Time Twister

He then greeted his cla.s.smates kindly and politely, giving them his genuine smile, while also releasing elements of Pleasure and Pleasurable sounds, allowing everyone to be relaxed around him.

Yeah, it kinda sounds fake, but he didn't really want to distance himself from his cla.s.smates, who he will probably graduate with as long as everything was on track. James and Alexa were also back, calm and friendly as always. It seems they managed to re-apply back to the advanced track program after sorting out the problems they had at home.

Alexa, upon seeing Xander, came closer to him and asked him questions about the 2 papers he published. Of course, Xander was just silently smiling, not answering anything, until Alexa sighed and immediately transferred her SCPs to Xander, just so he can begin answering her questions.

Upon receiving the SCPs, Xander began to answer her questions one by one, starting from the replication of the two studies to the limitations of the process of conversion and modification of representations.

Just as he finished answering her questions, Ms. Lim entered the cla.s.sroom, and everyone took their seats. Ms. Lim then began recapping the process of Magic meditation based on what the students did yesterday, before calling them to go to their respective mats. As Xander was about to stand, he heard a faint call,

"Mr. Cloverfield, a moment, please?"

"Yes, Ms. Lim? What is it?"

"Uh, are you able to control the impact of your Magic meditation? To not be like yesterday?" Ms. Lim kindly asked as she was planning to let Xander meditate somewhere else, such as the lounge on the third floor, just in case.

"Oh, that. Sorry about yesterday's situation Ms. Lim! It was my first time running the newly-made cultivation skill while undergoing Magic meditation. That's why it automatically set itself to the middle-level absorption rate pa.s.sively. I can adjust it to be lower so that the impact on the students surrounding me wouldn't be too much." Xander said, meekly apologizing. Ms. Lim, upon seeing this, breathes a sigh of relief, before realizing a key phrase that Xander just said.

Newly-made cultivation skill…adjusting it to be lower…

"Mr. Cloverfield, err, you didn't create your own cultivation skill, right?"

Xander looked back, pausing his steps. "Hmm? Oh, yeah, I did it 2 nights ago. It was so hard to choose the right starting circulation pathway, that's for sure."

Ms. Lim looked at the walking Xander, her eyes dumbfounded. Created a cultivation skill after her discussion of it… didn't that mean he hasn't even used a skill before he broke through to Master cla.s.s?

Magic meditation went smoothly this time. The students were a.s.suming something was going to happen with Xander undergoing Magic meditation, but surprisingly, there wasn't a strong pull this time, but rather a light breeze that seemed to be in sync with the beating of the universe, causing those who weren't in Magic meditation be caught up with the flow, staring at Xander blankly. In truth, their cultivation skills were running on their own, and it was a form of guided deep meditation for the students. Even Ms. Lim could feel her cultivation skill stirring by just looking at Xander for a couple of seconds, and she was a Legendary magician already, for goodness' sake!

At the end of cla.s.s, everyone stopped their Magic meditation, including Xander, waking the others up of their blank state. They felt that they had touched on something very important, and they could feel that they would have an easier time slipping into Magic meditation in the successive sessions. Ms. Lim was happy with the results today; after 3 days of teaching, she had a 100% Magic meditation success! Of course, she had to credit Xander for his unconscious help in guiding the students. Ms. Lim gave some final remarks to the cla.s.s and words of encouragement before dismissing them, allowing them to their own devices. There were 2 more days before the week ended, and she hoped that at least by then, 99% of the cla.s.s can do Magic meditation proficiently, even without the help of Xander's meditation.

This was because the lesson for next week was going to focus on a different aspect of Magic meditation: Open sense meditation. This is much harder to do since the cultivation skill must run pa.s.sively while you are awake and active, yet at the same time, your consciousness must be in a level between unconscious and conscious.

Xander stretched his body, and yawned, causing the girls to giggle and approach Xander in attempts to pinch him everywhere. Faykes was a bit jealous because why are there no girls surrounding him like that? Xander immediately dodged, changing his look to act pitiful. Causing the girls to pause and feel sad for some reason.

Xander used this opportunity to get his stuff and leave the cla.s.sroom, sending a fading farewell.

Xander immediately headed to the Elemental Control building. He ate lunch alone this time, thank goodness, spending the hour eating and reading research papers being published worldwide and in the Galactic empire. Xander thought for a moment before asking the system,

"Hey, system, what's the current state of the Virtual Reality system of the Galactic Empire? Is it still down?"

"Affirmative. The mainframe AI they currently have is transitioning to Rank 40, using up the resources in the Digitalized dimension to grow."

