to tell, right?" Goku asked, and Bulma nodded before telling him what she had read. 

"Magic... I suppose if psychic power is for the mind, ki for the body, magic touches something more mysterious, the soul. If you use inappropriate magic for which you have no training or talent, your soul can be corrupted or injured. 

Even this can affect your body and mind, causing physical deformities and psychological disorders. Still, magic is quite interesting, it is a microscopic application of ki, while psychic power is a macroscopic application of ki. 

Well, that was my idea before, but there is much more to it. If there is one clear difference, it is that magic relies heavily on the 'mysterious' to unleash its abilities. 

Psychic power relies on cognition and Ki relies on your own body," Bulma closed the book and stopped reading as she touched the bridge of her nose with one hand. 

"Practicing magic is much more time-consuming and boring than Ki, maybe that's why there aren't that many mages, very few have enough patience or will," Bulma said, handing the book to Chi-Chi.

"See if you can read the words," Bulma hinted, making Chi-Chi curious, so she opened the book. 

"Yes, I can understand!" the young girl said, and Goku approached her, but when she saw the mess of words in the book, she tactfully backed away. 

"I don't understand anything," Goku shook his shoulders when he saw the strange look Oolong had given him. 

"Let me try" Oolong stepped closer to look, but he could only make out a few words before he got bored because even if he could read them, he couldn't understand them. 

"I can't understand anything, how boring," said Arale, who had also tried, but Bulma hesitated a little when she heard those words.

"Robots can't do magic, Arale," Doctor Norimaki said, and Arale nodded when he heard that.

"I guess so... too bad," the little robot pouted, but soon perked up when she saw what had happened to Chi-Chi's hand.

'I'm not surprised if we just use my past life knowledge, the character Chi-Chi is based on was an 'immortal', and even though this is the real world, maybe it's a case of resonance with her other selves in the Omniverse,' Bulma thought as she saw Chi-Chi reading the book faster and faster and then unleashing a spell. 

Yes, a real spell. A small flame appeared in her hand. Although the fire didn't burn for long, it was a demonstration of Chi-Chi's extraordinary talent with magic, just as Bulma had suspected. 

"Don't try the spells, you read the contraindications, I don't have anything that can heal souls yet," Bulma scolded, causing Chi-Chi to nod before closing the book.

"I'm sorry... but I felt like I could just do it," Chi-Chi said with some embarrassment, but a hand touched her shoulder and shook her body.

"That was great, Chi-Chi! But be more careful," Goku said, not knowing what his words might trigger. 

Chi-Chi lowered her head, her body shaking a little as her head began to smoke, but Goku didn't understand why his friend had become like that, so he touched her forehead, worried.

"Are you okay, did the magic affect you, are you sick?" asked Goku worriedly, but Oolong's laughter made Goku turn his eyes to the young pig.

"Goku, Chi-Chi just..." A ball of Ki was thrown at Oolong, but he transformed into a small sparrow and dodged the attack. 

"I'm fine, Goku," Chi-Chi said after lowering the hand that had attacked Oolong.

"Good... that's good," Goku nodded, sighing in relief. 

"Young people grow up so fast," Doctor Norimaki said as if he were an old man who had known Goku and Chi-Chi all his life, which made Bulma smile. 

"Goku can be a bit... clueless sometimes," Bulma added, making Goku's ears perk up and the young Saiyan turned to look at the blue-haired girl. 

"I'm not clueless," Goku shouted, only to have Bulma reach over and ruffle his hair. 

"I've always wondered why Goku's hair is like that?" asked Oolong, who returned to his original form. 

"According to Jaco, my race has the peculiarity of being born with the hair they will have all their lives unless they decide to shave their heads," Goku replied, who had taken advantage of the Galactic Patrolman's visits to ask him questions about his race. 

"And no matter how much my mother used hair products, it's simply impossible to change his hairstyle unless you use scissors," Bulma said, and Goku's tail twitched like a cat. 

"No one will cut my hair!" Goku covered his head, but his reaction only made the others laugh. 

"No one is going to cut your hair, Goku, you look pretty," Chi-Chi said in a low voice, her face was completely red when she said those words, so she covered herself with the magic book.

"Huh? Thank you," Goku thanked before he looked at Bulma, paying attention to her, so after a few moments, he simply approached her with a look full of determination. 

"Hey Bulma, do you want to train?" Goku asked, causing the others to remain silent, interested in this situation. 

"Yes, let's train," Bulma replied before smiling darkly at Goku, who took a few steps back. 

"Let's see how strong you have become, Goku-san," Bulma used an honorific, causing Goku to turn quite pale.

Bulma only used honorifics when she wanted to scold him severely!