Time Twister

"Don't ask. You know who we are, little Faykes."

"Yeah, but I-" Before Faykes could continue speaking, Rosa snarled at him.

"Shut it. This is a mission a.s.signed to us. That's all we can tell you."

"Now, we'll have to properly explain the rules in the villa. Listen carefully, because failing to follow the rules can lead to your inconsequential death."

Rosa began listing the rules, with Faykes nodding as he acknowledged each one. Both Esta and Rosa looked at him intently, and confirming his acknowledgement, both nodded before stepping back a step.

"Since you understand, write your full name in this contract and place a drop of blood. Don't ask, this is one of the items Master invented." Esta spoke, unfurling the parchment she had been holding.

Upon seeing the contents, Faykes was a bit surprised, as he knew that Magic binding contracts were quite rare because of the difficulty to produce it but as he continued reading, it slowly evolved to fear. He actually couldn't read the remaining runic writing in the contract! Seeing this, he couldn't help but have myriad of thoughts present. What if Xander put a perverted clause in the contract? Or worse, hidden in it was slave-master clause! At the thought of this, Faykes paled and began shaking in fear.

Seeing the changes on Faykes, the twins looked at each other and rolled their eyes. Rosa came closer to Faykes and knocked his head.

"Idiot, stop those thoughts right now! The unreadable runic part is actually the elemental signature of the contract! It isn't some hidden clause or whatnot. How do we know this? Because everyone in this compound has signed this contract as well! You should know that before each mission we are to sign a loyalty contract, which would immediately burst us into flames if there was a conflicting contract that we have signed. I'm still alive aren't I?" Rosa said to Faykes.

"Also, you also signed the same type of magic contract when you reached adulthood in your family." Esta added dryly. Adulthood in this planet was at the age of 16. From then on, nne is considered to be paying taxes, and entering the military to do their mandatory 2 years of service is a must. They can enter the military no matter what age, but they must serve the 2 years completely.

Of course, the two didn't dare explain the whole situation about their own contract signing; they actually had the same reaction as Faykes, and it was quite embarra.s.sing. Faykes looked at the contract again, making sure he understood every clause written in the contract. After a few seconds, he took a deep breath and gritted his teeth. He signed his name and finally placed a drop of blood.

Upon the blood's contact to the contract, the parchment glowed before dissolving into traces of light which then half moved towards his body, while the other half vanished. Immediately, Faykes felt something change inside him; there was power brewing. Slowly but surely, the elemental particles in the dining room and surrounding area moved towards Faykes.

Faykes was surprised with what was happening that he sat still for a few seconds until Esta snapped at him.

"You idiot, you're having a breakthrough! Quickly, compress the elemental particles into seeds!" Upon hearing this, Faykes snapped out of his stupor and began to sit comfortably and began channeling the elemental particles in his body to where the other magic seeds were located in. After a few minutes, the wave of elemental particles stopped moving towards Faykes. He opened his eyes, and surprise and joy filled his mind: He broke through twice!

Faykes was already an Elite-6! Seeing his reaction, the twins smiled wryly before getting his attention.

"Now, since you have signed the contract, we can now tell you the consequences of breaking it." Esta took a deep breath, she and Rosa's face serious. Faykes solemnly listened.

"The moment you break any of the contract's clauses, your existence will disappear- meaning you will cease to exist in this universe as well as any traces of your life will disappear." Esta continued, her voice heavy. Faykes gravely nodded; the moment the light particles entered his body, this information appeared in his mind.

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Xander used a special combination to create the modified magic contracts, combining the Fate System under Life-Death elements, as well as s.p.a.ce-Time elements.

What the contract did was sever the threads of fate and causality of the target using both time and s.p.a.ce elements to do it simultaneously in every point of existence in the past, present, and future.

The concept of existence has been widely debated by magicians, philosophers, and even scientists in that past thousands of years. Xander however, had a clearer grasp on the idea of existence: it is the threads of fate and causality, which when the two are combined, form karmic threads, and binds one's existence. Imagine this - every action you do has a cause and an effect. Every time it affects someone, a karmic thread appears between the two of you, very faint and very hard to

The moment you were conceived, you were already forming karmic threads, from your parents and those that know of your existence. The moment you were born, these karmic threads solidified into the doll of life, which is a metaphysical representation of your life essence. Without the doll, your body will simply be an empty husk.

