Dimensional Codex System: I'm really not a cultist!

Chapter 58: Chapter 57: Northern Kingdom Border, Snowy Forest of Linhai

Fang Zheng discovered he seemed to be inherently incompatible with teleportation girls.

The evidence was that he had now been teleported to a godforsaken place once again.

Yes, literally.

Where on earth was this?

Walking through the forest, Fang Zheng couldn’t figure out where he had ended up. If it was just a forest, it wouldn’t be a big problem, but the issue was that Fang Zheng found this forest to be rather strange. Even in winter, there should be animals in the forest. Even if most animals hibernate, there should be some signs of life.

But here, there was nothing!

Fang Zheng walked in the forest for a day and a night and did not encounter any animals! There weren’t even any birds in the sky. For a moment, this made Fang Zheng a bit nervous—could it be that teleportation made a mistake and threw him into a place with no life at all? If that were the case, it would be troublesome!

The only fortunate thing was that Fang Zheng found a river in the forest, which made him breathe a sigh of relief. According to his memory, there must be human settlements upstream or downstream of the river, though the chances were not high. It was better than wandering aimlessly in the forest. Although after transforming his body, Fang Zheng did not get hungry as easily as when he was an ordinary human, he still needed to eat. If he got lost for too long, he might have to resort to eating tree bark.

However, Fang Zheng was not idle. While traveling, he was also exploring the time ability he had acquired to see if he could make something interesting out of it. After all, he had spent a lot of effort to obtain this ability in the world of “Edge of Tomorrow”; it wasn’t just for show.

Boredom is always the best stimulus for research. During his travels, Fang Zheng indeed discovered some ways to use his time ability.

Instant teleportation!

Of course, this “instant teleportation” was not the kind of spatial teleportation but time-based teleportation. For example, if Fang Zheng could cover a distance of ten kilometers in ten minutes, his “instant teleportation” would shrink this process to one second. In other words, Fang Zheng could appear ten kilometers away in an instant. However, this wasn’t breaking the barriers of space; it merely accelerated the flow of time.

Since the time ability’s range was centered on Fang Zheng himself, as long as he could move, there was no need to worry about stepping out of the ability’s range.

However, this method had one problem, which was the consumption of physical strength.

Time movement and spatial movement are different. Spatial movement connects two points, shortening the distance. Time movement, however, only accelerates time without reducing the consumption involved. In other words, if it took Fang Zheng a certain amount of physical strength to run a hundred meters, it would still consume the same amount after using time acceleration. This was a somewhat subtle drawback.

Also, time acceleration would similarly increase Fang Zheng’s physical aging. The cost of being ten minutes faster than others is aging ten minutes quicker. Although ten minutes is not very noticeable on the surface, cumulative small increments add up. When ten minutes becomes ten years, that’s a different story.

Fortunately, the Zerg genes in Fang Zheng’s body solved this problem perfectly. Mirune told him that Zerg growth is a unique cycle. After they devour genes to enhance themselves, their bodies remain at this peak form until the next evolution. This was why Zerg bosses were increasingly difficult to deal with, though due to their unique war tactics, hardly any Zerg lived that long.

In other words, while others aged a year every year, Fang Zheng aged only after each evolution. Therefore, no matter how many times Fang Zheng used his time ability, he wouldn’t age any faster than others.

Moreover, Fang Zheng also discovered another aspect of the Time Manipulation ability, which was that the duration and range of time control were relative!

Currently, Fang Zheng’s Time Manipulation was at Rank E, with a time limit of ten minutes and an effect radius of five meters centered on himself. However, Fang Zheng could increase the time limit by reducing the area or expand the area by reducing the time limit. For example, he could extend his range from ten meters to a hundred meters, but his time limit would drop to one minute. Conversely, if he reduced the range to within one meter, his time limit would increase to twenty minutes.

In addition, Fang Zheng figured out a more complex usage method!

And this came from his understanding of the time ability since Time Manipulation explicitly stated “arbitrary manipulation”!

This meant Fang Zheng could not only accelerate the flow of time but even reduce or pause it!

Building on this, Fang Zheng also developed an effective combat method, which he called Overlapping Strike.

The entire process was actually very simple. When facing a target, Fang Zheng could choose to use “instant teleportation” to “accelerate” the flow of eight minutes of time to “teleport” beside the target, activate time “pause,” then “rewind” ten seconds to swing a sword, “accelerate” ten seconds to swing another sword, “accelerate” thirty seconds to cast a Judgment, gather energy, “accelerate” five seconds to cast a Judgment, then “accelerate” one minute to distance himself from the target.

In the eyes of an observer, Fang Zheng would appear in front of the target in the blink of an eye, then several sword lights, followed by Judgment, Sword of Justice, Judgment, Judgment… Fang Zheng would disappear, and the target would be defeated.

