Alex looked at the oval flame and thought, "Did I do it?" suddenly, he lost his concentration, and the oval flame went back to being a ball of flames.
"Awww… I think that was it. Let's try once more." He tried to do it once more. He went back to the slowed time state and began to feel all the Qi inside his body.
He moved the Qi according to what the technique required until it appeared out of his palms. As the invisible Qi touched the flames, he had to just think of what he wanted to do with the flames and it would happen.
For now, he could only change the shape of the flames. That transformation too took about 5 seconds to complete. He slowly did it more and more, until he was able to change the shapes within 2 seconds.
Of course, the shapes he could create were rudimentary shapes, like Oval, or spherical, or spiral, and other simpler shapes. Making figures out of the fire was impossible for him to do right now.
After becoming a little more proficient in the shape-changing aspect of the technique, he moved on to the temperature aspect of it.
Once again, he focused and brought his Qi into his hands and sent it to the fire. However, instead of thinking of a new shape, he thought about increasing the temperature of the flame.
"The flame's highest temperature is 816 Celsius, while the lowest temperature is at 316 Celsius." He could somehow instinctively tell the temperature of the flames.
He was unsure if he got this ability from the [Alchemy God's Knowledge] or [Flame Mastery Scripture]. If he had to guess, he would guess the second one.
He thought of increasing the lowest temperature, and decreasing the highest temperature so that the temperature would be a constant 500 Celsius everywhere.
The minute color differences in the fire suddenly turned to a steady color with no changes. The fire also stopped fluctuating in temperature as it came to be a steady 500 C.
He could feel it. He had succeeded. He quickly focused back and didn't let his concentration waver. Slowly he started to change the temperature.
He made the temperature of the fire go down to 300 C. He succeeded at it. He then made the temperature go up to 900 C. He also succeeded in that.
He brought the temperature back to 500 C. Now, he tried to change the shape of the fire, while keeping the temperature constant.
He tried to turn the fire into a spiral shape but quickly lost his control over the temperature. As soon as he brought his concentration back on the temperature, he lost his control on the shape of the fire.
"Doing both at once is going to be really hard, isn't it?" he thought. He slowly started to train. Through multiple failures, he was finally successful at forming his first oval flame with 500 Celsius.
He practiced for an hour. He was getting the hang of the technique.
He practiced for another hour, he was getting better at the technique.
By the third hour, he could change both the shape and the temperature into whatever he desired within seconds. While he couldn't do a lot with the shape, he could still make a lot of geometrical figures without a problem.
He tried to control the fire once more. He tried to move his Qi to his hands but realized he couldn't anymore. He didn't have any Qi left.
"I should have know when I ran out of my Qi." He thought. Unlike his excess Qi, his normal amounts of Qi weren't shown by the system, and he had to know when he was full or low on it just by the feeling of it.
He put the cover on the lantern and hung the lantern back on the ceiling. He then sat on the bench to refill his qi. He slowly focused on his breathing, and before he knew it, he was asleep. He was once more unconsciously cultivating.
However, he didn't immediately start to collect Qi this time. He had to first fill his empty body before he could store the Qi for breakthroughs.
At exactly, 6:30 AM he woke up. He was still in the game, sitting on the bed.
"Did I fall asleep once more?" he wondered. "Did I cultivate without knowing once more?" He thought as he quickly opened his status to check.
———————
[Player Name: Yu Ming
Cultivation: Muscle Tempering 6th Realm (35000 Qi: 100%) [Breakthrough]
Body: Sun God's Divine Yang Body
Talent: God
Spiritual Roots: 5 elements Yin-Yang roots
Cultivation Method: Starry Sky Qi Absorption Method
Qi: 72709
]
——————
"I see." He had indeed cultivated while asleep. He hit the [Breakthrough] button once more and quickly went up a realm.
<Congratulations, you have broken through to 'Muscle Tempering: 7th Realm'>
"The next breakthrough is at 40K Qi huh. That's quite a lot." Now that his Qi was back to full, he wanted to try the Flame mastery once more. But to his dismay, the lantern flame had gone out.
"Guess I will just leave then." He quickly logged out of the game.
He freshened up and went to have his breakfast with the rest of his roommates. Afterward, none of them went back to the game as it was the first day of university classes.
Alex went to the university at 11 after having his lunch. Nothing special happened to the entire class. The classes were mostly introduction-focused, and less about studying on the first day.
He found out that Matt and Eric shared at least one course with him each. All of the classes today were the economic and business courses, so he wasn't really excited about them.
After the classes ended at 3 PM, he went to the cafeteria to have his afternoon lunch and went back to his room. He changed his clothes back to his casual shirt and pants, and without missing a beat, jumped back into the game.