R-a - Volume 3 - Chapter 27 (Patreon)

R-a - Chapter 185 (in editing-v3)

Micheal studied the glass of water he held in his right hand, wiping away a slight smudge on its rim. The glass wasn’t even a bit opaque, showing the crystal-clear water in all its clarity.

After a moment, he held out his left hand and concentrated, staring at the floor intently. In his mind, he issued a mental command.

‘Slow.’

Ethereal knowledge shined forth in his thoughts, fluttering to the forefront of his consciousness. Energy began to run through his left hand, imbued with a mystical concept that Micheal would never have been able to grasp back on Earth. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead as this went on, focusing for several seconds.

The air in front of Micheal shivered. For the briefest instant, it began to distort, visibly quivering. Small ripples in space rocked back and forth, a nigh-invisible movement that looked incredibly odd.

The affected space stretched for about a meter in diameter, in the shape of a perfect sphere.He felt that he could make it larger, but that it would eat up more energy than he was willing to expend. He was just testing a few certain things right now, he'd figure out how large he could make it later, when he didn't have a dangerous mission ahead of him.

Just a heartbeat later, that sphere vanished, the air returning to a semblance of normalcy.

Micheal’s gaze never wavered as he looked at the spot in the air where that distortion had been. He then looked back over at the glass of water he held.

He turned the glass over.

Water cascaded through the air, falling towards the floor.

The moment it entered the area where the air had distorted…

It began to slow down.

“That’s pretty rad.” The words fell from Micheal’s mouth as he stared at the phenomenon.

The water was falling down at around three quarters of the rate it should be, taking into account acceleration and gravity here on the Second Layer. The sight of it moving in slow motion, even if only 25% slower, was incredible.

After a couple of seconds, it passed through the sphere of affected space. As soon as it moved past that, it fell to the floor at the same speed it would have normally. It splashed down onto the ground, soaking into the green carpet Micheal was standing on.

“Alright.” Micheal smiled as he looked at the glass, his mind racing ahead of him.

Just from creating that bubble of slowed space, Micheal felt slightly drained. It wasn’t a substantial amount of energy, but he could tell that he wouldn’t be able to create an unlimited amount of these bubbles.

After a few seconds, Micheal tapped on his Spatial Ring and pulled out a canteen. He filled the glass up once more and then held out his left hand again.

‘Speed up.’

Once again, a bubble of space rippled as Micheal activated his Temporal Bubble Ability.

Micheal turned the glass over for the second time.

The clear water fell through the air, spilling forth from the glass. The moment it entered the bubble of space, however…

It immediately began to accelerate, moving faster than normal as it fell down towards the carpet. The water moved roughly 25% faster than it should have, an unnatural dive that looked rather odd.

As with before, as soon as the water finished falling through the bubble of affected space, its speed immediately dropped back to the normal pace it should be at after falling that far.

“Interesting.” Micheal muttered as he looked at this.

There was a difference between slowing time and accelerating time.

Speeding things up cost several times the energy it took to slow things down, if going for the same percentage. Micheal hadn’t expected that, but he didn’t really know what to expect at all when it came to this. He had never experimented with personally manipulating time from an Ability.

“What happens if I stick my hand in it?” Micheal talked out loud to himself as he considered a few things.

He stored the glass in his Spatial Ring as he reached out with his left hand once more. He blinked as he issued a mental command.

‘Slow.’

A bubble of spacetime appeared in front of him. As soon as it did, Micheal stabbed forward with his right hand, throwing it into the midst of the slowed, distorted time bubble.

For a brief moment, Micheal felt something quite odd. An unnerving, twisting sensation that spread along his right hand as his arm landed in the middle of the spacetime bubble. Space seemed to stretch around his arm, a cold wash of air that caused his skin to rise.

That feeling vanished as, without any buildup, the spacetime bubble collapsed and disappeared completely.

“Hmm…” He paused, feeling slightly confused.

Time had not slowed down for his arm at all.

He had felt something, the spacetime bubble seemed to stretch, as if to envelop him. But it had failed to finish enveloping him and was left incomplete, causing him to feel like he'd been hit with a chill breeze and little else.

He held out his hands again as he began to experiment running multiple tests.

He did the same test, but sped up time in the bubble. He tried to create a bubble with no time change at all. He tried to create a bubble that was a mix of time changes. He tried to create one that changed actively, from speeding up to slowing down.

He then tested putting his arm in, then putting his head in, and then his entire body into the bubble of spacetime.

