A week later, Bellamy and his crew had thoroughly digested the gains from their recent harvest. According to Bellamy's observations, over that week, the average height of the five main crew members had increased by two centimeters.
Two centimeters in one week.
If they could maintain such a growth rate, reaching the four-to-five-meter average height common among the powerful individuals of this world seemed well within reach.
Of course, height wasn't the most significant gain. Their strength and physical constitution had shown tangible, visible improvement. Bellamy, in particular—having eaten the most, trained the hardest, and secretly delved deeper into the secrets of the Six Powers—had managed to slightly widen the gap between himself and Drake and the others, even if the week wasn't enough for a complete metamorphosis.
Drake was already feeling the pressure, secretly pushing himself harder in his training recently, determined not to be left too far behind by Bellamy. He could accept being weaker than his captain, but he absolutely couldn't accept a future where he couldn't even grasp at Bellamy's shadow.
What Drake didn't know was that Bellamy's development and theoretical work on his "Second Gear" form were already nearing completion. If Drake couldn't achieve a breakthrough in his own strength soon, he would inevitably be left far behind by Bellamy's rapid progress.
In the spacious, empty training room, Bellamy lay flat on his back, clad only in shorts, staring blankly at the ceiling, lost in thought.
Mani happened to walk in to start cleaning and was momentarily surprised by the sight. Bellamy slacking off? That was truly a rare occurrence. How many days had she been on board now? Counting on her fingers, she figured it had been almost a month. In all that time, she had never once seen Bellamy resting. Every time she saw him, he was either conditioning his body or practicing combat techniques. Periodically, he would even have others attack him with weapons.
He was a complete madman. Secretly, Mani and Muret's younger brother had even given Bellamy a nickname: the Great Demon King.
Naturally, Mani had no idea that Bellamy wasn't slacking off at all; he was mentally simulating his Second Gear. His progress with Life Return had been remarkably swift lately; he could already roughly control the growth of hair over an area the size of his palm. While manipulating the life force in just one hand held little practical value in fierce combat, it was a crucial first step, signifying that Bellamy had officially begun his mastery of Life Return.
Still lost in thought, Bellamy suddenly raised his right hand before his eyes. "Life Return."
All the hairs on his right hand instantly writhed, and then, in a flash, a thick mass of dark fur completely covered the hand. It looked bizarrely like the paw of a black bear.
Mani, who was nearby, jumped in fright at the sudden transformation. She didn't understand Life Return; all she saw was her captain mutating, and she let out a startled scream.
"Help! Somebody help! The Great Demon King's been possessed by a bear!"
Her shout finally alerted Bellamy to her presence nearby. When did this brat get here?
"Brat, what are you yelling about?" he grumbled, casually flicking a small bullet of compressed air with his finger that sent her tumbling out of the room. He refocused his attention on his transformed hand.
According to the framework he had designed, the most critical component of the "Second Gear: Spring Flyer" form was precisely this hair. The inspiration for the Spring Flyer form came from a specific type of spring: the clockwork spring. It was a fascinating mechanism, shaped almost like a physical vortex. A wound clockwork spring gradually releases its stored energy over time.
Store potential energy, control the timing of its release. That timing was the key. If he could precisely calculate when to release how much force, Bellamy could theoretically use this principle to achieve perpetual levitation. His ambition for Second Gear wasn't merely flight, but the ability to permanently float in the air.
To achieve this, he needed a medium. The countless hairs covering his body became his target. He needed to control all of them, transform them into the shape of clockwork springs—vortexes—store his body's inherent spring force within them, calculate the release timings, and let them discharge periodically. Once the final calculations were perfected, Bellamy could leverage his internal spring force to suspend himself in mid-air.
Looked at another way, Bellamy was using the Spring-Spring Fruit's power to treat his heart as the main engine, his blood vessels as fuel lines, his flesh and bone as gears and bearings, and his hair as propellers. He was effectively developing himself into a humanoid warship—an aerial warship, no less!
However, despite the theoretical perfection of the principle and framework, practical application presented innumerable difficulties. The human body, after all, wasn't a machine. Dispersing his internal spring force and distributing it to the external hairs was far from easy. He was currently stuck at the energy transfer stage, only able to channel a very small fraction of his spring power outwards, frustratingly unable to make further progress. His recent minor advancements in Life Return did little to alleviate this vexation.
He retracted the surge of life force. The thick fur on his hand quickly withered and died, resembling dried weeds. Casually pulling off the dead hair and tossing it aside, Bellamy climbed to his feet.
"Hmph. The problem really lies in my proficiency with the Fruit," he muttered. If he had already achieved his Awakening, the major hurdle currently blocking him could likely be overcome in an instant.
"Fine, can't rush it," he sighed. "Let's complete the first phase experiment first."
Standing in the center of the training room clad only in shorts, Bellamy slowly closed his eyes. After mentally focusing for a long moment, he gave a soft command, "Second Gear: Spring Flyer!"
As the words left his lips, small patches of hair abruptly sprouted on the soles of his feet. His feet were currently the largest area over which he could precisely control both life force and spring force simultaneously; any larger area would descend into chaos. In the blink of an eye, these hairs morphed into the shape of clockwork springs, then rapidly contracted, winding tightly.
A large amount of spring force began to flow into them. Bellamy spread his arms slightly and lowered into a shallow crouch, carefully adjusting his balance. Up to this point, every stage had proceeded perfectly.
Once the energy transfer felt complete, under Bellamy's meticulous control, a small fraction of the stored spring force began to release. The clockwork springs beneath his feet started to slowly rotate, discharging their power. The effect was like countless microscopic propellers whirring to life.
His body wobbled for a moment, and then, slowly, steadily, he began to float upwards from the ground.
"Success!" Bellamy couldn't help but shout, exhilaration flooding him despite knowing this was the expected outcome. "My deductions were correct! I'm really flying!"
Logically, someone proficient in Moon Walk shouldn't be this excited about mere flight. But this mode of flying was fundamentally different from Moon Walk. Moon Walk required continuous, rapid stomping of the air and consumed more than ten times the stamina of Shave. Even the monstrously powerful individuals in this world wouldn't dare attempt to travel long distances between islands solely using Moon Walk.
But with this new power, Bellamy felt a surge of confidence about the future. He dared to declare that soon, he, Bellamy, would be able to go wherever he damn well pleased.
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