Warlock Apprentice

Chapter 3063: Chapter 3064: Time Series

A few minutes later, the Black Earl finally recovered from burying himself over the table, sniffing hard.

After thinking for a moment, he handed the reservation order and the training sword back to Lucia.

Lucia was stunned for a second: ”My lord no longer needs these two things?”

The Black Earl nodded slightly: ”The evidence is more or less confirmed. They’re no longer needed.”

Pausing, the Black Earl looked at Lucia and said, ”Now, you can appraise them.”

When Lucia had handed the order and the training sword to the Black Earl, he had said, ”I hope Lord Black Earl will not do anything harmful to my client,” and the Black Earl had agreed.

Now that the Black Earl had finished using the order and the training sword, he returned them to Lucia as agreed. Next it was Lucia’s turn to appraise them. The appraisal here referred to determining whether the Black Earl had done anything with the order and the training sword, such as laying a curse on them or extracting pheromonal information.

Lucia didn’t even look at them: ”I believe my lord wouldn’t deceive me...”

The Black Earl snorted through his nose as a response.

Lucia put away the order and the training sword, then rose from the sofa: ”Since my lord has finished with them, I’ll be leaving first.”

No one said much about Lucia’s decision.

When Lucia reached the doorway, he suddenly stopped: ”...Was what Lord Black Earl said to Elder Shu earlier true?”

This time the Black Earl finally spoke: ”Which matter are you asking about?”

Lucia: ”Is Aex really a wizard of that series?”

Black Earl: ”If you asked me to say it again now, my answer would still be the same.”

Lucia’s gaze went a little vacant, then he nodded: ”I understand.”

Lucia did not ask further, he merely glanced at Angel, indicating that he would be waiting at the Lucia Workshop the whole time; whenever Angel wished to discuss alchemy, he just needed to have Buru come find him.

With that, Lucia turned and left.

After Lucia departed, only their own people remained in the spacious quiet room. Other than Kaier, who was resting in his own quiet room, everyone else was here.

”What did Lucia mean just now?” Dox was the first to speak: ”Had Lord Black Earl already told Elder Shu Aex’s series earlier?”

In Dox’s view, hadn’t the Black Earl just obtained the order and the training sword? Logically, only after acquiring the training sword would he have a way to confirm Aex’s series.

So why, from what Lucia said, did it sound as if before the Black Earl even returned, he had already determined Aex’s series and even told Elder Shu?

The Black Earl did not reply, but Vay, who had witnessed everything, spoke up: ”What my lord told Elder Shu was a conjecture. However, conjecture cannot serve as hard evidence, which is why he sought out the training sword from Wizard Lucia to further confirm it.”

Dox showed a look of sudden enlightenment: ”So that’s how it is.”

He paused, then looked at Vay, asking curiously: ”Then what was Lord Black Earl’s conjecture before?”

Vay sneaked a glance at the Black Earl; seeing that he showed no intention of stopping him, Vay said, ”...Time Series. My lord felt that Aex might be Time Series.”

Time Series?!

Both Dox and Angel showed a faintly odd expression when they heard this series mentioned.

This was a series even rarer than the Space Series.

Vay also sighed at this moment: ”Speaking of which, I’d only ever heard that certain deities in the Abyss possess the ability to manipulate time. This is the first time I’ve ever heard of a Time Talent.”

Dox’s expression was rarely this serious: ”They exist. Time Talents do exist. In issues 18, 36, 177, and 361 of the Abilas Talent Collection Yearbook, four different test variations related to time talents are recorded respectively.”

The Abilas Talent Collection Yearbook has now reached nearly 500 issues, which means this yearbook has been in publication for five hundred years.

If all the test variations recorded in the Abilas Talent Collection were observed within these five hundred years, then that would mean that at least within these five centuries, four Time Talents had appeared.

Of course, this is only the conservative figure. Many times, when the Talent Sphere shows a repeated test variation, the Abilas Talent Collection Yearbook will not collect it; moreover, there are many special test variations that, for various reasons, their owners do not wish to publicize, causing the Yearbook to fail to collect them as well.

So, overall, the number of Time Talents certainly exceeds four, but the total count will not be much higher.

At the very least, in all these years, Dox had never encountered a single Time Talent... Aex being temporarily excluded.

From this one could see just how incredibly rare Time Talents are.

