A few days later, one could still find Tom in his meditative stance within his tent. He had been diligently trying to decipher the workings of the enigmatic "temporal force," as he referred to the strange force that manifested when he employed his time astralum.
Over these past days, he had already made some discoveries. The first was that, as he suspected, this force was what halted time itself.
The second revelation was that this force, much like etherium, possessed its own flow.
His most recent discovery, no more than a day ago, was that he could manipulate this flow. It was with this revelation that he finally had an inkling of how to choose what he wanted to halt in time and what to ignore.
However, even with this newfound understanding, it wasn't as if success was guaranteed. Attempting to consciously control the temporal flow was akin to trying to catch a fish with bare hands—not impossible, but exceedingly intricate.
He became so absorbed in his training that he allowed himself only a few hours of rest between each session. Even though, as an etherian, he could endure long periods without rest, he started to feel the toll on both his mind and body. Still, he persevered, convinced that he stood on the precipice of a breakthrough. The thought that if he stopped now, it would take even longer, drove him forward.
Thus, when Mooglie approached him the following day with news of two approaching wisemonkies, Tom didn't cease his training. He simply responded, "Gang up on them."
Mooglie stood there, flabbergasted by Tom's statement. But Tom paid him no mind. In his mind, there was no reason why it should always be him facing the wisemonkies who came down.
Aside from the fact that gaining subordinates made him stronger, one of the reasons he had chosen to have subordinates was so that he wouldn't have to do everything himself. What was the point of having subordinates if, in the end, you had to do everything yourself?
Wisemonkies revered strength above all else. Well, you could consider his subordinates a part of his strength because having subordinates was also a form of strength.
Of course, he knew that the wisemonkies coming down were stronger than his subordinates. That's precisely why he told Mooglie to gang up on them, as they couldn't win individually.
After a few minutes, Mooglie and the others arrived, carrying with them two wisemonkies who were unconscious and covered in injuries. Naturally, Mooglie and the others were also in bad shape.
Fortunately, among the two wisemonkies that he had defeated the last time, one of them possessed an astralum that could heal. So, he took care of tending to their wounds.
As he expected, when the two wisemonkies who had been defeated by Mooglie and the others woke up and realized that Tom was the one commanding their fellow tribesmen, they, too, bowed to him and decided to serve him. They understood that if he was leading the others, it was precisely because he was stronger than the rest.
After that, Tom didn't leave his tent, entrusting the task of defeating the descending wisemonkies to his subordinates so that he could focus on his training.
***
"Crap," exclaimed Tom as he failed once again to control the temporal flow.
Through his training in controlling his etherium flow, managing the temporal flow seemed comparatively more straightforward. However, it still proved to be a challenging task. At times, he could seize control of the temporal flow for a fleeting moment before losing it.
The most astonishing aspect was that he could only perceive the temporal flow when using his astralum. Otherwise, all he could discern was the etherium flow, adding to the complexity of his attempts.
Initially, he could only activate his astralum for about twenty seconds, even when merely slowing down things around him. This meant that he had to distinguish the temporal flow from the etherium flow, take control of it, and manipulate it within a mere twenty seconds.
Tom was convinced that without the mental enhancements he received every time he gained a subordinate, he wouldn't have made as much progress.
And all of this effort was just to slow things down. If he aimed to halt time entirely, he'd have even less time, barely five seconds.
With constant trial and error, dark bags formed under his eyes, indicative of the fatigue he was enduring.
"Sigh... I will go rest a little and continue when I have a clear mind," Tom muttered, lying down on a makeshift bed of leaves within his tent.
Four hours later, he woke up and resumed his training. While he wasn't completely rested, at least his mind was clearer.
He assumed a meditation posture and concentrated on discerning the etherium flow around him. Unlike the previous times when he activated his astralum immediately and tried to control the temporal flow, he changed his approach.
Directly activating his astralum complicated things because he first needed to differentiate the etherium flow from the temporal flow, which was time-consuming. Thus, this time, he decided to focus on detecting the temporal flow in his environment before using his astralum.
He was correct in this strategy. When he activated his astralum after growing accustomed to the etherium in his surroundings, the temporal flow became distinctly visible.
Without wasting a moment, Tom, through his astralum, attempted to control the temporal flow. Initially, it was challenging, but after a while, he succeeded.
Slowly, he gained control over the entire temporal force present within the field generated by his astralum.
Once he grasped this temporal force, he started to move it slowly toward a stone that dangled from the tent's ceiling by a thread and swayed gently in the wind.
Just by transferring the temporal energy toward the stone, he began to experience an excruciating headache. Still, he didn't stop; this time, he was closer to success than ever before, and a headache wouldn't deter him.
Gradually, he started to compress and wrap the temporal force around the stone. After a few seconds, he finally succeeded in ensnaring the entire temporal force around the stone.
To the naked eye, there was no change in the stone's appearance since it had always been under the influence of his astralum.
However, all around Tom, the other stones that were also attached to the tent's ceiling had begun moving again. They had previously remained stationary due to Tom astralum however they restarted moving again.
This meant that after weeks of grueling training, Tom had finally succeeded!