Author’s Corner: I really, really, really hate sinuses. REALLY.

So, I feel like I’ve said this before, but this has to have been the longest day in my life. This time, though, I meant it literally. In order for you to understand, let me go back to earlier, when we were just landing on this planet, which we designated as Hydra. We decided to call it that on a whim, because we were going to be building a bunch of different dungeons. When we approached Hydra, we saw that there was almost no animal life on the entire planet, and only a very few monsters. The weather was likewise stable as far as we could see, so we decided to use this as our base.

There weren’t enough clone controllers for everyone yet, so I only had myself, Celeste, Sharon, and ten druids from the ship head down to the planet. The ten druids, with Sharon’s help, would dig out the area for a dungeon. Meanwhile, Celeste and I appeared in a large plains area with tall grass as far as the eye could see. This was going to be the spot for my research lab and mana farm.

With my Earth Manipulation, I gradually constructed the building, bringing in metal beams to provide support with Celeste’s help. Once it was done, it was the size of a normal house on the outside, but inside there was a large basement which I would work in. Naturally, I didn’t have anything like paint or furniture yet, and everything was made out of either stone or metal.

For my mana seed farm, I set up six tilted platforms, surrounding a funnel. The plan was to inscribe an element gathering spell array on each one, followed by a condensing spell, so that they would be made into elemental seeds. Naturally, each of the six platforms would correspond to a different element, each being one of the seven main ones. The only element left out was lightning, because there was not a sufficient source for that here.

Once the seeds were done, they would fall onto the tilted platform and naturally roll into the funnel, to be dropped in a wide bucket below with the rest of the seeds. Using this, it would only be a matter of time until I had a large quantity of them. However, I also needed to set up my own anti-spawn barrier around my lab, in order to make sure the seeds did not become slimes.

This all didn’t really take too long, only a couple of hours to get the foundations set up. Then a couple more hours to get the spell circles designed drawn, and powered. Finally, it was time to start on what was currently my most important project, cultivating time. This was the reason I had Celeste here with me instead of helping Sharon and the others, because I needed someone to watch over me in case anything went wrong.

“We don’t know what the effects of cultivating time mana will be. It could age you, make you younger, or even freeze yourself in time entirely. If the effects are too severe, I’ll be on standby to break the formation.” This is what she said to me when we were getting ready to leave. And it made sense.

For some reason, this spell circle took a vast amount of mana to kickstart, well over my maximum capacity. But it was not because of the spell itself, but a single rune that we had changed. After all, it was essentially the same as the element gathering array we set up for the seed farm, but the element designated in this one was ‘time’. That one rune by itself took over five thousand mana to activate. If I was alone, I’d have to channel mana for quite a while to get that amount, but thankfully Celeste’s magical girl wand doubled as an external mana source. She was able to supply what I was lacking.

Now, for the part that gets long, and honestly… really boring. I’ll try to skim over it as much as I can, but there are a few important things that you should know. First, after entering the array so that I could feel the time mana gathering, nothing happened. And then it kept happening. My eyes were closed, my senses reaching out to their utmost to try to feel a trace of time mana.

“John, John open your eyes!” Celeste called out in my mind, almost frantically. When I opened them, I found that the world outside of the circle had all but frozen. Celeste’s expression was distorted, but she was not making the slightest move. But, not because she didn’t want to, more because she was incapable. Even a single tiny rock had frozen in mid-fall as it dropped from the ceiling.

“....Oh great. This was not part of the plan.” I grumbled. Apparently, this formation gathered time alright, and vastly accelerated it. I was about to reach my hand out to break the formation when Celeste stopped me.

“Don’t. If you don’t handle this right, the resistance from the wind and moving at such high speeds could tear your body apart. At this point, you have two options. You can either log out and return to your main body, and we can find another way to do this, or you can make the breakthrough to cultivate time mana. If you do that, you should be able to protect yourself by gradually returning the flow of time back to normal.”

“And… if I can’t sense time mana..? Well, I guess I can just log out in that case. What’s the current time ratio?” I asked, out of curiosity.

“Ten thousand times faster on this side. However, that number is already going up even further. I’m not sure where it will stop at.”

I didn’t very much like that answer, so I began devoting my entire attention to trying to detect any trace of the time mana that logically should be flooding this formation. However, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t feel it. I even used Celeste’s help, and accessed what she knew about time mana. But still, I could feel the slightest trace.

If not for my grove, I’d be worried about dying of starvation or dehydration in this formation, but I had a ready source of food and water inside of me. I lost track of how long it took, but thankfully Celeste didn’t. It took me one full second, or from my perspective three weeks before the time mana was dense enough that I could feel it. Even still, it was just a small sensation. But I focused on that, and began trying to attune my mana to it as I had with so many elements before. This went on for another week before I managed to finally complete a small cycle of mana. But from there it was much easier. The next cycle took a day, then twelve hours, then five hours, then one.

Eventually, I was able to slowly, but constantly cycle the mana through my body. But doing so caused time to further speed up for me. After my fifth week in this formation passed, Celeste reported that the time rate had stabilized around me. However, it stabilized at four and a half million times the normal speed.

I thought about upgrading my Limiter program, so that time didn’t pass so slowly for me, but before I do that, I would have to make sure to get Time Affinity over 5%. Right now, Celeste reported that I had gotten that affinity up to 2%, so I had a bit of hope. However, that hope lasted about another second. I lost track of how much time passed in that second. Even Celeste had tried to think of other things to distract herself.

