by L. M. Kerr
“There should be several days still till the Life Festival takes place, that’s more than enough time.” Micheal muttered to himself, rubbing at his newly shaped beard with his free hand. He still held the mirror he’d brought out to shave in his other.
He looked at himself in that mirror for a few moments. His face might be slightly thinner and that birthmark was glaring, but in the end, he could still recognize himself. If nothing else, he knew his own face… and his own heart.
He sighed.
“Alright. We’ll split our day into two parts.” He nodded to himself as he held up two fingers.
“One: Reconnaissance. I need to find out the exact date of the Life Festival and scout out any relevant locations.” He put one of his fingers down. His head turned slightly as he looked at his other, still upright finger.
“And two…” His heart fluttered as he made a decision he had been struggling with, consciously or not, for the past several weeks.
His head turned to the west, looking out into the distance in the direction of a location far away.
A small lake, tucked away in the middle of the Woolen Forest. Surrounded by trees, a small clearing opened up on one of the lake’s shores, revealing a rather picturesque, quaint landscape.
A place Micheal knew very, very well.
It was the location he viewed in his mind during every Heart Trial he’d suffered through.
Micheal closed his eyes silently. A storm of emotions swept through his heart as he considered this, his mouth twisting.
“Just this once… I guess I’ll see how you're doing now, Isabelle.”
.
Chapter 33
‘Speed up.’
The wind blurred past Micheal as he stretched his right hand out, concentrating intently.
Just a meter away from him, a shimmering bubble appeared. Instead of being shaped like a perfect sphere, this bubble was stretched out in length, but rather short in height. It stood only a single meter and a half tall, but was nearly 4 meters long.
Micheal was currently sprinting through the Woolen Forest at maximum speed. His Life Orbs could fly fast, but he’d found that his newly enhanced body was able to move much faster.
As he ran, he tried to stick to the outer edge of the forest. He knew of at least one Farian encampment, the Reemer Tribe’s Tribal Village, that was set up on the edges of the Woolen Forest. By aiming for this Tribe’s home, he could both avoid running into any patrols while still scouting out the information he needed.
A fraction of a second later, Micheal’s rapid movements brought him into the bubble’s territory.
The world around him instantly shifted ever so slightly. Inside the bubble, time dilated and sped up, causing the world outside of it to seem to slow down.
Micheal blazed through this bubble at maximum speed, leaving its area in just a split moment. Right after that…
‘Speed up.’
As soon as he left its area, yet another bubble formed in the air just in front of Micheal as he activated his Temporal Bubble Ability again.
‘Speed up.’
And again.
‘Speed up.’
And again.
Micheal repeatedly sped time up for himself, using his power over and over without pause.
Each one of these bubbles accelerated time by 13%.
This was his limit, Micheal had found, if he wanted to use the Temporal Bubble Ability without using up a huge amount of energy. If he kept it at around 13%, his ‘Energized Physique’ was able to restore enough energy that the net total was neutral.
13% was not a huge amount, but at the same time, it was still an extremely noticeable increase. In the long run, it would save him a large amount of time, making everything vastly more convenient.
As he sprinted and practiced using his Temporal Bubble Ability more, he reached a few more conclusions on how this mysterious power worked.
Maintaining these Temporal Bubbles took active focus. No matter how he formed the Bubble, he could not just leave it alone without actively making sure it remained in his thoughts. This would prevent him from setting up a bubble and then accelerating time while he slept.
‘Well, at least, for now, anyway.’ He had, by no means, mastered the Ability yet. Micheal wasn’t sure what its limits were, or how powerful it could truly get, especially as his Soul stat grew higher.
Of all of his Abilities, this was currently the one that was most clearly impacted by his Soul stat.
His Ceaseless Mind Ability didn’t really have much room to improve, while his Ki Cultivation was an Ability that grew on its own. A stronger Soul did let his Impact Release Ability absorb bigger impacts, and at a faster rate, but that power would outgrow its usefulness soon.
Even his Life Orb Mastery only increased its Orb limit after his Soul hit certain static levels of power, the main perk of the Ability technically still direct, but heavily gated.
For his Temporal Bubble Ability, the amount of energy he used while activating his Ability directly affected the temporal strength of each bubble. At first glance, his Soul stat didn’t appear to actually do anything.
However, from a mix of inborn knowledge that came when he gained the Brand of Janus, and the Ability that the Shop created when it forced the Brand to become compatible, as well as his own experience with other Abilities from the future, Micheal was able to surmise how things would work.
His Soul stat was integral to both how powerful and how efficient his Ability was.
Currently, Micheal could maintain a Time Bubble at 13% sped-up time essentially for free, due to his Physique.
As his Soul stat grew stronger, though… that number would change.
13% to 14%. 14% to 15%. 15% to 16%… so on and so forth. The upper limits he could speed or slow time by grew in a similar fashion.
His Soul was the engine that his Abilities relied upon to work. The better and more efficient that engine, the more powerful his Abilities became and the less energy he needed to fuel them.
