Cultivation Direction

After becoming a planetary-level 1 spiritual master, with his physical strength also reaching apprentice-level 8, Luo Zhiyuan began preparing to have Babata teach him some cultivation techniques. However, he could not yet learn the special techniques of the Yunmo Planet lineage because his spiritual force had not yet undergone the necessary transformation, though he could start with some basic techniques.

Thus, Babata and Luo Zhiyuan met for the first time in the virtual space. As a welcoming gift, Babata produced a small wristband and gave it to Luo Zhiyuan, telling him it was a small storage device containing a storage space of approximately 300 square meters and about 10 meters in height.

This was actually something from Babata's own private stash that had been lying around for who knows how many years. Now that he had dug it out and added an auxiliary AI, it was just right to give to Luo Zhiyuan to use.

Babata created a sub-intelligence within the auxiliary AI, saying that he could play with little Zhiyuan whenever he was bored, noting that it was much more interesting than hanging around with that blockhead Luo Feng.

Luo Zhiyuan had once again come into contact with a magical item from the Swallowed Star world—a storage device. Back in his original world, he had drooled over such things, and now that he possessed one himself, he was so happy that he spent a long time holding up his wrist and playing with storing items, until Babata couldn't bear to watch anymore and decided to start teaching him.

In the following days, Babata began teaching Luo Zhiyuan essential cultivation knowledge in the virtual space, including the universal language of the universe, a basic introduction to the universe, parts of the inherited memories of the Kinkaku beast obtained from Luo Feng, general basic knowledge for fighters and spiritual masters, and common cultivation techniques for both.

To Babata, this complex knowledge was the foundation that had to be mastered. As for other cultivation and combat techniques, in Babata's words, there was no rush; he had to build the foundation first.

Luo Zhiyuan was never lazy when it came to learning, so he studied very diligently in the virtual space. After all, he knew he was a transmigrator and needed to cram a lot of detailed knowledge; otherwise, relying solely on the content of the novel would basically make him an illiterate.

While studying in the virtual space, Luo Zhiyuan discovered that he could also use Flowing Time, though it required consuming a portion of energy. However, since he was already a planetary-level spiritual master, he was much stronger than he had been at the apprentice level. Furthermore, his ability to multitask allowed him to study in the virtual space while simultaneously absorbing energy in reality, which surprisingly allowed him to reach a basic balance of consumption.

Although he still could not reach the maximum time-dilation ratio, he could achieve a balance of energy income and expenditure at about 3 times the speed of time.

Therefore, except for when he used Muya Crystals to boost his own energy or when he was practicing actual techniques without using Flowing Time, he kept Flowing Time running at 3 times speed the rest of the time to learn the various basic knowledge Babata taught him.

To outsiders, a month had passed, but for Luo Zhiyuan, it was nearly three months. Consequently, his grasp of the knowledge structure became increasingly complete. Babata believed that little Zhiyuan's mentality was now fully mature and he could be treated as an adult, though Babata did not notice that Luo Zhiyuan's body was also growing and developing rapidly due to the use of Flowing Time.

By the winter of 2061, Luo Feng's first spaceship, the Black Dragon Mountain X81, had been partially repaired within Babata's storage space. Everything was finished except for the missing auxiliary propulsion system.

Although it could not yet perform space travel, it could at least reach sub-light speed—100,000 kilometers per second! Thus, Luo Feng planned to go to Mars by himself for a day trip: eat breakfast at home, leave for Mars, return home from Mars in the evening, and have dinner. Just thinking about it felt wonderful.

On December 3rd, Luo Feng said early in the morning that he wouldn't be back for lunch. Luo Zhiyuan was dazed for a moment before realizing he was going to Mars today. He hesitated about whether to act spoiled and tag along to see, but after pondering that Luo Feng would only harvest a bit of "pocket money" on Mars—not even enough for his own Kinkaku beast cultivation—he extinguished the thought of going along to scavenge.

