The Era of Gods

Chapter 666: Chapter 666: Talent – Time Cycle

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Nearly a month had passed since Lin Xiao refined Neola and secluded himself in the original world. He discovered that, although his Soul’s True Spirit had always been in contact with the Power of Time, it hadn’t fused with, or even been tainted by, the Power of Time.

The Power of Time roamed back and forth within the prison formed by his soul’s shell, occasionally passing through his soul without leaving a trace, as if it were a mere illusion, nonexistent.

Lin Xiao stroked his chin, thinking hard for a long time. No matter what method he used, he couldn’t touch or merge with it.

It was as if it didn’t exist in this world, an intangible projection; he couldn’t sense its presence at all, let alone refine it, and his progress stalled for the moment.

After trying in vain for a long time, Lin Xiao simply gave up on merging with this strand of Time’s power for now. Since it couldn’t escape his sea of consciousness anyway, he decided to focus on the rest of his True Body advancing to Rank 7.

Fortunately, the fusion of the True Body went quite smoothly, having already been half completed before; it was a simple matter of persistence and effort.

As bit by bit of strength from his original True Body, along with the essence of his True Spirit, was extracted from the True Spirit, Lin Xiao felt as if he were merging with himself.

Though that was indeed the reality, the strength of his original True Body was compressed within his True Spirit, and his current body was reborn from it, sharing the same origin. In layman’s terms, he was in the process of restoring his original power.

In the timeless pursuit of training, even though the majority of his original power had been extracted in the Sea King World, the remaining fraction took him fifteen years to completely draw out.

When the last bit of strength and the unique characteristics mastered by the True Body were finally drawn out, Lin Xiao’s eyes bulged, and his aura burst forth uncontrollably. The simple isolation witchcraft formation around him shattered in an instant, and his overpowering presence erupted through a hundred meters of Earth and soared into the sky.

Storm clouds gathered swiftly above the wasteland as an ominously frightening aura spread like an erupting volcano, setting off ripples in the Void. Waves upon waves undulated as the wild creatures sensing this terrifying aura fled in all directions.

The ancient battlefield in the center of the wasteland fell silent for once as the aura swept over. A second later, wills and presences from countless spatial rifts retracted and vanished, bringing an unusual stillness that the vast battlefield hadn’t experienced in thousands of years.

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After an indeterminate amount of time, a secret and dangerous will appeared above the Void. Observing briefly before vanishing in a flash, the next second, the Vault of Heaven within several kilometers began to sink as if it were being deformed by the descent of a colossal creature, heading straight for Lin Xiao’s location.

“Not so fast!”

In that instant, two powerful wills arrived. Space shook violently as a massive, twisted shock wave, like lightning, spread out. The fabric of space itself convulsed, and the whole world distorted and warped.

The clash was brief, and the colossal entity vanished upon contact. Soon after, the dangerous will retreated and disappeared.

The two new powerful wills slowly descended above the wasteland where Lin Xiao was hidden, revealing their forms. One was an elderly human holding a wooden rod, and the other, a breathtakingly beautiful woman crowned with a faintly glowing green crystal tiara, her emerald-jade hair cascading like a waterfall to her waist, dressed in a skirt fashioned from tender green leaves.

“After so many years, this world finally sees the birth of a new Witch King!” said the elderly man, looking down with a glint in his eyes and a trace of satisfaction.

The exquisite woman added, “He’s a human!”

The old man asked, “Does it make a difference? The Witch King belongs to the world; the race isn’t important.”

The beautiful woman posed another question, “There are only a few powerful enough to take this step in this world. Why have we never seen him before?”

The old man replied with an amiable smile, “You’re still young. It’s normal not to have seen many powerful beings. Or perhaps he grew up in another world. Since the World Will has approved, he must have been born in this world.”

The stunning woman looked up to the sky, where only beings of their level could see that the World Will had already descended, continuously bestowing primordial forces into this vortex.

This privilege was reserved for those strong enough who were born in this world and ascended to Rank 7 Witch King. Those from other worlds ascending in this one did not receive the same treatment.

Upon ascending to Rank 7 Witch King, one was qualified to become a World Guardian in any world. Natives born in this world were default guardians upon advancement, vested with the duty to protect their world, naturally receiving preferential treatment from the world’s source.

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Lin Xiao had already known about this setting when he was promoted to Rank 7.

It was a limitation of the rules of the Wizard World, where the world will of any world with intelligent life that had created civilizations possessed simple self-awareness. They all shared a common instinct, which was to plunder resources and rules from other worlds to strengthen themselves.

And the plundering of other worlds’ resources and rules could only be done by the strong of one’s own world. To guard against being plundered, strength was also needed, hence the creation of the so-called Guardians.

