Time Twister

The first one is elimination. Rather than deal with variables in his proposed long-term plan, he decided to remove them from the very start. He would not only utilize the system to track and identify the writer of the research paper, but also collaborate with the Eta government in "finding" the target. Of course, while collaborating, I would give out cues to indicate that this person should be eliminated as it posts a high risk. The only problem with this plan is that I am not sure whether this target is stronger than me, or roughly within the limits of my current power, which is anyone under Legendary. Maybe this other transmigrator has reached Mythic or even DemiG.o.d cla.s.s strength, or even higher!

Another problem is that Xander would step into the world stage too early as Xander Cloverfield, making him the target of several individuals and countries. Goodness, he wasn"t even past 10 years of age, and he"s being monitored by his own government as a national a.s.set. The only reason he hasn"t been taken by the government was because of his parents" influence, and my unwillingness to get in that mess of cesspool known as politics and military.

Xander thought more of it: If I "accept" to be a "patriot" of the government, I would lose a lot of my freedom for the sake of eliminating a target that may or may not be successful, because the government may not kill the target. Also, I might be wrong about my initial hypothesis that this was done by a fellow transmigrator, making me waste my time and freedom.

The second option is a.s.similation. If he finds out the ident.i.ty of the person who made the paper, Xander would be able to set-up a meeting to increase their ties with one another, creating more karmic threads to one another. Once it reaches to a certain point, he could then use the karmic threads to do survelliance towards the target, and slowly guide his or her actions towards Xander"s benefit. The risk here is if the person is actually above the DemiG.o.d cla.s.s, he would be able to detect the artificial movements of his own fate, even if one isn"t that well versed in the Life-Death System. Moreso, if the person is well-versed in the Life-Death system; even at Mythic cla.s.s, he or she would feel the artificial pullings of karmic threads, allowing him or her to trace it back to Xander.

The third option is no response at all. Xander could just act like someone in his age in college, not noticing any attempts for him to take a bite towards the ident.i.ty of the person. Even if the meat was tantalizing and was being dangled in front of him, he would just act as anyone who doesn"t have a stake at this: Confused and nonplussed. After all, there was a hidden danger to the paper that was just posted: It was possible that he was already being monitored by that person, thinking that he was a transmigrator but still unsure.

In the end, although the 2nd option was tantalizing, he decided to go for the third option. Not only can he go under the radar undetected, but he could also use this opportunity if there is more than 1 of them present in this planet.

After all, who knows what being others transmigrated into. It could be a newborn s.p.a.ce beast, or even another civilization in a far, far away galaxy from Eteria.

He shook his head; he realized that even if he had nearly G.o.d-like powers in this universe, at the moment, he is nothing but a defenseless chick. What he could do for now is become stronger and deepen his understanding of the s.p.a.ce and Time elements.

Right now, he had actually progressed to 2% total comprehension for the 2 elements yesterday. His [Absolute Time (sealed, 2% unlocked)] had also changed. At the same time, another spell appeared in the G.o.d Spell slot, named [Absolute s.p.a.ce (sealed)]. There was no information about the spell, however, putting Xander in a bit of a loss.

For the past day, he had been experimenting and researching about his increase in abilities, which seemed to just appear in his mind.

At 2% comprehension of s.p.a.ce, beside the fact his travel distance at any time increased from 100,000 kilometers to a staggering 1.0x10^16, or 10 quadrillion kilometers, or 1057.02 light years at any given direction, he could also literally scan the whole area in less than a second and transfer to a selected point in that s.p.a.ce with no spatial, elemental fluctuations whatsoever.

According to his initial scan yesterday, there were around 1000 exoplanets, planets capable of holding life, present in the area, with the closest one being 10 light years away. He also saw that several of these planets had their own civilizations and different species, some being in the oil era, one even being in the energy era! However, they haven"t developed s.p.a.ceships capable of surviving the harsh s.p.a.ce, with s.p.a.ce beasts out and about, as well as other beings.

