Time Twister

At the same time, the size of the pocket s.p.a.ce expanded to up to 10,000,000 square kilometers. The two sprites he first contracted, Sam and Pan, were also transported to this s.p.a.ce along with the other sprites and magic beasts seamlessly. With the same sealing process, only Xander could enter and exit the pocket s.p.a.ce. At the same time, it was now something that Xander can bring around conveniently like his spatial storage.

When he entered the garden, he caught the attention of the magic beasts and the sprites living there. For the past 10 days, there were more and more sprites appearing, as ranging from wood, earth/metal, air, and even water sprites appeared, making it look quite crowded. The sudden expansion surprised and overjoyed the sprites and magic beasts alike because there were more and more beasts appearing as well. Xander, when he did a brief scan, noticed something weird. There was a faint concentration of elements appearing above the center of the garden, and when he probed it a bit more, he realized that there was a higher amount of time elements present in this area, making Xander worry a bit.

After all, the phenomenon of concentrating elements with one dominant element meant that a sprite was being developed. He could disturb the growth of the sprite, stop it from forming, to avoid another variable from appearing in the universe, which may hinder his plans.

Xander was conflicted. Although he believed there were time sprites in the wide universe, he didn't expect that he would develop one. He decided to think about the matter of necessity: Does he need a Time sprite? The simple answer is no because one of him is enough. But a complicated answer would be yes, due to the possible benefits the sprite might bring about in terms of cultivation and whatnot.

After a few seconds of time-accelerated thinking, he decided to destroy it, scattering the concentrating elements. He sighed at his own cold-heartedness. But it must be done, as it was possible that the sprite he creates will cause problems for him, and even betray him, with the system's calculated chance of 3%.

He didn't even know when the time sprite would be born, which made it a variable. He greeted the sprites and magic beasts that approached him, rubbing their heads and even playing around with them for several days. A few of the magic beast species that were from bees even gave him sweet, pure honey, which Xander greatly enjoyed eating. He then called for Sam and Pan who were just relaxing tens of meters away, chatting with other sprites.

The two of them were 200,000-year-old sprites now, easily achieving Mythic-2 cla.s.s. The other sprites and magic beasts ranged from those newly born to that of Mythic-1 cla.s.s, reaching 110,000 years of age. A lot of the magic beasts have reproduced with other magic beasts, creating new species and hybrids.

For the first 2 weeks, he basically instructed them to expand as the area was now roughly 10,000,000 square kilometers. He also instructed them to continue teaching the newborns books relating to maths, business, physics, biology, and chemistry, as well as philosophy, architecture, and agriculture.

He also created a 4-story library where he had placed a total of 20,000 Books related to these topics, where everyone is free to enter and read the books, but aren't allowed to bring them out. He made it completely out of the Adamantium-Pazril-Carlite Alloy, one of the strongest alloys developed in the Galactic Council. He surrounded it with multiple restrictions and defense mechanisms, acting as a fortress if ever an invader manages to enter the pocket s.p.a.ce and at the same time, a simple library for people to relax and read. The purpose of the library being created is to ensure that newborn sprites, as well as magical beasts, would be learned and smart, not simply hunted for their resources.

However, it wasn't that he wanted them to create their own civilization in this pocket s.p.a.ce. He could actually foresee it: In 4 days time outside, if he doesn't stop them, they would begin to construct natural houses and even create shops, bars, and the like, centering around the "Great Library". After 8 more days, they would have their own currency. After more than 12 days, They would inst.i.tutionalize their first parliamentary government. To avoid this from happening as he wanted these sprites and magic beasts that he had created to live freely and longer, Xander first created a dimensional rule in this pocket s.p.a.ce that within 2 kilometers radius of the library, nothing can be built. When the rule was implemented, the plants and the other the origins of the sprites were moved away, similar to the magic beast dens formed near it.