This role of Guardian was not compulsory; if you didn’t want to do it, no one could force you. But after Lin Xiao understood the information, he realized why many powerhouses were willing to become Guardians—the numerous benefits were simply too enticing.

As a Guardian, you became one of the most upper-echelon existences in the world. Then, every time your world plundered rules and origins from another world, becoming stronger, the Guardian would automatically receive certain benefits in return. How specific the benefits were depended on the amount plundered and the number of Guardians.

The more you plunder, the more you gain.

Fewer Guardians, greater the share—it was that simple.

This sort of home-ground advantage, where you could almost lie down and become stronger, was irresistible to anyone.

Moreover, becoming a Guardian didn’t restrict you to staying in your own world all the time. It was like going to work as a mortal—if someone could cover for you or you could get leave approved, you could still roam other worlds.

Of course, if during this time the world you were guarding was breached and plundered by another world, you would bear the primary responsibility, and the lost resources, rules, and origins would all have to be plundered back by you.

The division of responsibility was very clear, just like being employed.

Lin Xiao had just glanced over these contents and put them out of his mind since he still had a series of problems to solve.

Because with his promotion to Rank 7, there was an issue with his talent spell, Wind Spirit Moon Shadow, which he had enhanced six times before.

To be precise, the talent spell itself wasn’t problematic; rather, it was his spiritual power core, which, after the seventh enhancement, saw the Wind Spirit Moon Shadow witchcraft, previously solidified six times, being replaced by another innate witchcraft…

And this new innate witchcraft caught him entirely by surprise; it was named Time Cycle.

The Power of Time, plundered from Neola, combined with the previously acquired Rule of Circulation to unify as one.

The Power of Time, which had always been beyond his reach, reacted chemically with the last extracted Rule of Circulation when he drew out all the strength of his True Body. It fused automatically and, after his promotion to Rank 7 Witch King, forcefully took the place of his spiritual power core’s six times-solidified Wind Spirit Moon Shadow witchcraft.

That is to say, after ascending to Rank 7 Witch King, his talent witchcraft changed to this so-called Time Cycle.

This took him by great surprise, and… he was ecstatic.

Time Cycle, just by the name, one could understand what it meant. The fusion of the Power of Time with the Rule of Circulation, which also involved the Time Law, resulted in the Time Cycle—part of the complete Time Law. Compared to Neola’s previously held Power of Time or the Rule of Circulation, it was a step further

If before, the Power of Time or the Rule of Circulation only constituted one-tenth of the complete Time Law, their unification roughly formed about half, marking a qualitative difference.

In other words, with this fusion, he had already grasped half of the complete Time Law.

This also meant that this half of the Time Law was almost in the bag for him. Once he fully understood and mastered this half of the Time Law, he could use it as a lead to gradually attract other fragments of the Time Law scattered in the unknown voids of the Chaos Sea of Void. The more he grasped, the stronger the attraction, until he held the majority share, and then he would automatically know the location of all remaining fragments.

Next, it would just be a matter of collecting the last fragments of the Time Law, mastering this Supreme Law completely, and naturally becoming a supreme existence as the ultimate ruler of time.

Time, Space, Energy, and Matter are the four fundamental sources. The Ancient Material Godhood that Lin Xiao obtained in the CY-00801 Crystal Wall Universe is not the true Fundamental Law; strictly speaking, it’s just a small part of the true foundation of Matter. Theoretically, by using this as a base and merging with different matter-related laws, one could obtain the true Fundamental Law of Matter.

These four fundamental sources are not just the building blocks of different Crystal Wall Universes; they are also the foundations of the vast Chaos Sea. Possessing these four fundamental laws is tantamount to being a True God in this vast Chaos Universe.

And in this vast Chaos Sea, there are only these four fundamental laws. Other laws exist as well, and the God’s Laws that the gods wield correspond to their counterparts in the Chaos Sea, also known as the Chaos Rules. However, these Godhoods cannot condense origins as the four fundamental laws can.

Even if someone were incredibly capable of gathering all the laws of a certain type from within the Crystal Wall Systems in the Chaos Sea, like the Life Law Power Law, they still couldn’t do it.

The reason is simple because these Chaos Rules are actually projections of the split four fundamental sources. Just like the Eastern Taoism says, “The Dao generates the One, the One generates the Two, the Two generates the Three, and the Three generates all things,” everything in the universe is composed of the four fundamental sources. The Chaos Universe itself is the Dao, the One generated by the Dao is the four fundamental Laws, and the subsequent One generates the Two, Two generates the Three, and Three generates all things are the Chaos Laws, including the laws within the universes of the Crystal Wall Universe.