Chapter 58: Northern Border, Forest and Snowfield

  Alex realized that he seemed to be cursed with bad luck when it came to teleportation.

  The proof? He had been teleported to yet another desote, remote pce. Yes, in the most literal sense.

  Where oh was this?

  As Alex walked through the forest, he couldn’t figure out where he had ended up. If it were just a regur forest, there wouldn’t be much of a problem. But the issue was that this forest seemed a bit off.

  Normally, even in wihere would be some animals moving about in the forest. Even if most animals were hibernating, there should still be signs of life. But here, there was nothing!

  Alex had walked through the forest for aire day and night without entering a single animal! Not even a bird in the sky. This made Alex a bit uneasy.

  Did the teleportation system mess up and send him to a lifeless, barren pce? If that were the case, it would be really troublesome!

  The only fortuhing was that Alex found a river in the forest, which gave him some relief. From his experiehere were usually humalements along rivers, even if the ces were slim.

  It was better than wandering aimlessly in the forest. Although Alex, after his transformation, didn’t get hungry as quickly as an ordinary humaill o eat. If he got lost for too long, he might have to resort to eating tree bark.

  But Alex didn’t just sit idle. While making his way through the forest, he also explored the time-manipution abilities he had gairying to see if he could discover aricks.

  After all, he had gohrough so mu "Edge of Tomorrow" to acquire this power; he wasn’t about to let it go to waste. Boredom is always a great motivator for research.

  During his journey, Alex indeed figured out some ways to use his time-manipution abilities. Instant movement!

  Of course, this “instant movement” wasn’t the kind that involves crossing space, but rather crossing time. For example, if it normally took Alex ten mio run five kilometers, his “instant movement” would press that time down to one sed.

  In other words, Alex could instantly appear five kilometers away, but this wasn’t because he had broken through a spatial barrier—it was simply because time had sped up.

  Sihe time manipution is tered on Alex himself, as long as he could move, there was o worry about stepping outside the range of his ability. However, there was a dowo this method: it ed physical energy.

  Time movement and spaent are different. Spaent ects two points, shortening the distaime movement, oher hand, only speeds up time without redug the energy expenditure.

  This means that if it takes Alex a certain amount of energy to run 100 meters, he would still use the same amount of energy even after speeding up time. This is a subtle but real drawback.

  Another issue was that accelerating time also sped up Alex’s physical aging. For every ten minutes he moved faster than others, he would age ten minutes faster.

  Although ten minutes might not seem like much, over time, when ten minutes bees ten years, it’s a different story. Fortunately, the Zerg genes in Alex’s body perfectly resolved this problem.

  Miruune had expio him that Zerg growth follows a unique cycle. When they e genes and enhahemselves, their bodies remain at that peak state until the evolution.

  This is why the higher-ranking Zergs are increasingly difficult to deal with. However, because of the Zergs' unique war-focused lifecycle, few of them live long enough to experience such extended growth.

  In other words, while e one year at a time, Alex only ages when he evolves. So, no matter how many times Alex uses his time-manipution abilities, he won’t age faster than others.

  Moreover, Alex discovered another aspect of his time-manipution ability: the time and area of effect were retive! Currently, Alex’s "Time Manipution" is at level E, with a ten-minute limit and a five-meter radius tered on himself.

  However, Alex could increase the time limit by redug the area or expand the area by redug the time limit. For instance, Alex could extend the radius from teers to one hundred meters, but the time limit would decrease to one minute.

  versely, if he reduced the area to a oer radius, his time limit would increase to twenty minutes. In addition, Alex developed a more plex usage method!

  This idea stemmed from his uanding of time manipution, as the ability description included the phrase "manipute at will." This meant that Alex could not only speed up time but also slow it down or even pause it!

  Building on this, Alex devised an effective bat teique, which he called "Stacked Strikes." The entire process is actually quite simple.

  When fag a target, Alex could use "instant movement" to accelerate time by eight minutes and "teleport" to the oppo’s side. Then, he could pause time, "rewind" ten seds to nd a sword strike.

  Then he could "fast-forward" ten seds to nd arike, followed by "fast-f" thirty seds to cast a Judgment, then "fast-forward" five seds to unleash a Verdict, and finally "fast-forward" one mio move away from the target.

  From an observer’s perspective, it would appear as though Alex blinked ien front of the target. They would then witness multiple sword strikes, followed by a series of judgments and verdicts, and then Alex would vanish, leaving the target to fall.

  Unfortunately, there was no loophole in this ability. Alex could manipute time, but he couldn't twist or ge it. He could speed up or slow down time to trol it, but he couldn’t resist the process itself.

