Chapter 41 – The Mysterious Space
The culprit behind the changes was a round, translucent object — like a small bubble about the size of a pellet of rice — that appeared in the center of Liu Ming’s Spirit Sea.
Liu Ming could swear that there had never been such a thing in his Spirit Sea before.
It had been this thing that had spun crazily and wolfed down all the Fa Li that Liu Ming had made while training before. This object was finally calming down.
“Perhaps this thing was the cold air that drilled into my body before, otherwise there’s not another likely explanation for this situation.”
Liu Ming forced down the fear in his heart. His mind had moved quickly before finally finding a reasonable explanation.
However, this thing did not look like any evil spirit or soul that was recorded in the ancient books. If so, Liu Ming would have been seriously worried.
Liu Ming did not even have the time to wipe the sweat off his forehead as he hastily focused his mind and entered the Dantian of his body. He carefully looked at the small bubble in his Spirit Sea.
This bubble looked full but it was strangely clear inside, and no matter how you looked at it, it did not look like it could have eaten so much Fa Li.
After a short while, Liu Ming still did not see anything useful with his mind.
And this object in his Spirit Sea was not moving at all, like it was dead.
Liu Ming became hesitant. However, after steeling himself and gritting his teeth, he controlled his mind and lightly touched the surface of the bubble, wondering if he could enter the bubble to examine it.
A “peng” sound rang out.
The bubble broke like a mirror the moment Liu Ming’s mind touched it.
Liu Ming was shocked and, before he could react, heard a “weng” sound. It was as loud as thunder all around his ears. His head sank and his eyes went dark before he entered a strange, unfamiliar, grayish place.
“This place is…”
Liu Ming was scared when he saw this. He looked around and saw walls of gray fog surrounding him. The fog surrounded a square space that was about a hundred forty to a hundred fifty feet in both length and width.
Liu Ming then raised his head to look up before he looked down. The sky and the ground were also made up of gray fog, but the space between the floor and the ceiling was only fifty to sixty feet tall.
Liu Ming could feel his heart beating crazily. After a while, he finally calmed himself down and started to think about the whole process he went through to get here.
Without a question, the reason he came here was because he touched the bubble in his Spirit Sea.
But what was the bubble? And why did it send Liu Ming to this strange space without any signs after it broke? The correlation between the two events was indecipherable.
Looking at the dead atmosphere of this space, it did not look like there were other creatures living here, rather it looked like a prison cell to jail criminals in.
Standing in the same place with a worried expression, Liu Ming thought for a while, but still he could not come to a reliable conclusion. Even after he shouted a few times, nothing strange appeared.
Liu Ming steeled his heart and carefully bent down to use one of his hands to wipe at the fog he was stepping on.
His whole hand only went about an inch into the fog before it was blocked by a strong but invisible layer.
Liu Ming’s eyes glittered as he stood up. He mumbled a few sentences, took a deep breath and opened his mouth toward what was below him.
“Hu!”
A strong gust of wind rushed out from his mouth and hit the wall underneath the fog.
An unbelievable scene appeared!
The moment the strong gust of wind touched the fog, the wind entered the fog without a sound and disappeared.
Liu Ming’s expression changed slightly, and with one handed signs, the incantations from his mouth also changed.
With two “pu pu” sounds, two sharp green wind blades shot out from Liu Ming hands. However, when they sliced into the fog below, they strangely disappeared again with a flash. Nothing else happened.
Liu Ming’s complexion turned green but he did not give up and started trying the Fireball Spell and the other spells that he had learned to attack the fog below.
But it was all a waste, nothing happened.
This thing that looked like normal gray fog could actually absorb and eat spells.
Finally, Liu Ming stopped attacking but stayed in the same place, quietly thinking. Then using one handed signs, he made gray clouds gather beneath him to lift him up. Then, once the cloud flew a few feet from the ground, it suddenly stopped.
Liu Ming stuck his two hands into the fog and started slowly checking the fog wall.
After a long time, Liu Ming sighed and dropped out of the air. It seemed as if he had not obtained anything.
However afterward, Liu Ming no longer hesitated and walked with big step in one direction. With a twist of his arm, the Tiger’s Bite Bracelet started to glow. Then, Liu Ming pressed his hand on the fog wall with his five fingers spread apart.
“Tiger Roar!”
Black smoke started surfacing on Liu Ming’s body as he suddenly yelled out.
The bronze bracelet on Liu Ming’s wrist became a ball of bright yellow light on the spot. Within the light, a blurred tiger head suddenly appeared and a white sound wave rushed toward the fog wall in front of Liu Ming.
“Pu”.
The white sound wave slightly rocked the surface of the fog a few times before it too completely disappeared.
After seeing that his strongest attack skill had no effect, Liu Ming’s complexion became ugly and unnatural,
With the current situation, Liu Ming was trapped here alive!