This was the same life essence that Xander had discovered in the special dimension, albeit without the threads, but rather a collective presence manifested into the form of an ocean, indistinguishable from one another, and interconnected. However, someone who can control the Fate system would have this capability of distinguis.h.i.+ng their target doll of life, which is basically how Xander made the first part of the contract in the first place.

The moment you began to think and act, you extend a karmic thread from your doll to another being's doll of life linking the two of you. The more threads you form between the two, the more metaphysically connected you are. But there's a problem here: You don't have infinite karmic threads, and the more you extend karmic threads, the more the doll unravels. This is usually resolved when others extend their own karmic thread to you willingly. This allows you to send more karmic threads to other beings.

It reaches to the point where you are just a bundle of karmic threads, and the doll beyond recognition, but its still there, alongside with other beings' doll of life, bundled up together and indistinguishable to others. One could visualize this by imagining the ocean Xander saw, where instead of water molecules, its the dolls of life/life essences that are bonded to one another not by covalent, non-covalent bonds, but rather karmic threads. Some parts of the ocean would have a stickier, or more viscous feeling than the rest; some parts would be like the ocean foam formed on the tip of the waves, very fragile and spread about.

So what happens, if you cut one? Nothing much will happen; maybe at that moment, you might feel something disappear, but the feeling quickly fades. The truth is, that feeling indicates your doll of life suffered a damage. if it suffers damage, so does your life essence. But one string is negligible in hundreds, of not thousands of thousands of karmic strings. It's a drop in the ocean, unnoticeable.

But the moment they begin snapping en ma.s.se, you would have a problem. The present you, would rapidly wither and die. Here is where a loophole appears: You can literally resurrect yourself and reestablish the karmic threads with the people around you. Resurrection is basically loading your last save point, which is re-recorded every second of your life. How would this be solved?

By cutting every existence of the karmic threads in your predicted lifetime. Yes, under the Fate system, one is capable of divining the future in junction with the time element, showing a predicted lifetime. Your past, present and future branches are exposed, with the karmic threads present for each time stage. The contract would cut each and every existence of the karmic threads. This is way more efficient than killing the newborn baby in the past because there's no b.u.t.terfly-effect that would happen. Simply put, you never existed in any possible past, present, and future. What happens to you, the contract breaker who experienced this, then?

You are ejected from the ordered system. Since you have no karmic threads that bind you even to the universe, you are disposed of as unrecyclable waste. First, the remaining life essence you have from the dimension Xander discovered is expelled from it.

You don't go to Heaven, h.e.l.l, or purgatory dimensions in the ordered system. You just exist in the void until your consciousness disappears or is eaten by beings that exists in the void. And to avoid decreasing the balance of energy and matter in the ordered system, the ordered system takes in void energy to replace the lost energy and matter.

Another problem would then rise: once you reach DemiG.o.d stage, not only will your predicted timeline disappear, if ever the contract succeeded in eliminating the karmic threads, the lost energy and matter by the system would be quite large, although it's not large enough to be that harmful for the ordered system, but it warrants a response from the will of the universe.

Xander hasn't thought of a way to resolve this for now, and basically stipulated that the contract becomes null and void at the demiG.o.d stage upon the agreement of the two parties. After all, Xander didn't explain the situation of the contract to the signing party.

There was a trap here as well: Once null and void, all the benefits of contract is automatically removed from the agreeing party. What this basically cuts is the karmic threads between the two parties. Xander hypothesized it is possible for a demiG.o.d magician to downgrade to Mythic cla.s.s, while the amalgamy of elements, life essence, magic circles, and rules can be used by him! He can't absorb it, but he could hire a magic artifact maker to create an artifact for him.