Unfortunately, this ability had no loopholes. Fang Zheng could manipulate time but couldn’t twist or alter it. He could achieve time control through acceleration and deceleration, but he couldn’t bypass the process. If it took Fang Zheng eight minutes to reach the target, once he “accelerated” eight minutes to get there, he couldn’t “rewind” two minutes and attack again. If he did, his body would return to where he was two minutes ago.

Similarly, if a sword strike took five seconds to hit the enemy, he couldn’t “rewind” each second within those five seconds to form an attack rate of one strike per second. If Fang Zheng wanted to modify it, he could only deem the strike unsuccessful, then rewind five seconds and re-attack from a different angle.

Moreover, regardless of how Fang Zheng “rewound” or “accelerated,” the total time he controlled was limited. He couldn’t convert the time into infinite; no matter how he used it, he had to ensure the total time used didn’t exceed the set limit.

Thus, to Fang Zheng, whether he “accelerated” or “rewound” by one second, the ability would consider it -1S, -1S, -1S… and accumulate until the time limit was reached.

If time was likened to money, Fang Zheng only had a fixed amount of money, which he could spend but not reclaim.

Additionally, Fang Zheng discovered a flaw in the time ability.

If he used powerful skills while manipulating time, the duration would decrease!

Fang Zheng realized this after using Royal Cross Swordsmanship. Within the set time, using normal attacks felt fine. But using powerful sword techniques like Crusader Strike + Judgment + Divine Storm + Judgment consumed a terrifying amount. He couldn’t even maintain the ability, leading to possible exhaustion. This made Fang Zheng attentive— executing this sequence on a stationary target only allowed his time ability to last up to three minutes.

What if he faced those powerful enemies?

Ignoring the Child of Chaos for now, what about facing the Master of Lich, or formidable Grand Knights like Mart and Shi Dong? How long could his ability hold before such adversaries?

Initially, Fang Zheng thought time manipulation would allow him to do as he pleased within a time frame. Now it seemed that if the opponent was strong enough, his time control could be weakened. If he faced an enemy he couldn’t handle, it might even be nullified.

Fang Zheng constantly experimented with his ability along the way. The description of the ability was merely an introduction; he had to figure out its use himself. As a game designer and seasoned player, Fang Zheng had ample experience. He treated the ability like a game skill, testing whether it was better as an auxiliary or a main attack. For now, it seemed more useful as an auxiliary, but Fang Zheng felt that with upgrades, it might have considerable offensive potential.

Of course, for now, it wasn’t very effective.

“Hmm?”

While Fang Zheng was busy researching the ability, he suddenly looked up, surprised by what lay ahead. He had keenly sensed a large number of life forms!

The Zerg genes in him had a sharp sense for this. In his mind, he could clearly feel numerous life signals gathering not far away. It was reminiscent of watching a small map with red dots in an interstellar game—though somewhat incongruous, it was very useful.

Finally found something alive!

Thinking of this, Fang Zheng got excited and quickly sped up, rushing forward.

It didn’t take long for Fang Zheng to reach his destination. As he expected, where there was water, there was habitation. What appeared before Fang Zheng was a small town. From the outside, it appeared to be a very beautiful place, but it bore no resemblance to peace and beauty now.

The reason was simple: it was under attack.

More importantly, the attack did not come from humans.

“What is that…”

Standing on a distant branch, Fang Zheng frowned, staring at the scene ahead. Outside the small town, a three to four meter high wall blocked the invaders’ steps. However, the invaders did not relent in their attacks. They were a pack of giant black wolves, each as large as a warhorse, numbering over a hundred. These black wolves circled outside the wall, frenziedly ramming the gate. Some even breathed fire, spraying it onto the walls.

Magic beasts?

Fang Zheng, of course, knew there were magic beasts in this world, and quite a few. He hadn’t cared before, but after learning that spirit crystals could be used for top-up, he secretly took an interest in them. But Fang Zheng hadn’t expected to see such a pack of magic beasts here?!

Under the attack of these magic beasts, the town was struggling to hold on. Fang Zheng saw militiamen on top of the wall shooting arrows or throwing spears at the black wolves, but these attacks were ineffective. The wolves’ thick fur was like armor, deflecting the arrows and spears without causing any harm.

If it weren’t for the pile of stones blocking the gate, they wouldn’t have lasted this long.

But that was only for now.

Faced with the black wolves’ assault, the town would soon fall. Fang Zheng could easily predict that once the black wolves breached the defenses, the fate of this beautiful town would be sealed.

However, to Fang Zheng, this wasn’t a problem.

He had conducted countless experiments, but real combat was always the best test. Besides, these black wolves were magic beasts…

Thinking of this, Fang Zheng looked at the black wolves as if they were walking bags of money.

Time to top-up!!