Descending Into A Novel-Chapter 101:Time Education

"Space and time-attunement. Is that what you formed?"

Raymond felt a drop of sweat go down his forehead as his instructor Sienna casually scrolled through her phone. Resting her chin on one hand as she spoke. Her monotone voice resembling a robot more then a human.

"I was scolded by the president of the mage association for hiding such a big thing from him. I was confused at first you know?"

She set her phone down, staring at him with the same still expression. But it was honestly more scary then if she glared at him.

"I find out. That my student, managed to discover two entirely new attunements. Not only that, he managed to discover two of the most fundamental attunements that dictate the world. He even credited me as his co-author on the report. Yet how come I was completely unaware of this as the co-author? Don’t you think it’s strange?"

"I’m sorry."

"Why are you sorry? You did something amazing after all. So amazing I had to spend several days in overtime. Receiving constant messages and requests for meetings from hundreds and hundreds of people whom I had to reply to?"

Was working overtime really so bad?! You’re a SS-rank for goodness sake!

But then Raymond remembered the first time he had to work overtime back on Earth. He had to seal the system on Earth so he was practically the same as a regular person, but it was probably a good thing he didn’t have his stats or magic. Even if he could easily handle the extra work, he might have used his magic to do something heinous to his boss instead. Just thinking back to his balding head already made him irritated.

At least overtime on Earth was still doable, as regular humans. Sleep was still a necessity. In a world like Terra however, overtime for awakened was vastly different since they could go for much longer without sleep.

"You didn’t answer me yet. Your attunements, is it space and time?"

"Well, the term dimension could also be used but yes. It is space and time."

"And you’re hiding your dimension-attunement?"

"Yes."

"How long have you known?"

"Only a few weeks ago."

She sighed, "Why did I have to be assigned to you..."

This wasn’t the first time she had complained about Raymond, and it definitely wouldn’t be the last time either.

Unlike the other instructors who personally guided and taught their students. Raymond’s relationship with instructor Sienna was more of a customer and a merchant, or maybe a thief and merchant would be more accurate. The two hardly interacted outside of the Special Class Personal Guided Education, and Raymond just used her name whenever was convenient. Making her take all the heat for him.

He tried to defend his actions, "Instructor, at least I’m low maintenance aren’t I?"

"That doesn’t meant anything with how much trouble you cause me."

Thats fair.

"You will probably deny this, but do you need any help with forming new spells for your new magic discipline?"

"No need. But I actually do have a bit of a strange request."

"What is it?"

"I want to go to the Elven realm."

Raymond didn’t need future sight to predict the sigh that followed his request.

"Why do you want to go there?"

"I’m curious."

"Haah. No human has ever seen an elf, you want to be the first?"

"...yes?"

"Your best shot to see them is with the dwarves, luckily humans have a pretty good relationship with them. I’ll try and ask for you."

"Thank you instructor."

***

Staring at the bottle in Ellen’s hands, he asked. "What’s that you’re drinking?"

She handed him the bottle, "It’s a mix designed to improve recovery. Wanna try?"

Raymond stared at the murky, brown liquid sludge sloshing around the bottle. He felt curious about the taste, but he seriously doubted this would taste good.

"No thanks."

She sighed, "Good choice, it tastes disgusting."

Why do you look so disappointed then?

He didn’t mention that out loud, choosing to stay silent.

Ellen set the bottle down, picking up her Kairos bow again and activating her World Crossing Bow Art.

As her signature technique developed by her at her peak, the World Crossing Bow Art was what made Ellen known as the World Crossing Arrow. Separated into different categories based on the distance travelled. At her peak strength of SS+, she had once shot an arrow that travelled halfway across the world before hitting its target.

The World Crossing Bow Art however, had one main downside. It relied on Ellen’s willpower-attunement mana. Without it, the power and efficiency of the Art was heavily reduced.

The willpower-attunement Ellen had previously formed was special. Mana had a basic effect of being able to enhance any object if you coated it with mana, and her willpower-attunement took this to the next level. In fact, if she utilized her mana on an object for long enough. It would become permanently enhanced—swords would become sharper, armour more durable and bows more powerful. It also had a bonus effect of motivating others but that was minor.

The World Crossing Bow Art relied on this property of her mana to function properly. As the distance increased, the enhancement effect would grow progressively stronger. Meaning the further away they were, the more effective the Art and the stronger it would become.

But Ellen didn’t have her willpower-attunement anymore. She had a time-attunement now. From what Raymond could tell, her time-attunement was the same as his. Encompassing all aspects of time rather then just a single part like the past or the future.

As Ellen fired off arrow after arrow at her target, Raymond analyzed her mana with some help from his engraved glasses. Watching how she utilized her new mana attunement.

"How is it?"

"...I can tell you don’t know much about time."

"No crap, I had to go in completely blind while learning how to use it."

He pushed his engraved glasses up slightly to prevent then from falling.

"Time-attunement doesn’t enhance things the same way that other attunements do. In fact, it’s completely useless in this regard. Barely better then just regular unattuned mana."

She frowned, "How am I supposed to use it then?"

"The only upside is that time-attunement can interact with time."

She sat down next to him on the bench. Raymond may act a little...slow sometimes,but when it came to topics he was en expert in. He would mysteriously turn into a phenomenal teacher.

"Well, how do you think time works?"

"Not much, you always refused to teach me back then because you were lazy."

"..."

He cleared his throat, "Time can be split into three distinct parts. Past, present and future."

He raised his palm up to the ceiling, letting some mana flow out of it. Forming a long line parallel to the ground. One end of the line branching out countless times over.

"The straight part is the past, the several branches are the future. The present is where the past and the future meet."

"The past and the present are essentially locked into place, whereas the future is constantly changing with an infinite number of possible outcomes. Time-attunement can interact with these three parts in different ways."

Raymond would have loved to cast his time magic to demonstrate for her, except that he was unable to cast any actually meaningful spells at his current level. So he settled for just describing different methods to utilize time-attunement mana. Maybe Ellen could get some inspiration from his spells.

"One of my favorite time spells to use are my time clones. It’s split into four different options. False or true and past, present or future time clone. A false clone is one that I have to control manually and is a mere replica while a true clone is the actual me from that time period."

"I can’t use a true present clone for obvious reasons, and the future time clones are...complicated to say the least. Any spells related to the future are always complicated due to it’s nature. Playing with time too much also tends to attract Punishment."

Ellen had once been worried about the Punishment, but truth be told. Right now, she barely cared about it. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

Being forgotten by everyone? Painful, but she could deal with it. Being attacked by monsters? Bad sure, but if it only arrived after a decade or so. Then that was fine.

She could accept being dead, she could accept herself being forgotten, she could accept the fact that she would never live a peaceful life.

But she could not accept the end of the world. All of her friends, family and every human dying.

A single sacrifice to save billions was more then worth it.

Although, the whole Punishment system seemed awfully strange to Ellen. Clearly it was to intimidate people from messing with time too much, but why delay it by so long? Why wait until the timeline returned to its original length?

At that point, she would have already achieved her goals. If the intelligent beings in charge of issuing Punishment actually wanted to stop them. Why not just send the Punishment right away?

Raymond’s current belief was that it was a warning. But Ellen believed it to be more of a tribulation. If you survived then you were worthy enough to reap the rewards. Failure meant death for trying to change time.

Well. She would at least enjoy the nineteen years she still had left.