"Huu…" Lin Mu took a deep breath as he paused to glance at his progress.
He had accumulated over a hundred wisps of Immortal essence in the empty space. This was certainly not easy and had taken him quite a bit of time to do so. While Lin Mu didn't know exactly how much time had passed, since he didn't want to lose focus, he could guess that at least a week or so had passed.
'According to the instructions, the size of the empty space will be varied according to the person, thus the amount of Immortal Essence Wisps I'll need will also vary…' Lin Mu analyzed the empty space he had.
After doing some calculations, he estimated that the Immortal essence wisps he had as of now would be enough to begin the next step.
"Let's just start… if I fail, I fail." Lin Mu muttered to himself before focusing on the Immortal essence wisps.
The wisps were floating in the empty space aimlessly till now, they barely moved from the location that Lin Mu had placed them in. It was almost like dust floating in a closed room. There was no air and no fluctuations that could affect it, thus they simply continued to float.
But now, Lin Mu exerted his will onto the wisps, making all of them move at once.
The irregularly spread Immortal Essence Wisps first spread shifted and came into the same two-dimensional plane. Once they were like that, Lin Mu further controlled them and made them form a circular shape.
It wasn't a perfect circle, as Lin Mu's control was still a bit erratic. Not to mention, the immortal essence wisp would also collide with each other from time to time, causing them to shift randomly.
Lin Mu didn't lose focus and continued to guide them, trying to bring them into a perfect circle.
This was the second main step of forming an aperture. One needed to form a perfect ring of Immortal Essence Wisps to make the structure of the Aperture. This was also the step where a lot of people failed, as controlling so many immortal essence wisps was not easy.
If they collided with each other too much, they could be sent flying to the edges, which would get them ejected out of the body. Thus, one needed a lot of practice and focus in order to make sure that it didn't happen.
One could compare it to throwing a bunch of marbles onto a flat and elevated surface.
If one didn't aim right or didn't use the right amount of power, the thrown marble would fall off the surface. And with multiple marbles being added, there was the issue of them colliding and falling.
This was similar to what Lin Mu was doing. He needed to first get the marbles onto the surface before striking them again to change their positions.
Slowly and steadily, Lin Mu continued to guide the Immortal Essence Wisps and eventually, he managed to place them at equidistant points.
'There… they now have their positions…' Lin Mu observed it closely, memorizing where each Immortal Essence Wisp was.
This was important, so that knew where to place more Immortal Essence Wisps if he made a mistake and lost the current ones.
"Now for the next part…" Lin Mu took a brief pause and chanted the calming heart sutra.
Once he felt like he had reached his baseline, he switched over to the Severing Heart sutra.
The removal of his emotions would prevent him from being distracted, even from failure, and grant him additional focus and perception that wasn't there otherwise.
'Start!' Lin Mu linked up with each of the Immortal Essence Wisps and made them move.
They needed to be moved at the same time, and the distance between them needed to be maintained as well. Only by doing this would Lin Mu be able to prevent any mistakes due to the collisions.
Thankfully for him, he already had a skill that had given him experience with this.
The boulder collapsing fist needed great control over the spirit Qi and vital essence in order to be used properly. If both the energies were not moving at the right speed and harmony, the backlash could harm the user very easily.
And with how many times Lin Mu had used the skill, he was experienced enough to apply the same to the ring of Immortal Essence Wisps.
The Immortal Essence Wisps started to move in a circle, maintaining the form of the ring. Lin Mu started slowly, only making them make an entire revolution after a minute.
This speed was quite slow if one compared to the distance that was actually being covered. It was all on a microscopic scale and would be hard to perceive for most in the first place.
Lin Mu continued to make the revolutions and did over a hundred of them before gaining some more confidence. He understood that by doing it at this speed, he would not make any collisions or make them break the formation.
Once Lin Mu grasped this, he increased the speed of the ring's revolution. He didn't increase it too much though, only doing it by ten percent.
If it took the ring a minute to finish the revolution before, now it took it 54 seconds. Lin Mu kept this speed and did another hundred revolutions before he felt like he could do it without any mistakes.
Increasing the speed once more, he repeated the process.
This lasted for several days, as Lin Mu gained better control and confidence over the ring of Immortal Essence Wisp.
He wanted to reach a point where he could speed it up and slow it down at a fraction of a second and still prevent the Immortal Essence Wisp from colliding. Only when this happened would be able to take the next step.
~woong~
~woong~
~woong~
An almost imperceptible sound could be heard once the Immortal Essence Wisp ring reached a certain speed. At this point, the individual Immortal Essence Wisp couldn't be seen at all, and looked like a singular smooth ring.
'It's reached equilibrium…' Lin Mu could tell it on instinct.
The ring was now revolving on its own, with only a slight nudge being needed from Lin Mu from time to time. At the very least, he knew that as long as this exact momentum was maintained, there would be no collisions, even if he didn't focus on it.
But while this was good for improving focus and control, the next step of the process was a bit different.
'I can now move forward…' Lin Mu's will covered the Immortal Essence Wisps.
This time, he didn't speed them up or slow them down. But rather, he brought the Immortal Essence Wisp closer!
By doing this, the size of the ring would shrink, but the chances of mistakes would rise too.
'It's working… I just need to focus on the equilibrium…' Lin Mu maintained the speed of the ring's revolution while slowly shrinking its diameter.
The shrinking was done at incredibly small increments. So much so that Lin Mu had barely reduced the diameter of the ring by ten percent after fifteen days!
And this speed of shrinking only slowed further, as the chances of mistake rose.
After all, with the space between Immortal Essence Wisp decreasing, the distance needed to collide was also less.
Lin Mu would prefer to go slow, rather than to make a mistake and lose the progress. He had the patience to do that and proceeded forward with an unshakable will.
~woong~woong~woong~
The sound that was once almost imperceptible now became audible clearly.
If someone placed their ears on Lin Mu's chest, they would be able to hear it vividly. And it didn't seem like the volume of the sound was going to decrease any time soon. Instead, it only kept on increasing with time.
It was evident that the increase in volume was inversely proportional to the size of the ring and directly proportional to the speed of its spin.
An entire month passed like this as Lin Mu continued to progress steadily.
Now, if one were to enter his room, they would hear a strange whirring sound. It was hard to tell exactly what was making the sound, but the source of it could be easily deduced.
It was almost as if Lin Mu now had a second heartbeat in his body, but the second was similar to a machines' hum!
Though after all this, Lin Mu had reached a bottleneck.
'The size cannot be shrunk anymore…' Lin Mu knew.
The distance between each Immortal Essence Wisp was barely 10% of what it was originally, and the speed was also several times faster. If he wanted to shrink the ring anymore, he would end up breaking the equilibrium, thereby collapsing the entire ring.
The sound of the ring's revolutions had also reached a level where it was no longer contained to the room.
Little Shrubby could hear it outside in the courtyard as well.
