After an hour, I had refilled the mana in my cores by absorbing the ambient mana floating around Virgil's space.
Once I was done I opened my eyes and looked to my left.
Virgil was sitting on a plain white chair with both arms resting on the armrests, a sword lying flat across his lap and that same tranquil expression on his face.
Yes. He was sleeping again.
How many times does this man sleep in a single day?
And for some reason his hair kept swaying gently as if there was a breeze in here, which there was not.
I stretched my arm over and poked his leg with one finger.
"I am done refilling my cores." I said.
He opened one eye slowly, yawned, and said. ⌈Is that so?⌋
He stretched both arms above his head, cracked what sounded like every bone in his upper body, and stood up from the chair.
⌈Hmm, where were we... ah right. I still need to teach you how to manifest the time element.⌋
I crossed my legs and listened.
⌈The time element is a very complex and terrifying ability when used correctly. As the name suggests, you are able to manipulate time according to your will, allowing you to perform feats that go far beyond what any mortal mind can fully comprehend.⌋
Virgil opened his palm and a small rock appeared on it.
⌈Take this stone for example. Say I dropped it by mistake and I wanted to catch it before it hit the ground.⌋ He let it go and it fell. ⌈I could simply slow the time around the rock to give myself enough time to catch it.⌋
The rock was a hair away from touching the ground when it stopped completely, hanging in mid air as if someone had pressed pause on the whole moment.
I stood up and crouched down in front of it just to make sure I was not imagining things.
I was not. Time had genuinely slowed for the rock. When I looked closely I could see the faintest, almost imperceptible movement still happening. At that rate it would probably take an hour to travel the remaining centimeter to the ground.
I was genuinely stunned. Time had always been one of the elements I was most interested in. With it you could slow things down around you, speed your own body up, or even reverse what had already happened. It was a broken element by any measure, and it only got more broken when paired with space.
⌈Not only that, but I can also reverse time.⌋
The rock that had been frozen mid-fall suddenly lifted back upward and landed cleanly in Virgil's palm as if it had never left.
⌈Just as you can manipulate time around objects, you can do the same with your own speed, your attacks, or your opponents.⌋
⌈Things like—⌋ Virgil took one step forward and his body blurred, reappearing directly behind me and making me snap my head around. ⌈This. Or this.⌋
He threw a punch at a normal speed, then threw another immediately after, but this time his hand blurred and the air groaned from the force of it.
I stared as Virgil ran through a short sequence of movements at a speed my eyes could barely follow, each one faster than the last.
"That is genuinely broken." I said.
⌈That is barely the tip of it, kid. Once you start manipulating time around your enemies rather than just yourself, that is when you truly see how terrifying it is. And once you begin combining it with space, it becomes something else entirely. Now, punch me as hard and as fast as you can.⌋
Space-time. Using both elements together. In most fantasy systems I had read about in my past life it was considered the strongest ability in existence, and for good reason. At the highest level you could create wormholes, read the future, bend reality, trap someone inside a time loop, or do the one thing that should be impossible by any rule of the universe: travel through time.
It was just that insane.
I took a stance and threw a punch at Virgil's face without any hesitation. There was no point hesitating. Even if he did nothing to stop it, I would probably break my own hand before I left a mark on him.
I made sure to push mana through my arm first.
Just before my fist reached his face I felt a pressure settle over my arm and it simply stopped, hanging in the air mere inches from his nose. I pulled it back and threw my other arm forward. Same result. I kept trying and it kept happening, each punch grinding to a crawl the moment it got close, as if I were pushing through something invisible and impossibly thick.
My punches were still moving. Just at such a reduced speed that they would not reach him until sometime tomorrow at the earliest.
Virgil stood there with a calm smile and my fist hovering in front of his face. ⌈You see? I only slowed your arms. If I slowed your entire body instead, it would affect your thinking as well, which makes this especially useful for escaping sudden attacks or landing one of your own before your opponent can process what is happening.⌋
I nodded and let my arm drop.
This is an affinity I need to master properly. It could save my life more times than I can count.
"Can I try now?"
⌈Go ahead. Just think about what you want. Faster, slower, stop. The intent is what drives it.⌋
"Alright."
I closed my eyes, activated the time affinity and let it settle around my body. When I opened my eyes I could not see anything different. Same as gravity, the time element had no visible color. But I could feel it, like a quiet pressure sitting just beneath the surface of everything around me.
The first thing I wanted to try was speed.
I looked away from Virgil, turned toward the open stretch of the garden, pushed mana through my entire body and then launched myself forward.
I ran hard, pushing up to my limit, and when I hit my top speed I layered the time element on top of it.
And oh boy.
My vision stretched. The world blurred at the edges. My feet hit the ground and the ground exploded beneath each step, sending chunks of earth and a trail of disturbed flowers flying behind me as I shot forward like something had fired me out of a cannon.
"Ahahahaha, I am fast as hell!" I screamed as I went.
I could not keep it up for long though. My mana was burning through fast and I had to bring it down before I ran dry.
I curved around in a wide arc and came back hard toward Virgil, skidding to a stop right in front of him, feet tearing through the earth and kicking up a cloud of dust and debris straight in his direction.
He waved one hand and the cloud scattered before it reached him.
⌈You have no manners, kid.⌋ He clicked his tongue.
I shrugged with a grin. "It is not like you could not block it. And you did block it."
Virgil pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose. ⌈Try blocking what comes next by slowing time.⌋
"Huh?"
Virgil's arm shot toward my stomach.
I panicked and tried to slow the time around me to drag his punch down but I was too slow and it did not work.
The punch landed clean.
"Argh!"
My knees hit the ground and the air left my body entirely. It hurt bad enough that I wanted to throw up but nothing came.
⌈Not so fun anymore, is it? I told you to block it and you failed. I suppose I will just have to keep going until you can do it.⌋ Virgil cracked his knuckles slowly and deliberately.
This absolute—
Before I could finish the thought a shoe sole filled my entire vision from above.
I threw my arm up and blocked the kick but it sent me skidding back several meters anyway.
⌈No, no, no.⌋ Virgil shook his head. ⌈Your job is not to block with your body. Your job is to slow my attacks with the time element. If you try to physically block instead, I will hit you harder.⌋
This man is completely unhinged. How am I supposed to slow down a god?! I thought, genuinely furious.
As if he had heard every word of it, he answered. ⌈If you are worried about my strength, I am already restricting my movements to match your level. I am always fair.⌋
Fair my foot.
Virgil disappeared from where he was standing and reappeared to my left, driving a punch toward my ribs.
I activated the time affinity and spread it outward in every direction as wide as I could, trying to catch him inside it.
When Virgil stepped into the range I pushed it at him with everything I had.
It worked for exactly one heartbeat. His movement stopped. I almost felt relief.
Then his punch continued anyway.
Oh, absolutely not.
I kicked the time element the other direction and sped my own body up instead, sliding out of the way just barely.
But Virgil gave me no time to breathe. He spun on his heel and drove a kick straight into my chest before I could do anything about it.
Crack.
I felt my ribs go despite being in my soul form.
My body launched backward and hit the ground hard.
"Are you actually trying to kill me?!"
⌈Hm? Yes, a little.⌋
Virgil snapped his fingers and a refreshing wave ran through my chest. The ribs knit back together cleanly.
⌈Get up. I will keep healing you until you can slow my attacks consistently. You need to get used to thinking fast under pressure. There is no other way to build it.⌋
Yeah. This was just torture.
Plain, straightforward torture and nobody was going to convince me otherwise.