Another cool thing was that it was easier for him to break stable s.p.a.ces. Although before, it took him around 10-30 minutes to break a very stable s.p.a.ce, he could break one in less than 10 seconds, and even break multiple layers of s.p.a.ce in less than a minute. Even if he meet someone who is able to use s.p.a.ce-time elements, and attempted to lock the s.p.a.ce around Xander, as long as their comprehension of s.p.a.ce-time is lower than his, he could easily break out.

At 2% comprehension of time, besides from the time range he could forsee into the past and future increasing by tenfold (from 10,000 to 100,000 years), he could already create time clones, with their main purpose being simple: Stop him from dying. Yes. Xander has reached the state of immortality and eternal youth. Does that mean he will be forever a 7-year old body? Not exactly.

From this point onwards, he could use the multiple versions of him existing in the past, present, and future, affected by factors such as the type of magic he controls, the upbringing, etc. to change his overall body appearance, structure, and function.

He could already just take a peek in the future 3000 years from now where he got the futuristic augmentations without physically transporting himself to the future. So he could, if he wasn"t willing, not go to the future anymore. He could even look further, but the problem was the further down it is, the shorter the view becomes. The most optimal time now was 30,000 years into the future, where it is long enough to survey the situation and gleam information from it. There wasn"t any problem viewing the past up to 100,000 years ago, as they have set into stone and had been recorded for his current timeline.

Also, another set of effect happened, benefitting Xander. With his combined comprehension at 2% of the s.p.a.ce-Time elements, besides making his time acceleration/reversal more stable, s.p.a.ce-based spells more powerful and destabilizing, and partially fusing s.p.a.ce-time (2%) in an area, creating a budding ordered system, both time and s.p.a.ce would rewind whenever he received a critical wound, reversing all damage he had.

The area of time and s.p.a.ce reversal was based on half his maximum spatial movement distance, which is within 528.5 light years. The reversal is automatic, and it affects everyone"s memory, returning to the point where he didn"t suffer a critical wound. At the same time, all dimensions within the area are affected. He wasn"t sure, however, if those beings in the Divine cla.s.s or higher would be affected, or would they only feel a sense of dejvu? Maybe, they could even be exempted from it?

However, on the issue that even memory is reversed, Xander had a troubling thought: What if the damage wasn"t just a physical damage to the present, but also to the past and future? Combining Fate elements into a magic attack, how would he resolve the issue if he received such an attack? At the same time, what if he gets stuck in the situation of fighting an enemy he cannot currently defeat? How should he retreat?

After 10 years of testing, he finally got some results. One way to ensure that Fate-type magic attacks that are combined to magic/physical damage would be reversed or nullified is to separate his life essence doll from the dimension it is in, the weird dimension that Xander named as Dimension-LEO, or Life essence ocean. How is this done? Basically, with the [Absolute Defense], his life essence doll would be in a different dimension than the attack, nullifying any forms of damage, and the dimension is randomized.

A small problem with this modified spell is that karmic threads are able to surpa.s.s dimensional differences, albeit they become weaker.

What he did to solve this is to continuously move his life essence doll through multiple, random dimensions in the span of nanoseconds, 24 hours, 365 days nonstop. As it travels, the doll itself is enclosed in 3 different, randomized dimensions, so it"s like a chocolate enclosed with paper and pa.s.sing through random layers of stacked color paper in a loop; everytime it pa.s.ses through a layer of paper, the paper enclosing the chocolate changes its color, shape and size.

Of course, the life-essence never really changed dimensions; it was still in Dimension-LEO, but is layered by multiple random dimensions, and the spatial position of the life-essence as well shifts to another dimension but still the same position withint the span of nanoseconds. The time difference is small enough that there is no time for his life essence doll to begin unraveling or become damaged from the other dimensions.

What this does is continuously weaken the karmic aspect of the magic attack until it becomes non-existent or loses the energy that supports it, before s.p.a.ce-Time resets his body at the moment before the attack even happened.

Another surprise appeared for him, however, when he checked his status in the system: The rank of [Absolute Defense] changed from Divine to Sage, and an suffix had been added on the name.

[Absolute Defense (2/3 aspects completed, evolving)]: This forms a multi-dimensional folded s.p.a.ce barrier surrounding the caster. Not only is the physical body affected by this spell, but also the life essence doll of the caster, ensuring a roundabout protection from all attacks.

