Time Twister

The elven queen and her court ministers, as well as generals, were all present in the meeting room, the atmosphere heavy. The elves had tense looks in their faces, some were genuinely confused, unaware of the situation, some were nervous about how they should approach the recent problem.

Seeing everyone quiet, tense and nervous, the elven queen, who just finished up with the meeting set by the members of Ete continent and Ria continent, decided to start the meeting.

"According to the meeting I have attended, another magic wave appeared from the country of Eta, and radiated to every inch of the Ete continent, blessing everyone with magical affinity, comprehension of the elements, and even talent. At the same time, all of Ete's demiG.o.ds were severely injured, with Mythic-9 magicians currently taking the helm of the conglomerates and clans, with some ancient groups and clans having their Divine magicians exciting their seclusions and doing damage control."

"Clarissa, please give us the information that you have managed to gather." The elven queen looked at one of the court aides, Clarissa. This pet.i.te elf was in charge of communicating with the great Heavenly Tree Sprite alongside the Elven queen. In truth, the elven queen and Clarissa were the closest of friends, confiding to one another their secrets and problems. She was considered to be the second-in-command, able to command the generals of the kingdom as well in the stead of the elven queen.

"Yes, your majesty. The information I gained from our ancestor the Heavenly Tree, he once again detected the appearance of several Mythic sprites and even several mythic magic beasts whose energy fluctuations seemed to be foreign, indicating a species of magic beasts never recorded in Eteria. It also included a familiar signature: the two sprites that appeared 2 weeks ago, sprites at the Legendary cla.s.s, were now at the level of Mythic cla.s.s. He detected that 3 of the mythic cla.s.s beings signed a master-servant contract with one of the high profile targets we have placed, Xander Cloverfield. This is the same high-profile target we believed to have contact with the outside traveler, Homer Simpson. At the same time, Because of his roots extending to the Ete continent, he was also severely injured, causing several branches to fall and even the l.u.s.ter of his leaves decreased. I fear that we might not have our centennial event of the fruits bearing open, the [Blossoming] in 3 months' time." Clarissa bowed and stopped talking.

The elven queen nodded, and said,

"I must also inform you all, according to Camelia, our head intelligence officer, all those demiG.o.d elves we placed in Ete continent are also in critical condition, while those in the Mythic cla.s.s, they are currently in a coma. We are not sure why this didn't happen to the Mythic cla.s.s magicians of humans, or dwarves present in the continent. It might be that the humans are creating a new spell that targeted specific beings, or probably our unique relation to that of sprites resulted in this situation."

Her words dropped a bombsh.e.l.l of doubt and fear amongst her royal subjects, which disappointed her in how some of them were reacting.

"What we need now is clarity. I believe that we must invest more resources into our intelligence gathering department, as well as utilize our connections that have been strategically placed to gather information and if needed, disrupt the chain of command. All of you in favor?" The elven queen asked authoritatively, allowing no dissent amongst the subjects to occur.

After everyone had agreed, the elven queen nodded. "Alright, you are all dismissed. Varis, ensure that the media outlets in the continent have information about the issue, but make it sound like it's possible that the humans and dwarves might be developing a magic spell array targeted to elves. At the same time, ensure that their hearts remain very nationalist to the elves." She looked at the shrewd-looking elf near the end of the table.

"Yes, your majesty. May I also suggest showing some pictures of the elves in a coma? This would add more visual effects to the story we are showing to the elves." Varis responded, giving his own suggestions as well.

"Hmmm.... approved." The elven queen agreed, seeing no downsides to it.

"Alright your majesty, good day." Varis bowed and left the meeting room as well, leaving Clarissa and the elven queen alone.

After a few minutes, the elven queen sighed. Clarissa stifled a giggle, causing the elven queen to glare at her.

"What's supposed to be funny?" The elven queen asked, looking 'angry' at Clarissa.

"Nothing, your 'highness'. Tee hee." Clarissa said, barely holding in her laughter. Seeing her face, the elven queen sighed.

"Yeah, whatever go laugh." she waved her hand as if indicating, 'whatever, do what you want' to Clarissa, who immediately burst into laughter.

