Chapter 2563: C9-001

There are many types of Primordial Stones. Xu Huo had the "Time Origin" in his possession, along with a stone suspected to be a Primordial Stone found in the space that appeared in Zone 014, plus the Nuwa Stone... The Nuwa Stone was somewhat special; its effect on other ores wasn't immediately apparent, but it was something the King Fungus absolutely needed for long-term survival.

The Painting Woman had seen all these stones, but her favorite was still the Light Gentleman Medal. Xu Huo had considered that the Light Gentleman Medal might be crafted from some special ores, and these substances were beneficial to the Painting Woman. In the game, the best ores were Primordial Stones.

So it wouldn't be strange at all if the medal was made from certain Primordial Stones. However, there were many types of Primordial Stones, or perhaps many Primordial Stones had never been exposed to the public eye—rare and precious.

Yet what was unexpected was that someone would actually use such a Primordial Stone as a decorative item.

Meeting his gaze, the female player nodded amiably.

"Do you like this a lot?" Xu Huo turned to ask the Painting Woman.

The Painting Woman nodded, rubbed the jade pendant against her face, then said with great disappointment, "Too bad it's not mine. That big sister lent it to me to play with."

Her eyes lit up as she looked at Xu Huo. "Can we buy this bead?"

"If someone says they're lending it to you to play with, they definitely won't sell it," Xu Huo said. "Play with it for a while, then give it back."

The Painting Woman was reluctant, but after a while, she still returned the jade pendant. When she came back to Car 3, she said solemnly to Xu Huo, "I know what that bead is called now."

"What's it called?" Xu Huo asked.

"Primordial Stone," the Painting Woman replied.

Xu Huo was silent for a second. "I knew it was a Primordial Stone too. Does it have a more specific name?"

The Painting Woman immediately ran back to ask, then returned to tell him, "No name, just a number: S-112."

Xu Huo searched for relevant information on the Bounty Platform. The greatest benefit of a Primordial Stone was its ability to cause qualitative changes in surrounding ores. Both Primordial Stones and Subclass Stones were extremely valuable prop materials, and using a Primordial Stone to influence other ores was clearly more cost-effective. Therefore, once discovered and mined, they were mostly kept in secret. There certainly wouldn't be much information available through game channels.

But since it had a number, this type of Primordial Stone must have been recorded on a list. However, there was no such list on the Bounty Platform, and not even the specific types of Primordial Stones had been cataloged.

Even if it wasn't the "Time Origin," the value of a Primordial Stone was still evident. Once obtained, one would surely try every means to hide it—why would they make the information public?

Under Dimension had some information of dubious authenticity, even including photos and data of Primordial Stones, but they were often followed by a price tag, making them seem mostly fake.

Ordinary players wouldn't know this information, but members of some player families should know a bit.

"I'll ask around later," Xu Huo said.

The Painting Woman nodded happily, implying she wanted him to buy a few more.

Two more days passed before the train arrived at Zone C9-001, the game zone boasting the most accurate Time Tower.

The game system's time was set based on the A1 Wormhole Point, said to follow the time of a certain star, making it one of the foundations of the game world.

The times of other wormhole points and zones would more or less deviate from the A1 Wormhole Point's time, so adjustments were needed each time one entered a different zone. Of course, players could use timing props to estimate time, but these timing props also needed to be calibrated by someone.

Therefore, there were rumors in the game that Zone C9-001 was the zone with the most time. Not only did they calibrate the time for zones within the same wormhole point, but they also calibrated for other wormhole points. It was said that Zone 001 had a Time Square filled with clocks, each corresponding to the time of a game zone.

People from other zones often came to Zone 001 to calibrate their own zone's time based on the clocks in Time Square.

As for why a zone's time needed constant calibration, it was rumored to be because zones were continuously evolving, and the original timing methods had to be constantly adjusted. Some zones lacked the ability to accurately determine this time, so they had to follow the adjustments of the C9 Time Square to ensure no major errors occurred when converting between zone time and game system time.

The station where Xu Huo and the Painting Woman arrived was called Little Full Moon. The entire station floor was made of transparent material, and beneath it was a giant clock with six hands, corresponding to hours, minutes, seconds, milliseconds, microseconds, and nanoseconds. All six hands were in motion, representing the time of Zone C9-001.

Although many zones in the game had their own time units, most were based on 24, 36, or 48 hours. Due to differences in time flow, even if they used 24, 36, or 48, it didn't mean that 36 was referenced to Zone 014's 24. Zone C9-001 used a 36-hour system, but in terms of time conversion, one day in Zone 001 was equivalent to two days in Zone 014.

However, while in Zone C9-001, it was hard to feel the change in this time length. Players seemed to easily adapt to local customs.

"What a big clock," the Painting Woman said, crouching on the ground to watch the rotating hands beneath her feet. "Will it keep spinning like this forever? Won't it break?"

"It probably will," Xu Huo said, stopping. "If it breaks, just fix it."

"Can the time still connect after it's fixed?" the Painting Woman asked again.

"It's the clock that broke, not time itself. Why wouldn't it connect?" Xu Huo gestured for her to get up. The station had a large passenger flow, and another batch of players had arrived.

The two of them went directly to the Time Square via the station's teleportation points.

As a famous location in Zone 001, no outsider who came here would miss the Time Square. They queued up to go through the teleportation point, and when they emerged at the Time Square, it was already packed with people.

At this time, it was only morning in Zone 001, too early even for breakfast, but the sky was already quite bright.

The Painting Woman caught the scent of food and squeezed through the crowd to find something to eat. Xu Huo followed the surging crowd and looked up at the massive Time Tower.

The so-called Time Square—the Time Tower and the square were actually separate. The Time Tower was composed of tens of thousands of clocks of various sizes and shapes, interlocking like gears to form a giant tower that was narrow at the top and wide at the bottom. This tower was detached from the ground, floating above the square. From the light and shadow cast beneath the tower, one could see that the tower wasn't actually tightly assembled; many parts only looked like they were attached to the tower body, but were actually floating, leaning against it.

As the six hands of the largest rectangular clock on the tower body all stopped at the number 36, a sound rang out from within the tower:

"Dong!"