Luke smiled. If that was the case, his plans had a higher probability of working.
"For now," Lawrence said, "Take this space ring. I've filled it with 'Mari' seeds. As long as you ingest one a day, you should see your cultivation grow by leaps and bounds."
"The fruit you ate previously is actually a great rarity. Among the EX Pilots, only three of us have ever had the chance to obtain two. They are stored specially for new recruits, and only by great merit and quantity can they be used separate from their purpose."
"As such, we rely on raising our Soul Power using
"Thanks for the seeds."
"You're welcome."
The two left the storage room and hidden pipeline before Lawrence teleported them out.
"Today's a free day. I recommend you stop by and sort through your new territory."
"Thank you for your recommendations, Lawrence. I'll keep them in mind as I move forward."
"Sure, kid. Anytime."
Once Lawrence was gone, Luke teleported back to his research lab. The whale team would start tomorrow. Before that, he needed to have the appropriate furniture.
First, he ordered several thick sheets of glass from the military procurement program. He then placed them around the southwest corner of the room.
Adding two meter's height, he placed the walls and lined them with glue. Then, he placed a glass roof on each with a hatch holed for both air and cables.
There were eight large aquariums in total. The central, ninth area was for filtration and cable management.
He then ordered a set of chairs and a vending machine. Stuffing it with proper candy, and none of that 'healthy' stuff, he began to create the break area on the west wall.
Procuring scanning equipment, he added some near the aquariums and put the rest up on the northernwestern corner.
On the northern wall, he placed more iterations of the cloning console he had been using, but with subtle variations leaning towards different species.
Once this was completed, he added stairs to the aquariums and research stations to the middle of the room.
He ordered a work crew to add a soundproof room to the eastern third. They came and, using hand fabricators linked to the ship's spatial arrays, finished the job in less than fifteen minutes.
He then used Battalion to photoshop a sign reading, "TOP SECRET AREA - HUMAN TRIALS." Inside the room lay his current cloning machine, a duplicate device, and four prison cells.
It was time.
First, he looked into the Soultail Glowfrog that Lawrence had mentioned. Apparently it had a unique gland in its fingers which created a special ability- the soulbearing glowtouch.
The special gland, called the soulrune gland, allowed someone to bind a rune to the gland and send it out through the fingers.
'By sending the rune to his Navi, Lawrence was able to tell it to teleport him to a specific location. Makes sense.'
However, to him, it was even more precious. First and foremost, Luke was a card creator. With this, he could implant an entire card onto the gland, thereby allowing him to print cards without having to spend time triple checking his work or sending them to a card printer.
After programming the console, Luke sat inside the tinted glass coffin, and the machine began to do its work.
The device first began to fabricate soulrune glands into the tips of his fingers. Then, starting with his feet, it began to replace his muscles with that of dragon tissue. It spent the next hour increasing the tissue density and removing fat.
Afterwards, it shrunk his skin and began to turn it into a flawless crême.
Luke had chosen a special variant of skin. After tuning it, the skin matched his pre-existing skin color.
The original skin came from the 'flawless membrane' jellyfish. Basically, the membrane was designed such as that to crack the membrane, one had to first apply enough pressure to crack the entirety of the membrane.
By adding a dense, bio-compatible alloy, his skin would become virtually unbreakable. As he furthered his cultivation, this could only strengthen.
Next was his bones. He was physically out for this part of the process. Otherwise, he'd be screaming.