Bulma's Research

Seeing the two brothers, Bulma was overjoyed and trotted over to them.

Of course, apart from her, everyone else remained perfectly still, clearly deep in their cultivation.

"Bulma, why is your energy still so weak? And it feels particularly unstable," Goku blurted out, having sensed that her energy hadn't increased much and was quite erratic.

"You think everyone is a monster like you two? Among normal people, I'm already doing quite well. I'll have you know, I'm the fifth strongest person here, excluding you two!"

"But if you don't count me and my big brother, there are only six of you in total. Let me see... your energy is only a tiny bit stronger than Oolong's, and his is much more stable than yours."

"You... hmph, that's just because I haven't been training much."

In the past, Wuchen might have scolded Goku, but now, he simply watched the two bicker without being overly serious.

Much like with Krillin, it seemed that Goku and Bulma were destined to have a friendship defined by this exact way of interacting.

Finding the right moment, Wuchen finally spoke up:

"Bulma, you were in such a rush to find us—did something go wrong with your cultivation? Your energy feels off; it looks like there are signs of your meridians being impacted. Cultivation must be done step by step; you cannot be too hasty."

Indeed, he had noticed something wrong with her body, initially judging it to be the result of taking pills too quickly without properly refining them. Fortunately, the pills he provided were of moderate potency, so there was no major damage.

"Right, I almost forgot the important part." Bulma glared at Goku before turning her attention to Wuchen:

"It's like this: I've had some new ideas regarding this cultivation business, but I can never seem to succeed when I try them out, so I wanted to ask for your advice."

"Oh? Can you be more specific?"

"Well... specific? I can't really explain it clearly. Come with me, I'll take you to see it, and you'll understand."

She gestured vaguely, unable to find the words, so she tugged on Wuchen's sleeve and headed toward the edge of the training grounds, signaling for him to follow.

"Alright." Wuchen agreed immediately. He was about to call for Goku, but saw that Goku had already run off to fiddle with the metal pillar—the lifting device Bulma had been using for her meditation.

Shaking his head with a smile, Wuchen had no choice but to follow Bulma alone.

After they left, Goku, with the help of a robot, successfully raised the adjustable Metal Meditation Platform.

Sitting on it, Goku felt quite comfortable; the top of the platform was neither too hard nor too soft, clearly having been meticulously designed.

Not only that, but Goku also found it exceptionally quiet. While meditating here, outside noises became very faint; there must have been some noise-canceling equipment installed.

At the same time, the lighting was perfect, and it didn't feel scorching at all. Around the meditation spot, there were rows of small holes blowing a gentle breeze.

Goku really couldn't imagine how Bulma, while meditating in such a place, had managed to hear the Nanny Robot's voice so instantly.

And how she had ended her cultivation at the very first moment to go and meet up with the two brothers.

Of course, Goku didn't dwell on this.

He also began to meditate, preparing to try it out and see what it was like to cultivate here.

Soon, Goku began to generate spiritual energy, nearly half of which seeped into his body. It merged with his blood and energy, began circulating through his meridians, and was finally refined and absorbed by his physique.

The portion that wasn't absorbed by his body dissipated outward, and the amount was far greater than what the other five people combined—both absorbed and leaked—could produce.

This quickly startled the others. They ended their cultivation one by one, and upon seeing Goku in Bulma's original spot, they realized what had happened. So it was Goku; they had thought Bulma's research had succeeded.

"Goku, when did you get here? Bulma dragged us to Mount Paozu to look for you and Wuchen several times, but it seemed like you were never home," Yamcha asked, while Oolong and Puar also looked at Goku with curiosity.

"Oh my, dear, look at that. Mr. Goku is so impressive when he cultivates," Mrs. Brief remarked in astonishment, and Dr. Brief also watched the spiritual energy erupting from Goku with curiosity.

"Ah? You guys... I think I accidentally interrupted your cultivation." Since he had only just started and hadn't fully entered the zone, Goku had heard the commotion.

However, the apology, coming from Goku, somehow sounded a bit off:

"My big brother and I came specifically to return the Dragon Radar. My brother also refined a lot of pills; they will definitely help you get started faster. Once you condense your Origin Soul, you won't be so easily disturbed during cultivation."

Fortunately, everyone was used to him by now and didn't think much of it.

Instead, they all smiled. Pills—they really were good things. It was a pity that the ones brought back last time hadn't been used much; Bulma had taken them all to tinker with.

Thinking of this, Yamcha immediately looked around, but he couldn't find a trace of Bulma, nor did he see Wuchen.

"Right, where is Bulma? Where did she go? Wasn't she just training with us? And Wuchen, why don't I see him either?"

"Oh, my big brother seems to have been taken over there by Bulma," Goku said, pointing in a direction.

Yamcha immediately felt a sense of foreboding. This time, the pills were likely...

On the other side, Wuchen had already been led by Bulma into a room that was quite spacious.

Although it had been cleaned, Wuchen still caught a faint scent of something burnt in the air. At the same time, there was a significant amount of spiritual energy in the room, and it was restless, as if a spiritual energy riot had occurred.

Looking closer, he saw several special cylindrical devices about half a person's height in the room.

Inside the devices, spiritual energy was still surging, and that energy felt very familiar to Wuchen—wasn't it the pills he had refined?

At the same time, those devices were connected to thin, long tubes of unknown material, with the terminals linked to a special bed-like piece of equipment.

"Wuchen, come over here quickly." Wuchen was deep in thought when he heard Bulma's call, and he looked over immediately.

In a few strides, he reached one of the cylindrical devices. It was said to be half a person's height, but it was actually exactly the same height as Wuchen.

"Look, this is the thing you gave us before. If I remember correctly, this is called a pill, right? You said that after taking it and refining it, one could increase their cultivation speed."

Bulma opened the device, took out a pill that had shrunk significantly, and began to explain from the beginning:

"After we came back that time, we..."

"...Then I started taking elixirs to increase my cultivation speed... but I still felt it was too slow, so I thought about cultivating normally during the day and continuing to improve at night while resting."

"Then I created this device, which I call the Self-Cultivation Device... You see, in here, I used the space compression and solidification techniques from the Hoi-Poi Capsule principle. This way, the spiritual energy volatilized from the elixirs won't scatter everywhere..."

As she spoke, Bulma roughly explained the principle and purpose of the device to Wuchen. (The paragraphs above and below are pure nonsense, do not take them seriously.)

"...Then, from here, the spiritual energy is transmitted and injected into the human body. You have no idea how attached and unstable this spiritual energy is; transmitting it is incredibly difficult!"

"Fortunately, this young lady, a genius inventor and the most beautiful girl in the universe, after experimenting with countless materials, finally found the most suitable perfect material, X23831 Special Alloy, which can perfectly transmit spiritual energy into the human body!"

At this point, Bulma's entire being radiated with brilliance, as if a light shone upon her!

However, a moment later, her momentum deflated:

"But, after this spiritual energy is injected into the body, it still needs to be refined, and it must be refined immediately!"

"It can't be directly injected into the dantian you mentioned. In fact, refining it this way is much more troublesome and slower than taking elixirs."

"So, what I want to ask is, how can this spiritual energy be directly injected into the dantian? Or, is it possible to refine the spiritual energy within the elixirs in advance when making them?"

Bulma blinked her large, watery eyes and looked at Wuchen expectantly:

"If that's not possible, could you give me some more of those elixirs? I'll do some more research myself."