Luo Zhiyuan went to the gravity room to continue his training. Through this period of study, Luo Zhiyuan's understanding of the world's cultivation system had become very clear.

Babata had long told him: "In the universe, the cultivation of powerhouses is mainly divided into two factions: one is the fighter, who mainly relies on their own body to launch close-range attacks; the other is the spiritual master, who mainly relies on spiritual force to launch long-range attacks.

There is no consensus on which is stronger or weaker; it is just that the fighter's attack methods are more fierce and swift, while the spiritual master's attack methods are more complex and bizarre. If a fighter wants to break through and improve, they must value 'spirit and will'; if a spiritual master wants to improve, they must also value 'body and genetic energy'.

When strength is low, it is fine to lean toward one direction, but when a powerhouse crosses from planetary level, stellar level, and universe level to reach domain lord or even sector lord level, the requirements for spirit, will, energy, body, and realm are all very high! Because how much water a wooden bucket can hold depends on the shortest plank!

Therefore, even though you are a spiritual master, your fighter cultivation must absolutely not fall behind. You are currently too weak in fighter cultivation; your physical force output amplitude, combat techniques, and movement techniques have not been practiced yet. You need to quickly make up for this physical shortcoming."

"The so-called force output amplitude means that if your body has 100 units of strength, then dealing 100 damage when attacking means your force output amplitude is 1; dealing 200 damage means your force output amplitude is 2.

Back in my Yunmo Planet lineage, the average level for disciples at apprentice level 9 was a force output amplitude of 10. These can be achieved through technique and training; it is not difficult. The theoretical limit for physical force output amplitude is 100, which is very difficult to achieve—even for sector lord powerhouses! Because this is one of the necessary conditions to become a great immortal powerhouse."

"Of course, spiritual force also has a spiritual amplitude, similar to physical force. Using spiritual force to control a weapon to attack an enemy, if you can use maximum attack power to control one weapon, that is a spiritual amplitude of 1. Your brain domain width has already reached 41; theoretically, you can perfectly control 41 strands of spiritual force. Of course, you are still far from that. Work hard on your cultivation, little Zhiyuan, hehe!"

In the gravity room now, Luo Zhiyuan had long since activated the multi-fold gravity training mode, adjusting the gravity to 10 times Earth's gravity. Training in a high-gravity environment is beneficial for improving control over oneself, both for the body and spiritual force.

Because practicing fist techniques is the simplest way to improve control over the body, Luo Zhiyuan was constantly practicing a set of fist techniques. This set of techniques was a fairly good combat secret in Yunmo Planet. He was currently practicing it punch by punch with full force, carefully feeling the various subtle changes in his body as he moved through the techniques.

After a period of practice, if there were no accidents today, Luo Zhiyuan's physical force output amplitude would reach 10, matching the average of Yunmo Planet. This actually earned him a few compliments from Babata, but spiritual force cultivation was very difficult; even now, he could only perfectly control 10 strands of spiritual force, which was still far from his theoretical limit.

In the universe, spiritual masters are mainly divided into two schools. One is the controller, specializing in controlling weapons for long-range attacks to remotely destroy the enemy's body. Spiritual force only needs to be attached to one's weapon for an instant to control it and kill. To increase lethality, it is often necessary to divide the spiritual force into many strands; spiritual amplitude is mainly reflected in distributed control.

The other is the illusionist, specializing in soul attacks, using various illusion techniques to fight. They use spiritual force to influence and control the enemy's soul or body to perform physical control or soul destruction. Therefore, they need to quickly extend their spiritual force into the enemy's body or consciousness sea to attack. This requires shaping the characteristics of one's own spiritual force, requiring it to remain gathered without dispersing after leaving the body. Spiritual amplitude is mainly reflected in concentrated attachment; there is less need to divide it into many strands, as only one concentrated strand of spiritual force is needed to attack the enemy.