What made matters even worse was Liu Ming did not have many Pills of Fastening with him. After all, he was originally supposed to go retrieve his new portion in half a month’s time.
As for the problem of drinking water, it was actually an easy problem to solve. He could conveniently use the Condensation Technique to collect a mass of water.
For the next three days, Liu Ming naturally would not be willing to wait helplessly for death. So, Liu Ming went about checking almost every inch of the whole area, using all of the different methods he knew. However, he could do nothing to the surrounding fog walls.
This time, he could only helplessly accept his own helplessness as he sat in the center of the space cross-legged with a gloomy complexion, waiting.
However, waiting in this narrow space by himself, even knowing that he was slowing awaiting death, was definitely something that would test Liu Ming’s state of mind.
Liu Ming sat there like this for half a day before he smiled bitterly and started to make hand signs before he began to cultivate.
But a scene that amazed him appeared.
No matter how Liu Ming pushed, gathering as much of the Natural Yuan Li from the outside into his body as he could, the Fa Li that gathered in his Spirit Sea did not increase by even a sliver.
As for the bubble that originally appeared in the spirit sea, its trace was nowhere to be seen.
Under Liu Ming’s surprise, he became ever more depressed.
Since it was impossible to increase Fa Li, continuing to cultivate the Dark Bone Method was naturally pointless.
Under this helpless situation, he could only slowly start practicing the Fireball Technique, Water Arrow Technique and his other techniques.
Time passed by bit by bit, in a flash, something like seven or eight days had already passed by.
There was nothing like sunset or sunrise in here. The reason why Liu Ming could still accurately predict time was all thanks to the roughly made, small, bronze hourglass that he carried with him.
The hourglass was specially made by him back in the days at Savage Island. The fine sand inside flowed especially slow, taking no less than a whole day for the hourglass to have the sand completely flow from one side to the other.
Because he had some affection for it, Liu Ming always carried it with him. He never thought that it would now be of great use.
However after a few days, Liu Ming was again in exultation after discovering something.
After this long time period, he unexpectedly never felt any hunger or thirst.
Although this was slightly unimaginable, it was definitely something worth celebrating for him.
And thus, at long last, he did not need to worry about starving to death in a short amount of time in this place.
Since his worries about the future were temporarily eliminated and he was still unable to leave, Liu Ming simply started concentrating on practicing the few techniques and spells he knew.
Everyday during this period of time, Liu Ming would carve a line on the lid of the wooden box that he carried with him, so he could accurately remember the amount of time that had passed.
Since Liu Ming no longer needed to waste time doing other things and with his talent of doing two things at once, Liu Ming evenly practiced all his techniques and spells all to the point of Initial Spell Mastering, over the time frame of three to four months.
In the following time period, Liu Ming concentrated on practicing his Wind Blade Technique which was his fastest attacking technique of all the basic techniques.
If Liu Ming did not do this, perhaps he would really lose his mind staying in this boring environment by himself.
One month, two months, three months, half a year hurriedly passed by.
One day, Liu Ming woke up from meditation. After feeling that the energy he had consumed over the previous few days had recovered anew, an incantation came out of his mouth as he made a hand sign with two hands. Then, Liu Ming raised both of his hands at the same time.
After a few “sou, sou” sounds, six slightly green wind blades were fired consecutively. Like always, they all completely disappeared into the fog ahead.
“In the time of ten breaths, I can send out six wind blades. This should be the Complete Spell Mastering of the Wind Blade Technique.” Seeing this scene, Liu Ming muttered to himself.
However afterward, he brought his hands together in front of him and more incantations came out of his mouth.
Liu Ming’s two hands spread apart again, a bright wind blade — three to four times bigger the blades that were generated before — appeared before him. But when it just condensed to half the size, a “bang” sound suddenly could be heard and the giant wind blade again dissolved into points of light.
Liu Ming saw this phenomena and slightly knit his brows.
This method of combining the power of several wind blades at the same time was something he naturally thought of not too long ago when his speed of releasing the wind blades had reached a certain limit.
But to make this come true, one aspect was that there had to be enough Fa Li while another aspect was that one had to be more proficient with the Wind Blade Technique.
Liu Ming thought of this while habitually forming a hand sign with both hands to continue practice the Wind Blade Technique.
But at this moment, Liu Ming suddenly heard a “hum” in both ears. With the sound, his head sank while both of his eyes closed involuntarily. Then, after opening them again, his body impressively appeared in a sunlit room.
In fact, Liu Ming was sitting cross-legged on a futon while both of his hands were mid-hand signs. It was as if Liu Ming had just sat down.
“This is…”
This time, Liu Ming was really stupefied.
This room as well as the familiar surrounding environment was indeed the practicing room that Liu Ming had disappeared from half a year ago.
He just returned to this place like this?
Liu Ming felt that his head was blank. He unconsciously and slowly looked around, unable to think about other things for a while.