Darkness. An unlimited world of shadows was presented to him. No boundaries were to be reached, because they never existed. As time moved, so did space. The inverse was also true. As movements were made, time flowed. Even if there was nothing at all, the absence of everything gave rise to the void, the nothingness.

“Move.” A voice whispered. It felt close, but also distant. Like if it came from another world. Those meanings were lost in the journey. “Move!” The voice was closer, but paradoxically further. Reality couldn’t sustain itself anymore.

“Move, you lazy bum!” Axel cried as he kicked Adrian in the stomach.

“I am awake! I am awake!” Adrian jumped out of the ground and told Axel.

“Yeaaah, you weren’t.” Axel explained to him. “I hit you for a minute straight and you kept sleeping.”

“Why the fuck you hit a person who’s sleeping?” Adrian asked but sighed before he could get an answer. “Go to sleep, I will do my turn.”

Axel lay down on the ground. “Wait” Adrian talked to him before Axel went to sleep. “Next time don’t shout. You are going to wake them.”

Adrian looked at the night sky, it was still dark even though [Ultimum Celeritas] said it was 6:00 a.m. ‘Why is everyone hitting me? Ouch!’ He thought as he wiped his eyes and then reminded him that he didn’t remove his glasses before going to sleep. ‘Wait-wait wait a moment. I didn’t remove my glasses when I went to Czecheri, did I? Why no one said anything? Then why the fuck I walked barefoot all that time? I fucking hate my life’.

Adrian meditated if he should stay there, without doing nothing. It wasn’t that he was wasting his time, he was on watch duty, but Adrian felt he could do something more.

“What if I try how mental power regeneration works?” Adrian told to himself then opened his [Status] to see which [Skiils] he had that consumed mental power. “Only [Time Dilatation I] and [Court of the Broken King], huh? So that’s only one then. I really want to have access to that [Skill], damm requirements.”

Adrian cast [Time Dilatation I] to the group. Not everyone was covered by the radius of effect, but that didn’t matter to Adrian. An idea flew through his mind: ‘Can they sleep faster with the boost?’. That sounded plausible, but also stupid, so Adrian discarded the idea and continued to do what he wanted to do. Even though last time Adrian cast this spell his head started smelting, right now he felt okay. Maybe it was because he had some rest and could have recovered all his mental power. ‘[Procesa] must increase mental power because Aby and Kayle cast their auras multiple times. I am already getting distracted, first, let’s start the experiment.’

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

This was Adrian's train of thought. ‘I can’t move my body in the stopped time, but I can think normally, so technically, I can recover mental power.’ He didn’t consider recharging stamina because his body would feel the time like everything else, even if his mind was greatly accelerated. Said so, Adrian didn’t want to go to the stopped world yet. It was an unnerving feeling, constantly experiencing the same frame of the universe for a time that didn’t exist. Philosophers could throw themselves at Adrian’s throat just to be able to experience such notion, but he doubted anyone could understand the limitless influx of information that he experimented in no time.

“Record, set the Blue World time perception.” Adrian told the Record, even if the effect was made by his [Title].

Time perception set to Blue World Template. Now time is measured in 1.49 femtoseconds per second.

Adrian didn’t know were the Arcane Records took that data from, but Adrian couldn’t care less right now. Still sleepy, Adrian waited in the Blue World while his sleepiness vanished. After one hour at the Blue World, or five picoseconds at the real world if Adrian calculated correctly, Adrian felt as his mind wasn’t as tired or heated as before.

“Nice, unlimited mental power source.” Adrian thought to himself as his body couldn’t even work at this speed. “The catch is that this is boring, oh fuck I am bored.”

Although Adrian said that, being in the Blue World wasn’t as tedious as it seemed. Because the electricity that went through his nervous system was much slower than light, he couldn’t feel pain nor tickles nor temperature. That meant he was at a comfortable place as he did not feel anything, not even the drums of his ears though there was silence everywhere. People would be freaked at such idea, don’t feel anything and be trapped inside your mind, like a comma. But the fact that he had total control over the phenomena made him feel safe. He deactivated the Blue World after a few minutes and started viciously scratching his body when the sensations returned to his body. Adrian wouldn’t admit, but he spent those extra minutes trying to figure out what a femtosecond was. He didn’t remember anything from high school, and he couldn’t afford to go to college. The last day didn’t help either.

Two hours later nothing worth of a highlight happened. There was a stray mantis that was nearby, but Adrian executed it in a fast combo involving [Fast Stab] and [Assassinate]. The mantis was only level two, so it only granted him a hundred experience points like it did the first time. Adrian cleaned his daggers, counted the food that remained, and cleaned his body without getting into the river, all of this to spend his time a bit faster. He obviously activated the Elthary Rule time perception to make everything go faster. He thought of accelerating his time even more, but that seemed counterproductive to his watch job. The first one to wake up was Mike, at exactly 8:13 a.m.

“Ahh.” Mike yawned, he got up and removed the food sack that he had for a pillow.

Adrian was actually surprised that no insect came to eat the food that was outdoors. But then again, the only insects they saw were giant mantises.

“Good morning.” Adrian told him.

“Good morning” Mike said back. “Should we wake them up?”

“Nah, let them rest.” Adrian said as he watched the clear blue sky of Mundompio.