Chapter 376
“Let me go!”
“So what if you’ve become a Transcendent Mage? Does that make you amazing? Does that mean you get to bully people? Does that mean you can reincarnate into such a cute form?!”
“And why—why did you get so strong so fast! I don’t accept this! Do you even know what I’ve endured for over a hundred years?! Aaaahhh!”
Adam scratched his neck. Garfield stood blankly on his shoulder, while Sophia peeked timidly out from Adam’s hair, curiously gazing downward and whispering:
“Master, master… is she—”
Adam’s heart was full of words, but he didn’t know where to begin.
The weasel struggled furiously, shouting:
“Let me go! Move your foot, disperse the gravity field! If you don’t let me go right now, I—I’ll fart!”
“…Sister Sandy?” Sophia’s voice followed after.
Adam woke as if from a dream. He quickly lifted his foot, retreating three steps in embarrassment.
“Sandy—ah, how did you end up like this? …Well, actually, it’s kind of cute.”
Sandy didn’t get up. She just lay there, glaring at Adam with pitch-black eyes, and said in a low voice:
“Do you know what I’ve gone through these hundred years?”
A hundred years? Adam froze.
“My people… every day, every moment, all they do is fart. Each one smellier than the last. They take pride in it instead of shame. I nearly chose to kill myself to end the mission…”
Garfield clutched his mouth and fled back into Adam’s body.
“I submitted a request for aid over ninety years ago. Why did you only arrive now?”
Adam twitched his ears. Sophia fluttered down to Sandy’s side, landing on her back. Gentle streams of water instantly cleaned the dust from Sandy’s fur.
“Sister Sandy, Master and I have only been here for five years.”
With a whoosh, Sandy shot up into the air, leveling her gaze with Adam. Ignoring Sophia’s struggles, she squeezed the little spirit into a ball and demanded:
“Five years? You’re certain?!”
“Yes. As soon as the Mage World received your request, Lord Croft immediately organized this mission. The four of us Transcendent Exploration Mages set out at once. There’s no way it could have taken a hundred years.”
Sandy’s fur puffed up:
“Then that means… the flow of time here is independent?”
“It seems so. Not only independent—the difference in flow is enormous. To be precise, it’s relatively independent.”
Still bristling, Sandy frowned:
“Could it be the doing of that one from the Divine Realm? But what would the benefit be? If so, then any being in this cluster of planes who hasn’t mastered true Aetheric Void Time Laws—if they dared step into the outside world, they’d instantly die from the time gap. And those capable of manipulating time laws wouldn’t fail to notice us.”
“The Divine Realm?” Adam asked.
Sandy explained:
“The Mortal Realm, the Martial Realm, the Sacred Realm, the Celestial Realm, and the Divine Realm—those are the names of each layer of this cluster of planes. The Divine Realm is the highest. By rights, all these oddities should be caused by the one who resides there.”
She glanced at the martial cores floating behind Adam and said:
“Why are you collecting these things? They’re useless to us.”
Adam looked at her and asked:
“Once you return this time, you can advance to Transcendent, right?”
“Just with these Third Era remnants?” Sandy grabbed one of the martial cores behind Adam and casually popped it into her mouth. After a few seconds, she muttered:
“Mm… if that’s the case, then this place really is different from other planes. Vital Energy here only serves to construct internal systems. But we Mages—we interact with the Aetheric Void…”
As she spoke, she pressed a finger against Adam’s forehead, sending him a technique.
“This is the cultivation art I created after becoming a Realm Lord, pieced together from the inheritances I gathered. It maximizes the use of Elemental Energy.”
Adam reciprocated, transmitting his recently-developed method of refining Vital Energy:
“The stronger we become, the deeper our bond with the Aetheric Void. But these martial cultivators—the stronger they grow, the more they reject the Aetheric Void. Maybe that’s why the one in the Divine Realm can shape relative flows of time.”
“You mean… we’re inside his body?”
Adam shook his head.
“Not exactly. But certainly under his influence. He doesn’t care about the lives of the beings in the Primal Worlds. All he needs is for them to refine Fourth Era energy into Vital Energy, ascend tier by tier, and in the end—be devoured by him.”
“So he harvests once every hundred years? If that’s the case, he wouldn’t bother teaching these beings anything truly core. Which means… there’s no point wasting our time here.” She frowned. “But even if we unleash our full mage power now, we’re no match for him, are we?”
Adam nodded.
“Definitely not. But we don’t need to. The Mage Legion is already marching toward this void. The one in the Divine Realm should be in deep slumber. His indifference is his greatest flaw. We can infiltrate step by step, until we seize the Third Era’s core system.”
“But because of the time difference, at first we’ll have to rely solely on our own strength. I estimate at least another ‘hundred years’ before the Legion arrives.”
Sandy agreed, musing:
“Maybe we won’t need to wait that long. During the last centennial calamity, I uploaded a message through my personal chip. I can probably do it again now. Once the Legion receives the intel, they’ll accelerate. Then infiltration won’t even be necessary—the True Spirits will strike directly.”
Adam’s eyes lit up.
“You mean… at the exact moment this cluster’s energy is exhausted?”
Sandy nodded.
“Exactly. Energy can’t vanish into nothing. Once it disappears, it must be replenished. And the source can only be the external Void. Otherwise, why would the one in the Divine Realm occupy this place? Scattering his own energy only to reclaim it later—that would be absurd.
Which means, first we must seize all five Mortal Primal Worlds. They may be weak, but they’re the closest connected to the Aetheric Void. They’re the entry points and the first filters of energy. I’ve already become Realm Lord of World One. Looks like I should allow them to ascend to the Martial Realm.”
Adam agreed.
“That’s what I thought as well. Once your World One is stabilized, come help me. The faster we move, the better. Once World Five is secured, we’ll go assist the other three.”
———
“Hmph, I’ve no objections. That panda—even if he was a Martial Saint before, in the Mortal Realm’s thin Vital Energy, he can’t be much stronger than us. He hasn’t even bothered to hide his trail, striding in a straight line. We’ll wait for him in Central City—and give him a lesson he’ll never forget.”