1969 Whispers
If someone with an exceptionally good sense of Qi saw the scene in the middle of the Evergreen Pillars Forest, they would be utterly astonished.
Thousands of Evergreen Pillar Bamboos were currently connected with millions of Qi wisps that were like endless festoons. They flows like fine silk and had turned the area with the six ponds and the bamboo pavilion into a natural marvel.
The bamboo pavilion and the person sitting inside it could barely be seen, but if one looked at it with normal eyes they would only see the pavilion with Lin Mu sitting inside it.
The the net formed from the Qi threads had fully covered the pavilion by now and had also invaded it. It continue to grow and reached near Lin Mu too.
Lin Mu's breaths made it the Qi net sway, but it continued to stay away from his body.
That was until the day where the net had basically covered him in a cocoon
If he were open his eyes at this moment, he would certainly be shocked. But there was no way he could do that right now as he was in a trance now.
The trance continue to go deeper and deeper, until finally Lin Mu stopped feeling anything.
"Huh?" Lin Mu suddenly opened his eyes feeling a bit startled.
It was similar to waking up from sleep with a jerk and being unable to figure out what had happening or where they were. Lin Mu felt disoriented and rubbed his eyes.
"Where am I?" Lin Mu muttered in confusion.
Everything around him felt blurry as if it he was looking at it through frosted glass.
He blinked his eyes several times until finally his vision came into focus.
"What is this place?" Lin Mu looked around and discovered that he was standing in an empty area filled with grass.
Looking up, all he could see was a plain blue sky with no sun in sight.
"Am I in the Sleepscape?" Lin Mu wondered as the scenery was similar to that. "No, that can't be… I would have to be asleep to enter it. Besides there aren't any of the trees of the Sleepscape here." He shook his head.
It didn't take long for him to confirm the fact that he wasn't in the Sleepscape. He felt not connection to it.
"If this isn't the Sleepscape, then… where am I?" Lin Mu looked at himself and found that he was wearing plain white robes. "I don't think I was wearing these before." He was sure of it.
He even wondered if the Silver Mirage Circlet had changed him into this.
"Wait! Where's the Silver Mirage Circlet?" Lin Mu said in shock.
He touched his forehead and didn't find it there. While doing this, he inevitably glanced at his right hand and got another massive shock.
"Where's th ring?!" Lin Mu could not see the two layered ring on his finger anymore.
Feeling panicked, Lin Mu tried to withdraw something from the ring but that didn't work. Next he tried to use his Spatial Skills but that didn't work either.
"None of it works… Even my cultivation base is gone." Lin Mu started to realize this was unlike anything he had felt.
There was no Qi within his body, and neither did he have any Dao Embryos. Even his body cultivation seemed to have disappeared and he only had a mortal's body now.
"I need to think this through, what was I doing before coming here?" Lin Mu questioned himself.
His memories were still a bit blurry but soon enough he managed to gather his memories.
"I was in the Evergreen Pillars Forest practicing the Litany of the Verdant Forests!" Lin Mu recalled, causing a change within the area.
~SHUA~SHUA~SHUA~SHUA~
Thousands of green wisps of light appeared in the area, as if fireflies rising from the reeds on a summer evening. The green wisps surrounded Lin Mu and danced as if feeling happy to see him.
"This…" Lin Mu narrowed his eyes, wondering what these wisps were.
Feeling curious he extended his hand and tried to touch them with his finger.
Much to his surprise, a green wisp took the initiative and voluntarily made contact with him. Lin Mu felt a fuzzy feeling coming from the green wisp and a tingle rose from his finger before traveling to his head.
"You… are… here…" Lin Mu heard a voice in his head.
The voice was very light, and could barely be considered a whisper. Most would ignore it and think of it as mere air, but to Lin Mu it was still clear.
He also knew where the voice was coming from.
It was the green wisp!
The wisps floated around Lin Mu, as if wanting to tell him something.
"Evergreen…" The green wisp whispered before another wisp approached Lin Mu.
"Pillars…" The second wisp landed on Lin Mu's thumb and spoke.
"Bamboo…" Then a third wisp came to rest on top of Lin Mu's middle finger, finishing their answer.
"The Evergreen Pillars Bamboo… all of you are the bamboos?" Lin Mu looked around and saw that the green wisps bobbed up and down, as if nodding.
Seeing this, Lin Mu quickly understood what was happening.
'The Litany Of the Verdant Forests… it worked?' Lin Mu was thrilled.
He had been feeling lost since there was no sign of success or progress in the technique. But now that it had suddenly worked, he was happy.
'If I am hearing their whispers, I should be in the beginner stage.' Lin Mu understood.
He recalled the four stages of the technique and knew that in order to progress to the next stage, he would have to be able to fully hear the wisps.
"Can you hear me?" Lin Mu spoke, attempting to converse.
But the green wisps did not respond to him and floated up from his hand.
"Looks like I cannot talk to them yet… they are also not speaking any further with me." Lin Mu concluded that this was the extent of what he could do right now.