Another second passed. I was still at 2% affinity. Another minute, still 2%. I don’t know how many months had passed inside this little bubble of time. I didn’t get to 3% until three minutes had passed on the outside. 4% didn’t come for ten minutes. By that time… I wasn’t measuring in months anymore. I thought that years, maybe even decades had passed for me. There were many times that I thought about giving up, going back to my main body and leaving this one to age into dust.

By now, though, I had another reason to stay in here. I had already gotten to the point where I was visibly aging. If I logged out now, my main body would likewise age to match this one. Even with how much I missed my friends on the outside, logging out now would only cause more problems. Besides, this was not as difficult as practicing Time Affinity. This was something I already had experience with, simply altering my own aura.

“Celeste, wake up.” I called to the AI who had gone into standby mode after the first couple minutes. “Need your help here.”

“Hmm? Alright. Ah, how long was I out? You’re looking… worse.” She said, trying to sound like it was a joke. But I knew it wasn’t. My hair had grown out far enough that I could tell it was starting to gray. My, uh… ‘biological needs’ were entirely sated by my grove, which was why I was not elbow deep in my own feces.

“Yeah… I know. Need you to help me check my aura.” I grumbled out, using a quick thought to cut my beard, which had grown down halfway to my waist, with a thin metal razor I retrieved from my grove. I then did the same thing for my hair, before using my senses on myself to try and see what had changed.

“Ah, learning how to make yourself younger? I already let the girls know what was happening with my main body. In… a few more years, they should start getting here. You’ve got a while yet.” She said, the last part coming out a bit gloomy.

“Don’t worry. Once I get this done, I’ll let you rest again. It should only take me a few more minutes.” I said, more to comfort her than myself. Though, I needed it a bit too, because I was running out of water in my grove. Unfortunately, time being sped up so much did not mean I continued absorbing the elements unceasingly, because those elements that were in this little bubble of time had already long ago been depleted.

Scanning my aura, I found that it really had changed a bit, compared to what it was when I shifted into this elven shape. Well, not really that it changed, more that it was damaged. From what I could tell, time mana held a single, sole purpose. It aged anything it touched. I wasn’t sure if time mana would allow for time travel, or reversing time, because I hadn’t reached that point yet.

But, this meant that I knew what I needed to do to ‘de-age’ myself. All that I needed was to repair the damage done by time. Since I already knew exactly what my aura looked like before stepping into this formation, it was a very easy feat of just shifting back to that form. However, if I was going to do this, might as well do it right. That way, this technique would be applicable to more than just myself.

Piece by piece, I strengthened, revitalized, and invigorated my aura. Doing this took a full hour of ‘me time’, but from an outside perspective it happened faster than the blink of an eye. I was just suddenly young again. Maybe even younger than when I stepped onto this planet.

New Spell Unlocked!Aspect of Youth - Nature Magic - ★★★★

By studying the auras of the young and the old, you have learned how to make the old young again.

This brightened my spirits slightly, and gave me the determination to resume cultivating Time Affinity. This was only further reinforced when I saw something change in the scene around me. At the top of the stone stairs that lead down to this basement, I saw a pair of smooth white legs frozen as they were descending down. When she said it’d take them a few more years, that could very well have meant that they were simply upstairs.

If I had to choose between abandoning this body so that they would watch it age to dust in front of them, or persevering so that I could welcome them back, I would easily choose the latter. Even if it took several minutes, which is a LOT longer than it sounds, I would stick with it.

A few seconds later, Yin was down the stairs, and I could see the worried expression on her face. I opened my eyes once every few hours of my time to see her progress. Though it was slow, it was still reassuring just to have her there. And as she reached the bottom of the stairs, I saw Sharon’s legs peeking out from the top as well.

A few more seconds, and she was standing next to Yin. A minute later, and I could see that they were opening their mouths to say something to Celeste. However, I had absolutely no way of telling what it was. Even Celeste herself couldn’t help, until they had finished asking some time later if I was alright.

Five minutes later, and I had to reapply my Aspect of Youth, and again another five minutes later. By now, I think I had been in this bubble for nearly a century… I was really ready to get out. How did xianxia cultivators manage to do this without going crazy!?

Thankfully, at the end of those ten minutes of being watched by Sharon and Yin, I finally managed to break through to Time Affinity 5%.

New Ability Unlocked!Time Control - Nature Magic - ★★★★★

After countless years of study, you have grasped the secrets of time. By manipulating the time mana which exists in all creation, you can alter the flow of time to your wish. As long as you know what you are doing, at least.

With that, I immediately got to work, using my newfound ability to control the time mana around myself, thinning it and forcing it out of this accursed formation that has practically kept me trapped in it all those years. With that taken care of, I saw that the girls seemingly twitch. It was such a small movement, but it made me so happy. My life has been practically a stilled image for so long.

I redoubled my efforts, turning the time mana on the formation itself, pulling as much of it as I could away from my body. I saw as my mana plummeted, but at the same time the stone floor that held the runic patterns were eroded away. The stale air I had gotten so used to breathing suddenly freshened, and I took a big gasp of it.

“John!” Yin called out, and suddenly ran over to me, seeing that I was moving at a speed they could watch. Sharon was not far behind her, and the girls were at my side in seconds. I held them close, wrapping my arms around both of them. To them, it may have been just a few minutes since we were together, but to me it had been a lifetime. So, I’ll admit, I let myself cry now that I finally had them back in my arms.