Luo Zhiyuan practiced the basic secret of the controller, the Control Chapter, and practiced his spiritual amplitude to 10, allowing him to control 10 weapons separately. He also practiced the basic secret of the illusionist, the Illusion Chapter, and was already able to aggregate 10 strands of spiritual force together to form the simplest soul attack technique—spiritual shock.

Spiritual shock requires gathering at least 10 strands of spiritual force together to attack the opponent's consciousness sea. It can directly attack the enemy's soul, causing them to lose focus or even resulting in soul annihilation.

Since Luo Zhiyuan possessed a natural talent secret called Soul Fusion, which clearly belonged to the illusionist's attack methods, he was more interested in the illusionist path and had long wanted to find a suitable target to test it on, but unfortunately, he had never had the chance. He decided that once his fighter cultivation broke through to the planetary level, he would find an opportunity to experiment. Oh right, there was also a clone-type talent secret he hadn't tried yet either.

After Luo Feng returned from his trip to Mars, time continued to flow peacefully, and in the blink of an eye, it was the spring of 2062. Luo Zhiyuan's fighter cultivation finally advanced to planetary level 1.

Once his fighter body reached planetary level 1, Luo Zhiyuan felt as if every cell in his body was boiling. The genetic energy lurking in each cell that hadn't been absorbed seemed to gather like droplets of water. Streams of heat came from all over his body, constantly rotating and gathering, finally converging at his dantian in his abdomen.

As if Pangu were creating the world, his originally empty dantian suddenly burst open with a roar. The rotating genetic energy accelerated, constantly expanding and contracting. With each expansion and contraction, its volume became smaller. Luo Zhiyuan felt his consciousness tremble, and his body shuddered!

In the vast dantian, a miniature planet appeared. Unlike the miniature planet in his sea of consciousness, which was crystal-clear when it was first born, this miniature planet in his dantian was actually milky white! The entire milky white miniature planet was actually a unified whole formed by a large number of milky white hexagonal crystals.

The milky white miniature planet was constantly rotating, while emitting strange fluctuations. The genetic energy transformed into a wisp of milky white energy and instantly flew out of the dantian, flowing into his body.

In an instant, every part of Luo Zhiyuan's body—his bones, bone marrow, skin, meridians, and internal organs—was rapidly changing. This transformation was even more exaggerated than the last time his spiritual force entered the planetary level! Luo Zhiyuan felt as if his bones were being completely crushed inch by inch and then re-condensed.

Once the transformation was complete, Luo Zhiyuan called Babata to check and see what special ability he had acquired. Although he knew that planetary-level fighters would all acquire a special ability, he was very curious about what his ability was and whether it could provide significant assistance in the long run. Because Luo Zhiyuan remembered that this auxiliary ability didn't seem to have been reflected much in the original work, and he didn't know if it would be useless in the later stages.

After testing, Babata said to Luo Zhiyuan: "Not bad, it's a light-element phantom body. It can increase your flight speed and instantaneous turning ability by 1.5 times. It's still quite useful for attacking and escaping." Luo Zhiyuan felt quite satisfied; after all, he had always believed that in this world, survival was the most important thing, and anything that could improve his survival ability was a good thing.

Right, he still didn't have any other equipment besides a storage device. He had to ask Babata if there was anything in his private stash suitable for him.

"Babata, is there any weapon or equipment I can use now? I can't always be empty-handed."

"What do you want?"

"Weapons, armor, anything is fine. I'm not picky."

"Armor is easy. I still have a Black God Set here, which is enough for you to use at the planetary level. The Black God Set can completely cover your body surface to form protective combat clothing according to your will, and it can also change into any appearance you want, which is very convenient. As for weapons, which aspect do you want to choose?"

Luo Zhiyuan pondered for a moment. He didn't really like the fighter's style of just going up and killing; it always felt a bit foolish. As for the controller, it would conflict with Luo Feng, which wasn't good either. Thinking of his talent secret, he made a decision.