  If Alex needed eight mio reach a target's side, once he "accelerated" to that eight-minute mark, he couldn't "rewind" to two minutes earlier to attack again. If he tried, his body would just revert to where it was two minutes ago.

  Simirly, if a sword strike took five seds to hit an enemy, he couldn't rewind time sed by sed to strike repeatedly, creating a one-sed, five-strike bo. The only option was to aowledge that the strike missed and then rewind five seds to unch a tack from a different angle.

  It's also important to hat no matter how much Alex "rewinds" or "accelerates" time, the total amount of time he manipute is still limited. He 't turn that time into an infinite resource. Regardless of how he uses it, he must ehat the cumutive time doesn't exceed the default limit.

  In other words, whether Alex "accelerates" by one sed or "rewinds" by one sed, the ability will t it as -1S, -1S, -1S, and so on, until the time limit is reached.

  If time were money, Alex only had a set amount of cash. He could spend it, but he couldn't get it back.

  Alex also discovered another fw in his time ability. When he used powerful skills while maniputing time, the duration of the ability would decrease. He realized this after using Royal Cross Swordsmanship.

  If he used regur attacks withiime limit, it didn't feel particurly taxing. But if he used a bo of powerful sword teiques—like Crusader Strike, Judgment, Holy Storm, and Verdict—the energy ption was massive. He could barely maintain the ability, and it even risked exhausting him.

  This realization made Alex more cautious. He noticed that after perf a full bo in pce, his time manipution ability could only sustain itself for a maximum of three minutes.

  And that was just against a stationary target. What if he faced a powerful enemy?

  Let's not even sider the Child of Chaos. What if he faced the Lich King, rand knight like Malt or Stone? How long could he maintain his ability in front of them?

  Alex had thought time manipution would allow him to do anything within a set period. But now, it seemed that if the oppo owerful enough, his time trol could be weakened. If he entered ao for him, it ossible that his ability could be pletely nullified.

  During his journey, Alex focused on experimenting with his ability. The description of the ability was just an introdu; it to him to figure out how to use it effectively.

  As a game designer aeran pyer, Alex had plenty of experien this area. He treated the ability like a skill in a game and begaing whether it was more useful as a support or a primary attack tool. So far, it seemed better suited for support. However, Alex suspected that with upgrades, it might also have potential as an offensive skill.

  For now, though, it wasn't particurly effective.

  “Hm?”

  While Alex was busy studying his ability, he suddenly looked up, surprised. He had just sehe presence of life ahead—a lot of it!

  The Zerg genes were still very sharp in terms of sensing, and Alex could clearly feel numerous life signals gathering not far from him. It was a bit like seeing red dots on a mini-map in a starcraft game. It felt odd, but... as long as it worked.

  Finally, something alive!

  Excited, Alex quickly sped up and dashed forward.

  It didn’t take long for him to reach his destination. As he expected, where there was water, there was usually human habitation. In front of him stood a small town.

  From the outside, the town looked like a beautiful pce. But right now, it had nothing to do with beauty or peace.

  The reason was simple: it was utack.

  And more importantly, the attack wasn’t from humans.

  “What is…”

  Standing on a nearby tree branch, Alex frowned as he observed the se. Outside the town, a wall about three or four meters high blocked the attackers’ advance. But the attackers hadn’t given up.

  They were a paassive bck wolves, each as rge as a warhorse, numbering over a huhese wolves were cirg the wall, ramming the gates with wild abandon. Some evehed fire, scorg the walls.

  Magical beasts?

  Alex khat this world had magical beasts, and quite a few of them. He hadn’t paid much attention to them before, but after learning that spirit crystals could be used for recharging, he became more ied.

  But he hadn’t expected to enter such a rge paagical beasts here!

  The town was clearly struggling to hold them off. Alex saw militiamen on the walls, shooting arrows and throwing spears at the wolves, but to no effect. The wolves' thick fur acted like armor, causing the arrows and spears to gnce off harmlessly, posing hreat.

  If the townspeople hadn’t piled up a heap of sto the gate, they probably wouldn’t have sted this long.

  But their time was running out.

  The town's defenses were about to crumble uhe wolves’ assault. Alex could easily imagine what would happen to the town if the wolves broke through.

  However, for Alex, this wasn’t a problem.

  Although he had ducted tless experiments, actual bat was always the best test, right? Besides, these bck wolves were magical beasts…

  Thinking of this, Alex’s gaze toward the wolves became the same as if he were looking at a pile of walking cash.

  It was time to recharge and spend big!

  (End of Chapter)

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