Chapter 29: Time Dilation
"The earliest historical records can be traced back to 1585 years before standard time, when the Myriad Realms System was first experimentally activated."
In response to Joshua's inquiry, the Dominant Will replied thus: "Although the war began concurrently with my official activation as the Myriad Realms Sacrificial Ground, I was experimentally activated several times prior to that. Based on the experimental data from those activations, I was voted into existence at the Radiant Union Joint Assembly, and then actual construction began."
"Although I have some data gaps, this information is still clearly stored in the database."
"I know that. The Sage must have used the Myriad Realms Sacrificial Ground several times, otherwise he couldn't have run all over the multiverse and even left traces in the Starry World."
Joshua flew to a high altitude, reaching the same height as the silver sun. He came beside the Silver Sky's Radiance, then looked down upon the Myriad Realms Sacrificial Ground. The warrior said somewhat casually: "So, for the vicinity of the Mycroft World, the Final War was indeed just over a thousand years ago."
"To be precise, it was 1255 years, plus an inestimable war duration estimated to be over twenty years."
The luster on the surface of the silver sun flickered. The Dominant Will seemed not to understand the implication of Joshua's words, so it truthfully stated the information recorded in its database: "During the war, most of my core center was destroyed by the Evil Gods, so the war's duration cannot be accurately estimated, but it definitely exceeded twenty years. After the war came an extremely chaotic 323-year period of turmoil, which you call the Lost Three Hundred Years."
"Then add the 839 years of recorded history in the Era of Falling Stars, and the 93 years of the Sanctuary War period without recorded history."
The Dominant Will of the Myriad Realms Sacrificial Ground presented Joshua with a light curtain table. On it, using a five-year-per-grid method, a long thousand-year timeline was displayed. It said flatly: "Since most of my core center was destroyed, I fell into complete stagnation. However, by relying on the elemental decay clock within my body, I could accurately calculate the elapsed time. I must say, the civilization of the Era of Falling Stars is truly resilient. In less than a thousand years, starting from scratch, they have once again reached the level of the early Radiant Era."
Joshua did not immediately reply. He raised his hand, glanced at the pocket watch that had been created in his hand at some unknown time, and then said softly: "From the moment you finished speaking, twelve seconds have passed..."
"To be precise, it's 11.38 seconds." The Myriad Realms Sacrificial Ground corrected.
Joshua smiled nonchalantly. He looked up at the void and said: "Dominant Will, you can connect to every corner of the multiverse, right? Then, you should actually be very clear about one thing: the speed of time is not the same in different reference frames and in the eyes of different observers."
This time, it was the Dominant Will's turn to fall silent. The light on the surface of the silver sun dimmed somewhat.
"You can connect to vast worlds like the Starry World, which might not even be in our World Star River, located at the far end of the multiverse. Naturally, you can also connect to worlds close to Mycroft, like Chronos World and Carlis World... But you definitely don't understand the history of these worlds, right?"
Not minding the Dominant Will's silence, Joshua shrugged. He lowered his head and continued to gaze at the Myriad Realms Sacrificial Ground, which, though showing some green, was still mostly barren: "You don't know, so I'll tell you."
"According to the Steel Serpent Carlis, and my Artificial Intelligence Girl Number 3, when Carlis World was invaded by the Plenty Evil God, converted to Mycroft World time, it was about 1270 years ago. Although there's a margin of error of over a decade, it's not large. Plus, the Winged Humans resisted for quite some time before being completely exterminated. Number 3's original body was created at the end of Carlis civilization, 1072 years ago. The discrepancies in between can be explained by certain data omissions."
"But Carlis World is the closest world to Mycroft World." Joshua emphasized the word 'closest'. "As for Grandia World, according to detailed historical records, the time of the Sage's creation of the world is about 1400 years ago. Sounds fine, right? The years are similar; a margin of error of over a hundred years is too normal for two worlds. But that's wrong."
