Chapter 1435 - Exploiting Time (Patreon)

It truly wasn’t a pleasant feeling, even if it wasn’t as bad as last time. Still, to feel so feeble, so weak, especially after experiencing a state of such heightened power, would never be enjoyable.

The Sword Saint had even considered leaving the World of the Exalted Prima, knowing that should he enter the real world, he would be back in top form without the backlash from his Transcendence, but on the other hand, this was his cross to bear. Part of his Path. Plus, he’d have to wait it out eventually unless he wanted to permanently abandon the World of the Exalted Prima.

Fortunately, he had better recovery methods than the last time he invoked the season of spring during the Treasure Hunt. First of all, as mentioned, the backlash wasn’t as bad as it had been last time, perhaps because he hadn’t been close to death after this use, but also certainly due to increased experience and familiarity with the Transcendent Skill.

He’d been able to “wind down” the skill, so to speak, during his conversation with the Abundant Emperor and subsequently after returning to his Territory. Rather than rapidly withering away while physically looking as if he had aged, he’d been able to slowly be affected over several hours, making the final result not as bad. It would still take him at least a couple of months to recover, but he also had a method to shorten that.

Being the Chosen of the Primordial of Time did have certain perks, and he had been taught some things, such as the ability to create incredibly stable time dilation. Through his profession, he already had a painting prepared just for this occasion, and after bringing it to life, he sat down in the small, time-dilated domain he’d created.

Alongside him, a hobgoblin had entered, having also helped prepare the site and make sure no one would disturb Miyamoto during his recovery.

“Truly incredible handiwork, boss,” the goblin said in praise as he seemed to sense the movements of concepts and mana filling the domain. “I’d ask your secret, but I’m not looking for divine punishment.”

“At a more opportune time, I would love to exchange knowledge and experience,” the Sword Saint said with a smile, focusing primarily on his breathing.

He also wasn’t just being polite. The hobgoblin was a talented fellow with a Divine Blessing from Aeon and one of the stronger B-grades associated with the Primordial. Miyamoto didn’t quite know the reason why, but Aeon seemed to have an affinity for goblins based on how many followed him, and based on what he could tell, the goblins also kind of viewed him as their god. Not because goblins didn’t have their own gods, though it probably didn’t help that many of these gods also followed Aeon.

Miyamoto wouldn’t quite define it as a faction, but rather as a set of loosely connected organizations centered on a shared religion. They worked together, but didn’t have any shared leaders or rules besides following Aeon.

This particular hobgoblin had been a fortunate encounter for the Sword Saint during this World of the Exalted Prima. They’d connected with one another and naturally formed an alliance, much to the benefit of both parties. Miyamoto had to admit he wasn’t an expert in formations, magic circles, or any of the more technical applications of magic and concepts outside of combat. He had his paintings, but they relied on him using them and couldn’t be activated or powered by others.

That’s why the hobgoblin was a blessing. He wasn’t focused on combat himself, but was more of a creator. He even had a Dungeon Engineering profession, granting him plenty of skills that could be used to set down powerful defenses to protect their Territories.

Learning from him would be valuable, but not while in a state where simply moving around wasn’t very comfortable.

“I’ll take you up on that,” the hobgoblin smiled and bowed. “I wish you success in your recovery, and by the time you’re ready to step out once more, I promise you’ll find your Territory larger than ever.”

“As long as things remain stable, I’ll be more than satisfied,” the Sword Saint nodded as the hobgoblin walked out, and the Sword Saint could refocus on his recovery. The time dilation around him didn’t affect the surroundings, but only living beings within; rather than simply accelerating their time, it was more that time had impacted them more.

This resulted in increased resource regeneration, natural recovery, and, in the Sword Saint’s case, reduced duration of how long his backlash would last. Most importantly, it didn’t come with any of the negative aspects of time dilation, though at the cost of being far, far weaker, with this situation only roughly four-to-one. Still, recovering four times as quickly as usual was nothing to scoff at.

It would take a while for the full dilation to kick in, probably a full day, as the effect of the small domain would slowly wind up before fully activating. Closing his eyes, he entered meditation and continued doing what he’d been focused on, what he usually did these days when in meditation.