After a while, she stopped laughing, then said,

"Carla, don't you ever get tired of doing that thing in front of your political advisors? Every time you do it, I have to act solemn and dignified, ugh." Clarissa bemoaned at the elven queen, Carla Syn, about her problems. Carla just rolled her eyes.

"As if. I know the Heavenly Tree sprite wanted you to tell me something else privately. So what is it? Spill it, spill it!" As she said those words, she was pinching Clarissa all over, causing her to attempt to evade some but ultimately being pinched, causing her to snort out loud, losing all decorum.

"Teehee, stop I give, I give! I'll tell you what grandpa tree wanted me to tell you privately." Clarissa raised her hands and arms in defeat, acting like a salted fish. Carla stopped and crossed her arms, waiting for Clarissa's explanation.

"Ok. This is exactly what grandpa tree said: Carla, I have two things to tell you: first, you must not break through to Divine cla.s.s in Eteria. I'm sorry for telling you this now. There is a magic array that suppresses and disorders the elemental energies and particles in this planet, which can distort one's creation of the Elemental Essence stone seed, causing untold damage to be present. It was established when I went into hibernation for a couple of millennia, after attempting to find my friends without success. When I woke up, the magic spell array has been laid down, using the planet as the foundation of the spell.

In the past hundreds of thousands of years, peak demiG.o.d elves were escorted by the previous generations that have surpa.s.sed and reached Divine rank and higher to exoplanets nearby our planet; however, according to the schedule imposed, they will only arrive 10,000 years from now. If you truly want the opportunity to break through, you must find a way to leave this planet along with other demiG.o.d elves and look for a habitable planet where the elements are stable and injunction with the universe, and breakthrough to Divine Cla.s.s there.

The problem is, the journey would be far, taking hundreds of years and you

Second, relegate all information concerning Xander Cloverfield to the highest priority and cla.s.s, 0. No direct contact shall be initiated unless it is the other party that comes to initiate it. If you plan to strike, make sure it cannot be traced to the elves or the sprites at all. If you strike, make sure the target will really be eliminated; 100% chance is the only percentage allowed for the strike to proceed concerning Xander Cloverfield. At the same time, place everyone related to him under Cla.s.s 1 priority level, and under strict surveillance. If we can pull them to our control, do so, but make it discreet. He is more than he seems to be on the surface; be careful, Carla." Clarissa said to Carla, her voice monotone.

Carla, upon hearing this, had her face visibly whiten. After all, she was half-step to Divine cla.s.s. She had a domain fusion of 92%, making her more powerful compared to her peers. Now, she faces a decision of whether she should leave the planet on her own or wait for around 10,000 years when she was at the prime of her cultivation life? After all, she's just 2000 years old. She became queen after she had won the champions.h.i.+p. Clarissa, on the other hand, stayed quiet. She knew how much of a blow this was for Carla. After all, they had known each other's dreams and aspirations.

Carla, even as a young elf, wanted to explore the wide wide universe that lay beyond the confines of Eteria. Clarissa, had aspirations simpler than Carla: being happy. Being with Carla, playing with her, talking to her... She was happy. She didn't need anything else. She only cultivated because she didn't want to be left behind by Carla.

This news was a turning point for Carla, and whether she would proceed with exploring the nearby exoplanets or risk it all and breakthrough to Divine rank in Eteria. Unless she could find a way to travel to the exoplanets within the 1000 years, it's was not going to be worth it.

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The deadline of 7 days of school leave wasn't even close to finis.h.i.+ng, so for the remaining 3 days, Xander decided to travel to the Galactic Empire, specifically, the nearest planet under their control, which was 8,000 lightyears away. If a Divine rank magician traveled from Eteria, it would take them, with an average speed of 0.05 lightyears per minute, roughly 112 days to reach this planet under the jurisdiction of the Empire.

If it was a Sage rank magician, with an average travel distance of 0.25 lightyears per minute, it would take them 22 days to reach the planet.

If they were traveling through s.p.a.ce normally, they would then have to pa.s.s a series of checkpoints, proving that they are a citizen of the empire and not an outsider or a fresh, unregistered Divine magician.

