Time Twister

In this time period, he had planted 3 more Trees of Life, having a total of 5 Trees of Life in Eden, all equally distributed all over the place. He was able to harvest all five trees after the 3rd week. The population had also blossomed to 500 million, with roughly 5 million or 1% of the population were at the DemiG.o.d rank. His contracted sprites and magic beast were now DemiG.o.d-4 beings, their ages around 4 million years.

However, due to the population boom, he had to take advantage of [Mirror Image] and [Simultaneous Projection], creating 5 of him, spread out in each Tree of Life. They still followed the previously revised rules, allowing almost all of them to get a chance to sit down, talk to him, and explain their experiences and problems, as well as thoughts, ideas, and imaginations.

Xander had been on the fence on how to solve the issue of internet connection in the realm. He wanted them to be interconnected, and the current model of interconnectedness was through the libraries" in-built functions. However, it"s not really enough for everyone.

He had explained his plan to the first and second generation sprites and magic beasts, who began to realize this idea of his. Instead of using technology, it was pure magic and elemental manipulation. They created receptors that accept transmissions from Air subseries, with each receptor having a unique elemental signature, allowing people to contact a specific receptor that the owner, a magic beast or sprite, would answer. Some took it a step further and used their plant bodies to be the receptor, allowing them to directly receive messages and respond back as well.

They basically made their own version of a communicator with a unique caller ID. Xander was quite happy with this development. What surprised him was that in these three weeks, their creation of two cities in Eden was progressing smoothly. The first city, Snowflake, was near its completion, roughly 80%. The main reason it took so long to complete the city was due to the fact that they had to upgrade the metals they used with the new ones Xander had gotten from the other super empires.

In fact, the aquatic magic beasts and water-based sprites also asked if they could build a city of their own underwater. Xander wholeheartedly agreed, even modifying the Tree of Life to survive and thrive underwater. It was the only tree-type plant that was growing deep underwater, its leaves still the same as the others.

After harvesting, he headed to the laboratory, where he saw the development of the Trees of Creation and Destruction. He hasn"t planted the Tree of Chaos for now, because he had nothing to counteract its effects.

The mysterious seed, however, was planted in a small section in the laboratory, creating a hazy area. According to the numerous experiments and tests he did in the past 3 weeks, the area where the tree was able to influence was transformed into a pseudo-dream dimension. If someone would enter that place and decided to take a nap for 30 minutes, if they exited, they would realize that a random period of time had already pa.s.sed, from 0 seconds to an indeterminable amount of time. Another effect was that he could also control the tree to force anyone who enters to fall asleep, never to wake up. He planted another 3 seeds of the same type in the area.

The 6 trees of creation on the other hand, finally began showing signs of fruit development after 3.6 million years. However, based on the situation, it would take another 3 weeks outside for them to fully form. The leaves and flowers it had were still vibrant and full of potential and life, while the trees of destruction in the middle of the hexagram structure had produced hundreds of leaves, all of which had different levels of damage, age, and decay. The time and s.p.a.ce were also getting harder and harder to stabilize, causing him to reinforce the area with the help of the trees of creation. The two trees have not produced any fruits or flowers whatsoever.

He also used the time for the past 3 weeks to read and experiment with all the journal papers, researches, and projects abandoned and currently-ongoing in the Galactic Empire. He had stored the data from his results with the help of the reactivated System. For the past 3 weeks, he meditated in the area where creation and destruction were mixed, yet he only gained 1% for Order and Chaos comprehension.

He had meditated also in the mysterious tree he decided to name as the tree of Dreams and gained 2% comprehension of Life-death elements. Although the increases were quite small, his elemental resistance for these elements had also increased. For example, his body was now resistant to pseudo-spells made from Divine-rank spells, and he had partial immunity, roughly 50%, of Advance-rank spells cast by others, and 25% for Legendary-rank spells. He didn"t have any immunity against spells above Legendary, so he still had to rely on [Absolute Defense] to handle them.

However, it wasn"t all just laboratory and Eden that Xander focused his attention on in the past 3 weeks. Using this time frame, he had managed to force the military guards of his to sign his non-disclosure binding contract and boosted their cultivation level by 2. All of them were now DemiG.o.ds but bound to Xander"s rules and orders. They can only report to the government what he wants them to know.