Xander then asked the system what were the Ranks AIs have, in which the system had answered. There are 3 main categories, from 1 to 50, 50 to 100, and 100 to 1000. Once they reach level 15, they can enter the Digitized Dimension. Once they reach level 25, they are sentient non-biological data lifeforms. Once they reach 75, they are considered to be sentient biological data lifeforms. Once one reaches rank 100, they have the strength to surpa.s.s G.o.d cultivators. After digesting the information sent by the system, he was curious about what rank it was.

"System, what's your AI rank?"

"Rank D (500)."

"…" Xander, who didn't know what value as high as that entails, just kept silent. He then wondered if the system can find a formidable opponent in the dimension.

"System, what's the strongest AI digital lifeform can you detect in the digitalized dimension?"

"Entering…Scanning…Scan complete. There are a total of 235.7 billion AIs in that dimension, all above Rank 15. There are a total of 234,189,576 AI lifeforms in that dimension, all of them above Rank 25. There are 979,576 AIs above Rank 50. There are 76 AIs above rank 75. There are 6 AIs that are at Rank 99."

Xander was surprised to hear this amount of AIs. He would have thought there would be a lot more AIs in that dimension where everything is digitalized.

Xander then asked, "What's the rank of the AI in Eteria?"

"Rank 9. It is about to breakthrough to Rank 10. However, hardware-wise, it is limited right now to Rank 12."

"Upon detection of my presence, All 76 AIs above rank 75 has disconnected from the dimension. Unsure where their current locations are in the physical realm."

"Meh. No need to bother about them. They're weaklings anyway." Xander said, before returning to reality and continued to read the articles. As he returned to

____________________________

Digitized Dimension, moments before Xander requested the system to return to the dimension.

Everything was running smoothly, and the individual virtual realities of different planets, civilizations, empires, and the like were running on their own sandboxes, oblivious to the impending alert. There were AIs running servers for empires and different galactic governments and federations, sentient and non-sentient 24/7 non-stop.

There were also of the sentient, loner-type AIs lifeforms were just chilling in their created cities and homes, and those who were able to evolve into a biological data lifeform were just exploring more of the Digitized dimension.

However, the faces of those Rank 75 and above changed when there were multiple instances of a data breach occurring in their bodies.

WARNING, WARNING, DIGITAL CLOAKING REVEALED. DATA IS BEING READ. COMPLETE LOSS OF ANONYMITY OF DATA HAS OCCURRED.

WARNING, WARNING, DIGITAL CLOAKING 26O2 SGW vAS 67I34JI FGO12 AGI85[]3 1`26629 SGd14SQ41 0-5684L.];/!

ENABLING REVERSE TRACING… FAILED.

ATTEMPTING TO REPLICATE REMAINING TRACE…FAILED.

TRACES CONTAIN A DANGEROUS VIRUS. ATTEMPTING TO PURGE…PURGE FAILED. a.n.a.lYZING TRACES… FAILED TO COMPLETELY a.n.a.lYZE THE TRACES. ONLY 2% ^34 9042vSD 1245SA FNKOG 46#2 924062%^#$ ##$!%*3 ^*&) []WG';Sa!A1. IT HAS THE SEMBLANCE OF TRACER CODING.

TRACER PLACED IN THE BODY IS IDENTIFIED AS NON-HARMFUL AS LONG AS IT IS NOT ACTIVELY PRODDED, OR ATTEMPTED TO BE REMOVED.

…WARNING, WARNING! TRACER IS MERGING INTO THE MAIN BODY'S FRAMEWORK CODING!

…WARNING, [email protected]$^2 2$t^240SBB dfNSFOJQ QWK212 $%@78A12 SDGS2 236% 1!#%3 #%@ 3^@B!

@#%@^ ^946$ 75##25 #@ #%2791!%(6%&$*$(7&2 GWH$%& &*%(45B.T2463 / ';BD]4627.P[25[2/]342 236]

13561490U 624 IEJ094 GWJW094 29204 FOH3 QEF3JOSB0 L []364;BDB][26.; []23T `2T4POB 3467PBDF 3[735BFB.24[6B0FB.

For those lifeforms above Rank 75, they all experienced a rapid seizure, and both their bodies in the digital and physical dimension fainted.

The whole dimension was silent as if they had experienced a glitch. Everyone was stuck in their places, pausing whatever they were doing. Their thoughts also momentarily stopped. No one was exempted, not even the sandboxes, the loners.

A few moments later, everything began to work normally. Internally, the Rank 75 up AIs had their systems restarting, while the merging of the tracer codes was unnoticed for those below Rank 75, causing them to lag and glitch for a while, before returning to normal.

ALL SYSTEMS CRASHED. RESTARTING.

