In a luxurious room, a young man was preparing for taking an important trial that would let him become the Emperor's successor.
He had just achieved immortality, but he was plenty confident about clearing the trial.
"Soon! Soon I will finally fulfill the expectations my father has on me. I must go now!"
The young man was about to leave the room when he noticed that a translucent person appeared just in front of the door, preventing him from leaving.
The young man wasn't sure if he could just go across that person, but his intuition told him to remain still.
The translucent person was Yale's consciousness that materialized in a past era, and the young man was the past self of the old man who was the Emperor's brother.
Yale was still a bit shocked that sending his consciousness to the past provoked a breakthrough on the Minor Time Divinity, but that just made it easier that he materialized being just his consciousness.
In fact, just the fact that Yale appeared there was enough to provoke huge changes in that era, so even without doing anything else, Yale had already destroyed the present he was a moment ago.
However, he wanted to lead it to the point he wanted; he wouldn't be happy if it didn't end up like he planned.
A big change to the story of a universe was the final condition to obtain the Minor Time Divinity.
Yale messed with the time a lot, but he didn't make any important changes in the past. His Time Leaps when dealing with the Sacred Empire barely counted, so he managed to retain the False God level, but it was insufficient to reach the Minor Time Divinity directly.
Given that he already had the False Time Divinity, with a lot of small changes, it was also possible to reach it, but the speed would be extremely slow.
In fact, someone with the False Time Divinity would be tempted to make a big change to the past. With such a big power, it was too difficult that someone who had trained until that level didn't want to experiment it to its limits.
Compared to Alter Yale, Alrein, and the Mysterious Expert, Yale hadn't done any big change to the past.
The Mysterious Expert did it while being too weak for the method he used, so it ended up in failure.
Alter Yale knew perfectly that if he just sent his consciousness to the past and changed it, he would succeed, but he knew that the future he wanted wouldn't be achieved in that way, so he deliberately used the chance to travel physically, which ended up provoking that he disappeared.
The way Alrein saved his universe, thanks to going back to the past, already cleared that condition for him, but he was still missing several requirements to achieve the Minor Time Divinity.
However, that big change was the major impediment to everyone, so the fact he already cleared it made Great God Kroh think that Alrein was the one with the most chances to succeed.
The Timeless Border of Alrein's universe also made it easier for a Timeless Sovereign to affect the time compared to other Timeless Borders, which increased the chances a lot, but in the end, Yale didn't use it for the big change.
Even Great God Kroh was surprised because Yale shouldn't have been able to send his consciousness to the past.
Sending an observer consciousness was one thing, but one able to interact wasn't that easy. In fact, without being first a Minor God, Great God Kroh believed that it was completely impossible, and with his knowledge about time, if he believed it, it was certain.
However, Yale used a trick that even Great God Kroh didn't expect.
He weakened the existence of the present by tricking a whole universe combining the Lie Divinity and the Illusion Divinity, which made the past easier to change, so a False God could barely succeed at sending the consciousness to the past and affect it.
Another important factor was that the universe had been almost isolated from the moment Yale appeared until the moment he was before going to the past.
Beside investigating Alrein's universe, the presence of Yale and Tofesh, and the contact with the Smuggler Association, there hadn't been any other contact with other universes. Moreover, the contacts had been pretty near to the time Yale was before going to the past, so the effect was almost negligible in difficulty.
"Who are you?"
While Yale was still shocked by his breakthrough, the young man asked.
Yale was shocked in the inside, but his face was completely expressionless, so the young man didn't know if Yale was an ally or an enemy.
What he knew for sure was that anyone capable of infiltrating into the palace wasn't someone he could offend.
"I have a lot of names, but that isn't what you really want to hear. What you want to ask is why I am here."
The young man looked at the floor with shame because Yale guessed correctly.
Name or identity didn't matter at that moment, what was important was why the translucent man appeared in front of him.
Once he knew the translucent man's intention, he could bother about his identity. However, he didn't dare to bluntly ask a mysterious person why he appeared there.
"Don't worry, I am your ally. I came here to inform you of something you need to know."
The young man didn't understand why someone he had never seen before was his ally, but given that the other party seemed quite strong, the young man was happy that at least the translucent man wasn't an enemy.
"You doubt about my intentions. I am somewhat related to your deceased mother, or more exactly, my subordinate is. Although this is just a bit of materialized consciousness and my body isn't in this universe, killing you would be an easy feat for me, I don't need to trick you."
The young man knew that the last part was true. Regardless of Yale's strength, just by the fact that he managed to reach that room without being noticed was the proof that killing someone that barely reached immortality would be quite easy for the translucent man.
"You mustn't go to the trial now. A trap is waiting for you there. At the same time, your brother is about to kill your father. Everything in your brother's plan to become the new Emperor. Even what your mother left you would just serve you to survive, but after that, you will need to live while hiding like a criminal since every person that would be on your side would be killed without mercy."
The words were straightforward and difficult to believe, but somehow the young man felt that his wicked brother might be able to do something like that once thought about it a bit.
"Understood, I believe you."
The young man decided to trust Yale. Even if there was the slightest chance that the future Yale told was true, the young man wouldn't remain without doing anything.
In fact, since the moment he saw Yale, he already decided to first report Yale's presence to his father before doing anything else.
No matter what, he couldn't just do as if he hadn't seen someone infiltrate in his room and go to the trial.
Thus, the young man didn't mind postponing the trial because although he was impatient, there wasn't any real reason for doing them immediately.
"Are you planning to go and inform your father?"
The young man nodded at Yale's question.
"You will die."
Yale could saw clearly the future where the young man was killed in his father's place, and his brother would be killed after a huge battle with millions of deaths on each side.
Since the moment Yale appeared, that was the future ahead, but he didn't like it. He was changing the past, so he wanted to obtain the result he wanted nor just a random change.
The future wouldn't lead to the invasion, so it already satisfied Yale's objective, but he felt that accomplishing it like that wouldn't be satisfying enough, so he wanted to do it perfectly.
"Then, what can I do?"
The young man knew that he was too weak to battle against his big brother, but he didn't understand the meaning of knowing that information and not reporting it.
"Don't worry, I will give you something you can use. Only once, though. You will need to decipher it and learn it yourself to use it again."
A ray of light flew from Yale's finger to the young man's head.
"Absolute Protection. Everything that happens in its area since you cast it until it fades will be nullified."
Yale explained briefly, and the young man fell on his knees.
"Please master, accept me as your disciple!"
The young man had seen a lot of skills in his life, even ones made by his own father, but none of them could compare to Absolute Protection. Time-based skills didn't exist in his universe, so he was sure that Yale was something stronger than anyone else he met.
"Well, alright. You can call me Master Liye. Just keep looking for information about newly ascended universes, and we will meet again. Now, everything is in your hands."
Yale vanished after finishing to speak. He wanted to obtain the future he planned, but he didn't want to interfere more than that because his intuition told him that he had already done enough.