He ran a multitude of tests in the free time he had, and as a result of that, he gradually reached a number of conclusions.

His perception of time could, indeed, be affected by the Time Bubbles.

However, for that to happen, one of two things needed to occur.

The first one was rather simple. He needed to be standing fully within the bubble of spacetime, and it needed to be large enough to cover him completely. When this took place, he would feel a chill all over his body and then…

Everything would seem to stay the same at first. For him, time hadn’t changed at all, everything would look normal in his bubble. It was only outside his bubble that everything shifted.

Every time he tried to change the time of his body, Micheal tossed a glass in the air to act as a reference before he tested it.

The first time he managed to succeed and speed up time for himself, he had been standing within the bubble with his eyes centered on that falling glass.

“Wow.” He had muttered then, his eyes gleaming with delight as he watched the glass fall in, to him, what seemed like notably slowed motion.

It only really hit him then.

He now had the power to manipulate time.

Unfortunately, this power, as he learned, was not an absolute one.

The first way to let himself experience changed time was simple, to just stand in the bubble of spacetime. The second way was to stick part of his body within the bubble.

This would make the spacetime bubble try to spread out and envelop him. If it succeeded, it would slow or speed up time for him. If it failed, time would continue on like normal.

It wasn’t possible for him to have half his body at sped-up time and the rest at normal time it seemed.

However, hand in hand with this discovery was a second discovery.

“I can resist the changes to time…” He discovered this when he let the spacetime envelop him fully.

The wash of cold that slammed against him was a distinct feeling that rumbled in his Soul. Micheal was actually able to directly sense this with his senses, a feeling he could push against and resist. He could also instantly tell that anyone that was enveloped in the spacetime bubble would also be able to feel this and push back against it.

By flaring his Ki against that feeling, Micheal was able to force it back. When he did this, the manipulated effects of spacetime vanished, returning him to his normal speed as he pushed back against the influence of the spacetime bubble.

This didn’t actually come naturally to him. While the cold sensation was clearly abnormal, there was no natural push against his Soul or impact on his energy. He had to go out of his way to purposefully direct his Ki to push against it, flexing his Ki like he would a muscle. In fact, it felt almost unnatural as he shoved it off, as if his normal state of being was to let things be.

After he discovered this, Micheal underwent a second round of testing.

This time around, he made two other notable discoveries.

The more energy he put into creating the spacetime bubble, the slower/faster time would become. And, as he put in more energy, the spacetime bubble would become harder and harder to resist.

While this wasn’t an absolute power that couldn’t be resisted, Micheal had a way to make it harder to resist, and resisting it was actually something that would take at least a few moments for any unaware person to discover.

However, even if other people could completely avoid the effects of the spacetime bubble, Micheal didn’t mind.

After all, that wasn't what he had been aiming for in the first place.

Micheal stood in the center of the room, enveloped by a small spacetime bubble as he looked at the world around him, a huge grin on his face.

To resist the effects of accelerated or slowed spacetime required conscious effort. Arrows, bullets, bolts of energy, none of these would be able to ignore the affected spacetime, meaning Micheal now had an effective counter to these types of enemies beyond blocking their attack with an Artifact or just dying.

But, even better than that…

As long as he let himself be affected by his own space bubbles, he had found a way to obtain superspeed.

Even if that boost in speed would be limited to a relatively small area within the immovable time bubble, this was an extremely useful power, especially for someone like him, a close combat specialist.

As long as he placed the spacetime bubble carefully, he could keep the boost only for himself. While his stats were only a little above average here on the Second Layer, this overall boost would have much more impact than even if he had double his current Strength.

Being fast was one thing… but being able to think faster, react faster, move faster, and perceive things faster, all packaged into one, boosted up by a significant amount… Micheal didn’t need to ponder why something like this was incredible.

It didn’t mean he could take on a Dragon, or a Supreme Warrior. Even many First Rate warriors would still be very dangerous to battle against right now, the warriors of the Second Layer weren’t ones he would belittle.

But now… he was at least ready for a fight.

As this thought crossed his mind, a small beeping sound caught Micheal’s attention.

At the foot of his bed was the smartphone Micheal had used on the First Layer. He had set an alarm on it before he began testing to let him know when it was time to go. It was still a useful tool, though on later Layers, the increase in gravity would eventually cause the delicate electronics that it was made from to stop working.

He walked over and picked it up, silencing the alarm as he stored it in his Spatial Ring. He then double-checked the room, making sure he had left nothing behind before he began to head out.

It was time to find a Guide and cross the Dragon Mountains.

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