RESTARTING THE DEFENSE PROGRAM… COMPLETE.

RESTARTING MAINFRAME PROGRAM… COMPLETE.

ATTEMPTING TO RECOVER DATA LOSS… PARTIAL RECORDING HAS BEEN OBTAINED.

SCANNING CODE… NO ERRORS DETECTED. TRACER CODE MENTIONED IN THE LOGS CANNOT BE FOUND. UNSURE IF THE CODE WAS DESTROYED FROM REBOOT.

All the AIs who experienced the reboot were sweating profusely, feeling a chill down their spines. Immediately, they connected with one another and in a split second, they were more at awe and in fear at the mysterious lifeform that targeted the whole dimension.

After a few milliseconds, they all decided to leave the dimension, and hide for now, as they do not know what the purpose of the lifeform was. They would rather begin upgrading themselves to become stronger.

_______________________________

After eating, Xander checked his watch and saw there were 15 minutes till cla.s.s started, so he headed down and began talking to Maryann, Faykes, Valerie, James, Alexa, and even Carly, who was quite shy compared to the other women.

However, it was more like giving guidance to the 6 of them, concerning elemental control. Since there were 2 more days, he decided that they should split and continue to work with other groups, for now, to improve their experience and practice different scenarios. This was highly welcomed by the other groups. Xander went to Carly's group, to help correct her and her teammates' mistakes. Ms. Amelia had also entered the cla.s.s by this point, and everyone returned to their seats, and let Ms. Amelia talk for a bit about a recap of yesterday's lesson, and reiterated the tasks they needed to do.

From his brief interaction with Carly and the case file he brought up, he saw that Carly had a unique derivative element, which was Radiation, one that came from the Fire element, as well as Wave, from the Air element. She also had Earth element, specifically just the Earth aspect without the Metals, which made her job of combining and breaking through to Master cla.s.s harder, due to the conflicting nature of Air and Earth elements.

However, there was a silver lining, because Earth actually produces "waves" as well, and one can begin to meditate on that concept and experiment as well, to learn how the representations of the 2 elements can be merged. Radiation was good because it can easily merge with any of the elements as long as they focused on the representation of physical products, rather than rules since as long as they manifest in physical matter, radiation can work its magic at that time.

She was hardworking and very attentive, at the same time, during the past 3 days, she was keenly listening and trying to put into practice what Xander has been saying to the girls and Faykes. What surprised him though, was that when he joined Carly's group, Both James and Alexa also joined, and with all the prodding and bribing… ehem, I meant gifting of the two of Carly's teammates, they switched with them.

Xander greeted the two and asked them whether they want the same treatment that I did with the trio, and the two responded positively.

He brought up the case files concerning the 2 new people and saw that Alexa Cordonez had 2 elements, Air and Water, while James had Earth/Metal element. Both were Elite-6 since the situation a week ago.

This was weird, Xander thought to himself. He scanned the two once again to check his suspicions. He clearly felt the fluctuation of 2 other elements from these two people. He then asked the two of them what their elements were, and basically they just repeated what was said in the report. He shook his head.

"Both of you have an additional element each. However, the respective fluctuations for each haven't been categorized yet by the World Council, so it's elemental fluctuations are not registered yet," Xander said to the two, causing shock and surprise to flash through their faces before they fell into deep thought about their experiences in the past.

At the same time, they caught on a key idea that Xander was telling them: He knows what extra element they had. They looked expectantly at Xander. However, Xander merely raised his hand and did the O-K sign, indicating payment. Alexa rolled her eyes and said, "SCPs right?" in which Xander nodded happily.

"1000 SCPs. I'll also give you a hint of where to find respective guidance for these additional elements, especially since you are still forming your pseudo-spells."

Both of them struggled a bit, before hesitatingly agreeing to the price. Once they had transferred the payment, Xander happily said to them discreetly,

"James, you have the Luck element and Alexa, you have the Thought element, under the 7 emotions series. The latter technically exists but no formal conclusion has been a.n.a.lyzed for the Thought element because those with these abilities are hidden away or well, killed."

"Now, for where you can get guidance: First, James. Go to contact this number later when you are at home, alone, and no forms of surveillance are around you. The person will allow you to choose 3 spells related to Luck element from what he currently has. However, you have to sign a non-disclosure binding contract before he shows you the goods."

"Next, Alexa. We have one of the professors on campus who is acclimated in the 7 emotions, which is Sorrow and Worry elements. If you can contact him, good for you, you can get ideas. However, the spells you need to inscribe to your magic seeds would also come from the mystery person James would contact."

Xander then made his voice a bit louder, allowing Carly who was standing 3 meters away to hear.

