Atlas followed the process he was familiar with.
Once the azure blue qi mist was moved to the top half of the dantian space, Atlas started compressing it.
He used his will to harden the qi into a sphere that got smaller and smaller as its power compacted.
However, even as it shrunk it still grew. With space freeing up inside of Atlas' dantian, more qi from the outside world was being purified and entering it. This qi then became a part of the process, contributing to the ever-growing ball of compressed energy.
This process was very much like forging a blade. He heated the metal to the perfect temperature and then took it out of the forge, hammering it down endlessly before quenching it and adding more metal to start the process again.
