Chapter 515: Twelve Stelae

There were three doors within the treasure, one gold, one silver, and one studded with jewels.

The silver door had already been opened. The silver door represented knowledge, and it contained records of the monarch of stars' research—on the soul, on spiritual matter, on blood, on rare and special techniques, and even on the construction of the compass that he possessed.

The elder had retrieved important information from within this treasury, which he handed to the remaining fighters of the empire of stars. Zhang Lie had killed those fighters and subsequently claimed that information for himself.

The gold door represented time. All things were mutable, but time was eternal, just like gold.

On the gold door was engraved a large grandfather's clock. Although the surface of the door looked golden and resplendent, it wasn't made of gold, but rather a rare and precious gold-like material. The door was particularly heavy and difficult to open; only the monarch of stars knew the proper means of opening it.

"Stay back!" Zhang Lie punched the door, which caved in easily. He knew roughly what was behind the door. Judging that it was unlikely for the contents of the vault to be destroyed, he opened the door by force.

A purple haze spread toward the members of Team Zenith from within. Zhang Lie warned, "Beware of the poison."

The members of Team Zenith moved even further away. "Captain, give us some time to prepare before you just break in like that!"

"There's no need." Zhang Lie waved an arm, dispelling the purple haze.

The vault that was revealed behind the golden door was rather expansive, and it contained twelve steles spaced some distance apart from each other.

Each stele was saturated with an aura of the mysterious force of time. Upon each stele was engraved an unknown runic script, filled with mystery. The steles were uniformly black, whereas the runic script glittered in gold. It was thick in certain patches, thin in others, sometimes engraved in deep strokes and sometimes in light.

What meaning did the script have? Perhaps there was meaning to be extracted from it, but from a careful inspection, the script didn't seem to possess any meaning. The engraving was haphazard and followed no rules; it looked almost like a child's scribbles.

The elder's memories contained a little information about these steles. Apparently, the monarch of stars had obtained the steles rather unexpectedly, and their origin had something to do with the asura.

Thinking about the techniques that the monarch of stars and Suiyue had displayed, Zhang Lie came to a sudden realization. "These have to be the steles that impart a time-manipulation technique!"

Quite a few of the sura had tried to glean something from these stelae, but the only ones who had succeeded were Suiyue and the monarch of stars. Furthermore, the nature of that technique differed drastically between them.

The monarch of stars gained the ability to speed up time locally around him, whereas Suiyue gained the ability to reverse time.

Different people understood time differently, but for an ordinary lifeform to grasp the power of temporal manipulation required a heavy price. All such techniques came at a cost to their user; the monarch of stars would age faster when he used the technique, whereas Suiyue would lose the time and experience he had acquired.

In the end, by overusing the technique, Suiyue had ended up as a baby. Even the Yeluo chieftain didn't know what to do with him, so he was temporarily being kept within Renhuang's palace. He would be studied and observed carefully during that period of time. As yet, he seemed to be no different from an ordinary sura child.

Zhang Lie had always been very interested in the monarch of stars' time-manipulation technique, and it had caused him no small bit of trouble in his fight against the monarch of stars.

As he glanced at the stelae, he was suddenly overtaken by a strange falling sensation.

Zhang Lie saw his past life and his present life simultaneously. His present life was far more successful, of course, but the two lives nevertheless seemed to overlap.

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that Zhang Lie boasted the strongest affinity to time than any other hunter of Earth. As a reincarnator, he had experienced two lives for himself, and he was particularly cognizant of the passing of time and his lack thereof.

He could remember his past life vividly, as though it had only happened yesterday; but he had no choice but to live in the present.

As Zhang Lie continued to stare at the stelae, the members of Team Zenith walked into the vault. They treated the stelae as a riddle and fell into deep thought. Suddenly, Fang Yi began to wave his spear as he stared at one stele.

Sun Xiaowu, taken aback, asked, "What are you doing?"

Fang Yi frowned. "I can't help but feel as though the engravings on these stelae look like spear techniques."

Yang Ze nodded. "It's possible that the answer to these stelae will be different for each of us. Perhaps we should even consider circulating our genetic energy following these engravings?"

Hong Xi rolled her eyes. "According to you, maybe I should treat these engravings as arrays, instead."

Zhou Ying took out a sketchpad and began to sketch the stelae.

Hong Xi glanced at her in surprise. "I wasn't being serious!"

Zhou Ying shook her head. "It's not that. I'm planning on capturing an image of these stelae so that I can think more about them when we're back in Renhuang. This was how I always studied as a child, after all.

After a moment of silent contemplation, Zhang Lie opened his eyes again. He felt as though he was only moments away from a revelation, but he wasn't quite there yet.

Sun Mengmeng suddenly called out, "Look at those small stelae! It looks like the monarch of stars and Suiyue recorded their thoughts there upon coming to their own revelations."

Beside the twelve large stelae were two much smaller ones, on which the monarch of stars and Suiyue had left their own interpretation of time to help other sura come to their own revelations.

Zhang Lie glanced at the two tablets.

To the monarch of stars, time was a river that couldn't be traversed backwards, and people were canoes on that river always heading forward in time. The monarch's revelation was that he could speed up his canoe and pass through the river of time more rapidly. To him, the engravings on the stelae represented how he should circulate his blood to speed himself up.

This was a revelation and mechanism for that revelation uniquely suited to the monarch of stars; no other boasted such a strong constitution that they could do the same without injury. Any normal person who tried to copy the monarch of stars would surely have their heart explode.

Suiyue's revelation was fundamentally different. Time was like an hourglass. It was impossible to change the direction of time in general, but for a little speck of sand to suddenly reverse its trajectory and fall upwards was difficult to notice and had little effect on the whole.

People might not be able to reverse time as a whole, but they might be able to reverse their own passage through it.

Suiyue's understanding involved projecting his soul out of the passage of time, then manipulating and reversing his physical body.

Suiyue's interpretation was abstract and difficult to comprehend, but he had succeeded in realizing that revelation. Only now could the members of Team Zenith understand Suiyue's genius; if he hadn't met with the members of Team Zenith, and if he had had enough time to grow, he would surely have surpassed the monarch of stars. If he walked this long road to its end, he could well become the second known asura.

Neither the monarch of stars nor Suiyue's revelations would be directly relevant to the hunters present: the monarch of stars' was impossible for a human body, whereas Suiyue's was too abstract. Everyone's revelation was uniquely their own.

That said, the common theme of the two revelations was to begin with their own interpretation of time, to place it in synecdoche...