Chapter 1677: The Impossibility of Time
As early as when he sent Sha Chuan away, Nie Xuan had applied to the military for a newly acquired A-grade instrument specifically designed to detect time power. As for why he didn’t seek out instruments or items that could interfere with time power, the reason was simple: they couldn’t be found, and even if they could, no one would sell them to him.
Time power itself is one of the foundations of the game. Apart from the game companies that publicly sell such instruments and items, almost no district government or faction he could contact possessed similar instruments or items—though this could be due to excellent secrecy measures.
But compared to space-type instruments and items, which are easier to obtain information about, time-type items and instruments are extremely rare. Moreover, many items and instruments classified as time-type do not have the ability to directly interfere with time power. They are mostly ordinary items crafted from sub-class stones or primordial stones with temporal-spatial attributes, possessing some specific effect. Similarly, very few people in the game have truly begun time-based super evolution. The several super players active at E-level wormhole points are not time-type evolvers. It is said that District 011 has a super player who has begun time-based super evolution, but they are extremely mysterious, never showing themselves, leaving no trace, and making it hard to distinguish truth from falsehood.
In other words, anything that can truly affect time—whether it’s a player, an item, or an instrument—is absolutely rare. The instrument Nie Xuan held in his hand was only purchasable by military players because its function was too perfunctory.
Yet even this seemingly useless instrument was obtained by military players at a high price, gathering information from various channels, and would not be used except in special circumstances.
Of course, now was a special circumstance.
This suddenly appearing wandering space contained three super evolution powers—time, space, and spirit—making it a high-risk super evolution site. Though the risks were high, it was worth a gamble. Nie Xuan was here to pave the way. The military and the Special Defense Department had secretly sent all currently controlled super evolvers, including but not limited to space and spirit evolvers, as well as reserve evolvers, to the outside of the space, waiting for him to find a possible path to evolution for them.
But Nie Xuan’s situation was not optimistic.
He was weaker than Xu Huo in space evolution. The deeper he went into the Nine Divine Paths, the more his perceived space range was compressed. That was why he lost a teammate when subjected to spiritual interference and had to send another teammate out.
He advanced with great difficulty, but because he chose the Nine Divine Paths, he saw more time fragments containing important information in advance. Thus, he caught glimpses of the “Divine Eye” and the edges of the city-destroying event. It was this small amount of information that made him stay.
Whether it was good or bad luck, he hadn’t encountered Bao Yu’s corpse, but he was struck by a time ray first. Fortunately, the spot hit was exactly his right foot, which had previously been struck by a space ray. Of course, the right foot and left foot were no different—both his legs now showed signs of spatialization.
Nie Xuan’s evolution status was one of the highest secrets of X Country. Normally, aside from protective suits, his legs required special guards to prevent information leakage. But now, staying here, he no longer bothered to change guards, letting his feet remain exposed.
His legs were no longer part of a normal human body. After being struck by Lawrence Li’s space ray, cracks began to appear on his legs—not real flesh tearing, but transparent hard lines growing on the skin.
In reality, these hard lines were evenly distributed within the muscles and bones. At first, they seemed inherent, but as they increased, they gradually transformed from lines into sheets, once making it difficult for Nie Xuan to walk. He had to rely on items and instruments to maintain daily life. When these crystal-like things began to grow on his other leg, he even sensed the breath of death.
Fortunately, misfortune turned into blessing. After proper treatment, his legs regained normal function, but the scattered crystal sheets had connected, forming something like transparent crystal composed of diamond-shaped blocks, similar to Lawrence Li’s space ray.
Nie Xuan’s legs might still retain some human skin, but overall, they had become an enlarged version of a space ray—specifically, the exclusive dazzling version of super player Lawrence Li’s space ray.
Not to mention the pain these rough “crystal legs” had brought him, but when he was hit by the time ray, these legs saved him. At the same time, because the time ray had pierced through, small holes appeared on the insteps—holes difficult to capture with the naked eye, but they caused several diamond-shaped crystal sheets to crack, making the traces suddenly obvious.
Nie Xuan could still feel faint pain, but the time ray had no other effects. It seemed the collision of the two powers had canceled each other out. However, he couldn’t be sure this protection would cover his entire body, so he could only use the instrument to roughly survey the area, avoid places with large fluctuations on the instrument, and test the path with his feet before moving.
As he inched forward step by step, he didn’t forget to check on Xu Huo’s situation. The Special Defense Department had no feedback, and Xu Huo himself hadn’t replied, but there had been a previous instance of a space entity moving randomly, indicating he was still here.
As time passed, Nie Xuan, who had been ahead at first, gradually fell behind. Not to mention having to avoid floating space entities, even if he walked in a straight line, the process of analyzing in advance and moving step by step was far from fast. Thus, their positions slowly changed.
Xu Huo carried the “Angel’s Eyes,” released his spiritual realm, and could even make time rays materialize within his spiritual power range. Since the time rays were not dense and rarely attacked suddenly, his journey was relatively easier.
On this stretch of the Nine Divine Paths, he randomly browsed some past images but found little useful information. Most were believers and local residents “educating” later-arriving outsiders about the power of the Divine Eye and the Divine Envoy. As for what made them powerful, it was still the same three things: curing diseases, seeing through truth and falsehood, and restoring youth.
Apart from restoring youth being somewhat difficult, the other two were not hard for players. As for the so-called restoring youth, after seeing Bao Yu’s corpse, Xu Huo couldn’t confidently say it was impossible.
After the initial shock, he calmed down and slowly figured out a possibility. Making someone instantly age was essentially time accelerating forward on that person. Players also enter game zones with different time speeds, such as W37 Base City, where spending a month equals seven days in E27. Because of the game’s hard rule that players must enter an instance once a month, instances requiring long completion times clearly conflict, hence the time variation.
But this doesn’t mean returning equals restoring youth. The time that has passed on a person doesn’t change; how long one lives in an instance is how long it is. Time is just a measurement tool.
From this perspective, for E27, wouldn’t someone returning from W37 Base City suddenly be a month older? Perhaps time rays work on a similar principle.
However, restoring youth means time going backward. From any angle, this seems impossible to achieve. But if it could be done, it would likely be the ultimate pursuit of people like Dr. Wu.
(End of Chapter)