He who Bends Time-Chapter 56 - the obstacles

After the matter with the stray Nick was settled, Marian confirmed that all her suspicions were correct. Stray nick had indeed been collecting all her assets using the seal she had once used. With a few more kicks and punches, stray nick finally agreed to return everything to Marian. However, she still didn’t let go of Nick, as she had more questions to ask him.

After recovering her belongings, she felt it was time to bring everyone back to the Blessing Crystal Mansion, as they had all been craving rest—though not before looting Nick’s storage. Although there wasn’t anything too impressive, there were still some expensive items worth taking. After confirming her identity and authority, and officially reclaiming ownership, Marian was once again allowed into her old home.

Thud!

Barging open a door, Auran stepped into a room with the brain declaration potion in his hand, which he finished in one gulp after entering. Afterward, he threw the bottle aside and extended his hand, as if trying to feel the air in the room.

"Now, show me what you’re capable of," he muttered, and within a few seconds, the Blessing Crystal’s power began to work on his body, gradually reducing his drunkenness. It brought him to the perfect state—still tipsy, but not enough to lose his intelligence.

Closing the door, he took off his cape—a fine-quality item he had picked up from Nick’s storage, which was imbued with resistance-enhancing properties. Laying it above the bed, he sat comfortably in a chair.

"I doubt anyone would come to disturb me, especially after I showed them the power of time," he murmured to himself.

The way Auran stopped the Ten Second Death Spider wasn’t due to some especially powerful spell he cast—instead, it was the method he used that rendered the creature lifeless.

When facing someone more powerful, one major issue for ordinary magicians is mana resistance. This simply means that if the opponent’s mana density is higher than yours, your magic or spells could be shattered or nullified by their presence. However, in the case of time magicians, that resistance problem is mostly negligible. Time magic is far denser than other fields of magic. Instead, what matters for time magicians is the presence the opponent holds. If the time magician’s influence over time magic isn’t strong enough to affect the opponent’s presence, then the time magician is unable to engage them on equal terms.

That said, this applies to ordinary time magicians. Among them exist a few extraordinary individuals—beings who are exceptions even among the exceptional. Auran is one such being.

He used all his remaining time ability—further enhanced by the strange condition in his body—to cast an extremely concentrated delay spell in a very tiny area, no bigger than half the length of a fingernail.

This method pushed Auran’s magic presence to its absolute limit, focusing all of it into a single point. That small point happened to be the brain of the spider, specifically the region that controlled its bodily movement.

Once the delay spell was cast, although the spider’s brain attempted to send signals to its body, the transmission slowed dramatically due to the time magic affecting that one small space. As a result, the body froze instantly. Auran then calmly took his time to deliver the killing blow.

Without its brain properly sending signals, the spider couldn’t move, defend, or attack. And that was how such a deadly beast met its end—not with overwhelming power, but with the precision of time magic used at its finest.

"It seems almost half of my mana has recovered. But to be more sure, I should wait until all of it is restored. I don’t know how much time that will take though."

After leaning back in the chair, Auran closed his eyes, actually taking a short rest before stepping into the main problem.

Unexpectedly, it took about four hours until Auran felt that all of his mana had been fully recovered.

"Damn, I need to find some way to keep track of my own status. Even my drunkenness seems to have completely faded off."

After getting up, he laid down at the edge of the bed, placing the cape behind his head and closing his eyes.

In the next second, he found himself in a space he had once visited before—the space where he could observe his own body.

"I’m back here again. This ability I unintentionally awakened is truly useful. If I have to guess the reason behind the birth of this ability It must be the collision of intentions between my own body and will. While I was in unbalanced state suffering from the pain of the rift in my head, the most suitable decision my body made was to fall into an unconscious state. But my will wanted the exact opposite—to stand up and find a solution to this problem.

In the collision of these two intentions—my body wanting to avoid suffering, and my will intending to find a solution—this strange ability seems to have awakened. Thanks to it, I can inspect every inch of my body even while asleep."

Looking at his own figure for a few seconds, Auran then moved up to the head and into the space where the time rift was located. The surrounding space around the rift was clean, and by now Auran had already managed to collect all the fragments of the book that had once been scattered throughout this space. All he needed was a strong thought for that to happen—like a blowing wind, his focused will had gathered all the scattered content floating around into one space, which is now sealed and locked away by that same strong intent.

Since this space exists within his own mind, he could control things to some extent through his will.

But it wasn’t a perfect solution, as he had still been unable to rearrange the scattered book pages correctly—how they were before the destruction.

Standing in front of the time rift, situated between the two spinning circles, Auran pondered. As time passed, the two circles became gradually more violent, and drops of time mana spilled out. Some were blocked by the protective shield, but the mist of evaporated time mana that escaped was absorbed into Auran’s head, granting him knowledge he hadn’t known before.

It was completely random knowledge—this time, about the field of wind magic.

"This thing is not just a ticking time bomb... more than that, it’s a treasure beyond measurable value. What I need is to find a way to remove its deathly side effects and also discover how to use its full potential.

I don’t think I can come up with a solution like that without this thing’s own help."

After fully letting the drunkenness fade from his body, Auran allowed the time rift to resume its wild, volatile flow. The drops spilled out occasionally—each one giving him a brief flash of death, but also, with a small chance, granting new, random knowledge.

In this ethereal atmosphere, where knowledge was both a gift and a threat, Auran began to work—searching for a solution that he could finally be satisfied with.

Updated from fr𝒆ewebnov𝒆l.(c)om