"Grandia World is a reserve seed world nurtured by the Sage to save Mycroft World. To be precise, this time point must be after the Final War ended, after the gods failed to restore the world, after a long period of reorganization and debate, the 'final method' was determined. Its birth was definitely over a decade, maybe even decades, after the war ended. But why does the time of Grandia's creation seem to be earlier than the start of the Final War? Not just earlier, but over a hundred years earlier?"
The Myriad Realms Sacrificial Ground still did not speak. The light of the silver sun flickered continuously, brightening and dimming, as if giving a warning.
On the ground, many researchers stationed at the Myriad Realms Sacrificial Ground had already come out to observe, wanting to know why the light of the Myriad Realms Sacrificial Ground was flickering. Some of them seemed to have discovered Joshua's figure near the Silver Sky's Radiance, and immediately panicked, running into the research institute to contact the headquarters in Mycroft World.
Joshua naturally didn't care about the emotions of these ordinary researchers. Their calls to headquarters would just be nonsense like 'Lord Count Radcliffe is about to cause trouble again'. At this moment, the warrior was still analyzing, bit by bit, a series of seemingly reasonable but actually very unreasonable 'time problems'.
"I don't know much about Ilgena World, but the elves there have also developed several dynasties before establishing a new Bay Federation in the last few hundred years. No matter how you calculate it, it should be over a thousand years, right? But the Father of Nature persisted until the end of the war, only leaving when the Mycroft Continent sank. You must have observed its departure. Do you think the time you recorded is similar to the time in Ilgena World?"
Joshua's tone was calm, even surprisingly friendly. He spoke clearly: "And Chronos World is even more obvious. Over a thousand years ago, they were attacked by the Black Mist, making the world uninhabitable. According to the Ancient Dragon, 'over a thousand years ago' is probably around 1500 years ago."
"1500 years ago, let alone the Black Mist, the Blackwood Mother Body was probably still sealed as a technical concept in the core research institute of Sanctuary Civilization. The Black Mist Mother Body was released 1255 years ago in Mycroft time, after the Evil God invasion. Its attack on the Ancient Dragon was even decades or centuries later."
Having said this, the warrior paused for a long time. He watched the gray clouds drifting in the high sky of the Myriad Realms Sacrificial Ground, and then slowly said: "Apart from me, few people care about this strange problem. But due to personal interest and some recent research, I became curious about this difference."
"Dominant Will, can you tell me, why are these time errors? Why did the Black Mist, which should have appeared after the Final War, manage to track the Ancient Dragon in the World Star River two hundred years before the war began?"
"Information backtracking... Target not found! Error! Error! Error!!"
The Dominant Will suddenly erupted in a burst of information turbulence, and only after a long time did it slowly calm down.
On the ground, the researchers were in an uproar.
"What's going on? When Master Nostradamus and the others came before, they almost caused the Myriad Realms Sacrificial Ground to crash. Why is it the same with Lord Count Radcliffe this time?!"
"Didn't they warn Lord Count Radcliffe? It's best not to stimulate the Dominant Will right now! If it breaks, we can't get the Myriad Realms Sacrificial Ground running again!"
At that moment, Joshua also sensed that the communication device inside his body was working. Someone, even several people, were using this magical tool to contact him.
"Joshua! Didn't I tell you not to ask the Dominant Will questions that would crash it?! Don't you listen to reason?!" This was an exasperated message from Master Nostradamus.
"I do listen. I didn't ask those questions; I just asked some other ones." Joshua replied briefly, then ended the call. Next, he saw messages from legendary experts like Israel, Eagle, Barbarossa, Faina, and Galannod. Joshua roughly skimmed through them; they were all advising him to be careful, not to court death, not to take risks, to solve problems together, not to act arbitrarily, and so on... The communication device was ringing non-stop, very noisy and chaotic.
The kind and considerate Lord Count Radcliffe simply muted his communication device, immediately solving this troublesome problem.
