With Chronos’ confirmation that she did indeed have a potential for stopping time, Shiro closed her eyes and leaned back.
With her potential being confirmed, it was just a matter of how she could accomplish this. She hoped that she’d be able to do this by the end of the month in time for the next event but it was quite the tall order even for her.
Trying to utilise a powerful concept such as time was no easy feat. Unlike light, fire, water and so on, time was much harder to grasp. Stopping an individual time was easy enough since she could explain that Keitoma did something similar.
Pausing her enemy’s time for a split moment to allow her to attack.
But that wasn’t what she wanted. Her goal was to be able to pause time within a certain area or perhaps the entire world. It was so that she could still affect the world while everything was in paused time.
But so far, the only one who could do this is Chronos. His mastery even allowed him to turn back time so that she could warn herself. If she wanted to learn how to stop time, Chronos would be the best teacher.
‘But the gods are having trouble contacting me since the system has restrictions…’ Shiro furrowed her brows as this backlash might last for a while.
As she was contemplating about this, she felt some movement beside her as Nan Tian opened his eyes and yawned slightly.
“Are you ok? You seem a little restless?” He asked while sitting up.
“Mn? Yeah I’m just thinking about what to do. Now hear me out, I have a plan but it’s a bit tough to execute.” Shiro smiled as she sat with her legs crossed.
Seeing the excited glimmer in her eyes, Nan Tian couldn’t help but chuckle since Shiro was the happiest when she talked about things to do with combat.
“Oh? How tough are we talking about?” Nan Tian asked with curiosity.
“This is something that will most likely require the help of Chonos, primordial god of time. I want to be able to obtain the power to pause time and move within that moment so that I can cross large distances or save people while the world is paused.” Shiro replied with a smile.
“Pause time? That’s quite the feat. Do you have an idea on how to do it?”
“A little but like I said, I think I need Chronos’ help. But with the system backlash, messaging me must be pretty difficult. However, despite that, Chronos has confirmed that I have the potential so it’s just a matter of figuring it out myself or having him help me.” Shiro explained as Nan Tian paused for a moment.
“But you can’t use mana or divine energy right now can you? I have an idea or two but they require you to use a large amount of mana and divine energy. From what I know, divine energy allows you to control that of which is more conceptual in nature such as souls, space and so on. Spells that use divine energy are much more powerful since they deal with the core of the element whereas mana is limiting in nature compared to divine energy. While there are exceptions, it is generally much harder to tap into the core of the concept with just mana.
“The first option that you can use is harnessing divine energy to adjust the flow or river of time. With the system’s integration into this world, what we used to know as myths and legends now exist. Which means the river of time also exists. The first possibility is for you to directly affect the river using divine energy.
“The second option that I thought up of was to create your own catalyst. Like how some mages have an image in mind when using their divinity, you could potentially create a catalyst that will help you connect to the river of time. For example, an hourglass would be perfect for this. Tilting it upside down could be a mental note for reversing time and holding it horizontally is pausing time.” Nan Tian suggested as Shiro sat speechlessly.
“Seems like I don’t even need to say anything.” Shiro shrugged as she chuckled.
“But yes you’re right. My main goal is to use option 1 if I can since it’s more diverse. Not having a mental note would make it much harder for the enemy to interrupt and if I become too dependent on this cue, it would become a weakness instead. The only problem now is using my divine energy and asking Chronos for some guidance since this would take years should I have to study it by myself.” Shiro admitted as she scratched her hair.
“Perhaps you can upgrade your authority and contact them instead.” Nan Tian suggested since the cooldown for her blessing should have ended by now.
“Right but that’s on a time limit itself no? Administrator 4 did mention that if I still have something granted by this upgrade after the time limit is over, I’ll suffer a backlash. Hence why we didn’t keep the map last time which didn’t matter too much thanks to my memory. But this is a different problem. I don’t know how much I’ll be able to learn from Chronos in this time.” Shiro furrowed her brows.
However, just as she thought of this, she realised something.
“Wait what if I send an avatar to him, get him to use his divinity to pause time in his own domain so that I can study it.” Shiro muttered.
“That could work but you also have to think about the system in that it wouldn’t let you have something like this so easily. There’s a high chance that the time would be directly linked to you so it will continue to tick down even if you are in paused time.” Nan Tian reminded as Shiro frowned.
“Mn… that is a bit annoying. Hm… Wait… what if I get Chronos to send the information to me from the future like what happened at the first event?” Shiro asked as Nan Tian thought about it for a moment before nodding his head.
“It’s possible but that was with the use of a rainbow relic. It’s a catalyst that allows the god to demonstrate a large majority of their power without backlash. After what happened, I bet that there is an 80% chance of this backlash being huge.”
“Arg!! So annoying.” Shiro scratched her hair in annoyance as not being able to converse with a god is a little problematic for her right now especially since she needed Chronos’ help.
“How about we do it like this. I’ll spend 2 days thinking about what I can do right now and if I don’t make any progress we’ll wing it with the authority upgrade.” Shiro said as Nan Tian nodded his head.
“Sounds good. But what can we do in two days without mana or divine energy?” Nan Tian asked as Shiro chuckled.
“Just transfer me some mana and I’ll experiment. Even though my mana realm is draining me dry of mana, we just need you to funnel your mana into me before it is drained and I can use it to practice.” Shiro grinned as Nan Tian raised his eyebrow.
“If we’re going to go with that it might be better for Aarim to help since she has a bigger mana pool than me if you include the boost that you had given her. Having her help would increase the success rate I suppose.” Nan Tian reminded as Shiro nodded her head.
“I think that if we get her to send me some mana crystals that she created herself, I should be able to work out the amount of mana needed to offset the drain from my mana realm.”
Hopping off the bed, Shiro dragged Nan tian to the food hall for some breakfast before making their way to Aarim.
After explaining their plan, Aarim only had one reaction and that was to face palm.
“So let me get this straight. You want to see if you can use time before the event starts?”
“Yup.” Shiro nodded.
“And you want to do two days of practice before risking yourself to meet a god so that he can give you guidance?”
“Yup.”
“And using the skill to meet the god might have a backlash depending on what happens?”
“Indeed.”
“Do I have to break your limbs myself for you to stay still even for a little while? Forget it, I’ll send you the mana crystals. How many do you need?” Aarim asked as she sighed, giving up on trying to persuade a Shiro who had made up her mind.
“Hmm… probably all of the mana you can provide within 24 hours for two days.” Shiro smiled as Aarim dropped her pen.
Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath before sighing.
“Well it’s not like I didn’t lack sleep already. Alright, I’ll send you the mana crystals when they are ready.” Aarim agreed as she ushered the two out of her office.
Sitting on her chair, her lips curved up into a smile.
‘Seems like I’ll be extremely busy for two days.’
