Chapter 85

"Focus your mind, imagine! Imagine the Resonance of Sound as a concept, a pure one, untainted by any other concept. Then remove everything else, don't let anything else get close! And then..."

Snap!

There was no "and then," the fragment in Lu Ping's hand had cracked again. He looked at Chu Min with a troubled expression.

Another morning of practice, large fragments turned into small ones, but it seemed there was still no progress.

"How do I imagine?" Lu Ping asked Chu Min for guidance.

"Imagine... just imagine..." Chu Min said. When she tried to give Lu Ping a more detailed explanation, her personal rough style of expression was revealed. The content she described was quite vague, something like "imagine it as a concept," which left Lu Ping completely at a loss.

"Lu Ping doesn't really know what his pure Resonance of Sound is like, does he? It's really hard for him to distinguish and capture it this way," Xi Fan said, sitting in his wheelchair and wheeling himself to a spot where the sun was shining. After finding a good position and adjusting the direction of the sunlight, he continued, "Teacher Chu Min, why don't you let Lu Ping use the Zanpaku technique for practice? Not for penetration, but to objectively create a situation where he can purely contact one type of Resonance, to familiarize himself with this... uh, concept." Xi Fan finally used Chu Min's term.

"Because I can't do it," Chu Min replied bluntly.

"Huh?"

"His Resonance is so hard to distinguish, and it has a lot to do with his Resonance being restrained by the *Seal of Resonance*. Even if I intervene from the outside, I would still be affected by this environment, and I can't do it either," Chu Min explained.

"In other words, what you're asking Lu Ping to do now is something you can't do at all?" Xi Fan said.

"Yes, he has no other choice," Chu Min said.

"Uh... good luck!" Xi Fan said to Lu Ping.

"Okay!" Lu Ping nodded, not discouraged or disheartened, and picked up another fragment. Due to the practice over the past two days, the fragments had become quite small. Over two days, except for the disruption caused by Dao Ran, Lu Ping had not been lazy at all.

But...

What is a concept, exactly?

Looking down at the fragment in his hand, Lu Ping fell into thought. Just trying and trying again without a clear direction, perhaps there was some progress, but how far was it from ultimate success?

If there's no direction, then he could only accumulate progress bit by bit, no matter how far it was, there would be a day of success.

Lu Ping thought, gathered his mind, and once again summoned his Resonance.

Finding a gap in the *Seal of Resonance* and stealing Resonance, this was something Lu Ping had become quite adept at. It was something he had mastered after three years of hard practice at Zhaifeng Academy.

In the first year at Zhaifeng Academy, the Resonance he had briefly obtained when escaping from the organization had been completely sealed by the *Seal of Resonance*. Lu Ping had no Resonance at all. At first, he tried to use the methods taught by the academy teachers to re-perceive his Resonance, but it was completely useless. He quickly became the one with the worst talent in everyone's eyes. Lu Ping then gave up on this attempt and began searching for his own method. Thus, he became a pure waste in the eyes of the academy teachers and students, both untalented and unwilling to work hard.

Lu Ping ignored it and began trying to remove the *Seal of Resonance*. Through constant exploration and countless perceptions day and night, Lu Ping finally found a tiny gap.

It was just a blink, just a moment, but the Resonance he felt in that gap was so powerful, far more powerful than the Resonance he had obtained when the seal was opened during his escape from the organization.

But it was just a moment, the gap disappeared, and the powerful Resonance was gone.

But Lu Ping saw hope. He began to play hide and seek with this gap, striving to quickly find this gap in the *Seal of Resonance* when he needed it. Each time he found the gap, he began to try to extract the Resonance from it.

The number of times he found the gap increased, and the number of times he tried to extract the Resonance also increased.

But he kept failing.

The appearance of the gap was too brief, just a moment, not enough time to extract any Resonance. Lu Ping tried all the methods of controlling Resonance he could learn at the academy, but none of them worked, they were all too slow, too slow.

He could only rely on his own exploration, trying to extract Resonance in the tiny moment when the gap appeared.

This effort lasted for a whole year, and Lu Ping succeeded.

Although finding the gap was still not very stable, and he couldn't always successfully steal Resonance when he found the gap, at least he could succeed once out of ten times.

The Resonance he stole was not much, but the power it brought was very real. This made Lu Ping feel excited and satisfied. Although he had already been labeled as a waste at Zhaifeng Academy, the Resonance he stole in the moment of the gap was equivalent to perceiving six types of Resonance among the first-year students.

With the experience of success, his progress became faster and faster. By the end of the second year, playing hide and seek with the gap had become second nature. Whenever he needed it, he could find the gap at any time. The number of successful attempts to steal Resonance also increased, and by the end of the second year, he could do it flawlessly.

At this point, the Resonance he could steal was much stronger than the first time. Because Lu Ping's speed of controlling Resonance was faster. The moment the gap appeared was always the same, the faster the control speed, the stronger the Resonance he could steal in one go.

Two years of constant exploration also made Lu Ping increasingly clear about his state. In the third year, he began to try more possibilities, such as: continuously finding gaps, continuously maintaining the state of stealing Resonance.

Theoretically, if this could be achieved, the *Seal of Resonance* would be rendered meaningless.

But this attempt ultimately failed. Even if he could quickly find two gaps in succession, he could not change the fact that both gaps would close. No matter how fast he was, no matter how closely he followed, one closure meant an interruption in the flow of Resonance. The Resonance stolen from the second gap would always be disconnected from the Resonance stolen from the first gap, and they would never resonate. The continuity created was only a pseudo-continuity, a rapid repetition of finding the gap, stealing Resonance, the gap closing, and the Resonance being sealed again.

Unable to achieve long-term control, he could only continue to strive for brief bursts. This depended on speed. At the same time, Lu Ping was also trying another possibility, which was to find two, or even more, gaps simultaneously and steal Resonance from them, which would undoubtedly greatly enhance the burst power.

However, unfortunately, he had not yet achieved this. Instead, his speed of stealing Resonance in the moment of the gap had reached a peak, to the point where the *Seal of Resonance* would manifest its true form to suppress and seal it.

Would there be a day when the burst he created in that moment would completely break free from the *Seal of Resonance*? Lu Ping did not know. At least for now, the task Chu Min had given him was no longer to steal the maximum Resonance in a moment, but to steal the needed Resonance in a moment.

The moment of the gap...

This was the biggest obstacle for Lu Ping.

If not for this restriction, if the Resonance could be continuously maintained, Lu Ping believed he could quickly master the division of six types of Resonance.

But with this restraint, Lu Ping felt like he was back at the beginning. Back to the moment when he first discovered the gap and desperately tried to steal Resonance from it.

The method itself was not important.

What was important was the speed of the method.

He relied on speed to steal Resonance from the brief gap.

And now, he needed speed to find the Resonance he needed in the brief gap and then extract it.

The difficulty was here.

He needed to master this speed.

This can't be rushed...

Lu Ping thought about the three years he had gone through, and the fragment in his hand cracked again.

Too slow! Again!

Lu Ping didn't bother picking up the fragments; he simply plunged his hand directly into the pile of fragments.

There was no need to always do such tests; he already knew what he needed. So, let's start with continuous, intense practice!

Snap, snap, snap, snap, snap, snap, snap, snap...

The pile of fragments began to tremble slightly but very quickly. One fragment after another was continuously breaking as Lu Ping repeatedly tried!

(Forgot to tell everyone, Happy Qixi! Only five minutes left, have you bought flowers yet?) (To be continued...)