Qingmu shuffled over to the savage chieftain. He noticed the scepter in the chieftain's hand, which was slightly different from the one the female savage had seen in her dream.
In the savage woman's dream, that thing possessed an indescribable sense of mystery and sacredness. Qingmu had once thought it must be made of rare materials and inlaid with natural gemstones.
However, when he saw the object up close, he discovered it was just an ordinary wooden stick, uneven in thickness and not straight. The curved end at the top was thicker, revealing the wood grain and raised bumps, as if it had been broken off from the gnarled roots of some old tree. Perhaps because it had been held in people's hands for many years, the entire surface of the stick had developed a patina, gleaming darkly in the moonlight.
The savage chieftain glanced at him, and a powerful Mental Power immediately surged towards him.
Qingmu did not resist. If he had resisted at this moment, their Mental Power would have become entangled, which could have caused the already unstable space, distorted by gravity, to collapse. In that case, the surging seawater flowing along the curved surface of space would have instantly swallowed them up, or they might have been torn apart by the space itself.
The old man was clearly aware of the serious consequences, so he didn't use his full strength to deal with Qingmu; most of his power was still being used to maintain the space. He probably sensed that Qingmu meant no harm, or perhaps he simply couldn't spare any more power, because the space was already trembling.
He glanced at Qingmu and withdrew his attack.
Following the force of his retreat, Qingmu released his own Mental Power. When Awakened releases their Mental Power, their consciousness is also released, as if their body has grown larger. The extent to which their released Mental Power can reach determines the extent to which their body feels like it has grown, allowing them to perceive the spiritual changes in that distant place.
Only then did Qingmu feel the pull of that boundless force that filled the entire space. This force came from the sky, like a giant vacuum cleaner pointing at you from above, while he became a ribbon in the wind, just like the trench coat he was wearing, dancing wildly in the air, as if it would be torn apart at any moment.
He looked up at the giant moon in the sky and directly felt the terror of a huge planet, not only visually but also spiritually.
While it's not certain that this is the moon as people usually perceive it, it's clearly a planet. If planets are like this, what about the more massive stars?
What puzzled Qingmu even more was that this should be caused by the moon's gravity, but why would gravity affect Mental Power? And how could Mental Power maintain the stability of a distorted space?
From his limited knowledge of physics, he knew that gravity was one of the four fundamental forces of the universe. He had always thought of gravity as a pulling force, just as real as the force tearing at his consciousness and body at this moment.
But he remembered Professor Mei explaining to him that gravity is not a pulling force, but rather the curvature of space caused by the mass of matter, which causes two objects to accelerate towards each other, like rice grains sliding into the same funnel. However, the professor said there is something else in the universe that makes the funnel keep getting bigger, and the distance between the rice grains sliding into the funnel also gets farther and farther.
Recalling these things, Qingmu's perception changed. He felt that the sky wasn't a giant vacuum cleaner, but an abyss. He was sliding into this abyss, and everything here was sliding into it.
But this terrible abyss is expanding, tearing them apart before they can even slide in, separating them from one another, and even shattering their consciousness into fragments that can never be reassembled.
Qingmu finally understood what the savage wizard was doing. He was mobilizing the island's Mental Power to fight against this abyss. Qingmu already knew that the wizard's own Mental Power wasn't strong, at most about the same as his, the Boss Coal's, Su Huilan's, and Hanran's. The reason he appeared so strong was because he could mobilize the Mental Power of the entire island.
Qingmu felt it was related to the wooden stick in his hand. He remembered that Petru had Tabuli, and later the bullets carried a faint Mental Power. Could the Mental Power on this island also infect certain things on the island, such as tree roots buried deep underground? Perhaps the wooden stick in his hand had been buried on the island for too long and had developed some kind of communication ability with the island's Mental Power, or perhaps it was dug out from the source of the Mental Power Field.
But the wizard's power was clearly insufficient; the entire space was violently distorted and trembled in the consciousness.
Qingmu joined the wizard. For the first time, he unleashed his Mental Power with all his might, without reservation. The wizard looked at him, a hint of surprise in his eyes, but only for a moment before quickly retracting his gaze and focusing intently on holding his wooden stick.
His hands trembled, his lips trembled, and as time passed, despair filled his face.
The moon in the sky grew larger and larger, and the towering waves grew larger and larger.
Su Huilan, Crow, and Hanran joined them. Su Huilan and Qingmu stood side by side, while Crow flew into the sky, spread its wings, and became a twisted black shadow under the moonlight. Hanran's body on the ground gradually grew larger in people's perception, and the moonlight shone on her, making her snow-white without a single blemish.
Their arrival seemed to stabilize the space considerably, but their power was still far from sufficient to cover the entire island.
Suddenly, Qingmu heard a thought from the savage shaman in his consciousness, which, translated into words, meant. "Quickly, come into my Divine Wooden Staff!"
The term " Divine Wooden Staff " was a translation that Qingmu himself came up with in his mind using Chinese. The original meaning of "wizard" is probably "a scepter bestowed by God" or "a wooden stick that can communicate with God."
Qingmu was taken aback. How could a person go inside a piece of wood? But he immediately understood what the old savage meant. He needed to concentrate his Mental Power on his scepter.
He did as he was told, and then he discovered that there seemed to be a strange space inside the piece of wood. His consciousness was suddenly drawn to this space, and he almost fell in.
Qingmu steadied his consciousness, and his Mental Power continuously seeped into the wood grain. He then discovered that the space covered by his Mental Power was much larger than before, and his consciousness gradually sensed an even larger space.
He saw the entire island in his mind; every tree, every flower, every grain of sand was crystal clear. Wherever his attention was focused, he could see it clearly. But he had neither the inclination nor the energy to look at these things, because gravity was making the already distorted space even more distorted, like a glass bottle placed in a furnace, constantly being stretched, twisted, and elongated as the temperature rose...
Qingmu didn't know how the piece of wood had managed to make him and the island's Mental Power Field become one. The savage shaman also seemed to have no idea, because he had clearly been preparing to guide Qingmu's consciousness, probably needing Qingmu's power to help him strengthen his control over the island's Mental Power Field.
But Qingmu didn't need his guidance at all; he just went in naturally, as if that was his real home and that he had just asked someone else to look after it for him.