He then followed up by raising the idea of them leaving this place. After all, his original intention was when they reached Legendary-3. However, seeing that the people outside, specifically the military men, easily slaughtered these beasts even if they were 1 level lower, but they had more people.

He told them that it would be best if they were at least 100,000 years of age before attempting the trial he had placed. A few of the magic beasts and sprites that have reached 100,000 years of age looked pensive for a while before accepting the trial. There were around 32 Mythic magic beasts and sprites, so this was a good situation.

This time, it wasn't as simple as the trial he did for Sam and Pan, where they just had to demonstrate their skills, thinking ability and adaptability.

This time, they had to land an attack against Xander, no matter what tactics they use, and they can only fight in groups of 3 or less. They had to do it within an hour or less.

The cultivation system for Sprites and Magic beasts were very, very different from the way humans function. For instance, Magic beasts already formed their elemental essence stones, aka their magic cores once they reached the status of a magic beast, for 1 or more primary elements. For sprites in the other hand, had their life essence already physically manifested as their origin, but for 1 primary element only.

At Master Stage, all magic beasts do is bolster the magic cores, making them as big as possible.

At Legendary Stage, all they do would be

At Mythic Stage, if they choose to transfigure into a humanoid shape, they have to cultivate from Mundane stage to Mythic Stage before progressing again. At the same time, they had to meld and perfect the two domains that they have made. If they decided not to become a humanoid being, they only needed to focus on comprehending, perfecting and strengthening their domain until they began fusing it into the world, entering demiG.o.d cla.s.s through time.

At the DemiG.o.d stage, their magic cores become metaphysical objects, as they continued to fuse with the universe. Once at 90%, they can fuse more as long as their bodies can handle it, or proceed to Divine cla.s.s immediately, by forcing their magic cores to become physical matter once again, but there's a catch: the magic core begins to divide to the primary elements they have. So if they have 2 primary elements, 2 magic cores will be produced, etc.

At the Divine stage, their primary element magic cores are focused on being perfected, and upon reaching 100% understanding of their primary elements each, they can unite them and enter the Sage cla.s.s. They, however, can already traverse the wide universe at the speed of 0.5 lightyears per minute.

At the Sage stage, their magic cores disappear and melt, merging to every cell, tissue, muscle, and organ in their bodies, allowing them to have the basic ability to travel through s.p.a.ce faster, with the rate of 1 lightyear per minute.

Sprites, on the other hand, had a different pathway.

From Master to Legendary, all they had to focus on was the acc.u.mulation of their specific primary element through time.

From Mythic to DemiG.o.d, all they were focusing on is their domain creation and the fusion of the domain to the ordered system, which is usually seamless since they are formed by the ordered system naturally. Only their age would affect the speed of fusion.

From Divine to Sage, all they had to focus was their age; if DemiG.o.ds were in 1,000,000 years, at 10,000,000 they would Divine sprites, and simply waiting to reach 100,000,000 years they would automatically be promoted to Sage sprites. This is because they already had a complete and perfect understanding of their primary element. At this point, their origin merges with their bodies, making it now possible for them to travel far and wide in the universe.

So, why are there so few of these sprites in the universe, compared to magic beasts?

The main reason why there are a few sprites ever reaching Divine and Sage cla.s.s is that once they step into the DemiG.o.d cla.s.s, their origins became a valuable cultivation resource. Even in the Galactic Council Empire, Sprites of such levels were hunted by other stronger cultivators, making it hard to live. It changed 5,000,000 years ago, when a G.o.d cla.s.s Life Sprite appeared, causing a stir in the empire. When he joined the Council board, a new rule swept all over the empire: No one was allowed to hunt Sprites below the Sage rank. The sprite limited it to below Sage because only Sage cultivators would value the materials coming from Divine and DemiG.o.d cla.s.s.

Once they reached Sage rank, they had to learn how to fend for themselves, and if they get killed by other Sage cultivators, it is their fault already since the playing field had been evened out. At the same time, G.o.d cla.s.s cultivators had no use for Sage sprites or below, since their focus of cultivation is different. Even Xander didn't know it yet since he hasn't accessed or infiltrated the databases of the Galactic Council.

