The grueling process was finally completed after an hour, at the end of which Lin Mu could not maintain his consciousness anymore and was pulled into the Sleepscape.
Once he was in the Sleepscape, he could not feel the fatigue and was free. Though as soon as he entered the Sleepscape he was in for another storm. Currently, the Sleepscape was undergoing a great upheaval.
The ethereal altar within the mysterious ring was still pulsating with energy. This time the energy was rising from the ring and reaching the Sleepscape. The Sleepscape was no longer dark, instead a dazzling blue sky had replaced the pitch-black sky and grass had sprouted on the ground.
Lin Mu was left in awe upon witnessing all the events. The grass was spreading around from where Lin Mu was standing, and so was the blue sky. Lin Mu started walking towards the front as he saw a sapling grow into a tree within the blink of an eye.
He got closer and examined it, as he found it to be rather familiar. It was but a moment later that he understood why. This was the very same apple tree he had been playing around since he was a child, had fallen asleep under when he left the town, and found the mysterious ring on.
The same tree had somehow grown in the Sleepscape. He went ahead and touched the trunk. The rough bark of the tree felt real, and so did the rustling of the leaves. Lin Mu walked around the tree and tried to get a measure of the place.
He touched the grass and tried pulling it out. The grass was pulled out but soon disappeared from his hand. Even the place from where the grass was pulled out from returned back to as it was before.
"Huh, so I can't change the environment here." Lin Mu thought out loud.
As he wandered and explored, he figured out the characteristics of the Sleepscape. He found that the radius of the entire Sleepscape was roughly around 200 meters. If he kept on walking ahead, he would just end up in front of the apple tree. He took the apple tree as the centre and mapped the place in multiple directions, but found the result to be the same.
'I end up in the same place after walking straight. So this place should be a circle, ah no, a sphere to be more accurate.' Lin Mu concluded.
Only after he had explored the entire place, did he realise the biggest distinction that existed between the Sleepscape and the actual world. He looked up and noticed the absence of the sun in the sky. There were no clouds in the sky either, yet somehow the sky was still blue.
'Will there be night in here?' Lin Mu wondered to himself.
The only way he could figure out if the night would fall, would be to just wait and observe. Lin Mu waited and waited, but still could not see the day turn into night. Eventually, his consciousness disappeared from the Sleepscape and returned to his body.
Lin Mu woke up in a daze and looked around to check his whereabouts. He was still at the same place he had passed out from exhaustion. He looked at the half-moon that was staring him in the face and broke out in a light laugh.
"Things just get more and more exciting for me, don't they?" Lin Mu spoke to himself.
He tried to stand up and found that his entire body felt sore. Lin Mu was drenched in sweat before and felt sticky, so he wanted to clean up. He stumbled down to the stream and took a bath that felt comfortable to him, even though the water was icy cold, a sign of the approaching winter. While bathing, his gaze wandered to the apple tree.
'So it's still there. I guess the tree in the Sleepscape is just a replica.' Lin Mu thought.
After he was done bathing, he walked up to the apple tree just to verify his claims. He touched the tree and plucked some leaves and apples. Unlike before, these did not disappear and stayed with him.
After he had verified his claims, Lin Mu walked back to the hunting shack. He was no longer stumbling like before, even though he still felt sore. After he reached the hunting shack, he set some meat to cook on the stove as he was starving.
While he waited Lin Mu tried to remember the distinct sensations, he experienced after eating the purple spirit fruit. He was able to remember the different paths the spirit qi had taken, which helped him figure out the pathways of his meridians.
He focused on his abdomen and sensed the faint wisps of spirit qi floating inside his dantian. Lin Mu tried to see If he could control them or not. In the early attempts, Lin Mu could not even make the wisps of spirit qi twitch, but later on, he was able to command them to move within his dantian.
Only now was he able to understand the size of his dantian. If he considered the wisps of spirit qi as locks of hair then his dantian was roughly comparable to the size of the hunting shack. Lin Mu did not know if this was considered as large or small, as he had no one else to compare it with. Neither did he have proper information about the subject.
His dinner was ready while he was playing around with the spirit qi. As Lin Mu felt like he was starving before, he ate his dinner with gusto and devoured all the meat he had prepared. After he was done with the dinner he followed his usual routine and started chanting the calming heart sutra to assimilate the vital energy.
It was now time that Lin Mu experienced the next shock of the day. The vital energy that was absorbed from his stomach assimilated entirely within ten minutes. The process which used to take him 45 minutes now only took him 10. Only when all the vital energy was absorbed did he figure out the reason for it.
Lin Mu's blood vessels had expanded a little bit and had become way tougher than before. He examined the density of vital energy within his body and found it to be nearly twice as dense as before.
"I… I… I'm in the 9th stage of the body tempering realm! That too at the very peak!" Lin Mu exclaimed out loud.
The vital energy in his blood vessels was saturated to the very limit. Signaling his imminent progress to the 10th stage of the body tempering realm. He didn't know how long it would it take for him to enter the 10th stage, but he knew that he will surely be entering it.
Before Lin Mu ate the spirit fruit, the only expectation he had was to enter the 9th stage of the body tempering realm and never higher than that, as he would focus on finding a cultivation manual. But now that he was already in it and was even close to the 10th stage, he could not believe his fortune.
An hour later Lin Mu calmed down and was able to think straight again.
'I can try and see if the calming heart sutra can help me control the spirit qi wisps.' Lin Mu thought.
Acting on his thoughts, Lin Mu sat down cross-legged to chant the calming heart sutra and focused on his dantian. The calming heart sutra helped him focus and gain clarity. After a few more failures, Lin Mu was able to pull out a single wisp of spirit qi out of his dantian.
But as soon as Lin Mu pulled the wisp of spirit qi out, he lost control and the wisp travelled into his right arm and was sucked by the ring. The mysterious ring hummed and before Lin Mu could think of anything, he disappeared from the shack.
When Lin Mu's vision returned, he found himself staring at a dark sky that was filled with flickering streaks of silver and grey colour. In the far distance, he could see a familiar glow.
'I'm back in the ring?' Lin Mu questioned himself.
He walked towards the glowing light and reached the ethereal altar that was made out of mystical runes. The altar was thrumming with power, as if it was beckoning Lin Mu to come and touch it. Lin Mu responded to the altar's yearning and walked closer. As he progressed step by step, Lin Mu could see the altar glow more and more as if it was responding to Lin Mu's presence.
Soon Lin Mu was in the very front of the altar, which had turned nearly corporeal due to the intense glow it was emitting. But as soon as Lin Mu touched the altar, it stopped pulsating and became silent. In the very next moment, it glowed with an even more intense light and a cacophony of chants sounded within Lin Mu's mind.
"Sharpen thy will as a blade, slay your mortal bindings and become unyielding in the face of worldly tribulations - Behold the Severing Heart Sutra."