Not long after evolving to B-grade, he’d vaguely started to feel something when deep in meditation. Something reaching out to him, almost as if testing him. He still wasn’t sure what it was, and his Patron only smiled when he asked about it, encouraging him to explore the opportunity on his own.

The Sword Saint had many theories about what it could be, and while he was nowhere sure, one thing he did know was that it somehow seemed related to concepts, because when he meditated and tried to reach it, it sometimes felt as if echoes of concepts entered his mind, too weak to offer anything of value, but enough to make him keep going with renewed vigor.

He didn’t know when he would reach this... he instinctively wanted to call it a door, but he did know it would happen one day, hopefully sooner rather than later.

--

Another person who was currently experiencing time dilation, though a very different kind from the one the Sword Saint had used, was naturally Jake. To his senses, concepts were utterly fucked up, and he was completely unable to comprehend anything, and even if he did, the Records he’d gain would be borderline worthless due to the powerful time dilation.

Fortunately for him, none of that mattered as Jake wasn’t going for any upgrades or trying to comprehend any concepts. He was just laying the groundwork for what was to come, and hopefully he would succeed in what he’d set out to do.

One of the reasons Jake had been in a rush to study the finger wasn’t only because he really wanted to upgrade Eternal Shadow of the Primal Hunter and find out why the skill had been functioning kind of oddly while he was inside the World of the Exalted Prima, but also because he was kind of on a timer to figure something out.

He’d asked the Exalted Prima for help with upgrading the skill, but the Exalted Prima had made it very clear he wouldn’t directly assist Jake. That’s why he’d only given him an opportunity to upgrade his skill, rather than a surefire method. One that he realistically only had one shot to pull off, as per the Exalted Prima’s instructions regarding the finger before throwing him out of the simulated world:

“This item is not of this simulation, nor is it allowed to be within this simulated world, as its Records do not belong here. Your presence denies its existence, so be aware that should you try to enter the World of the Exalted Prima with it again, it will be instantly destroyed. In both this world and the one outside. Nor do I believe it will be allowed in the world outside for too long. It exists on the border between the virtual and reality, and it will be up to you to bridge that gap.”

In other words, Jake couldn’t reenter the World of the Exalted Prima with the finger, but at the same time, he knew that he could only upgrade Eternal Shadow of the Primal Hunter while inside the simulation. This was naturally quite a conundrum.

As the Exalted Prima had said, Jake needed to bridge the gap between reality and simulation. The Bound God had also warned Jake that it likely wouldn’t be able to exist for too long in the real world, though so far Jake saw no signs of that being the case.

[Cursed Black Finger of the Primal Hunter (Unique)] – A finger containing the Records of a human known as the Primal Hunter. Powerful dark mana mixed with a potent curse lingers within and should be handled with absolute care, lest it consume you. Carries faint traces of Primeval Origin Energy. Unknown Alchemical uses.

Nothing in the description said it was unstable or had a duration left to its existence, but that didn’t mean it would last forever. Everything deteriorated over time, and pretty much everything leaked Records and energy. There was a chance that the finger was slowly growing less potent with every passing day it existed in reality, even if Jake couldn’t detect anything amiss yet.

That’s why Jake planned on making the finger more permanent by making it technically not exist at all. The simulation could change items, seemingly manipulate memories, and a slew of other things, but one thing it wasn’t capable of doing was messing with the Soulspace. That wouldn’t change no matter what happened, so Jake wanted to shift the finger from existing in the physical world to appearing in his Soulspace.

It wouldn’t be as simple as swallowing it with Palate of the Malefic Viper, though. He believed that even if he did that, the finger would disappear when he entered the World of the Exalted Prima again, as it would ultimately remain an item.

No, he needed to fully absorb it without allowing it to lose its form and purpose. He’d need to integrate it with himself anyway at some point if he wanted to use it to upgrade Eternal Shadow.

How he would accomplish this was precisely the goal of this entire time dilation session. He wanted to fully analyze every aspect of the finger and more or less create a copy or a “mold” for it to fit into within his Soulspace. It was, quite frankly, a ludicrous idea that wouldn’t normally work, but he believed it could be done for one simple reason:

It was his own finger.

