Chapter 178: Time (3)
The opposing wizard stood dumbfounded.
Why was he suddenly staring directly at a god?
And this god actually seemed intent on attacking him!
Panic gripped the opposing wizard's heart. It was true that the Wizard Civilization could capture gods nowadays, dragging them into laboratories as test subjects, and some wizards even used deities as living batteries.
But that was the business of top-tier wizards.
It had absolutely nothing to do with a wizard of his level.
The ones who achieved such feats were terrifying beings whose power surpassed the gods.
Every single one of them was an existence capable of toying with civilizations and even reshaping worlds.
Moreover, outside the Wizard Civilization, the Divine Civilization still opposed wizards to this day.
In a sense, they stood toe-to-toe with the apex wizards.
An entity of that caliber was dealing with him directly?
No matter how weak a god was, it was not something he could afford to provoke.
In the void, the tentacle covered in viscous, transparent fluid appeared slow, but the moment the wizard snapped back to his senses, it had already reached him.
Fish-scale patterns spread uncontrollably across his face, his eyes bulged into spherical fish eyes, and the distinct outlines of gills emerged on his cheeks.
Bang—
The tentacle struck his head.
In an instant, his head shattered to pieces.
Following the wizard's death, the Pocket Watch in his hand emitted a glow once more. Time in the region reversed, attempting to reshape his body.
Yet this time, the reshaping process was extraordinarily sluggish.
Because hovering directly above the wizard's head was a god's tentacle.
To reverse time, one had to reverse the time of that very tentacle as well.
However, this was a divine tentacle; trying to reverse the time of a god with his level of mental energy was ultimately like an ant shaking a giant tree.
After trembling for a moment, the Pocket Watch dropped to the ground with a sharp clack.
The wizard tower that had just been summoned halted midway through its materialization.
The truncated summoning array flickered for a few moments, and the next second, the surrounding space began to collapse.
The wizard tower stood alone in its place.
Lynn felt a flicker of surprise. A wizard tower without a master?
A masterless wizard tower of this kind was an absolute treasure, because capturing a wizard's tower intact was notoriously difficult.
A wizard tower served as a wizard's ultimate trump card, and its importance went without saying.
Being able to summon a wizard tower also meant the wizard had pushed the conflict to a critical juncture. Furthermore, as the master of the structure, the wizard retained absolute control over it.
They could trigger its self-destruction, turning the tower into a massive weapon. Even if the enemy ultimately won the battle, a single thought from the wizard could cause the tower to collapse or detonate entirely.
Thus, seizing an enemy wizard tower without damage on the battlefield was exceptionally difficult.
A complete wizard tower contained various modules; while some modules became impossible to transplant after use, others could still be salvaged with proper handling.
Lynn's eyes lit up. The prize before him was an excellent find.
As long as he could claim it, his own wizard tower would soon undergo a brand-new transformation.
After Maesys killed the wizard, his tentacle moved to coil around the Pocket Watch on the ground.
Yet before the tentacle could even touch it, simply during the process of drawing closer, the appendage began to shrink and curl inward. The further forward it stretched, the more it recoiled backward, as if an invisible wall blocked its path.
"What the hell is this!"
Maesys withdrew his tentacle in a panic.
He felt that his tentacle wasn't merely shrinking, but that the power inside it was actively draining away!
Maesys had originally intended to take the Pocket Watch by force, but the more violence he used, the stronger the backlash became.
Realizing he could not touch the Pocket Watch, Maesys had no choice but to pull his tentacle back into the summoning array.
"Consider that Pocket Watch my gift of spoils to you," Maesys declared with great magnanimity.
Lynn maintained a calm expression. Did Maesys take him for a blind man?
He had seen the entire spectacle just now; it was obviously because the tentacle was too short to reach it.
"Is there time force surrounding that Pocket Watch?" Lynn inquired.
"How would I know?" Maesys replied with frosty indifference.
After a few seconds, seeing that Lynn remained unresponsive, Maesys spoke up again. "Let me tell you, there is a barrier of time around that Pocket Watch."
"This is definitely an item belonging to the God of Time. But I heard that the God of Time was never captured by you wizards. When the war between wizards and the gods broke out, the God of Time slipped away first, running faster than anyone else."
"The God of Time... Can he see the future?" Lynn suddenly asked, his tone deeply meaningful.
"Unknown. But he rarely interferes with the mortal realm. He belongs to the neutral faction and maintains only average relations with all the deities," Maesys said.
Lynn looked at the distant Pocket Watch. Gaining initial control over such a treasure was not overly difficult. According to the records, one only needed to drip a single drop of blood onto it to brand it with their aura.
This would cause the Pocket Watch to acknowledge the bearer's aura and cease its active resistance.
However, this method was limited strictly to masterless treasures that possessed a spirit.
Lynn drew a drop of his own blood and handed it to a goblin, instructing it to carry it forward.
With every step the goblin took, another layer of wrinkles formed on its skin.