Another factor that made it difficult is that sprites take a long time to reach a fairly high level to defend themselves in the universe. DemiG.o.d sprites are a few times weaker compared to DemiG.o.d humanoid cultivators, and their true abilities only showed when they became Sage cla.s.s sprites.

Lastly, they are formed naturally by the universe, never by reproductive functions. So compared to magic beasts who can reproduce magic beasts, they were really a low, low, population in the universe.

Since these Mythic-1 magic beasts and Sprites want to see the bigger world, who is he to stop them? He just needed them to sign a new and improved binding contract anyways to ensure their silence about this 'garden' and Xander's abilities, with his current abilities, he can now restrict even those in the DemiG.o.d cla.s.s. He had managed to resolve the issue concerning the transcendence of their life essence dolls to a different dimension during the meeting earlier today.

He was talking so much because he wanted to delay time to identify where they were located and trace the life essences they had to the dimension they were placed at, which he found out and visited just before entering the garden.

This dimension was a bit different Dimension-LEO; instead of an ocean, it was a barren, rocky mountain that seemed to breathe and change its shape every second. The force it contained was stronger than the one Xander had experienced in Dimension-LEO. He decided to call this dimension as Dimension-LIBRA since he couldn't think of any apt terms for it.

Anyhow, using s.p.a.ce-time elements combined with life-death elements, and causality elements under the life-death elements, the reinforced binding contract was reinforced up to the DemiG.o.d cla.s.s, ensuring total wipeout of their existence and ejection to the Great Void if they failed the uphold the contract. Because of his improved comprehension of the origin elements, he able to handle the rebound effect from the universe from the removal of DemiG.o.d cla.s.s beings. Not only that, if they managed to give out any information that would break the contract, s.p.a.ce-time would reverse in the area after the removal of being from the universe, reversing all information leaked to null, so anyone who knew it would only sense a missing portion of their memories.

Xander looked at these mythic beings, roared up to fight and already in their "optimized" team set-ups. There were 8 trios and 4 pairs.

He called for the first group. To make the fight more simple, and not to give anyone advantage, he accelerated the time in the small arena he created near the library, around 2.5 kilometers from it. 1 second in the outside world would be 60 minutes in the arena.

The fight began as soon as they entered. Xander would not retaliate, but he will, however, move to dodge and use only 1 spell: [Absolute Defense]. There was only 1 layer in place rather than the traditional multi-layered multi-dimensional barrier, and his body was currently located on the same dimension as the fighters. However, even though there was a thin layer protecting Xander's body and life essence doll at the same time, it shouldn't be underestimated.

That one layer is the combination of all the origin elements Xander currently has comprehended, all in a stable structure. if he was to create an a.n.a.logy, he basically created a thin, semi-independent pocket s.p.a.ce film layer to surround him. However, the size inside was just around 1 kilometer in diameter, making it quite the stable s.p.a.ce. It would take several tens, if not hundreds of thousands of attacks greater than a Mythic-1 powerhouse before they can start to disturb the elemental structure of the pocket s.p.a.ce film. In fact, if he didn't structure it that way, it could even survive under the barrage of attacks done by DemiG.o.d-3 powerhouses. However, the purpose of the test was to ensure they can show their strength to be above their current cultivation level, allowing them to escape situations of being caught, killed or harvested.

In fact, Xander didn't have to dodge at all, he could just stand there and patiently wait for an hour to pa.s.s. The first group entered the arena and the fighting began. They only lasted for 30 minutes before being tired out. The next group, same result.

This continued on until the 3rd pair appeared. They were the 9th group to come up to the stage, they were Water and Fire sprites. Upon their entrance, they began their barrage of attacks, not holding back. At the same time, they began casting a Mythic-level magic array. Xander didn't bother moving because technically, the size of their magic array was the size of the arena area, so no point.