For the past 3 weeks, every weekend, all of them, including his earlier retinue of guards, would gang up against Xander, casting different spells and forms of attacks, attempting to catch him off guard or killing him. That was his precise instruction; if they don"t fight for their lives, their loved ones" lives will be forfeited. Although it seemed evil, he had no intention of doing it, but fear and regret is one"s greatest motivator; why not exploit it? Xander continued to improve his skill use and techniques he could use to disrupt or disable enemies at the DemiG.o.d cla.s.s.

He also took this time to explore the different empires in the universe. There were so many budding civilizations, universal and galactic empires existing all over the universe, some at war, some were in peace.

Some of the notable empires he discovered were the Cerulean, Nemean, and Helennic empires, and each one was roughly the same size, around 50/1.26e+30 of the universe each. They were distanced quite far from one another, and they traded through different channels, as well as a culture shock for him. Can you believe that people can easily sleep with the emperor if he fancies you? If that happened here in Eteria, there would probably be a scandal in the works. Concerning trade, Xander was sad to discover the value of the Galaxy coins was quite low when compared to Universal note. One roughly needed 100,000 Galaxy coins for 1 Universal note, the latter was used by the larger empires than the Galactic Empire.

Another great development was that all of his friends, with the exception of Maryann, had reached Master-1 cultivation already just before the week of midterms. Then again, he had been teaching them on the sidelines whenever he eats food for lunch, and they join him. Faykes had the strongest development; he had already reached Master-5 from Master-3, gaining inspiration from different elements and spells he had access to from his family. He already had a Transcendental Foundation as well, as he had finished digesting all the Cla.s.s 8 fruits he exchange for.

It was Valerie that he had one of the greatest expectations. He had told her to choose for her final spell as an Elite-9 the spell [Light Orb]. It was out of his expectations that she was willing to change her other spells when I appeared to offer her the skills. In the end, she got 2 light pseudo-spells. According to her, she was going to visit the ruins he mentioned once the semester ends. She hopes that she finds the enlightenment Xander had told her she would find.

Alexa and Carly were the dark horses amongst his friends. The foundational spell they used to breakthrough encapsulated perfectly the primary elements they had, making them a bit stronger compared to the others. Valerie could only suppress them using her foundational spell [Darkness Overture] by elemental suppression.

James" development was quite expected, getting more proficient in using his luck-based skills and had focused on meditating on these spells, hoping to get inspiration, and he managed to make his foundational master rank spell, [Lucky Stone], allowing him to imbue and acc.u.mulate luck in the physical matter; however, they don"t last long. From a fighting perspective, the foundational spell seemed quite useless, but from an economical perspective… this would be another avenue for business. His current business was also smooth sailing, with no issues whatsoever even with the death of the majority of his clansmen.

It was after the midterms that the problem Xander had started. The representatives called by the current heads of the clans, ancient families, and conglomerates, all of which were Sage ranked cultivators, were arriving one by one.

How did Xander know this? He saw them come down as streaks of light from the sky, heading to different places and locations in Eteria. Since Sat.u.r.day last week, and continued on early Monday morning.

When he saw the hacked surveillance systems of the governments, clans, families, and conglomerates, he saw the figures of these people talking to the relevant heads of their respective groups.

He had a headache incoming. Not only did he ensure that he had "nothing" to do with the situation, but he also had to completely remove the memories of Faykes and his previous guards of him telling them that he caused the situation in the first place.

Ah, it"s so tiring to be weak, all the things you do are easily scrutinized by those stronger than you.________________________All over Eteria, the phenomenon of falling stars that didn"t seem to follow rhyme or reason made waves on the internet, before being quieted down. Only those high up in their organizations and groups knew what they represented.

Their ancestors were coming back from the starry skies, to investigate the situation that had caused ma.s.s panic in hysteria for everyone in Eteria.

They weren"t here for a leisure visit, but for business. They wanted to get this over with so they could go back to their respective universal empires they resided in. Most universal empires were roughly the size of 7.88e+29 light-years in size.

Some were exceptions, such as the Cerulean, Nemean, and Helennic Empires were bigger than this, roughly 3.91e+31 light-years in size.

How do people get from one planet to another within their respective empires? There are 2 ways: s.p.a.cecraft, or Transporter.

s.p.a.cecraft would usually indicate those that can travel in superluminal speeds, aided by runic writings and magic matrices related to the s.p.a.ce element. The idea that time will be warped when traveling at superluminal speeds is not unfounded, but the effect is nullified with the help of the runic writings and magic matrices related to s.p.a.ce and Time element.

