Time continued to pass!
Half an hour!
An hour!
Half a day!
A day!
Immersed in perfecting his martial arts and promoting the absorption of the Five Elements Pill's medicinal power, Tien Shinhan stayed at the bottom of the Eight Trigrams Furnace for an entire day and night.
By now, the intensity of the flames burning Tien Shinhan inside the Eight Trigrams Furnace had risen to ten times its original level!
"Whew-"
Tien Shinhan let out a long breath.
After a day and night of stimulation by the flames, Tien Shinhan had completely absorbed the Five Elements Pill's medicinal power.
During this process, Tien Shinhan had also perfected and improved various special moves, including the Multi-Form Technique, Four Witches Technique, and Solar Flare, into versions that suited him best.
Take the Solar Flare, for instance. Although the original Solar Flare was quite effective,
Goku had previously countered the move at the World Martial Arts Tournament with nothing more than Master Roshi's sunglasses.
Now, after Tien Shinhan's improvements, the brightness the Solar Flare could unleash exceeded what sunglasses could block.
Enemies exposed to the Solar Flare would suffer more intense pain in their eyes, and their temporary blindness would last longer.
Not only that, during his previous three months of training at Kami's Lookout, Tien Shinhan had also noticed that this move could not effectively affect opponents capable of sensing ki.
So, while improving his special moves this time, Tien Shinhan had incorporated the use of ki into it as well.
What erupted when the Solar Flare was unleashed was not just intense light, but also a ki blast carrying powerful, disruptive vibrations.
Under this two-pronged interference, even opponents who had mastered Ki Sensing would be unable to pinpoint Tien Shinhan's location.
Tien Shinhan called his improved Solar Flare the Neo Solar Flare!
Aside from that, the improvements he had completed this time also included the Neo Multi-Form Technique, Neo Four Witches Technique, Neo Dodon Ray, and more!
It was not that Tien Shinhan was lazy about naming them. It was simply that, with the name of a special move like the Neo Tri-Beam having appeared in the storyline he remembered, Tien Shinhan had spared himself the trouble of thinking up names for his special moves.
And these special moves that Tien Shinhan had deemed worthy of the "Neo" label had gained far more than an extra word.
Every one of them had received multiple enhancements to its effects and power, much like the Neo Solar Flare. The original special moves could not compare at all!
These new special moves were merely Tien Shinhan's gains in martial arts techniques over this day and night.
Aside from those, Tien Shinhan had made another major gain: a surge in his power level.
8,000!
That was Tien Shinhan's current estimate of his own power level.
Even if he had to face the Saiyans Raditz or Nappa immediately, who, according to his memories, should arrive on Earth in eight or nine years, Tien Shinhan was now confident that he could handle them easily.
As for the Saiyan Prince Vegeta, there was still something of a gap between his power level and Tien Shinhan's current one.
But with his various improved special moves, he was not entirely without the ability to put up a fight!
The medicinal power of the Ultra Divine Water and Five Elements Pill had been completely absorbed, and both his Limit Breakthrough trait and his martial arts comprehension had improved significantly.
He had already reaped a tremendous haul from this trip to the Mount Five Elements Space.
Having spent a day and night inside the Eight Trigrams Furnace, Tien Shinhan felt it was time to leave.
After all, the Grand Supreme Kai had opened the lid of the Eight Trigrams Furnace for him. He could not very well keep her waiting with the lid open forever, could he?
With that thought, Tien Shinhan stopped lingering at the bottom of the Eight Trigrams Furnace.
With a leap, he shot straight through the roaring flames to a height of ten thousand meters.
For a normal person or an ordinary Earth martial artist, this might have been outrageous.
But with a power level of eight thousand, even blowing up a planet was no great difficulty, let alone reaching a mere ten thousand meters into the air.
Without needing to use the Flight Technique at all, Tien Shinhan reached the exit of the Eight Trigrams Furnace with a light jump.