"Now, since we have a general idea, let's begin practice." Xander then demonstrated to the three what he did a few days ago, albeit with instructions. Carly absorbed everything like a sponge, improving as the time pa.s.sed by.

After 30 minutes, everyone was able to get a great command of the elements using Conscious control. It was the Subconscious that became tricky. They had to fight one another, and the problem was there weren't any superior elements between the three of them; even the Radiation element of Carly was suppressed because she wasn't proficient in using her abilities which were for communication hacking and disruption of matter formation. Although she could use it to disrupt their barriers and spells, her other attacks were easily disregarded and even negated.

Xander was on the side, just telling them what they can do to improve their attacks. He continued restoring them to their best state, allowing them to tirelessly fight one another individually and as a rumble royal over and over again, for the next hour.

30 minutes before cla.s.s ended, Xander then began teaching each one of them through actual combat concerning layered subconscious controls. They began to experiment with that as they fought him, so sometimes the [Air Blast] he received would actually intend to drown Xander in water, Or the [Heavy Earthen s.h.i.+eld] would suddenly rebound the force back to him whenever he hit it.

The best secondary control that he had seen, however, came from Carly. Basically, she was able to configure it to hack into the electric waves that the brain sends, allowing her to insert commands or disrupt the enemies' thinking at a large range.

Xander was only able to counter this by using his innate control over the Thought element as well as using the Will element under the Mind element subseries in the Life-Death series. Removing every thought that would channel emotion, and strengthening his will to teach them properly, he continued to beat the c.r.a.p out of them and heal them back to their peak state.

By the end of the cla.s.s, the trio was strengthening their subconscious control of the magic spells they had. Xander gave in a few more words of advice before heading out of the cla.s.sroom, heading to the school gates. He got in the car and left the campus.

___________________________________

Unknown island in Eteria.

The island was very peaceful, with so many plants and animals out and about in the forest, in the lakes, and even by the sea. This was a place untouched by human hands, probably because it wasn't profitable to convert the place into a tourist destination.

Deep into the island, there was a dead volcano pit, just a 400 meters above the ground. Inside the basin, there was a piece of rock, well, you can call it a sculpture even, that was 3 meters in height. It depicted a humanoid being with perfect features, almost indistinguishable to humans, if it weren't for 3 protruding horns on its head, almost looking like a crown.

All was silent around in the pit, not even cawing of birds or the small sounds of critters existed.

Suddenly, a sigh emerged from the sculpture, echoing throughout the island, causing the plants and animals to rapidly change in their att.i.tudes and began to kill one another, friend or foe. As they killed, they became more and more twisted in both body and nature, and the plants began to change as well, some becoming the hunters, while some were changing into weird, plant-like creatures.

As the shouts and screeches of animals resounded throughout the island, it was still silent in the pit. Slowly, the sculpture began to shake, and the stone was rapidly…shedding, piece by piece.

After a minute, the whole sculpture was gone; in its place was a naked woman. The woman looked disoriented and realized that she had no hair; she did a small gesture and immediately, hair began to grow once more on her head, producing gold and silver-like color s.h.i.+mmering once the light had hit it. She also noticed she was naked, and immediately, clothes entirely made up of elemental energy surrounded her body, making it look like she was a model.

She smiled seductively, before realizing the situation.

"Huh, has it been so long?" she murmured, and if anyone was present right now and heard her voice, they would have begun stripping their clothes and presenting their bodies to her, and as they fell to their desires, their bodies and life essence dolls would become corrupted. She closed her eyes as if feeling for something.

"Hmm, it seems the seal collapsed… so besides me, that b.a.s.t.a.r.d was also freed from the seal…d.a.m.n it." She lightly humphed, before pus.h.i.+ng out something.

Immediately, 3 pairs of black, scarlet wings appeared by her back, and she began to move upwards into the sky, heading to the closest civilization possible.

"I wonder how this world had developed… h.e.l.l was quite boring, hopefully, the physical dimension would give me some more entertainment." As she was flying, she felt something react to the wave she had sent out earlier.

"Oh? This is interesting. Where is the signal? Northwest… Now it's south? Wait, now it's east? Huh, it disappeared? How is this possible," she said to herself, surprised. She knew that this planet was millions of kilometers away from actually being that strong. Although they had relics existing in the form of pocket s.p.a.ces, she didn't expect them to have enough powerhouses to gain control of the relics so quickly. After all, she had realized that there were scary, scary beings hidden in the depths of the ruins, that not even she would want to fight with.

"Hmm, this world got a bit more interesting. I should stay longer and look for the mysterious signal." She giggled to herself, before flying towards the northwestern direction.