Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 2482: Temporal Anchor

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Card World, Central Region, Central Academic City, Morningstar University District, Morningstar University Campus, Garden of Beginning

”Boss, are you sure they are hiding the Time Vestige in the past? I’m not doubting you. It’s just that for the past six hours, I haven’t sensed an iota of time rule in the garden,” Henricks indirectly bragged to his young boss about having started comprehension in time rule.

Back when Henricks was still serving the masters, as Field Marshal Henricks. He once earned a quota to enter the Time Vestige, an opportunity to comprehend the elusive Time Rule.

Despite spending what felt like an entire year within the Vestige, Henricks only managed to consolidate a basic mastery of the Time Rule. Once outside that highly focused temporal environment, he found he could no longer further his comprehension of the rule without the assistance of Time Vestige’s concentrated temporal environment.

His understanding of Time Rule was both earned and inherently limited by the very shortcut he used as he had little to no talent in time rule. He was very gifted with space rules but when it came to time rules, he was just like the rest of the masses.

However, the basic mastery of the time rule was enough to help him become aware if someone used time rule in his immediate surroundings. Therefore, he was certain that there wasn’t any time rule being used in the garden of beginning.

”That can only mean that your comprehension of time rules isn’t enough,” I said as I brainstormed ways to get my hands on the time vestige and make Morningstar University sweat. That should teach them not to ignore me again.

”...” Henricks couldn’t argue because his boss was right. But he didn’t doubt his young boss’s mastery of time rule. After all, he had witnessed the latter’s fight with devils back in the southern capital. In that fight, his young boss was totally unaffected by time rules and their meanings used the pig devil with a mohock.

Therefore, if his young boss told them that he sensed the time-rule in the artificial field dungeon and the time vestige was hidden in the past he believed him without any further questions. However, now the question was how ‌were they going to get the time vestige that was hidden in the past? Clearly, his young boss’s mastery of time rules wasn’t enough to do that. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have asked for his opinion.

Henricks glanced at his young boss, who appeared to be lost in thought. It couldn’t have been more obvious. His young boss was stuck thinking about a solution to their current dilemma. Since he had nothing useful to add, Henricks decided not to disturb his young boss at work. Instead, chose to wait for his call at the sidelines.

”Ah!” I uttered in frustration, realizing that all the key components of the pseudo-natural array and the artificial field dungeon like the power supply, the core mechanism, etc, were all hidden away in the past. Making it impossible for me to hack into the array of the field dungeon and summon the time vestige from the past to the present.

From what I have uncovered so far, it would be more accurate to say that the pseudo-natural array and the artificial field dungeon were actually auxiliary, just extensions of an even bigger infrastructure that was securely hidden in the past.

Just as I was running out of ideas, a thought crossed my mind, a peculiar question about the nature of this entire arrangement itself: ’How do things hidden in the past find their way back to the present without becoming lost in the currents of time?’

Yes, that is the crux of the complex arrangement Morningstar University had going on here. How exactly was Morningstar University able to ensure that the things they sent into the past didn’t simply drift away with the currents of time, but instead remained there and even communicated and supply energy to present while waiting for them to summon them to the present?

This was a critical question, because whatever that mechanism was—be it a method or an item—I can mimic or forge the same to summon the Time Vestige to the present. Something like a temporal constant that would allow a time traveler to always find their way back to the present. I decided to call it the Time Anchor.

Now, all I needed to do was find the time anchor that made this complex but peculiar arrangement possible to finally get Morningstar University to give me the welcome I had been hoping for ever since I decided to use the incident with Chief Denise Johnson and Morningstar University faculty to convey the future I had planned for the Southern Academic City to the entire five regions. In hopes of attracting talent from all five regions to the Southern Academic City.

’Henricks, we are looking for an object, a being, or even a phenomenon with a profound temporal energy signature. It could be as minuscule as a pebble or as vast as the very ground we stand on. The crucial trait is that it must have withstood the test of time for an immense duration and be likely to continue doing so for the next few millennia.

That, Henricks, is what acts as the natural temporal anchor, tying the things hidden in the past to the present. As long as we find it, we will have Morningstar University—and its precious assets—by the throat,’ I mentally informed Henricks of the strategy while also considering if the entire ’Garden of Beginning’ was the actual temporal anchor.

After all, it’s a place that has been around for an immense period and will continue to exist even longer with the aid of Morningstar University. It wouldn’t be surprising if the University, leveraging its own heritage land, used it as a massive, stable time anchor to hide the Time Vestige and the rest of their secrets in the past. However, after probing around for a few minutes, I concluded the ’garden of beginning’ was...