"Illusionist! I'm more interested in the cultivation of an illusionist. By the way, what weapons do illusionists use? It can't be throwing knives or something, right?"

"Illusionist? An illusionist is a terrifying existence when they reach a high level, but in the early stages, they mainly rely on soul techniques to fight, so the requirements for weapons are not very high. I don't have any weapons suitable for an illusionist right now, but illusionists are more dependent on armor and movement techniques. After all, when performing soul techniques, one's own defense is very important.

Many illusionists also minor in controller weapons, first using soul techniques to control the enemy's soul, and then using weapons to remotely destroy the enemy's body. In addition, there are some races in the universe that have no souls, and illusionists have a headache when they encounter such opponents, so they also need to minor in some controller methods.

You can do that too, but I only have one Arc Blade Disc for a controller here. I was originally going to give it to your father, but he has the Soaring Sky Shuttle, so he didn't use the Arc Blade Disc. How about it, do you want to use it?"

The Arc Blade Disc? Although he really wanted to play with it, this thing had to be sold in the future to save Earth, so it was better to leave it for Luo Feng. Otherwise, if Luo Feng didn't have the money to buy things when the time came, Earth and he himself would be in danger.

"Since I don't need a weapon for an illusionist, I'll pass on that. Just give me the Black God Set first."

"Fine, I'll have some throwing knives forged for you to make do with for now. Wait a moment."

Before long, Luo Feng brought over a Black God Set and 40 throwing knives for Luo Zhiyuan. Although these throwing knives couldn't penetrate the protection of a Black God Set, they were more than enough to pierce the physical defenses of a planetary-level martial artist.

The original form of the Black God Set was a ring. Luo Zhiyuan put the ring on the middle finger of his right hand. After about 30 seconds, he felt a sudden prick of pain on the skin of his middle finger, and instantly, hiss~~ the entire black ring began to bubble like boiling water, with black droplets trembling. At the same time, waves of pain radiated from his entire middle finger.

Fortunately, the pain was not too intense.

Visible to the naked eye, wisps of red flowed into those black droplets. Countless black droplets coiled around Luo Zhiyuan's middle finger. As the wisps of red merged into the black droplets, the droplets seemed to undergo some kind of change. The entire process lasted about 15 minutes before everything came to a halt.

The method for using the Black God Set automatically flashed through Luo Zhiyuan's mind. The ring, which had originally been a circle thicker than his finger, now seemed to have vanished, becoming as much a part of his own body as his skin.

"Change, transform, become a combat suit."

While chanting this in his heart, Luo Zhiyuan stared intently at his finger and saw the ring instantly turn into a pool of liquid. It first formed a glove on his right hand, then rapidly extended toward his arm, and soon, his entire body—save for his eyes—was completely enveloped.

Luo Zhiyuan examined himself in the mirror while continuously adjusting the style of the combat suit; he intended to have some fun with this, his second piece of magical equipment.

The Black God Set shifted from the hooded leather jacket style of the Green Arrow from his original world to the caped spandex look of Superman, then later even mimicked the designs of Saint Seiya armors. Finally, it even manifested the image of Sun Wukong, complete with a Phoenix-Feather Cap, Golden Chain Mail, and Cloud-Stepping Boots. He played with it happily, cycling through styles ranging from simple to complex.

Beside him, Luo Feng watched his son playing dress-up and constantly striking inexplicable poses, and he couldn't help but smile bitterly to himself: "Little Zhiyuan is still just a child after all. Even though his body is already at the planetary level, he is only a year and a half old by age."

"At this age, children from ordinary families are still in their state of innocent ignorance. According to Babata, my son's mind is already mature, which has saved our family a lot of worry, but it has also cost us the simple joys of family life that others get to experience. I don't know whether I should be happy or heartbroken."

"It seems I need to cultivate even harder. Once I become more powerful, I will be able to let my son grow up as carefree as any other child."