Twenty days later, Kamar-Taj Mage Training Ground.
Goku stood in the center of the training ground, concentrating to stabilize his soul.
Following the techniques taught by the Ancient One these past few days, he connected his ki, body, and soul into a unified whole.
To shake his soul, one must overpower his ki and physical strength.
The Ancient One stood to the side, a satisfied smile on her face, and nodded to Mordo, who stood opposite Goku.
With the Ancient One's signal, Mordo immediately stepped forward and struck Goku's chest with a palm.
Goku's soul swayed slightly, but it was not knocked out of his body; instead, it remained firmly locked within his body.
"Alright, Goku, your soul training is complete."
Ancient One smiled, indicating that Goku could relax his control over his soul.
You see, at the beginning of his training, if Goku were hit by Mordo, his soul would immediately be forced out of his body.
But now, even if Mordo hit him for a whole day, Goku's soul wouldn't be forced out.
He had basically mastered the basic techniques of soul control.
"Great! Thank you, Ancient One and Mordo!"
Hearing that his soul training had passed, Goku jumped up happily.
He bowed to Ancient One, who had guided his training, and thanked Mordo, who had sparred with him for twenty days.
Goku used Apparition to disappear from the spot.
Seeing Goku leave, Mordo breathed a sigh of relief.
"Finally gone! If he hadn't left, Kamar-Taj would have been eaten out of existence by him." "
The Ancient One didn't tell him about Goku's origins, nor did she know who Goku was. She only knew that Goku had been learning the techniques of controlling souls from the Ancient One.
This wasn't particularly surprising.
Over the years, the Ancient One had always taken good care of talented sorcerers; personally guiding them for a period of time was nothing unusual.
The main problem was that this little sorcerer ate an incredible amount of food.
One meal could feed seventy or eighty people.
Karmar-Taj isn't exactly lavish either.
New York University, faculty housing area.
Thor and Jane, wearing protective helmets and knee pads, were happily learning to rollerblade on a forest path, led by Mjolnir.
Suddenly, Goku appeared in front of them, startling them so much they almost lost their balance, adopting the most common beginner's pose:
"Hey, you guys didn't spar naked this time?"
"Not naked, we accidentally tore our clothes during the sparring.
Goku, next time you come, could you perhaps keep a little distance so we can prepare?"
Thor looked helpless.
Last time, he and Jane got carried away on the sofa and started a fight that resembled adults.
They happened to run into Goku asking about the Infinity Stones, and were caught red-handed.
Luckily, Goku was naive and clueless, completely unaware of what they were doing, and he managed to fool them with the excuse of "sparring."
"Preparing what?"
Goku looked utterly bewildered.
Jane gave Thor a sharp nudge with her arm, then patted Goku's head and laughed:
"Preparing food, are you hungry? I'll take you to lunch."
"Hungry! Hungry! Hungry!"
Goku rubbed his stomach, which immediately rumbled.
He'd forgotten to have lunch in Kamar-Taj before coming here.
"Come on, let's eat, it's on me."
Thor took off his cumbersome roller skates and patted his chest.
Because he had planned to stay on Earth until the Rainbow Bridge was repaired, Thor had brought a lot of gold with him.
Gold was plentiful in Asgard.
Didn't you see that the weapons and armor of the entire Asgardian palace and all the Asgardian soldiers were gleaming gold?
After contacting Coulson, he exchanged some of his gold for Earth currency, making him a minor Earth tycoon.
As for the remaining gold, he gave it all to Goku.
So now, besides the priceless Ape God, Goku's box contains a small mountain of gold bars.
At a hamburger joint near New York University, Goku ate various high-calorie fried foods while listening to Thor recount recent events.
The Space Stone had been found; it had actually always been in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s possession.
After learning of Thanos's plan, Nick Fury no longer hid the Space Stone's existence.
Mainly because S.H.I.E.L.D. had been severely weakened during the year's cleanup of Hydra.
Although with Professor X's help, they identified all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Hydra agents and launched a campaign to eradicate Hydra.
However, Hydra's infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D. was too deep, and its power too immense.
While they ultimately succeeded in completely eradicating Hydra, led by Pierce, from S.H.I.E.L.D., it also significantly weakened S.H.I.E.L.D.'s strength.
Furthermore, it triggered a crisis of trust among high-ranking officials in various countries, preventing them from maintaining their former power.
In addition, they only eliminated the Pierce faction of Hydra that had infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D.; many other factions of Hydra remained hidden in the shadows.
Therefore, facing a threat like Thanos that even the three major empires found troublesome, Nick Fury could only rely on his own Avengers plan.
The core of the Avengers' plan was to gather powerful beings like Thor and Goku to fight against the threat from the universe.
Both Thor and Goku joined this Avengers alliance.
However, Goku had been training in Kamar Taj and hadn't been to the League base yet.
"A new member recently joined, named Steve Rogers. He was dug out of the glacier, and seems quite famous.
Director Fury has placed the Space Stone in a heavily guarded base and mobilized satellites to closely monitor any Thanos fleet that might appear outside Earth.
The Nova Empire hasn't sent anyone yet, so they probably haven't found any trace of Thanos's fleet..."
"So we can't fight yet. I'll come back to find you in a while."
Thor talked a lot, but Goku didn't care about any of that. He only knew that he couldn't fight Thanos right now.
So he decided to return to his own world to participate in the World Martial Arts Tournament and come back after the tournament.
If he still couldn't fight him, he would continue his adventures in other worlds.
Anyway, he would just come back to check on things every now and then.
"No, not at night. Next time, try to come in the afternoon."
Thor shouted this instruction before Goku disappeared.
At night, it's almost inevitable, and most of the time it'll happen when he wakes up in the morning. Occasionally, he might even do it at noon.
In the afternoon, when he's exhausted, he's usually more normal and doesn't worry about Goku seeing him again.
"Okay!"
Goku, having eaten and drunk his fill, closed his eyes and disappeared from the spot.
He reappeared back in the white space, pushed open the door, and entered his own world.
"Flying Nimbus, let's go to Papaya Island!"
Taking the Flying Nimbus out of the box, Goku stood on it and flew towards Papaya Island in the south, the venue for the World Martial Arts Tournament.