Hands clasped around his knees, Wang Zhong stared at the thing that appeared in his mind, a look of distress on his face.
The existence called "System" must have given him extraordinary things, as evidenced by the Eight Extremes Heaven and the Eight Inner Gates.
The only downside was that it didn't provide instructions; everything had to be figured out through trial and error. This was how Wang Zhong had painstakingly figured out the body training and punishments from before.
"Mind acceleration! How does this even accelerate?"
Scratching his head, Wang Zhong was utterly bewildered.
After staring at the large golden clock face for a while, Wang Zhong noticed something was amiss.
"Why aren't the hour, minute, and second hands on this clock moving?"
"Two long, one short, two thick, one thin. I shouldn't have misjudged."
"Perhaps I should try moving them."
Wang Zhong stroked his chin. In his mind, his spiritual force transformed into his own form, flying to the clock face and reaching out to embrace the shortest, thickest hour hand, pushing with all his might.
But no matter how much his spiritual force strained, the pillar-like hour hand remained stubbornly still.
"Could it be that it's not used this way?"
"Or is it that my spiritual force simply isn't enough to move the hour hand?"
"If it's the latter, then I should try the thinnest, longest second hand."
Thinking about this, the spiritual force figure changed its target, embracing the second hand and pushing downwards with force.
*Click!*
A sound of gears meshing echoed in his mind, and the entire clock began to rotate.
However, it was peculiar that the second hand didn't tick forward one mark at a time but jumped two marks with each movement.
"It works!"
Wang Zhong's eyes lit up. He knew his guess was correct. His current spiritual power wasn't strong enough to move the hour or minute hands, so he had to start with the simplest, the second hand.
At that very moment, Wang Zhong discovered that the world outside his mind had changed.
The passage of time in this world had slowed down!
The speed at which leaves fell, the flow of the river, even the rumbling waterfall in the distance had all slowed.
"The flow of the world has slowed!"
Wang Zhong stared blankly at this wondrous world before him, the light and shock in his eyes causing his verdant pupils to tremble slightly.
He stood up, wanting to examine this world more closely. Just then, he noticed that his own movement had also slowed, about half his usual speed.
"It's not the world that's slowed down; it's my mind that has accelerated."
"Has my thinking speed accelerated by one second, or by double? It should be the latter, because if this golden clock face was truly made based on real-world clocks, then each jump would represent two seconds, double the original.
"This is my sea of consciousness, the place of thoughts and thinking! It has sped up the passage of time here, increasing my thinking speed manifold!"
He swallowed hard. Without using his spiritual force, Wang Zhong directly commanded the golden clock face in his mind to stop. The second hand indeed halted instantly, ceasing its movement and returning to its original position.
"I can control it entirely with my consciousness, meaning I can activate and deactivate it instantaneously."
Subconsciously licking his lips, Wang Zhong stared at the clock in his mind with fervent eyes, his expression one of utter excitement.
The deficiency in using Wood Clones had been remedied!
"I wonder, at present, what is the maximum speed of mind acceleration I can achieve."
"I'm quite eager to try!"
Just as Wang Zhong was about to test it, he suddenly felt a prickling sensation all over his body, as if something bad was about to happen.
After some thought, Wang Zhong understood the reason. The moment he attempted it, his spiritual force would likely collapse entirely, causing him to fall unconscious.
With this realization, Wang Zhong immediately jumped into the nearby river, cleaned himself, and ran back to the small wooden dwelling naked. He quickly dried himself, changed into loose clothing, and flopped onto the bed, lying down properly.
Having done all this, Wang Zhong, with a hint of fear, began to use his spiritual force to continuously push the clock's second hand forward.
One second, two seconds, three seconds.
With a gulp, Wang Zhong swallowed, feeling the thrill of treading on the edge of self-destruction.
His spiritual force strained again. Four seconds, five seconds, six seconds!
This number alone made Wang Zhong's heart race. A full six seconds, meaning six times the mind acceleration. This sixfold acceleration would be enough for him to issue commands and receive responses from six Wood Clones simultaneously in the past.
But as the second hand pointed to the seventh second, Wang Zhong's vision suddenly went black, his entire consciousness shattered, and his head fell to the side as he fainted.
This unconsciousness led him into a deep sleep. In the previous second, Wang Zhong was very satisfied with his preparations. This was what it meant to be prepared for any eventuality!
He slept until the next morning. Wang Zhong struggled to get out of bed, his head throbbing as if being pierced by needles. Moreover, even after a full night's rest, his mental state had not fully recovered.
That had been a terrifying power that instantly crushed Wang Zhong's spiritual force avatar. To recover from such mental strain was not something a night's sleep could achieve.
"Pain! Pain! Pain!"
Three consecutive cries of pain sent Wang Zhong rolling on the bed, clutching his head.
"Seven times was the limit of the multiple I could activate, but I couldn't maintain it. While six times was manageable, I suspect I couldn't sustain it for long either."
"For me now, two to three times is the most suitable range."
While rolling, Wang Zhong didn't forget to analyze the experience he had gained.
After rolling around on the bed for a while, Wang Zhong finally adapted to the headache. Although there were no visible changes in his complexion or body, it was evident that he was feeling overly fatigued and disoriented.
His focus wavered, his gaze was unfocused, and his thoughts would wander off from time to time. This was a sign of severely damaged spiritual force.
"Maybe I should sleep some more!"
"Eh!"
As soon as this thought surfaced, Wang Zhong quickly shook his head. How could such a thought even appear?
Dragging his body out of bed, Wang Zhong walked into the forest beside the wooden cabin and immediately sat down cross-legged. His hands were clasped in front of his lower abdomen, and his soul power began to circulate slowly within him.
The giant tree martial soul manifested behind Wang Zhong. As Wang Zhong began his cultivation, a pale green energy from the surrounding forest surged into Wang Zhong's body through the tree martial soul.
This energy carried a strong sense of life and coolness, repairing Wang Zhong's shattered spirit and nourishing his entire sea of consciousness.
It took Wang Zhong the entire morning to emerge from his cultivation.
"As expected, soul power cultivation is the best way to restore spiritual force."
After uttering these words, Wang Zhong did not get up. He remained in his cross-legged position and began to ponder.
The existence of mind acceleration had solved the limitation he faced when using Wood Clones.
However, this required coordination with the technique of splitting focus. It was somewhat awkward that although he had obtained this technique a week ago, he hadn't even achieved the most basic level of performing two tasks at once.
The previous instance of doing two things at once was a division of consciousness, which should be completely different from the skill-based splitting of focus.
This was Wang Zhong's subjective belief.
Half of the time allotted for the year-end competition had already passed. In half a year, how could he master this cultivation technique? That was the key. Furthermore, after mastering it, how would he conduct team battles involving multiple selves working together?
Logically, since it was all controlled by his own consciousness, and with the existence of mind acceleration, coordination shouldn't be an issue. Yet, Wang Zhong instinctively felt that it wasn't that simple.
Sometimes, one could trip over their own feet.
"Team battle coordination! I've never done that before!"
"Forget it, I'll take it step by step. I'll start by being able to flexibly control Wood Clones, then gradually increase the number of clones. Coordination can wait."
"Control is the priority right now!"