[1.20.1] How do I make the item do something over the course of multiple ticks?

[A tired guy]

Let's say I have created an item, after I use it,

it will do a certain action, for example,

spawning particles on the player's position over the span of 20 ticks, without the use button being held down by the player.

How would that be done?

[A tired guy]

so uh

[dee12452]

Override Item#use and use the ItemStack NBT data to set some count that gets decremented on some method like Item#onInventoryTick

[A tired guy]

That's a horrible solution. What If it gets dropped or the same item is used several times?

[dee12452]

I answered your question, the edge cases are up to you. Not going to bother with your rudeness, good luck bud.