Facing an Ancient God for a Year

Chapter 2382: Chapter 2377: The Well of Time

Slept like a baby.

Without greeting Luo Bu and the others, Fu Qian just silently commented on what he saw.

It was indeed Professor Ah Kai, and he even looked to be in good shape.

Breathing steady, complexion rosy.

As if he’d simply been overworked and was lying down in his office fully dressed to recover his energy.

He even seemed to be waking up already because of the uninvited guests’ disturbance.

”What’s going on—”

”What is going on?”

Almost in unison, the very next second Professor Ah Kai opened his eyes, and ended up staring at Boyd and the others, all of them wearing dumbfounded expressions.

And after each side felt the other’s confusion, the two groups once again looked over in unison, their gazes converging on Professor Fu.

”Looks like you fell asleep.”

Instantly becoming the focus, Fu Qian’s tone stayed as calm as ever, indicating that he was just here to wake someone up.

...

It really was just waking someone up.

As for Professor Ah Kai’s situation, Fu Qian felt that by this point he’d more or less figured it out.

Sure enough, it ultimately proved to be related to Melia—this was a victory for sticking to logical thinking.

If he’d given up on that hypothesis because of the minor setbacks earlier, or used the remaining time to search other places in the Academy, then very clearly they would have come up empty-handed.

As for how exactly he woke him up—

While the group fell silent, Fu Qian lowered his head to look at his own two hands.

The leaf and the mushroom were still there, just with some Complete Transformation-style changes.

For example, the former had returned to a tender green, while the mushroom looked utterly clean and hygienic, up to sashimi-grade standards.

His control really hadn’t been bad at all.

Fu Qian was very satisfied with this result.

What he’d just done was actually very simple: he’d targeted the Melia module under the Zen Path perspective and activated the Tyrant’s Power of Calamity.

The final outcome looked impressively precise, directly causing the concept of Melia to be stripped from these things, and he hadn’t even damaged the bodies themselves—the same went for this room.

Yes, the specific way he woke Professor Ah Kai was by partially stripping away the ”Melia’s Domain of the Favored” attribute from this place in front of him.

It was undoubtedly delicate work, and kicking everyone out had also been out of risk considerations.

As a freshly minted Tyrant, his control might not be that precise; if the collateral spread too far, their situation could turn very ugly.

But as it turned out, this Calamity Authority really was as precise as a scalpel.

Far from being limited to physical entities: so far, whether it was stars, fate, connections... similar abstract concepts, he’d apparently operated on all of them to some extent.

And its behavior gave off an astonishing sense of impartiality.

No matter the mode of existence, no matter how abstract, as long as you patiently locked on, it would all be Annihilation.

Truly a power that shook the soul; there were reasons the Tyrant had such a glorious battle record back in the day.

All in all, in the situation at hand, losing this ”Melia’s Domain of the Favored” attribute caused a previously empty office to suddenly gain one extra Ah Kai.

And the reappearance of this missing person, in turn, strongly confirmed the earlier inference—that right before his accident, he had indeed been working on a Miracle related to Melia.

”I fell asleep? What time is it now...”

Fu Qian’s words were clearly quite credible for Ah Kai, but precisely because of that, at that moment he looked genuinely stunned, muttering to himself while checking the time.

”How come I didn’t feel anything at all? I was still running tests just a second ago...”

And once he confirmed that things weren’t quite as he’d imagined, his gaze naturally fell to the ritual items scattered at his feet.

...

Oh? So it was even a full-anesthesia kind of sleep?

Fu Qian didn’t question Ah Kai’s statement; on the contrary, he even felt a flicker of Empathy in that moment.

Many people may misunderstand anesthesia: true general anesthesia isn’t just putting you to sleep the way you usually sleep, it’s more like complete unconsciousness—close your eyes and open them again, and a chunk of your timeline has simply been skipped.

Fu Qian had a similar view regarding death.

Of course, frankly speaking, for ordinary people the difference might not be that great—but don’t forget, Transcendents are not ordinary people.

For instance, if he himself wanted to experience sleep right now, he could do it completely.

It’s just that during the process of ”sleeping,” his vigilance, thinking, or other activities wouldn’t be interrupted.

As a Transcendent, Ah Kai might be at a different level in this regard, but in essence he should possess a similar kind of clear awareness—yet this time it was entirely gone.

It had been a total general anesthesia state: one moment he’d been testing back in ”yesterday,” and the next he found himself being stared at by a whole group of people.

For a Transcendent, that was a genuinely dangerous situation.

”We came over yesterday looking for you and found you weren’t here, only these traces on the floor... Then I went to find Professor Fu.”

But in any case, the rescue operation at least seemed to have succeeded.

Facing Ah Kai’s confusion, Luo Bu let out a sigh of relief and immediately helped fill him in.

”Professor Boyd and the others have been helping ever since they heard, from yesterday till now.”

He naturally didn’t forget the remaining three either; Luo Bu even went out of his way to emphasize that the three of them hadn’t rested at all.

”It’s a pity we couldn’t help much... It was only when Professor Fu rushed over that there was a breakthrough.”

Boyd and the other two exchanged glances, feeling somewhat at a loss.

So he was just found like this? He’d actually been here all along, but they simply couldn’t see or touch him?

Clearly, what was unfolding in front of them was somewhat challenging their understanding of the world.

At the same time, their intellectual integrity was still there; they had no desire to claim credit and stated that it was all thanks to Professor Fu.

...

”Thank you to every professor for your help.”

In just a few words, Ah Kai naturally had no trouble imagining some of what had happened in between, and at once he earnestly expressed his thanks to each person.

The wording was plain, but the sincerity came through completely.

Some things become terrifying the more you think about them.

Being utterly unaware, not even a Darkness in front of your eyes, and the traces of your own existence can’t be picked up by the outside world...

Putting yourself in that position—if not for this external rescue, wasn’t there a real chance that with a single blink, you’d find yourself in a far distant future centuries later?

Or even more likely, your consciousness would simply be frozen here forever.

It was practically like falling into a well in the timeline; at this moment, the sense of having narrowly escaped death was overwhelming.

”I’m still not entirely sure what happened, but it should be related to the attempts I was making before...

”I didn’t expect it to result in something this extreme. I’m sorry, I was too careless and caused everyone trouble.”

And the mindset of a researcher asserted itself once again; very soon Ah Kai suppressed this fear and quietly began analyzing the cause.

”It’s fine. If you look on the bright side, it seems you’ve actually succeeded.”

To dispel the somewhat heavy atmosphere, Professor Fu’s optimistic coaching continued; he jerked his chin toward Ah Kai as a hint.

”Haven’t you noticed? You seem to have crossed that threshold.”