After taking nine steps, the goblin had aged until it was covered in folds of loose skin, panting heavily for breath. As it took the tenth step, it collapsed to the ground with a heavy thud, devoid of life.
After pondering for a moment, Lynn thought of an alternative method.
Lynn summoned an Alchemical Puppet and ordered it to carry his blood forward. With every step the Alchemical Puppet took, a fresh patch of rust sprouted across its frame. By the time it reached the Pocket Watch, it was completely caked in rust.
When the drop of blood landed upon the Pocket Watch, a flash of golden light washed over its surface.
Immediately after, the rapid rusting of the Alchemical Puppet ceased entirely.
Seeing this, Lynn let out an internal sigh of relief.
It was resolved, just as expected.
The ease of it matched his predictions.
Lynn looked up at the empty sky, the corners of his mouth curving into a smile.
Was that right, God of Time?
If the God of Time truly possessed the ability to foresee the future, could his current actions be one of the possibilities the deity had seen?
Lynn chuckled nonchalantly. If bait was offered, he would eat it. If he didn't eat his fill, how could he grow fat and strong?
Scrawny fish didn't even have the right to be served at the table!
Since he already possessed the system, he certainly did not mind a few more fleas.
Ever since the two wizards perished following the descent upon the Moduo Kingdom, peace had returned to the region.
At least, that was peace according to Lynn's definition. To the Moduo Kingdom, the disaster continued unabated.
Lynn temporarily took up residence inside the wizard tower situated outside the capital of the Moduo Kingdom. On one hand, he studied the Pocket Watch; on the other, he analyzed the masterless wizard tower.
Although various restrictions and magic arrays remained active inside, a tower without a master was ultimately like duckweed without roots, and Lynn's deciphering progress steadily climbed.
A month later, after roughly analyzing the Pocket Watch's functions, Lynn finally succeeded in cracking the masterless wizard tower.
Presently, the Pocket Watch possessed the following capabilities:
1. The Pocket Watch could freeze the surrounding time, though this required the consumption of mental energy. The longest test of time-stoppage lasted 120 hours before Lynn voluntarily halted it. Based on his deductions, there was no hard upper limit; as long as mental energy was continuously expended, time within the zone would remain frozen.
Within the region where time was frozen, all objects and life forms remained in a state of suspension, including thought processes and lifespans.
2. The Pocket Watch could reverse time, which also consumed mental energy. The mental energy expended per second was at least five times greater than that required to stop time.
Additionally, the exact mental energy consumed correlated directly with the size of the time-reversal zone and the power levels of the entities within it.
The larger the area, the greater the mental energy consumed.
The further back time was reversed, the greater the mental energy consumed.
For an identical area, the higher the total power level of the life forms present, the greater the mental energy consumed.
If a deity were to enter the zone, expending all of Lynn's current mental energy reserves would allow him to freeze time for a maximum of 0.01 seconds.
This experimental data was obtained thanks to Comrade Maesys's friendly assistance.
3. The Pocket Watch possessed a self-defense mechanism to protect its master. When the host faced life-threatening injuries, it would automatically freeze the surrounding time and summon an entity resembling an apparition of the God of Time.
It was only a resemblance because the summoned figure bore stark differences from the appearance of the God of Time stored in Maesys's memories.
4. The Pocket Watch could accelerate time, quickening the flow of time within a designated area. The mental energy consumption was comparable to that of reversing time.
5. The time force contained within the Pocket Watch was unstable. It would occasionally leak, disrupting time within a small radius. This manifested randomly as minor accelerations, reversals, or stoppages of time within a one-meter range of the watch.
This was likely the reason the dead wizard hadn't kept the Pocket Watch on his person, only pulling it out as a last resort after being attacked.
Manipulating the hands of the Pocket Watch clockwise accelerated the surrounding time, while turning them counterclockwise reversed it. Parking the hour hand dead still halted time altogether.
The test results left Lynn quite satisfied. At the very least, they proved the Pocket Watch was an exceptionally useful life-saving tool.
Originally, Lynn had intended to unleash the modified plague virus upon every citizen of the Moduo Kingdom. However, after acquiring the Pocket Watch—and specifically after testing its time-reversal ability—he saw broader possibilities.
Consequently, he unleashed the affliction solely upon the Moduo Kingdom Royal House who had initiated the war.
Gazing at the Rank 2 Wizard Tower before him, he recalled the information gleaned from the spatial Ring and identification items recovered from the slain spellcaster: both men he had killed were second-level wizards. One of them had even been an ancestor of the Moduo Kingdom Royal House.
Yet even second-level wizards, when confronted with the devastating ultimate strike of a wizard tower's Attack Module, could scarcely escape with their lives if they lacked advance preparation.
The power inherent to the wizard system far surpassed their individual ranks. A wizard's power originated from knowledge, and the wizard tower stood as the finest physical embodiment of that wisdom.
Using knowledge as a crowbar, wizards were capable of unleashing destructive might that far exceeded their current tier.
(The End)