"So your saying there isn't a tiny human trapped in this machine?" Annin said as she was slouched into a bean bag chair holding a Gameboy, Grandpa Gohan had a carried over a plate of Doritos and Pocky sticks for her to snack on.
All around the large furnace room was large piles of items Krillin collected for Annin. One section was entirely of books from a used book store, he bought the their entire selection. Another pile was games, another junk food, etc. Krillin bought any and everything that a ten thousand years old deity might find interesting.
"Like I said Annin, there no human trapped in there, it's just a program made up of one's and zero's that software engine- How about this Annin, I'll answer any and all of your questions when I take a break but first teach me!"
Annin was a very laid back and chill character that seemed to go with the breeze, the type of character that you didn't want scheduling your training!
"Alright kid fine, what do you want to be taught?" The ancient deity said, placing her gameboy down and wiggling further into the bean bag chair.
"You don't have a general teaching you want me to learn?" Krillin said slightly worried about this lackadaisical teacher.
"Kid Im no sensei but you forced me to be one, I have a lot of experience in a lot of subject so it'll just be easier if you ask me what you want to learn."
"I guess i want to learn how to make those illusions that can actually hurt me, but also Ki manipulation" Krillin was desperate to learn illusion magic.
Krillin didn't plan on dying so that Goku can learn super Saiyan but Goku had to learn it for the safety of the universe, illusions were the key to this!
"That's perfect, Ki Control and Illusion magic go hand in hand with one another. First we'll have to test your Ki control." Waving her hand, a table with a glass cup in the middle appeared in front of them via illusions.
"Fire a Ki blast at this cup but only enough to push if off the ledge, do not destroy the cup." As she said this, Annin pulled out a gossip magazine from a pile next to her and began reading.
'Just push the cup off the table, simple and easy.' Krillin thought to himself.
A white ball of plain energy appeared in his hand, it shrunk from a baseball to a golf ball to a marble. Feeling like that was enough, he launched the ball at the cup only for a tiny hole to pierce through it and shatter to pieces.
"Not so easy is it kid, we'll go to the next step once you mastered this." The cup on the table disappeared and a prestine one took it's place.
Trying it once again but with a ball slightly smaller than a spit ball, the cup just barely move an inch. The cup immediately resetted to the middle and Krillin tried again.
The boy kept at it for days without rest, his ki blast pushing the cup further and further to the edge without breaking it. It took him some time learning how ti soften the imoact of his ki, making it have more of a blunt impact rather than a sharp one.
It was on the 6th day that he realized if he flattened his Ki out there'd be more surface area touching the cup allowing him to put more Ki into the blast without breaking it!
With sweat dripping down his face from concentration, Krillin launched a ki blast that looked more like a cube than a sphere at the cup, the energy collided with the porcelain but instead of breaking, slid off the ledge and onto the floor with thunk!
"I did it!!!" Kirllin let out an exhausted yell.
Peering up from a cookbook on Italian food, Annin gave a shocked expression which she immediately hid from Krillin.
"I figure that would atleast take half the year...Looks like I've got a prodigy on my hands. Alright kid next step." With a snap of her fingers, she resumed reading her cook book.
"Whats the next step, I don't see anything?" Krillin looked around the cluttered Furnace and didn't see anything out of place.
"Try the cup challenge again" Annin casually replied.
Giving the woman a quizzical look, Krillin raise his hands once again and fire a cube of energy at the cup. As the two forces collided, water now splashed over the top as the cup moved a couple inches.
"It's the same challenge but now the cup is half filled with water, don't spill a single drop and push it off the edge for the next step. Since I am your teacher I will give you a bit of advise, precisely controlling your Ki requires a certain mindset. An unstable mind can only create unstable ki" Annin gave out hints of advice without even looking at Krillin.
The monk let out an exhausted sigh listening to her before collapsing to the ground, he hadn't slept in days so he closed his eyes for a quick nap.
'A certain mindset huh...' Annins words played through Krillins mind as he tried to sleep.
'....If I shaped my Ki to instead of being a cube but to contour around the cup, I'd be able to maximize the surface area on the cup...' with a small sigh Krillin sat up and began manipulating his Ki once again, he decided sleep could wait another day or two.
***
(8 months later)
The now 16 year old Krillin sat in the lotus position, dozens of cups filled to the brim floated in the air above him and he was surrounded by blue candles that emitted red flames. The cups were whizzing through the air at blinding speed and yet no water was spilling from the compleletly full containers.
Opening his eyes the cups in the air slowly landed on the floor and the candles around him disappeared. The candles were illusions that Krillin himself had created but the cups were still Annins.
"I did it Master Annin. I created multiple illusions, controlled your cups to not spill a drop and manually counted for five hours whilst doing so." Krillin was covered in sweat but his face remained neutral, his mind had been tempered greatly from this endeavor.
Krillin quickly learned that only a calm mind can accurately control Ki, Annins laid back attitude now made a lot of sense to krillin. Although he was disappointed with his slow rising Powerlevel, he was content with his growing Ki control.
"Good. You've reached the final step needed to fully learning my Illusion Magic! You can create simple substanceless illusions like witch's and magician's but this part is what sets me apart from the rest." Lifting her shirt up to expose her midriff, Krillin could see an incredibly detailed circular tattoo that seemed to be made up of some ancient language.
"Watch and observe" Annin created what appeared to be rectangle with her Ki, the rectangle glowed and fluctuated with power but suddenly the tattoo on Annins stomach flashed red for a second!
The rectangular ki suddenly changed to a golden light before turning solid, when Annin dropped it to the floor, a metallic thud resounded out and the ki didn't disappear!
"This is how I make my Illusions solid, it's a magic formula that I created a couple millennium ago. You basically create the shape of the Illusion out of Ki, send additional ki into the precise formula and think deeply of what characteristics you want you Illusions to be made out of, then send that Formulated Ki into the Ki shape giving it the characteristics you want." Krillin picked up the gold bar and realized it was exactly the same as the brick Annin had given him before!
"If you want I can spend the next few months teaching you my formula, you could then cast my Illusions without having to be tattooed. Or I can just mark my formula on your body and you can do it without having to learn it. Although you should know, having it tattooed on your makes casting Illusions much faster, it's why I tattooed it on myself despite already knowing it."
Hearing this was a no brainer for Krillin.
"I'll both learn it and have it tattooed on me!"