“Time... is not fixed... because it constantly shifts... so there is the ability to trace it back or follow the current...” Yuan Shuo began to understand that each instance of use might give rise to a different combination of dao.

Li Hao was wrong!

The young man had underestimated the complexity of time! Time was not a fixed combination of daos. If that was Li Hao’s supposition, then he was wrong and he would never reconstruct time after dismantling it!

“Incredible!”

Perhaps one could only peer into the true nature of time when fully immersed in it. Li Hao had never seemed to enter it. Or rather, the one who wielded time did not identify any changes whatsoever.

“Thank goodness I came in here to see all this...” Yuan Shuo mumbled. Otherwise, his dumb disciple might not have realized anything. Disaster might be upon them if he’d broken down the star of time according to his usual methods. Once that occurred, he wouldn’t be able to reconstruct it if he tried to follow the original design.

The monster abruptly jerked with surprise. The shifting of great dao had created a space for a droplet of water to descend from above and smash into him.

Yuan Shuo suddenly felt like he’d crossed through space and time to experience a million, ten million years! Seas turned into mulberry fields and mulberry fields turned into seas!

The monster reappeared when the water droplet vanished. Yuan Shuo panted for breath. “I’m... I’m screwed...”

Li Hao didn’t seem to have discovered anything amiss yet; his disciple hadn’t pulled him back. But Yuan Shuo had sensed the furious dissipation of time just now, like he’d experienced ten thousand years in the blink of an eye.

A Saint was on the verge of dying from old age! He really would die in this place if a few more droplets hit him!

The droplet of time coalesced from ten thousand daos really could strip one of their lifespan!

Yuan Shuo looked around with horror. Most important of all was that his foolish disciple hadn’t discovered anything at all. Hot damn, is your control of time that poor?

......

In the outside world.

Li Hao frowned slightly at the star of time. It seemed to have sparkled just now. However, all he could detect of the star’s internals was a densely woven dao net. He couldn’t see anything else, not unless he entered as well.

But at the moment, he was so strong that his consciousness might cause the dao net to collapse once he extended his mind within.

“Everything should be fine, right?” Li Hao glanced at Yuan Shuo’s body. It was fine; no changes had taken place.

Then everything should be fine.

However, logically speaking, as complicated as the dao net might be inside the star of time, it shouldn’t be too hard to find one dao. Yuan Shuo could even take advantage of this opportunity to familiarize himself with some of the wonders of the time domain. This was also why Li Hao had sent his teacher inside—to give him a bit of an advantage.

But... has teacher gotten lost? Why hasn’t he come out yet? Have I overestimated him? Is he unable to read the structure of the dao net?

Number Two was watching as well. It stared at the star and was suddenly reminded of something.

“There might... be another pocket of space within the star. Perhaps even another spacetime. Will your teacher get lost?”

“Surely... not?” Li Hao said slowly. “My teacher was able to journey through the Silver Moon dao universe by himself back in the day. That was another spacetime then.”

Number Two was skeptical. Fine, so long as you believe in him.

Meanwhile, Li Hao furrowed his brows and fell silent. He watched the star of time in front of him. As complicated as the dao of time appeared, it wasn’t too difficult once the proper method was grasped. It was just the combination of ten thousand daos. What was difficult was the comprehension of that many daos...

Li Hao felt that his teacher might have come to some new understanding or was in the midst of deep contemplation. Then he would wait, there was no rush.

......

And so, Li Hao waited three days outside. Within the star of time, the monster that was Yuan Shuo kept up a litany of curses.

“Fuck!” That was two times already!

He’d been struck by the droplet twice, consuming tens of thousands of years each time he was hit. If this happened once more, he might just die here of old age. His physical body would remain, but his mind would be dead!

That would put him in vegetative state, one with no hope of recovery.

A critical point was that Yuan Shuo did not cultivate his dao stars these days, so that blasted Li Hao would have a difficult time resurrecting him if he died! The brat would have to enter the star of time as well and trace time to revive his teacher.

And the precursor to that was that he was still able to wield time!