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While Faykes was experiencing the dilemma of signing the non-disclosure contract with Xander, the latter was in his room and established a s.p.a.ce barrier and created a time acceleration field. He began to think about his current magic seeds.

Currently, all 8 magic seeds had their own pseudo-magic circles, all from different elements.

[Void Wind] falls under the Void element.

[Golden Light] falls under the Yin-Yang elements, specifically under Yang element.

[5 Elements Foundation] falls under Yin-Yang elements, specifically the 5-elements system.

[Aether Control] falls under the s.p.a.ce-Time element.

[Body Manipulation] falls under Order element.

[Blood Manipulation] falls under Life-Death elements.

[Divination] falls under the Life-Death elements.

[Magic Rejection] falls under the s.p.a.ce-Time element.

Currently, Xander decided to get for his 9th pseudo-magic circle a spell that embodies chaos element. Upon checking the unrestricted database of magic spells, he used the system to filter the spell list to his criteria and got 3 matches, the latter two being forbidden spells.

[Chaotic Field]: Creates an area where elements become mixed up randomly, including the caster's elements (if within the range). Can only be cast for 10 minutes max, or else the area it has been cast on would undergo turbulence before returning to normal, and the caster suffering the effects of magic rebound.

[Entropic Elemental Conversion]: Forcefully changes the entropy of the designated element to another, random element in the designated target area. This causes the designated element to exhibit the properties and characteristics of the random element. No limit on the number of designated elements. Lasts as long as the caster can continue casting it. After casting, the caster will experience the effect of magic rebound based on the period of time it was cast and the number of elements designated.

[Penumbral Entropy]: Forcefully removes the entropy of the designated area, causing everything fall into an eerie stillness, including the caster. Warning: If one would enter the area, one would rapidly experience the removal of entropy, causing that being to fall into stillness. One can die in the field if all bodily functions have completely stopped. Lasts for 30 minutes, and every minute more decreases the stability of the field. The larger the designated area, the slower the loss of entropy.

After reviewing, he decided to get [Penumbral Entropy] as his last magic seed pseudo-magic circle. One reason is that it embodies the properties of Chaos element, while containing s.p.a.ce-time elements.

After sorting his thoughts, he read several tens of books and hundreds of research papers concerning physics, ideas concerning s.p.a.ce-Time element, and applications of physics to interstellar travel. Xander wasn't surprised that people were already focusing on understanding the aspect of s.p.a.ce and its relation to time, since majority of them were derived from mathematical formulation as well as observations and experimentations. What surprised him, however, was that a set of recently published papers focused on element research, details the possibility of s.p.a.ce and Time elements existing, but gives no actual proof, as no one has managed to show that these aspects in the world of physics have an elemental counterpart that can be forceably controlled, manipulated, or even ruled.

As he read the paper, the more Xander frowned. It seemed correct. Correct for someone who has experienced transmigration and can manipulate the said elements in the paper. It starts of logically, with the main argument being the universe as an ordered system. It even cites Therault's paper 4 years ago, and believed that s.p.a.ce-Time elements actually existed in a different spectrum than that of the other known elements. What made him frown was that it suggested revisions in the hierarchy of elements, and it was correct!

He wanted to cla.s.sify Yin and Yang elements, as well as Life and Death elements, to be a higher-ordered series of elements, and cla.s.sify s.p.a.ce and Time elements as well in the same level!

When he checked the main author, it was written in a pseudonym. How did he know? The writer's name was Gold D. Roger! According to the system's database of researchers and social profiles in the internet, this person does not exist. Even the secret files of Eta country haven't shown this person as a person of interest before; only when other people of significant importance who read the paper began frantically searching for this person did they add him. Xander, however, knew the meaning of the name.

In his original universe, the name Gold D. Roger was famous because of a series of comic drawings known as One Pece! In the year he died, it just celebrated its 3000th chapter, and Wuffy, the main character, still hasn't found One Pece, the treasure that Pirate King Gold D. Roger hid in a nameless island, with his companions.

Is it possible that it wasn't just him who was transmigrated to this universe...? Xander pondered at this problem.

After a few hours, even with the help of the system, he came up with no concrete solutions.