Then, Joshua turned his head to look at the silver sun beside him, which was flickering on and off, and sighed: "Still haven't gotten out of the data loop error? Dominant Will, don't you understand?"
"Time is not uniform; it can dilate! I can even say that until recently, the flow of time experienced by Mycroft World and other worlds was different!
We experienced a hundred years; other worlds might have experienced over a hundred years, even a hundred and several decades! If my guess is correct, places farther away might have experienced several hundred years! Your so-called data errors are nothing more than chaos caused by your linear-time-based thinking program being unable to accept the discrepancies of these different time scales! You observed that other places have experienced over 1200 years, so you cannot reconcile that with the 1255 years you experienced yourself. That's all!"
A long silence.
Just as Joshua was wondering if he had really gone too far and confused the intelligence of the Myriad Realms Sacrificial Ground, the Dominant Will suddenly spoke in a low voice: "Communication protocol online."
"No, Joshua, I can understand."
The silver sun stopped flickering. Although somewhat dim, the core intelligence of the Myriad Realms Sacrificial Ground had stabilized: "The 'time' issues you mentioned were already proposed during the Radiant Era by deities like the 'Earth Mother Goddess' and 'Mountain God'."
"Near objects with greater mass, that is, the bodies of these deities themselves, time flow shows an imperceptible slowing phenomenon. Similarly, the Messenger God once proposed that the faster he moved, the slower relative time became."
"This is called the time dilation effect... Indeed, the Radiant Era had theories similar to relativity." Joshua nodded. He was not surprised that the other party knew this.
Compared to normal worlds without supernatural power, a supernatural world has great advantages in certain aspects. For example, when a person can directly see the entire spectrum of light, directly perceive microscopic electron clouds, and directly create time dilation phenomena with their own body, their speed in researching related disciplines is far beyond that of ordinary humans. They could discover various cutting-edge phenomena and theories even in primitive times.
Coupled with a long lifespan and computing speed comparable to supercomputers, this quality is something every scientist desperately desires.
But this power cannot be shared with ordinary people without supernatural abilities. That is also unavoidable.
"Inheritor of the Sage... you are right. The chaos in my database is indeed because the time stamps of many data points don't match... and I couldn't find the reason."
The Myriad Realms Sacrificial Ground did not seem angry about its near-crash earlier. It still spoke in a calm tone: "In fact, the star map of the multiverse has changed too much. Our World Star River has also become unfamiliar... When I first awakened, I couldn't even believe that my location was the vicinity of Mycroft World."
"Is that so? That's not surprising... After all, our World Star River was beaten up once." Regarding this, Joshua just shook his head, somewhat emotional.
But the Dominant Will seemed a bit confused.
"Beaten up?" It asked doubtfully: "Beaten up by what?"
Joshua didn't speak. He just played the model of the World Star River that the Fairy Empress had shown him earlier for the Dominant Will.
"This... this stage of basin depression..." The Dominant Will was shocked. It stared at the three-dimensional depression model of the World Star River, murmuring with emotion for the first time: "Our World Center is missing... Where? Where did this part of the depressed world go?!"
"It is us."
Regarding this, Joshua sighed deeply. He looked up at the void and said softly: "The Abyss we have come into contact with, along with Mycroft World and the surrounding worlds together, all these worlds, according to my speculation, were once the part of the world at the center of the World Star River."
"These worlds, especially Mycroft World, were struck by an unknown force directly from the central position of the World Star River to the lowest part closest to the Abyss. The depression in the World Star River is the original center where our Mycroft World was located."
Having said this, Joshua smiled enigmatically. He didn't look at the silver sun beside him, but stared at the depression in the World Star River model. The warrior said in a low voice: "Think about it. A world, pushed by a tremendous force, directly thrown from the center of the World Star River to the lowest edge of the star river... How much time change would such speed cause?"
