Chapter 8: Foundation Establishment Achieved
After hesitating for a moment, Franklin still chose "yes" without a second thought. The next instant, he appeared in a pure white space. Looking around, he found nothing but emptiness — the only thing visible was a line of countdown numbers hanging above his head.
[23:59:35]
Seeing that he only had a mere day, Franklin quickly took out all the spirit stones from the Celestial Tome and piled them beside him for easy access.
Glancing again at the countdown overhead, he immediately picked up a supreme-grade spirit stone to test how much time it could extend. As soon as his thought moved, the spirit stone vanished, and the countdown above him instantly jumped to:
[100:23:59:03]
After a brief moment of thought, Franklin understood: the digits represented days, hours, minutes, and seconds.
He hadn't expected a single spirit stone to extend the time so much, but considering that the longer he stayed, the more spiritual energy he would consume — and given his current low cultivation level — Franklin realized that the three hundred-plus supreme-grade spirit stones he had weren't nearly as many as he'd thought.
Just as he was about to begin cultivating his immortal technique, a thought occurred to him — in Dragon Ball, the reason Son Goku and Vegeta's power skyrocketed in the later stages was entirely due to Bulma's invention of the gravity chamber and their weighted physical training.
With the help of intense gravity in the chamber, Goku and Vegeta's power soared at a tremendous rate. Realizing this, Franklin decided to try it himself.
At 0.1 times Earth's gravity, the moment the thought formed, Franklin suddenly felt a heavy, crushing pressure bearing down on his body and internal organs.
[Warning! Warning! Warning!]
[Talent Awakener is not a native of this worldline — both soul and body are foreign entities. Although fully integrated into the To Love-Ru worldline, you are still rejected by the Dragon Ball worldline.
This training method is currently ineffective for the Talent Awakener and may even cause negative effects. Please attempt again only after fully integrating into the Dragon Ball worldline!]
Reading the warning, Franklin was left utterly speechless. Not wanting to waste any more time, he immediately sat cross-legged, calmed his mind, and mentally reviewed the Space Overlord Art once more.
The incomplete version of Space Overlord Art was divided into Body Tempering and Spiritual Qi Cultivation chapters. Its cultivation method was highly intricate and required extremely harsh conditions — under normal circumstances, one would need the guidance of a powerful expert deeply versed in space laws to practice it.
However, with Franklin's ability to freely modify his cultivation environment within the dimensional space, he could attempt it on his own.
Once he firmly memorized the incantations, Franklin began to alter his cultivation environment. As the spirit stones shattered, he formed an independent cubic space three meters wide around him.
After crushing three supreme-grade spirit stones, the space was instantly filled with dense, liquid-like spiritual energy. At a thought, the remaining spirit stones vanished again, and a formless power of heavenly laws emerged.
As Franklin began chanting the technique, the power of heaven and earth, mingled with spiritual energy, continuously surged into his body's cells. As the spiritual energy washed through and transformed them, excruciating pain followed.
Gritting his teeth, Franklin persisted. Over time, his cells became tougher and more attuned to spiritual energy under the relentless cleansing of spiritual energy and heavenly power.
As the hours passed, Franklin endured the agony to completely refine every surface cell of his body. Once they adapted to spiritual energy, he let them divide and generate a new generation of cells.
He repeated the cycle of washing and division until all the cells in his outer body and skeleton were replaced with spiritual qi-absorbing and storing "spirit cells." Only then did Franklin complete the initial stage of body refinement.
By now, the stench of dead cells clinging to him was unbearable, forcing him to stop. He peeled off the thick layer of black substance formed by dead cells that had condensed on his skin, compressed and stabilized it despite the foul smell, then hurled it far away.
With a thought, the Dimensional Heavenly Tome floated before him, its basic status page updating — his spiritual and physical cultivation now displayed as numerical data:
[Spiritual Qi Cultivation: Qi Refining Stage, Level 6 (Spirit Cells: 73% of total body cells)]
[Body Cultivation: Body Tempering Stage, Level 7 (Average Cell Diameter: 50 micrometers)]
His body's surface and skeletal cells had now fully transformed into spirit cells, but his internal organs and brain remained untouched. Knowing how fragile those parts were, Franklin pondered for a while and soon came up with a solution.
He would first clear and open all of his meridians and acupoints, then gradually replace the cells of his organs and brain with spirit cells by channeling spiritual energy through the meridian network. With the plan set, he wasted no time.
Closing his eyes, Franklin once again activated the Space Overlord Art. Most of his body's cells were now fully adapted to spiritual energy and saturated with it. As the technique circulated, endless streams of spiritual energy surged into his body's invisible meridians and acupoints.
Contrary to his expectations, there was no pain. The formless meridians and acupoints rapidly opened and were gradually filled with spiritual energy. This stunned Franklin — could it be that he possessed one of those legendary Sacred or Divine Bodies? That was the only explanation for his meridians and acupoints being innately unobstructed.
If that were true, then his missing parents' identities were certainly anything but ordinary.
But now was not the time to dwell on such thoughts. Feeling his meridians and acupoints fill with spiritual energy, Franklin was about to resume cultivation when an important realization suddenly struck him — and he immediately halted.
The next moment, he projected a phantom version of himself out of his body. A strange sensation surged through him instantly — his vision split in two: one part was his normal line of sight, and the other was at ground level.
He tried controlling the shadow to move away from his body. The split vision made him gag, and an odd, disorienting feeling overtook him. After several attempts, Franklin finally managed to grasp the subtle state of being in two places at once.
Once he confirmed that the phantom could manipulate the dimensional space's cultivation environment, Franklin let out a sigh of relief. He then closed his eyes, sat cross-legged, and focused on circulating the technique.
Meanwhile, Phantom Franklin continued modifying the cultivation environment outside. Supreme-grade spirit stones shattered one after another, their energy absorbed by the space, creating a controllable, formless spatial force.
Under the phantom's control, this spatial force slowly merged into Franklin's body, becoming part of his cultivation. Feeling the spatial force enter, Franklin concentrated fully, guiding it to wrap around his formless meridians and acupoints.
He then directed the spatial force to compress external spiritual energy and heavenly power into his meridians and acupoints. As the technique ran, the relentless influx caused the meridians and acupoints to expand rapidly. Heavenly power participated as well, completely stabilizing them after expansion.
Once the meridians and acupoints reached their maximum expansion and stability, Franklin moved on without hesitation. Spiritual energy now surged from the meridian points in his internal organs, washing over and transforming the surrounding organ cells.
After completing the steps of hardening, stabilizing, and dividing, the dead cells were circulated out of his body through the meridian network.
Six months passed in the blink of an eye. Franklin had finally completed the ultimate expansion and stabilization of his meridians and acupoints, as well as the transformation of his organ cells into spiritual organ cells.
[Spiritual Qi Cultivation: Qi Refining Stage, Level 10 (All Meridians and Acupoints Cleared, Spirit Cells: 95% of total body cells)]
Taking a deep breath, Franklin resumed cultivation. Two months later, he successfully transformed his brain cells into spirit cells as well.
With all preparations complete, Franklin crushed another supreme-grade spirit stone and entered the most critical stage. Spirit cells across his entire body began absorbing spiritual energy from the environment, while each acupoint acted as a relay storage point.
When his entire body was saturated with spiritual energy, countless streams of it surged through his meridians, converging toward the invisible gateway of his Qi Sea, three inches below his navel.
With a clear, crisp sound — Franklin had established his foundation.
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