Dox looked toward the Black Earl: ”I recall my lord saying earlier that if you were to meet Elder Shu again right now, you would give the same answer. Does that mean you’ve already found corroboration in the training sword? Aex... is Time Series?”

Everyone’s gaze gathered on the Black Earl at this moment.

Time Series is simply too rare. Moreover, information circulating outside about it is extremely scant, so even Angel was filled with curiosity toward this legendary series.

After pondering for a moment, the Black Earl lightly nodded: ”That’s right. Aex is, with high probability, a Time Series Wizard.”

At this point, the Black Earl spoke with a tone of emotion: ”After confirming this information, even I found it hard to believe... Remarkable. I never expected that there really would be a Time Series Wizard in existence.”

Dox: ”My lord has never seen a Time Talent before?”

”I have seen Time Talents, and more than one.” The Black Earl said, ”However, Aex is the first who has crossed that sky-chasm and become an Official Wizard.”

At this, there was a trace of sighing in the Black Earl’s voice.

”Is it very difficult for the Time Series to become Official Wizards?” Vay asked curiously.

Black Earl: ”Very difficult.”

After saying this, the Black Earl thought for a bit and slightly revised his wording: ”Simply saying ’very difficult’ isn’t entirely accurate. The difficulty of the Time Series advancing to Official Wizard lies in their foundation and cognition.”

Foundation and cognition? Vay seemed to think of something and muttered: ”Don’t all Apprentices need foundation and cognition to advance to Wizard in any series?”

Black Earl: ”You’re not wrong. So if the foundation and cognition are equivalent, then the difficulty of a Time Series advancing is not much different from other series.”

At this point, the Black Earl looked at Angel: ”Do you still remember how the internal collections of the Cloudtop Library are distributed?”

Angel nodded.

The Cloudtop Library was located right in the Barbarian Cave, and was also the domain of Book Elder, one of the three great Ancestral Spirits. Angel had been to the Cloudtop Library more than once, so he naturally remembered the distribution of its collection.

”Think about it: in the Cloudtop Library, what proportion of the collection belongs to the Element Side? And what proportion belongs to the Bloodline Side and the Mysterious Side?”

Angel: ”5:4:1.”

The Element Side’s collection accounted for fifty percent, the Bloodline Side for forty percent, while the Mysterious Side accounted for only a pitiful ten percent.

”Within the Mysterious Side’s collection, what proportion has to do with the Space Series and the Time Series?” the Black Earl asked again.

Angel fell silent for a moment, then shook his head. ”This...I don’t know.”

The Black Earl: ”You don’t know, but I do.”

”In the Mysterious Side area of the Cloudtop Library, there are a total of 908 sections. Among them, the collections related to the Space Series number about nineteen, taking up 19/908; as for those related to the Time Series, they don’t even reach half of one. Even if we round up and count it as one area, the Time Series still only occupies 1/908 of the Mysterious Side’s collection.”

In other words, knowledge of the Time Series amounted to no more than a scant trace in the Cloudtop Library.

Hearing this, Dox and Angel already understood what the Black Earl meant.

Advancing in the Time Series was not intrinsically difficult; under the same foundation and level of understanding, the difficulty of promotion in the Time Series was no different from other branches. The real difficulty lay in...the scarcity of Time Series knowledge. It was extremely hard to stack up a sufficient foundation and understanding for the Time Series.

If there were more knowledge of the Time Series, even if only as much as that of the Space Series, the difficulty of promotion would be greatly reduced.

”And precisely because so little Time Series knowledge circulates in the outside world, the Time Series has withered.” At this point, the Black Earl’s tone shifted slightly. ”However, the decline of the Time Series is not entirely due to the lack of knowledge circulation; there are also those who have done this deliberately.”

Deliberately? Everyone looked at the Black Earl in puzzlement.

The Black Earl said calmly, ”The Time Series touches upon many secrets of the Root Source. If it spreads too widely, it is a curse rather than a blessing.”

”What Root Source secrets?” Dox asked blankly.

The Black Earl: ”I don’t know either. Or rather, before reaching Legend, before stepping into Miracle, there is no point in you knowing them. But I can be certain that this statement is correct.”

”The fewer people who grasp the Time Series, the better. This is absolutely correct.”

”Perhaps the non-dissemination of Time Series knowledge was done by the Time Series practitioners themselves. They are well aware that the more people who master the Time Series, the more likely it is to stir up some unknown tidal wave, which could even lead to the complete annihilation of the Time Series.”