If Micheal’s Soul stat dropped to the average for a human on the Second Layer, even with his Energized Physique, he would not be able to maintain 7% sped-up time without burning through energy, let alone 13%.
When it came to true power, possessing a very high Soul stat was a necessity.
The last few things he’d discovered were a few small quirks. He’d found that he could not overlap spacetime bubbles, no matter how he tried. Clashing time bubbles could exist right next to each other, however, and would interact with objects passing through them appropriately.
The most important conclusion he’d confirmed was how his Temporal Bubbles treated inanimate objects differently as compared to animate ones.
His new test involved dropping a stick right between two opposing Temporal Bubbles he’d set up at once.
Maintaining multiple spacetime bubbles at once was extremely difficult at first. It felt like he was splitting his mind in two, with two completely different interpretations of a concept fighting for supremacy. However, after a careful bit of balancing, he’d found a way to direct both at the same time. He just had to focus on each and hold that specific focus. It was hard for him to describe, but made sense in his head.
The stick he’d dropped had entered the range of both spacetime bubbles at the same time.
Unlike animate objects, when the stick entered the spacetime bubble, its time was instantly affected.
Micheal had a couple of ideas on why this difference might exist.
Perhaps it had to do with the concept of a Soul. Perhaps it had to do with the natural energy of life in every being, energy that most of humanity had begun to store and evolve in the form of Ki. Perhaps it simply was because living objects were treated differently by the Ability.
Regardless of the specifics, it was a fact that the stick entered both bubbles at the same time.
As a result of that…
Instead of falling straight down, it began to tilt over.
In the bubb
le of sped-up spacetime, the stick began to plummet down. In the bubble of slowed-down spacetime, however, the stick visibly began to slow. As a result, the two opposing actions caused the stick to begin to twist and fall towards the faster bubble of spacetime.
It was a curious reaction that spawned even more questions in his head.
What if he layered a bunch of mini spacetime bubbles next to each other in a small wave? Could he create a setup like this to deflect any attack that came his way? How big a difference would there need to be, in terms of temporal pull?
Many questions, many ideas, and few answers.
He made a mental vow to experiment more later on. For now, he kept his focus on moving as swiftly as possible.
An hour had passed since he left the tree he had slept on.
In that time, Micheal had covered a sizable amount of ground. He was used to traveling in forests, something he had done countless times before, and was able to maneuver without being forced to slow down too much.
Whether it was luck, or simply the fact that this area was an undesirable location that the Farians had been allowed to remain in, he had yet to run into any patrols from the Silent Sword Sect.
In a somewhat similar vein to how the Divine Might Sect operated, the Silent Sword Sect didn’t openly take any particular action against the Farians and their arrival, beyond ceding them a mostly abandoned forest to live in. In their honor-obsessed society, they couldn’t overtly do anything else, not in the eyes of the public.
However, that didn’t mean they would help the Farians out much. Unlike humanity, who were able to create mystical Artifacts that were highly desired, the Farians had little to offer to the Silent Sword Sect. Their Bloodline Magic was powerful, but something only a Farian could use, and none of the Tribes were willing to join the Silent Sword Sect and act as subordinates. As a result, they were thrown away and ignored.
Even their ethereal good looks meant little to the Byrens, most of whom would rather die than mate with a non-Byren.
This wasn’t all that bad of a setup for them, all things considered.
It was certainly better than how the Orkal Race was received. Their arrival in the territory of the Heaven Slayer Sect had sparked a bitter, bloody feud and war that lasted for more than a year. The two-and-a-half-meter-tall humanoids had dark-grey skin and were as powerful as they were cunning, vicious opponents for anyone to deal with.
In the end, the Heaven Slayer Sect ended up recruiting the Orkal Race and the feud came to an end, largely because the Heaven Slayer Sect was more powerful and far more established here on the Second Layer.
In the present, this should have happened around 10 months ago, using some basic guesswork from what Micheal knew of history. The Heaven Slayer Sect didn’t share any borders with the Divine Might Sect, so information about this wasn’t something he could find easily.
As for the Rakkonian Race, they had landed in the territory of the Ground Demon Sect, just to the south of the Divine Might Sect. Unlike the Farians, the Rakkonians’ system of ‘Wizardry’ let them gain a great deal of favor with members of the Ground Demon Sect. Their odd, magical spells were uniquely versatile and powerful.
As of right now, the tensions between races was still pretty low. All of the races were still developing their strength and were flying under the radar of the major forces for now. The various Sects were all suspicious of each other, but direct war had yet to break out. Everything was still under control.
‘For now…’ Micheal sighed as he thought of the future.
‘Based on what day it is right now… the Byren Race’s famous Sanctum should open up in roughly 7 weeks.’ He nodded slowly at the thought. He would need to confirm the date to be sure, but that time, for certain, would be set in stone.
The Sanctum was the most famous Holy Site of the Byren Race. It was an Inheritance Site of sorts, just like Yvvtal’s. This one, however, opened up only once every 2.5 years, though it would open a little earlier this time around.
And it was the opening of the Sanctum where everything truly began to fall apart.