After a few more minutes of chanting, the whole magic array lighted up the arena area, and bombarded its target: Xander. Xander could feel the power present in the magic array; there was a raging force that emanated the power of water and fire that does not reject one another, but rather supplement and empower one another. The spell array was unique; although it was continuously absorbed by his layer of defense, it seemed like the energy supplying it was never-ending, almost as if it was the universe that was supplying the power. Xander's eyes widened before he began to notice that the elements of water and fire in the pocket s.p.a.ce was rapidly multiplying and decreasing at the same time as if pushed by some unseen force.

For the past 3 minutes, he calculated the attack capacity of his defense: it can only withstand 10 more minutes of the same level and amount of attacks currently being released by the Mythic magic spell array, before collapsing and imploding on itself, releasing its contained energy...wait d.a.m.n it!

Xander cursed at himself. He made a huge error. If he reached the maximum tipping point in his defense, the pocket s.p.a.ce film covering him will shatter and release the pent up energy inside, ravaging anyone within the radius. Xander sighed for a moment before casting [Void Rejection], forcing the elements in the area to disappear, destabilizing the runic writings of the magic array, as well as dispersing the time acceleration in the area.

Xander immediately processed the remaining raging, wild energy inside the pocket s.p.a.ce film within an accelerated day, wherein a second just pa.s.sed by for the others. He couldn't process the raging energy without his full 100% concentration to the matter; after all, he needed to control the origin elements to quell these raging elements under them.

The two sprites, however, thought they were still fighting, and even though they were injured by the spell backlash, they continued to chant their spells. Xander immediately forced their elemental energy in their bodies to circulate slower, almost to the point of stopping, causing the two to be pale since their whole existence was based on their elemental energy flow and elemental particles in their origin and avatars.

Xander immediately fixed the situation and nodded proudly to the two sprites, who were already released from Xander's attacks.

"Sorry about that, I made a mistake in configuring my defenses. If I had persisted on until my defense broke, well the backlash and shockwave from the explosion would roughly decimate half the size of this garden." Xander said apologetically, and when the two sprites and spectators heard it, they chilled; that's how strong the defense their creator had? The sprites looked at each other confusedly, as they didn't realize their magic array had such a power.

"The way you attacked was that you weren't utilizing any of your personal magic reserves to maintain the spell; it was self-sustaining, and all you needed to do was direct it and continuously transform the elemental energy from the environment into the spell. Not only that, but it also had an effect of increasing the propagation of the said specific elements, making them quite formidable and undefeatable, unless the target has a way to remove or isolate the s.p.a.ce from any elements! This ingenious way of attacking, this is a great method! I have to hand over this win to you two. If I'm not mistaken, you two are Mary and Marie, correct? May I know what the name of the spell is?" Xander praised the two, causing the two sprites to be elated. After all, the longer they survive, the better it is for him. He treated each and every one of them as his child.

Mary and Marie were elated to have succeeded in the fight, and looked at each other, before Marie spoke up, talking to Xander.

"Master, the spell array is called [Ocean Purgatory], combining the torrential and unrelenting representations of water, and the burning and melting representations of fire. It was a spell Mary and I came up with 1,500 years ago, after breaking through to Mythic Cla.s.s, and only managing to cast it properly 10 years ago." Xander nodded. It was as he had suspected. The specific representations of water and fire mentioned were the ones he had detected.

He thought for a moment before saying to the two, "Ok, Marie and Mary, you are the first group that pa.s.sed the trial. You have 2 options: Follow me outside by signing a contract with me, or be free to do your own thing, but signing a secrecy contract about this place. I'll wait for your answer after all trial takers are done."

Xander looked at the other spectators, saying that the trial will continue. However, he decided to modify the rule.

"Show me the most creative attacks you have devised, and show your maximum power. For those that had already taken the trial, they can retake it again." Xander said, and everyone was elated. Xander established the time acceleration field again and proceeded with the trials.