As for what this unknown tidal wave was—perhaps it was the choice of an era, or perhaps...it was the Great Will of the Pan-Dimensional Plane.

In short, the scarcity of Time Series practitioners had many causes.

First, Time Talent itself was rare; second, those of the Time Series tightly controlled their own knowledge; third, Time-type abilities all carried enormous backlash, and with the slightest carelessness, one could be devoured and die.

Considering these three points together: because there were few with Time Talent, there was a lack of personnel to drive the development of knowledge; because they kept what they had to themselves, knowledge development was hard to push forward; without the development of knowledge, the foundation became increasingly scarce; fewer and fewer people cultivated the Time Series, and even those who did were prone to dying halfway... This was practically a dead loop, almost impossible to break.

It was precisely for this reason that, once the Black Earl confirmed Aex to be of the Time Series, he was extremely astonished.

According to what the Black Earl knew, Official Wizards of the Time Series had already vanished from the Southern Domain; if Aex was a Wizard of the Southern Domain, then most likely he had obtained the legacy of some Time Series predecessor, otherwise, with an inadequate knowledge foundation, it would have been impossible to advance to Official Wizard.

But the Black Earl truly could not think of any Time Series predecessor in the Southern Domain who had left behind a legacy.

If Aex was not a Wizard of the Southern Domain...then many possibilities opened up.

Even the Black Earl had no way of grasping intelligence about the Outer Domain.

Was Aex ultimately a Wizard of the Southern Domain, or...did he truly come from beyond the Domain?

...

Because Aex belonged to the Time Series, the impact this brought was considerable. For a time, the quiet room became truly ”quiet”; no one took the initiative to speak, and all sank into their own thoughts.

No one knew how much time had passed before Angel broke the silence.

”I’ve seen Aex’s abilities as well...but I didn’t feel any control over time.” Angel looked at the Black Earl with a puzzled expression. ”What is the essence of Time abilities, my lord? And how did you determine that Aex is of the Time Series?”

Based on Angel’s observations, the abilities Aex had displayed so far were Consecutive Slash, Rainbow Diagram, Iridescent Silk Thread, and Spatial Transmission.

Consecutive Slash...this counted as a Bloodline-side ability. Even if, as Dox said, Aex’s Consecutive Slash came from a gift of a Wild God, that still had nothing to do with the Time Series.

The Rainbow Diagram and the Iridescent Silk Thread should be the same type of ability. Angel had personally witnessed this ability, and his Mist Illusion had also been broken by the Iridescent Silk Thread.

Angel had indeed perceived a trace of strange energy within the Iridescent Silk Thread—an energy he had never encountered before; but to say that this energy was related to time, Angel found it hard to equate the two.

As for Spatial Transmission, that was something the Black Earl had told him.

Previously, in the dueling arena, when Stop’s battle strength was already beginning to wane and dawn was breaking in their favor, Aex suddenly appeared beside Stop. Without a word, he opened a Door and took Stop away.

This ability was somewhat similar to Spatial Transmission.

The above were the three abilities Aex had displayed. At least from Angel’s point of view, he had not discovered anything related to time.

So he was very curious as to how the Black Earl had, based on these three abilities, deduced that Aex belonged to the Time Series.

Angel’s question was, in fact, also the question in the minds of Dox and Vay.

Especially Dox. He was interested in Aex because he had seen in Aex the hope of perfecting his own Consecutive Slash. But now, the Black Earl said that Aex was of the Time Series... Then could it be that Aex’s Consecutive Slash was also a Time Series ability? If that was truly the case, could he still make use of it to perfect his own Consecutive Slash?

After hearing Angel’s question, the Black Earl pondered for a moment before speaking. ”I cannot answer what the essence of Time abilities is. But I know what you must be thinking: control over time.”

Whether time-stopping, time-reversal, or time-travel, all of these were forms of control over time.

Coincidentally, when Angel thought of the concept of ”time,” he had indeed immediately thought of these abilities.

The Black Earl shook his head. ”I don’t know if anyone can achieve absolute control over time, but within the scope of my knowledge, I have never seen nor heard of any Time Series Wizard capable of that.”

”Not even a Legendary Level Time Wizard can do such a thing.”

”As for whether Miracle Wizards have such an ability, I do not know... However, I can provide you with a reference.”

”You should know of the Thief of Time, yes? It is said that he is a life form of the Time Series.”