A Transporter, on the other hand, is quite different from s.p.a.cecraft, as it can only travel to another fellow transporter, and it cannot transport bulk products.

It is literally the size of the double doors one would see in palaces, the standard size being 5 meters in height and in width. Most empires got the technology of making these Transporters when they eradicated the Zergs in the universe.

However, just because they knew how to make it and set its basic settings, doesn"t mean they understood the concepts behind it. They only got the blueprints and basic functions working, but they don"t know how to utilize the transporters to their full capacity. Even the other s.p.a.ce-time magicians were quite helpless. The empires do believe that s.p.a.ce elements are involved in the process, however, and is currently a field of research for these empires. It was a race of some sort; if they could realize the full potential of the Transporter, they could easily dominate the other empires.

This allowed people below G.o.d cla.s.s to move freely within the empire, usually charging a very, very small amount of money to use every time. It only becomes expensive when one uses them to head from one empire to another.

Usually, an Empire would have a transporter to another Empire heavily guarded, as well as numerous checks and doc.u.mentation required before being able to enter the other empire"s domain. It"s basically immigration in airports but the extreme version of immigration.

Because of the stringent checks and security, one also has to pay heftily to use them. However, the good news is that once they pay, the usage of the other transporters within the empire is charged at a very, very low rate. One of the cheapest transporters to use was the Galactic Empire"s, due to them sticking with their currency and not using Universal notes.

However, for those that traveled from outside of the Galactic Empire to head over to Eteria… their expenses must be quite high and their travel time quite boring. There must have been hundreds, if not tens of thousands of transporters they had to use to reach the last planet in the border of the Galactic Empire, Arder Planet, then moved by themselves to reach Eteria.

In the international underground meeting room, the sage rank cultivators were there in person, representing their groups and organizations. The previous speaker of the meeting, Ms. Carmen Brightcroft, of the Brightcroft clan, was standing respectfully on the open ground stage. Beside her is one of the female ancestors of the clan, Maria Brightcroft.

Maria is considered average amongst the sage cultivators that came to Eteria today, with the cultivation of Sage-4. Ms. Carmen is one of the promising elders of the Brightcroft clan, reaching Divine-9 in less than 5,000 years of age. It"s expected she would reach Sage-1 within the next 5,000 years. That was the only reason she was even in this meeting.

Maria began to speak, causing the crowd of Sage cultivators to slowly calm down and be silent.

"Greetings, fellow Sage cultivators. As you all know, roughly 4 weeks ago, a situation had occurred on the planet. Everyone, regardless of age, gender, cultivation level, and type of being experienced true death, yet the next moment, everything was back to normal, like there was no problem whatsoever."

"However, the precise clock system that was used to match the Universe"s time, or UTP, showed that there was an increased deviation after that situation, from 0.0001 seconds to a delay of 0.09 seconds."

"Another matter to prove this occurred was that the seal placed in the planet has been destroyed; meaning, people can now breakthrough to Divine rank without leaving the planet. Remember that the old grandpa told us that the spell was structured in such a way it uses the foundations of the planet to work. The only reason to explain its disappearance is that for a brief moment, the planet along with its inhabitants, disappeared, allowing the seal to disappear. When it was returned, the spell was not able to be replicated back."

"Lastly, you all should know about that person…yes, that person who can steal your comprehensions and take them for his own." She clarified to the other sage cultivators, causing their faces to twist in anger and annoyance, and some having a bit of fear.

"All the parasites he placed inside cultivators to control them have all died when the event happened, allowing those who were under him to break free, including my great-granddaughter Carmen and several other Divine cultivators, and even a sage rank cultivator whose current location is unknown." It was the audience"s time to gasp. They knew how strong and resilient those parasites were.

Not only did they exist in the corporeal body, but they are also latched into one"s individual elemental essence stones which contains the life essence doll segments. To destroy the parasite is to destroy your cultivation and life, basically, causing a headache for those sage cultivators who can detect the abnormality but aren"t able to do anything about it.

Immediately, the reaction amongst the sage cultivators was quick.

"So, should we still investigate? After all, it didn"t do any lasting harm. It even solved the problems we had been facing for a long time!"