This was because of the planet's unique position in the empire. This planet is called Arder and considered to be a border planet of the empire since it formally joined 10,000 years ago after it finally reached the technological level required by the Galactic Council: superluminal s.p.a.ce travel s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+ps that can withstand a barrage of peak DemiG.o.d attacks for at least 10 minutes, or 1 Divine rank attack.

With the help of the Galactic Empire, they also surpa.s.sed their current quantum supercomputers size, allowing them to join a 100% virtual hyper-reality creation by the Empire known as [Second Life], modified in such a way that people from opposite ends of the Empire would be able to compete against one another, as well as allowing the Empire to simultaneously host special events, ceremonies, and send out rewards and even trade with one another by just adding or replacing a few bits of data on the recipient, and once they exit the virtual reality, the item can be brought out through reverse digitalization provided that they have the required machine to do so, which is quite pricey for the normal citizens. Usually, they would use or rent the reverse digitalizer in the government security office by paying a small fee.

Of course, the reverse digitalization only worked for goods that were non-living and non-sentient, and for items that were only up to 2 tonnes in ma.s.s. To avoid taxing the program, its trading was limited to 1 per person per 7 days. This was what fascinated Xander about the empire: there were too many things available!

Ok! Focus! Remember the reason you are here! Xander said to himself, lightly slapping his cheeks.

1. Get a citizens.h.i.+p card legal or illegal means.

2. Enter the virtual reality successfully, and then enter the database situated inside the virtual reality.

3. Record and categorize all the information possible.

4. Use their large database to establish his last 3 pseudo-spells; if possible, replace the other pseudo-spells as well.

Just 4 tasks. No biggie. Now where should he get an identification card, Xander wondered. He was using another one of his time clones, the one that took the persona of Homer Simpson. He was aimlessly moving out and about in the largest city in Arder, Veiled City. This was where the majority of the trade in the country occurred; outside the city, multiple s.p.a.ceports were available and tightly secured. In his initial scan of the local databases, the strongest person here was someone in the Sage cla.s.s, and most government officials were peak DemiG.o.d cla.s.s to Divine-6 cultivators.

He tried to look for spells placed in their local database: Although there were over 20,000 different master, Legendary, and Mythic spells recorded in the database, only two of them was what Xander was looking for, filling two of his pseudo-spell slots.

[Crysis Core Blades]: Creates an elemental Blade that can be used for different purposes, such as attacking, defending, traveling, magic spell array formation, and even energy storage. The limit of the number of blades would vary per person's magic energy and elemental comprehension.

This spell is considered an Order element pseudo-magic circle, due to the possibilities it brings forth in a systematized way (Creation). It's also multi-functional, so it suited the future spells that may be formed from it.

[Force Destabilization]: Allows one to destabilize the forces present in physical matter, as well as disturb the elemental representation of the target area, causing magic casting to be erratic and unstable. The caster is not exempted from the effect if he/she enters the target area.

The second spell acts similarly to [Penumbral Chaos] being in the Chaos element pseudo-magic circle but is better because it also affects physical matter, meaning if he targeted the being, he could destabilize the opponent's structural matter, similar to that of his [Spatial View].

So, currently, he has 8 spells:

[Void Wind] falls under the Void element.

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

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

[Aether Control] falls under the Order element, specifically, the Command rule.

[Crysis Core Blades] falls under the Order element, specifically, the Creation rule.

[Divination] falls under the Life-Death elements, specifically, the Fate series.

[Magic Rejection] falls under the Chaos element, specifically, the Rejection rule.

[Force Destabilization] falls under the Chaos element, specifically, the Disorder rule.

What Xander needed is a pseudo-spell that can embody both s.p.a.ce-time elements. He didn't try creating another s.p.a.ce-time spell lest it fills up his Divine and Sage rank spell slots, or even his Legendary, Mythic or DemiG.o.d spells, like with [Material Transformation]. He then thought for a moment; what if from the spells I have in the Advanced rank, I interpolate another s.p.a.ce-time spell, enabling me to set it as my pseudo-spell rather than an advanced spell or higher?

He thought about it for a few minutes before shaking his head. The problem is any spell he creates occupies the spell slots allocated to a magician, unless they have a unique body const.i.tution, or maybe a similar G.o.d modified their bodies. If it has been allocated, it cannot be relegated to function as a pseudo-spell.