Although he was curious what the last aspect needed to complete the evolution of the spell, he put it at the back of his mind since he was quite bored with this s.p.a.ce already. After all, 20 years have pa.s.sed and he was feeling quite bored, and other thoughts appeared in his mind as well, such as the situation he saw earlier this morning.

When Xander tried to look 30,000 years into the future of Eteria this morning before school, however, all he could see was a barren wasteland field with sc.r.a.p metal and pieces of junk were seen. There were a few animals and insects here and there, but no living humans, elves, or dwarves; As he looked around, he saw a gruesome sight of where the Heavenly Tree was once was. Only charred remains of wood halfway into charcoal, with the trunk, the branches and the leaves, gone. In the far distance in s.p.a.ce, a s.p.a.ce ship could be seen, seemingly preparing a gigantic magic array.

The instant it was cast, the land, the ocean, the remains of civilization rapidly melted and disintegrated, and the planet was no more. There was just a floating crystal from where the planet"s core used to be, which the s.p.a.ce ship targeted immediately. His vision of this future disappeared, which alarmed Xander greatly.

In 30,000 years, this planet is done for. He attempted to see the future of one of the planets within 1057 light years distance.

He randomly selected several exoplanets from the 1000 that he discovered, all of them having the same scenario as Eteria: Barren, with traces that proved human or intelligent life existed there, with the presence of a s.p.a.ceship preparing to fire a magic array. He continued scanning frantically all 1000 planets, and on the 587th planet, he finally encountered intelligent beings that were human-like.

There were hundreds of cities, citadels, on the surface of the planet, with at least half of them turning into shambles. The remaining cities were discovered to be filled with people seemingly fighting against another group of beings, and based on their attire, seemingly the invaders of this planet. There was no s.p.a.ceship, however, present on the s.p.a.ce near the planet, meaning this was two-p.r.o.nged process for the invaders.

First, kill all sentient beings in the planet, basically anyone and anything capable of/with the potential of using magic, which includes, animals, intelligent beings, plants, and sprites and other supernatural beings. Second, harvest the core of the planet produced after casting the magic array. Maybe the killing of the sentient beings is important to ensure the purity of the core, Xander thought.

Xander sped up his search; besides the 587th planet, he headed to the planet that he saw was in the energy era 30,000 years ago. It was intact, with gigantic machinery embued with runic writings covering the whole surface of the planet. Outside, there were a fleet of s.p.a.ceships continuously firing a combination of magic arrays and technological weapons. He saw a large ship in the middle of the fleet fire a ball of light, and upon touching the machinery covering the planet, it exploded, covering the whole planet, before rapidly imploding, and then disappearing without a trace, and the planet before only had a gaping darkness in its place, where no element existed...after a few minutes though, it seemed like the s.p.a.ce around it was contracting, and some of the s.p.a.ceships nearby were pulled into the area, hitting each other and exploding. The order, chaos elements appeared, before s.p.a.ce and time, yin and yang, and life and death elements appeared in the area, evenly spread like the rest of the starry sky.

The remaining fleet disappeared, and in front of Xander was the calm, dark s.p.a.ce. He was surprised, and a bit aghast. He recognized it from his previous life: an antimatter bomb. But this bomb seemed to be... different. Even if he was viewing the future, he could sense the fluctuations of the bomb. It seemed to...eradicate everything in the area into nothingness. Xander paled and stopped the vision.

Returning to the present, he looked worried. This was control over the void element!!

Although it wasn"t a complete comprehension of the void element, it still managed managed to damage the ordered system of the universe, momentarily creating a hole into the wide, wild void s.p.a.ce.

Although it was repaired in a matter of seconds, if a wandering void beast entered the s.p.a.ce...it could even spell disaster for the whole ordered system. Xander felt helpless, before shaking his head amd returning to the matter at hand. After all, it was too far from his current state; he couldn"t do anything right now. He left his laboratory and headed to school as usual.