"I think we should still investigate. I mean, if we can replicate the method used, then won"t we have another method of defense against the parasites?"

"Puh-lease, Jakovich, you just want to know the method because you think it"s quite strong, isn"t it?"

"N-no, not really, I just wanted to ensure that even without the being that caused this we would be able to d-defend our d-d-descendants!"

"Anyways, I think we should investigate still, and capture the being if possible. He or she has too much power to exist in Eteria, and is a threat to our foundations."

"I agree. Maybe the next time this happens, the whole planet would be gone. What can we do when that happens? Nothing. Better cut it at its roots before it grows to a deadly disease."

"I agree with Harvers" point as well. A controlled threat is much better than a hidden existence."

They continued their discussions, attempting to raise their points over the other by raising their voices, acting like children. Even Maria was helpless because some of them were Sage-5 and above. After nearly around an hour, nothing had still been resolved, which caused Maria to strengthen her resolve.

"Everyone, please calm down." She immediately utilized her 7 emotions subseries, given that she had Emotion as the primary element as well as the Wisdom element. The effect took long to activate, roughly 2 to 4 minutes when the shouts slowly subsided before the sage cultivators realized something was wrong.

"Maria, why are you using your powers on us? How dare you!"

���Fawke, don"t test me. Please remember what we are here for, to investigate the situation. How to do it, who will be doing it, and who would be those in the supporting lines; these are the three things today that must be accomplished." Before Fawke and the other sages could speak, Maria continued, her voice cold and callous.

"Your arguments are all about whether investigating or not. That is not the point. We are going to investigate. The results of the investigation can be debated or talked about later on, once we already have the suspect/s at hand or the necessary information concerning the being."

"So, can you guys stop comparing whose d*ck is larger and already decide the members of the investigatory team, and where to begin the investigation?" Maria said, her voice dropping a few degrees. The other women in the audience secretly raised their thumbs as support to Maria. They really did feel that the men were wasting time in the debates, going around and around in topics not even to be discussed for now.

"Hmph, fine. An investigatory team should have at least 4 types of people: The a.n.a.lytical ones, the muscle, the information gatherers, and the interrogators." Fawke responded to Maria, obviously a bit miffed that she dared to speak like that to him. After all, he was a Sage-5 cultivator.

They began to list possible members and crossed out the people that were not suited for the 4 types. After another two hours, they finalized the team of 8 sage cultivators.

Maria Brightcroft, information gatherer #1.Margus Morningstar, information gatherer #2.Calissa Heavenwood, a.n.a.lyst #1.Hailey Cloverfield, a.n.a.lyst #2.Harvers Nottingham, the muscle #1.Brutus Velles, the muscle #2.Parker Mistwood, interrogator #1.Wuhshan Corde, interrogator #2.

After everyone agreed on the list, the approach for the investigation had been decided as well: Brute approach. Maria with the help of Margus will place the people in the selected countries under a dream illusion, forcing them to repeat the situation of that very day from their memories. They decided to begin their search in the top countries, for now, starting with Nema, then Castille, then Eta, and finally, Nerzon.

If there are no results whatsoever, they would go to Yggdras as well, even if their queen said that the Heavenly Tree Sprite didn"t detect anything from their lands, how would they be sure when they all died immediately?

If nothing was still discovered, they would use the spell matrix [Haze of Dreams], the stronger model of the spell array [Dreamscape], to envelop the entire planet, forcing everyone in a dream-like state, allowing people to show their expressions and situations of that day, before heading to the interrogation of every suspicious person.

Other sage cultivators will be in the proximity of the planet, guarding the s.p.a.ce just in case the being attempts to escape the planet. They will then apprehend and restrain the target, effectively releasing their powers to attract the others to the location.

After everyone had no qualms or issues, the investigation team immediately began their process of elimination, alerting no one to ensure that the target would not be alerted.

Sadly, for the whole duration of the whole discussion and argument, there was a pair of silent eyes watching the whole place from another end of the planet, calmly observing and identifying these sages. It was Xander.

No one could discover him or feel fluctuations of magic and elemental energy/particles coming from his location because he was merely taking advantage of the spatial structure to "see" around it.

With an improvement in his abilities, he could not only see but hear as well. Soon, he would probably be able to taste, touch, and even smell the area if he continued to improve on his s.p.a.ce-time comprehension.