Not the current him, but another version. He also knew it didn’t belong to Sim-Jake either. It was a version of Jake from a simulated reality very close, perhaps identical, to the one Sim-Jake appeared in, but still not the same. The Exalted Prima wouldn’t be able to create an exact replica of Sim-Jake because Sim-Jake became who he was in part due to the real Jake.

He’d been aware all his life that he had an invisible and nearly undetectable passenger. A passenger who made him instinctively sense and come to realize that the world wasn’t real. It might have only been in minor ways, but this had clearly changed Sim-Jake and made him a wholly unique simulated version of Jake. One who, due to his interaction with Jake, had Records related to the real world all throughout his life.

These were just some of the considerations Jake had, which he believed would play a pivotal role when he absorbed the finger and created a framework for the upcoming upgrade, but he knew he had many years of work ahead of him to make it possible. The First Sage had taught him a lot about control in his own Soulspace, and that control would really be put to the test, as he knew he’d have to surpass his current abilities if he wanted to pull this off.

He would compare it to manually programming an entire game using solely binary. He’d have to build every part of this hypothetical game, make everything work together, and it wasn’t just something as simple as Pong, but a proper game with way too much feature creep. Definitely not the kind of thing to be done in a few years. Oh, and if it had any bugs that caused it to crash when booting it up the first time, the entire game would self-delete permanently.

So, yeah, it had to be flawless from the start, which was why Jake had needed such extreme time dilation in the first place.

As Jake appeared in his Soulspace and got to work on trying to make the mold he’d need, he faintly felt the mass of cursed energy observe him as always, though he chose to believe there was something more in its gaze than usual, making him smile as he mentally prepared himself for the many years to come.

--

“Certainly couldn’t have been caused by just anyone,” Vilas muttered as he reached out to touch the large pustule protruding from the wall of flesh. Mushroom flesh.

When he touched it, the entire wall quivered, and the surrounding cave, which was also all mushroom, shook, space itself quaking at the movement as if the entire World Wonder of the Mycotic Depths were moving. It quickly calmed down, with the Viper’s frown deepening.

He’d been exploring the Mycotic Depths for a while, believing that this unknown faction might have used it to hide themselves away due to its enormous size and maze-like structure. It was also sealed off from the outside world, so those inside could have hidden from most forms of detection.

Initially, he’d used a special, powerful avatar, but it had ended up running into a barrier it couldn’t break through that sealed off this particular cavern. The barrier had been constructed by the Mycotic Consciousness itself, which wasn’t something the snake god had encountered before.

The entire World Wonder was effectively one massive life form with a semi-shared mind known as the Mycotic Consciousness. It was like a plant, reacting instinctively, so for it to seal off a particular area of itself meant one of very few things. In this instance, it had been done to protect itself.

“It’s not poison... a disease of sorts? Why is it only here?” the Viper kept muttering to himself. He prodded the pustule more before realizing something. “To protect itself? Someone tried to do something, and it sealed whatever that was away inside this thing.”

The absolutely massive fungus, perhaps the largest lifeform in the entire multiverse, as no one knew the true size of the Mycotic Depths, had somehow been infected with something it deemed a threat. For it to seal it away like this rather than just eliminating it entirely said a lot.

He could also have done something similar, though he didn’t see any reason to. The fungus wasn’t an actual creature capable of thought, and it only existed and could only exist within the World Wonder that was its body. It also wasn’t as if the Mycotic Depths were considered a particularly valuable World Wonder.

Powerful monsters did spawn there, rare and unique treasures did appear, but thus far, no system events, titles, or treasures of absolutely immense value had been found, and not for a lack of trying. Many had believed that there could be something of massive value there, and while it was possible this mysterious faction had found it, the Viper doubted that was the case. He’d personally explored very deep into the World Wonder, and his Palate hadn’t picked up on anything, so unless this faction had people more powerful than himself, they shouldn’t have discovered anything either.

“A failed attempt to accomplish... something,” the Viper sighed before slightly turning his head. “Am I right, or would you be a dear and clarify?”