For the next few hours, He also even tried to look for the virtual reality server in the planet; he couldn't find anyone.

He even tried to pickpocket stuff here; they had no physical currency anymore, all of it is digital! He couldn't open an account on his own because he would need a citizens.h.i.+p card. A day later, after scanning the city in intervals, he finally discovered an interesting group of people seemingly operating in the shadows. What definitely caught his attention was that they were all wearing black cloaks and heading to the same location at night, a building complex in the downtown area of the city, and they were entering the building one at a time.

He didn't enter the building right away, but rather observed the gathering from the outside, since obstructions didn't mean much for him in this stage, unless this building was a pocket s.p.a.ce or a different dimension, which is unlikely to happen. After all, these people haven't even mastered the intricacies of the s.p.a.ce-time element. According to their brief history, the research of superluminal s.p.a.ce travel only managed to reach its current standard by coincidence; a being pa.s.sing by taught them several magic circle arrays to be embedded into their s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps' internal array, allowing the whole body and engine to accelerate to superluminal speeds of 5 to 6 times the speed of light.

From those several magic circle arrays that contained the power of s.p.a.ce, time, and even gravity, as well as wave elements, they extrapolated the information concerning s.p.a.ce elements, improving their technological profile. Actually, this was a common sight in the empire; planets were only able to extrapolate data concerning the s.p.a.ce element, while its counterpart, the time element, has less than 0.00000000000001% understanding in a technological and magical development standpoint. Even the Galactic council still didn't have anyone proficient at s.p.a.ce-time elements within its board of rulers. Although at Sage and G.o.d cla.s.s, they began to touch on these origin elements, they are usually instinctive rather than something controlled; although G.o.d cla.s.s cultivators can create their own ordered system using their primary elements to derive and produce the origin elements, it is not controlled but rather instinctive; they know the certain amount of ratio of origin elements that must exist to create their ordered system, however, they cannot manipulate these ratios freely.

However, they have discovered the majority of the elements; out of 1080 elements in existence in this universe, 1076.5 have been discovered, with the remaining ones being Order, Chaos, Time and Void elements, so they have a pretty diverse grasp of pseudo-spells that can be used by their citizens as well as families, clans, and groups with a long, long history at the Elite stage.

With what he can sense loitering 2 blocks away from the building, his presence hidden and camouflaged, Xander carefully listened to the events occurring in the building.

_______________________________________

"Hmm, 001, when will the trade start?" A man in black cloak spoke, his voice m.u.f.fled by the mask he wore. Everyone present in the meeting had their masks as well, not just him.

"Patience, 033. we aren't complete yet. 002, 056, and 076 aren't still here. In the meantime, relax and enjoy the dishes available." A man in a red mask spoke out, his voice calm.

"Hmm, ok 003. I'll wait." 033 mumbled. 033 headed to the pastry table and got a few sweet delights. The food was quite exquisite.

The other members were also talking among themselves, although they didn't know who was one another in real life for secrecy, they did talk about the previous meetings and trade auctions they have held. All of these events were held at a convenient time for almost everyone. However, they have a rule: If you agreed to go, you must go, or the whole thing will not proceed.

Currently, this was the 4th trade auction of the year, and over 50 people agreed to come. So far, there were 47 people present at the venue. After a few minutes of eating, a man's voice sounded near the entrance.

"Sorry I was late. The business was a ha.s.sle today." A man in gold mask spoke. Following his entrance, another person was seen by the door as well.

"Same. I was delayed by some personal matters. It's fine now, though." Neither masculine or feminine voice sounded out, the person wearing a purple mask with a rose embedded.

"Yep, yep. Me too. My husband wanted to have a surprise dinner date when I told him I was busy tonight two weeks ago." A female voice followed the second figure, showing a woman in a black cloak, but it didn't seem to hide her body's amazing figure.

"Ah, 056, 076, and 002! You're finally here. We can start the trade auction now."

"As usual, since the last trade we started from the largest numbers, we'll start with the lowest numbers this time. Ok, first off, me!" 001 said, showing a hologram of the item he wanted to auction.