"And our World Star River, according to the original Radiant Era records, was also located at the center of the multiverse. But now? Can we still see other World Star Rivers at the edge of our World Star River? How far are we from the true axis of the multiverse? We have passed over 1200 years, but how much time has passed for other worlds, other star rivers in the multiverse?"
Having said this, Joshua turned his head to look at the Dominant Will. His eyes flickered with silver light, making his gaze unreadable. The warrior said in a low voice: "Now I have given you the reason for the data errors. So, Dominant Will, can you tell me, among those pieces of information that became 'data errors' due to 'incorrect time flow', are there any pieces of information about worlds located at the edge of the World Star River?"
This was Joshua's true purpose.
He had long known that the recorded times regarding the Sage or the Evil Gods in the several worlds he had traversed were all off. He had also long analyzed the related reasons.
But Joshua hadn't spoken about it, because it wasn't necessary, and there were many points that needed deliberation and thought. What he had seen and heard in the Fairyland merely filled in the last missing reason.
But this time, Joshua sensed a hint of something wrong. According to Master Nostradamus, the Dominant Will had been saying 'data error' and 'target not found' from beginning to end, not 'data missing', etc. This meant the original data might exist, but couldn't be exported due to some logical issues.
Anyway, trying wouldn't cost anything, so Joshua came to try.
After a moment of silence, the Dominant Will said: "Yes."
It said: "There are indeed some erroneous data records. At the edge of the World Star River, there exist some high-authority secret worlds. But the time distortion becomes more severe the farther one gets from Mycroft World. If, with Mycroft World as the center, the time dilation phenomenon in the surrounding area is at most a few years or a decade, then at the edge of the World Star River, it has reached the point where for every year that passes in Mycroft, five to six years pass there."
"Wait, five to six times!?"
Immediately, Joshua's expression changed. But soon, his furrowed brow relaxed: "Wait, if teleportation is possible, it means the reference frame is the same. The time dilation effect should have ended long ago. Otherwise, teleportation would have failed from the start, easily getting lost in some spacetime corner who knows where."
Even so, for some reason, Joshua suddenly thought of the missing Red Dragon King and Green Dragon King from the Five-Colored Dragon Balls.
Hundreds of years ago, the two Dragon Kings had traveled deep into the multiverse but mysteriously disappeared, unreachable even by dragon secret arts... Similarly, there was his friend, the ancestor of Brandon Kaos, the legendary archmage Kabala Kaos, who sealed the Moldavia spacetime passage.
After sealing the spacetime passage, this legendary archmage also mysteriously disappeared. According to confidential information, he also went exploring in the multiverse and never returned.
In history, many legendary experts mysteriously disappeared, all due to exploring outside the world.
If this were true... then it was possible that, at the very least, four hundred years ago, Mycroft World was still in a 'different reference frame' of spacetime dilation! Anyone inside Mycroft World, as soon as they left a small distance around Mycroft World, would probably lose contact and disappear for this reason!
They had been lost in the wrong cosmic spacetime, probably having already passed one or two thousand years!
Because Joshua himself had only crossed over in the last few years, he wasn't clear about the previous problems. Regarding this, the warrior felt it was more appropriate to ask the Myriad Realms Sacrificial Ground, this absolutely neutral observer.
So he asked: "Dominant Will, according to your database, when did this strange time dilation error roughly end?"
The Dominant Will seemed to still be processing the information in its database that couldn't be read due to various time errors. After a long time, it slowly replied: "Actually, it's quite surprising. The time distortion across the multiverse returned to normal only in the last few years."
As Joshua showed a stunned expression, the Dominant Will said in a calm tone: "To be precise, according to my comparative observations, the time distortion in Mycroft World completely ended on October 15th, the end of the year 831 of the Falling Stars Era."
Having said this, it searched again, and then confirmed, repeating: "The end of the year 831 of the Falling Stars Era, October 15th, 21:15. That is the time."
This time, it was Joshua's turn to be shocked into silence. The entire sky above the Myriad Realms Sacrificial Ground fell into a long stillness.