After Krillin left, Ling Yi went straight to West City.
He didn't need to cultivate actively anyway, but he couldn't really spend his days as a salted fish.
And it would be at least three years before Piccolo appeared. Ling Yi couldn't be bothered to meddle in the plot before then; it was all petty squabbling, far too boring.
So Ling Yi decided to play around with technology in the meantime.
The Dragon Balls World was also a world with an extremely advanced level of technology. If he could learn all its black technologies, they would be an asset too.
He was bound to transmigrate to worlds focused on technology in the future. If he didn't know a little black technology, how could he hold his head high?
Ling Yi first applied for a job at Capsule Corporation. Starting from scratch and building up his foundation, he spent a month thoroughly stealing Hoi-Poi Capsule Technology.
The core of the technology was space-folding technology.
Dr. Brief, Bulma's father, was far more formidable than the anime had shown.
The space technology Dr. Brief had mastered was already highly developed and even touched upon some of space's fundamental powers.
Yet Dr. Brief had only used a tiny smattering of space technology to develop the Hoi-Poi Capsule. He had not made his deeper knowledge of space public, or even told anyone about it.
He knew full well that space technology was too profound and too dangerous. Humanity was not yet capable of using it-or, rather, was not worthy of doing so.
Space black holes, spatial collapse, Space Traversal, space creation... These technologies were simply too frightening. Given human nature, if people ever mastered them, who knew whether they might end up playing this world out of existence?
After reading all of Dr. Brief's memories, Ling Yi was startled too.
The old man was truly terrifying. His understanding of space technology had reached an inconceivable level.
According to the old man's theory, time and space were one and the same. Without time, space could not exist, and without space, there was no such thing as time.
Space was dimension, and time was the extension of dimension... Well... These things were far too profound for Ling Yi.
If his mental power hadn't been far beyond that of an ordinary person, it would have been impossible for him to understand any of it.
Ling Yi spent another three months with Brief before he finished learning all of Dr. Brief's knowledge, but he had only learned it.
As for researching it more deeply, Ling Yi knew he was entirely unsuited to it.
Dr. Brief had no idea that his life's research had been copied straight out of his brain. Ling Yi had been discreet the whole time and had not disturbed the Brief family from beginning to end.
Ling Yi still held scientists like these in high regard. There was no need to resort to overly crude methods.
Afterward, Ling Yi used various means to gather a large quantity of top-grade materials. Using the spatial knowledge he had learned from Brief, he spent another half a month crafting a... ring.
It was the legendary spatial ring...
During this time, the system's points had continued to grow. Not only that, but the plot progress had also jumped from 2% to 3%. It seemed Krillin had done well and hadn't been idle.
Some might ask, since that little bald tool, Krillin, was so effective, why didn't Ling Yi find a few more tools like him?
Ling Yi's answer was that he couldn't, and he didn't dare.
The Dragon Balls World was a vast and highly complete world system.
The beings standing at the pinnacle of the world, such as Zeno and the others, watched over the workings of their respective universes at all times.
If the workings of a universe deviated drastically, someone would surely step in to correct it. If it couldn't be corrected, they would very likely destroy and reset the entire universe.
Those beings were products of the universe's rules. In their eyes, the current Ling Yi was no more than an ant.
Besides, Ling Yi himself was an outsider. He didn't want those freaks to set their sights on him just yet.
Ling Yi could do as he pleased in The Smiling, Proud Wanderer World and Xia Luo's world, but in the Dragon Balls World, he still had to keep a low profile for a long time.
"Dr. Ling Yi, are you sure you want to take leave? You should know that these projects can't be completed without you," the supervisor said very politely to Ling Yi in a laboratory at Capsule Corporation.
"I'm terribly sorry, Sanwei. I have something very important to do. I'll be back in three days at most. The ecological park project is the fruit of my hard work too; I care about it even more than you do."
Why was Ling Yi leaving? Because the seven Dragon Balls were about to be gathered, and Shenron was about to appear.
As for when Ling Yi had become Dr. Ling Yi, that wasn't important...
Ling Yi wasn't going to see Shenron to make a wish. Rather, he wanted to analyze Shenron's abilities.
Although Earth's Shenron had many limitations, one had to admit that the power of divine power was indeed formidable.
If Ling Yi could analyze Shenron's abilities, that would be far more impressive than simply making a wish.
Ling Yi raised his wrist and tapped twice on a futuristic-looking, ultra-thin watch. The next moment, he vanished on the spot. When he reappeared, he had gone from West City to the Eastern Wasteland Gobi.
Not far away stood a relatively old-fashioned castle. This was none other than Pilaf Castle, the lair of the Pilaf Gang, known as the strongest background characters in Dragon Balls.