"Huh? Why is the lid closed?"
Tien Shinhan had thought the Grand Supreme Kai would still be waiting for him with the lid of the Eight Trigrams Furnace open. To his surprise, when he came up to look, it was already closed.
Logically, this should not have happened.
Tien Shinhan was somewhat puzzled by the sight, but puzzled or not, he could simply ask about it once he got out!
Normally, the enormous lid of the Eight Trigrams Furnace had to be hoisted open with a special labor-saving pulley system.
Never mind someone inside the Eight Trigrams Furnace with nothing to brace against-even someone outside, standing against its outer wall and trying to open it, would struggle without a power level of at least several hundred.
But for Tien Shinhan, this was no issue at all.
He simply used the Flight Technique to hover at the furnace's exit, then lightly flicked the lid with one finger. The enormous lid shot straight into the sky.
"Still too much force? Looks like I'll need a little more time to get used to reining in this sudden increase in power to an ordinary person's level."
Tien Shinhan had already reduced the force of his flick as much as possible, yet he had still sent the lid flying.
Son Gohan, who was keeping watch nearby, glanced at the lid as it suddenly flew up and hurriedly alerted the Grand Supreme Kai.
"Lady Annin, it looks like the Eight Trigrams Furnace is about to explode! Even the lid's gone flying!"
"What?"
The Grand Supreme Kai, who had not sealed her door this time, immediately heard Son Gohan's shout and hurried out in surprise to investigate.
In fact, there had been no need for Son Gohan to call her this time. She had already heard the thunk as the lid of the Eight Trigrams Furnace was flicked into the air.
"What's going on?"
Looking at the enormous lid soaring tens of thousands of meters into the sky, the Grand Supreme Kai was utterly bewildered.
She had managed the Eight Trigrams Furnace here for tens of thousands of years, yet she had never encountered anything like this.
Could it really be as Son Gohan had shouted? Was the Eight Trigrams Furnace about to explode?
The Grand Supreme Kai began to worry.
If the Eight Trigrams Furnace exploded, the worlds of the living and the dead would lose their barrier, and the world would descend into utter chaos.
Fortunately, the next moment, the two of them discovered that it was only a false alarm.
What they saw, however, was something that surprised them even more.
For what they saw was not the Eight Trigrams Furnace exploding, but Tien Shinhan, whom they had thought had already been burned to ash!
Tien Shinhan's figure appeared right behind the lid as it shot skyward. Within moments, he caught the lid tens of thousands of meters in the air, then set it firmly back onto the Eight Trigrams Furnace.
Even after replacing the lid, Tien Shinhan carefully circled the top of the Eight Trigrams Furnace several times to inspect it.
"Mm, good thing I didn't shatter it outright. The lid's still intact. Otherwise, I really wouldn't know where to find another pot lid this big!"
Muttering with some relief, Tien Shinhan brushed the dust off his hands as he landed between the Grand Supreme Kai and Son Gohan.
Seeing Tien Shinhan appear before them completely unharmed, both of them stared blankly, unable to utter a word for quite some time.
"What's wrong with you two? Why are you looking at me so strangely?"
Suddenly, Tien Shinhan realized something.
His martial arts uniform had accidentally been burned away inside the Eight Trigrams Furnace!
At that thought, Tien Shinhan flushed and immediately took a spare martial arts uniform out of a Hoi-Poi Capsule and put it on.
"Sorry, sorry. The fire inside the Eight Trigrams Furnace seemed to suddenly grow a lot fiercer earlier. I wasn't used to it at first, so I accidentally burned my clothes."
Tien Shinhan thought the two of them were so shocked because his clothes had been burned away.
But the next moment, the first words Son Gohan spoke after calming down a little left Tien Shinhan rather confused.
"You didn't die?"
"Huh? Was I supposed to die? Should I die for you two to see now?"
With a puzzled look, Tien Shinhan instinctively asked in return.