That said, while that was the start of everything, that start didn’t come out of nowhere.
No, it was a carefully constructed start, a start formed from the manipulations of the Vile King against every single race and Sect, spreading a vast, complicated web that brought everyone together on that fated date.
The Great Disaster might be the big, impending war that haunted the future, but in Micheal’s previous life, it wouldn’t start for several more months. If Micheal wanted any chance at averting it, what he needed to do was simple:
Start cutting holes into the web the Vile King had begun to weave.
This thought occupied Micheal’s mind as he finished the last leg of his journey, effortlessly slipping through the forest for a second full, accelerated hour of travel. He didn’t encounter any Magic Beasts or patrols of any sort, a record of good luck he hoped to keep with him.
Finally, his eyes grew more focused as he came within sight of one of the Farian encampments.
Specifically, within sight of a few of their scouts that kept up a strict perimeter. Each Tribe had a network of Farians spread out in a large circle, keeping watch for any intruder that might wish them harm.
Two Farian scouts were currently yawning as they leaned against a pair of sturdy trees, talking to each other in a rather lazy fashion. Both Farians had their fairy-like wings tucked into a long green cloak, giving them the appearances of relatively normal humans, if ones with unnaturally fair skin and beautiful faces.
‘Alright.’ Micheal crept up to a nearby Wooka tree, hiding behind it. Once he was confident that neither of the scouts were looking in his direction, his body rapidly began to float upwards, a pair of Life Orbs hidden in his boots as they lifted him.
He rapidly ascended out of sight from the ground below, but still hidden within the tops of the trees. The Farians were no strangers to aerial combat and Micheal didn’t want to risk being spotted from above. It was possible, though unlikely, that they had placed scouts in the sky. Better safe than sorry.
Silent as the night, Micheal began to fly through the treetops. He twisted and turned his body as he moved, avoiding branches and leaves as he slipped through various openings. He pulled out all four of his Life Orbs as he moved, using them to help balance himself without having to touch the trees and risk making noise.
It took him a painfully slow six minutes to fly past the pair of scouts. He’d opted to fly around 30 meters to the left of them, knowing that there would be other scouts that would come within eyesight if he flew any farther than that. Each Tribe assigned a large portion of their manpower into maintaining security.
This particular pair of scouts didn’t appear to be very observant, a nice bonus that made slipping past them slightly easier.
After he snuck past the perimeter, he stuck to the treetops as he flew another hundred meters in. Finally, he began to pick up the lively sounds of the Reemer Tribe’s Tribal Village.
The sounds of laughter, of warriors practicing techniques, of clothes being washed and meat being cut. Comfortable sounds that rang like music in Micheal’s ears, reminding him of times long past.
He took a deep breath.
‘Get in, ask some questions, get out.’ As long as he was careful, it should only take him fifteen minutes at the most. After that…
He would check up on Isabelle.
.
Chapter 34
“Wow, that was easy.” Micheal shook his head as he left the Tribal Village and began to head towards a crowded forest in front of him.
It had been about twenty minutes since he first arrived at the Farian encampment. His hopes had not been high when he got here, not given how things had gone for him recently.
However, to his surprise, everything had gone on smoothly without a hitch.
The Reemer Tribe’s Tribal Village was set up in a large circle. There were tens of thousands of large huts that had been con
structed from the bark of Wooka trees, masterfully crafted and well organized.
The Farians were a very strong race, but not exactly a populous one. Compared to humanity’s 7 billion, there were only 400 million Farians in total, with only around 70 million here on the Second Layer. Micheal was vaguely aware that the 13 Tribes had worked together on the First Layer, leaving most of their members temporarily behind after they conquered it and transformed it into a relatively safe haven.
The unknownness of the 7 Layers had made the Farians extremely wary. Their loyalty to their own was something to be admired, which led to them forming a ‘trailblazing team’ to secure their spot on the Second Layer. The rest of the Farians weren’t set to come up until four months into the Fourth Wave, or roughly two months from now.
Unlike how it was for most of humanity’s new organizations, each member of the Reemer Tribe was used to living and working with one another for many years. As a result, their coordination when it came to rebuilding a home was pristine and efficient. Given that the Farians also had an entire First Layer to practice this on, it wasn’t too surprising.
The Farians’ ‘First Layer’ had been a frozen world full of ice-covered zombies. From what Micheal had learned in his time spent with Isabelle, the environment had proven more dangerous than the zombies. The world the Farians had originally lived on was, for 99% of the time, a warm tropic paradise. There was originally no concept of ‘winter’ among their race. It only got cold, very rarely, when a titanic storm swept in.
Their race was quick to adapt, however, and through their constant coordination and teamwork among each Tribe, they eventually managed to conquer the First Layer completely and make it through to the Second Layer.
Their First Layer had a few other unique aspects to it, like how there were eerily similar ‘Nests’ that spawned these ice-zombies, something that sounded suspiciously like Morenkai Nest Cores. There weren’t any ‘Monster Class Ice Zombies’ from what Micheal had been told, so their zombies weren’t totally identical.