At the moment, however, Pilaf Castle was in ruins. The Pilaf Gang were hiding inside a small mech buried beneath the rubble, trembling.
In the open space directly in front of Pilaf Castle, Kid Goku, Bulma, Oolong, Puar, and Yamcha were summoning Shenron.
Ling Yi floated invisibly above them, quietly waiting for Shenron to appear.
The sky darkened, and amid flashing lightning and rumbling thunder, Shenron appeared before them. He was over ten meters tall, with green skin and a somewhat evil, ugly appearance.
At the same time, the Passive Cultivation Aura's analysis function activated at full power.
A status labeled "Shenron skill analysis progress" also appeared on the system interface.
The analysis was much faster than Ling Yi had imagined. It was completed in less than a minute.
A stream of information then appeared in Ling Yi's mind, and his system interface changed as well. The skills section was finally no longer empty.
Host: Ling Yi Life: 250,000 Internal Energy (Spiritual Power): 670,000 Cultivation: Nascent Soul Stage Great Perfection Power of Faith: 170 Combat power: 2.4 million Cultivation method: Unnamed Earth Grade martial art (Great Perfection) Cultivation Method Fusion progress: No fusion at present Cultivation method (skill) deduction: Unnamed Earth Grade martial art deduction in progress (1%), Faith Collection deduction in progress (0%), Faith Manifestation deduction in progress (0%) Energy storage: 1 million/1 million Skills: Faith Collection, Faith Manifestation! Points: 139,000. Plot progress: The Smiling, Proud Wanderer (35%), Xia Luo's Special Troubles (50%), Seven Dragon Balls Z (3%). (Other details omitted...) Faith Collection: The host can forcibly absorb the Power of Faith generated by any living being within the range of his mental perception. Faith Manifestation: Use the Power of Faith to manifest various abilities, items, bloodlines...
As it turned out, the source of Shenron's power was the Power of Faith. Living beings didn't need to have faith in Shenron; as long as they generated the Power of Faith, it could be absorbed.
Ling Yi also understood why Shenron seemed to have an evil presence.
After all, what most humans believed in and pursued was strongly colored by desire. Naturally, much of this Power of Faith, laden with intense desire, contained greedy and evil thoughts. After all, human desire knew no bounds.
As for Faith Manifestation, it was easy to understand: through the Power of Faith, one could manifest anything one could imagine. Of course, that was assuming there was enough Power of Faith.
This ability likewise touched upon the power of rules. The Power of Rules was still somewhat difficult for the current Ling Yi to understand; he only knew how it worked, not why.
Perhaps once the deduction was complete, he would truly come into contact with the rules and essence of the Power of Faith. But judging by how things stood, the odds were that it wouldn't happen anytime soon.
Having achieved his goal, Ling Yi tapped his watch and vanished on the spot. The next moment, he was back in West City.
This watch was a piece of black technology Ling Yi had made using space technology. Unlike the spatial ring, the spatial watch's primary function was Space Traversal.
It could achieve long-distance Teleportation by folding space, but it consumed a great deal of energy.
With the current level of technology in the Dragon Balls World, the energy contained in the technological watch could support at most ten consecutive uses of Teleportation by Ling Yi before it needed to be replenished.
If that problem wasn't solved, the spatial watch would be of limited use.
Now that he had the Power of Faith, Ling Yi naturally wanted to run some tests. For example, he could manifest Dr. Gero's Infinite Energy technology ahead of time.
Watching the rapidly increasing Power of Faith, Ling Yi was quite satisfied with how quickly he absorbed it.
His mental power could now cover roughly the area of a province, or a little over 200,000 square kilometers, which was also about the size of West City.
West City was a highly developed city in the Dragon Balls World, with a relatively dense population. His Power of Faith increased by more than a hundred thousand points nearly every second.
However, Ling Yi also noticed that the rate was gradually slowing. He guessed that each person probably didn't generate Power of Faith continuously, but rather in cycles.
For example, if Zhang San contributed one point of Power of Faith, he wouldn't generate any more for a period afterward. It would take some time before he produced it again.
That was understandable.
Another month passed, and Ling Yi had more or less figured out some of the patterns governing the Power of Faith.
An ordinary person could provide Ling Yi with about one point of Power of Faith per week, while special groups such as the powerful and influential, Martial Dao practitioners, and people with special abilities generated more, ranging from a few points to dozens.
Faith Manifestation also had certain limitations.
For example, it couldn't create life out of thin air, nor could it restore objects that had been damaged for too long or people who had been dead for too long.
Even so, Faith Manifestation was still powerful enough.
For example, Ling Yi could use the Power of Faith to directly master all kinds of black technology from the Dragon Balls World.
He could also change his bloodline and genes, or directly manifest a spaceship...