Returning to the present, Xander began cleaning up his room; after finishing his clean-up of the room, he removed the time acceleration and s.p.a.ce barrier; it had been 5 minutes in the outside world, even if 50 years pa.s.sed in that s.p.a.ce, with the time acceleration being 1 second: 61 days. Although he could have done a time dilation of 1 second:10 years since his comprehension improved, it wouldn"t last long in the real world; roughly, 60 seconds before it collapses as the river of time attempts to repair the s.p.a.ce. After all, when he made the advanced magic spells, he only changed the time difference to 1 second:1 year, allowing it to last as long as 12 hours, roughly giving him 43,200 years. He was in that s.p.a.ce for a total of 6 hours, or 21,600 years.

The one he did on the garden was easier to maintain for a longer period of time; he only needed to reinforce the s.p.a.ce-time elements once a year. Although, with his improved abilities, he reinforced the current time of the garden to 1 second: 50 days, meaning one day outside would be 11,835 years inside the garden, and he only needs to reinforce once every month. Theoretically, with his current comprehension, if he made the time difference be 1 second: 60 seconds, he could maintain the whole thing for at least half the lifespan of a universe.

He opened his room"s door and headed downstairs; as he was walking, he was lamenting the fact that he couldn"t openly teleport to anywhere he wanted, since he could only teleport in places where he had a clear memory/understanding of. He could, however, walk and run large distances, since he could just fold s.p.a.ce in front of him.

He quickly reached the dining room where he saw Faykes seated, with the twins standing respectfully in one corner of the room. He nodded at the two, and the twins immediately moved towards the kitchen to bring out the food.

He then headed to the table and sat down. Upon seeing him, Faykes looked at him, his eyes filled with curiosity, and looking closely, a hint of regret.

The two guys were quiet, even when the twins had already placed the food on the table. Xander began putting food on his plate, and seeing this, Faykes followed suit quietly.

After a few minutes of chewing and eating, Xander spoke up, breaking the silence.

"Do you still want to see me practice?" Xander asked Faykes while chewing a hard piece of beef in his mouth.

Faykes was visibly surprised, but quickly calmed down and nodded his head at Xander"s question. In truth, Faykes was gritting his teeth in frustration.

Might as well see how you practice in the villa, Faykes told himself.

Xander merely nodded and continued to eat. After a while, Faykes couldn"t bear the silence as he was a talkative person to begin with, and started to discuss economic and political issues currently occurring.

"Hey, Xander, you have seen the news right? About the escalating tensions between Eta and Nema? What do you think about the issue?" Faykes asked Xander while chewing the sauteed vegetables he got from the food in front of him.

Xander paused a bit, before shaking his head.

"The tensions will continue; however, for the near future, there won"t be any catalysmic results, so no need to bother. Just practice becoming a stronger magician." Xander murmured, nonchalant about the issue.

Faykes eyed Xander questioningly, wondering how he could make such an absolute statement concerning the situation. Could it be? He has insider information? As Faykes let his thoughts run wild, he looked like he was in a daze.

It was then Xander finished his meal. Upon standing up, the beffudled Faykes snapped out of stupor and finished the remaining bits of food on his plate and stood as well.

Xander snapped loudly, and immediately, Esta and Rosa appeared in the dining room, and began clearing the table.

Xander headed out of the dining room, with Faykes following behind.

After a bit of walking, both of them were already on the other side of the villa, where there was a small open field.

Of course, this field has been reinforced, making it nearly impossible to dent or even scratch the ground more than 5 centimeters.

Upon reaching the center, Xander turned to look at Faykes.

"Faykes, head to the edge of the field, near the villa." After that, he turned the s.p.a.ce beside the two of them and spoke.

"Joseph, call Bryan and Ryan here." Immediately, a man appeared out of thin air, surprising Faykes who was retreating to the entrance of the villa. He had not noticed anything wrong around him while he was walking with Xander, nor were there any magical fluctuations!

Joseph immediately bowed and called the 2 people mentioned by Xander. In less than a minute, two more figures appeared beside Joseph, further adding to the confusion Faykes had in his mind. Athough he recognized them as the bodyguards protecting Xander, he did not feel any magical fluctuations at all, unlike Rosa and Esta.

Xander eyed the three of them and said coolly, "Let"s begin."