“Damn that brat!” cursed Yuan Shuo. I thought this was my opportunity, but you just want your master to die! Do you look down on my lack of strength so much that you’d rather see me dead??

Of course he knew that this wasn’t what his disciple intended, but that was the only thing he could say at the moment!

It was so aggravating!

Yuan Shuo soon calmed down and turned his attention to the shifting dao order. One shift represented one ability of time. The ability to trace time, follow its flow, and freeze time were its three basic abilities.

He’d been struck twice by a droplet when he followed the flow. If he was hit by a droplet that traced time, would that enable him to recover?

Of course, it was hard to determine whether a droplet would trace time or follow its flow. He might well and truly be dead if it happened again.

“I can’t go on this way... I can’t take such a risk. I need to find that rat’s dao and use it to affect the dao outside, so that that brat knows I’m trapped in here!” 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Otherwise, he probably thinks I’m comprehending something and staying here on purpose!

“The daos keep changing...”

Yuan Shuo once more locked onto the rat’s dao; it was hidden deep within the dense array of the dao net. He sensed some of it, but it often changed position before he had a chance to approach it. It was very hard to pin down.

He couldn’t continue in such a simplistic vein.

Yuan Shuo sank into deep thought. He really was going to die here if this continued. He wouldn’t die in the battlefield or on the path of verifying dao, but in something that his disciple had thought was a chance of a lifetime. That was the most depressing of all!

And if he couldn’t make it out, his dumb disciple might never know that the star’s dao net constantly changed. Once he dismantled the star of time and was unable to reconstruct it, there might not be an ability of time ever again.

The dao of time would be extinct in the chaos!

“There must be a rhythm or pattern to it. As heaven-defying as the War Sovereign was, he couldn’t have deduced time without a certain sequence. Creating it without order would not be a dao that humans could deduce...”

The War Sovereign had been sixth rank at his strongest, so he hadn’t been a mythical personage out of reach.

What I should do is not to hypothesize his dao, but to figure out what its rhythm might be from my observation. I’ll use what I find to lock onto the rat’s dao. Everything else can wait until I get out of here.

Yuan Shuo kept a firm grip on his emotions and began to decipher, analyze, and comprehend.

Multiple daos shimmered around him, all of them very weak. And yet, this was how the terrifying dao of time had been formed.

“The daos are so weak... that I might be able to force my way through them.”

But if he did that, that could cause the collapse of the star of time. He would survive, but could his stupid disciple recreate time without the star to study?

Most likely not!

“There has to be a rule or a law behind the changes. Is it one of the eight trigrams, or of the corporeal or immaterial, heaven and earth, an integration of the five elements, or the arrangement of order...”

Yuan Shuo thought back to everything he’d cultivated in his life. Under normal circumstances, many things could be arranged according to the concepts he spoke of. He locked onto the daos and sensed the changes within.

They shifted again in the next moment.

“There’s one change every 360 seconds... a minor cycle?”

The dao net was different after the daos changed, so Yuan Shuo locked onto them again to determine their new locations. What were the differences? Why was balance able to be maintained after the daos changed?

Li Hao had shown the construction of multiple dao nets to everyone—the slightest mistake caused its collapse. Why had the star of time remained stable all this time?

“The precursor to stability is a constant core. It can’t all be changing all the time...”

Yuan Shuo continued to delve into the star of time. Many combination methods floated upward in his mind.

......

Outside.

“It’s been four days!” frowned Li Hao. That’s a long time to be in there, teacher. As complicated as the combinations might be, you should have some light on the issue after four days, given your intelligence. Why haven’t you come out yet?

Although the patrols from Dragon major world wouldn’t arrive for another six months, that didn’t leave them much time. He had a lot more he wished to do.

He needed to create a fake world and integrate it with this minor world. He also needed to conceal his actions, as well as a lot of other tasks. This was only their starting point, but his teacher had consumed four days...

If it’s been anyone else, Li Hao would’ve verbally laid into them.

Surely his teacher was aware of the urgency of the situation. So... had he been trapped?

No way?

Li Hao stroked his chin and then looked at his teacher’s physical body. It was still there, just with no consciousness inside!

The young man then looked at the star of time. He hadn’t kept a continuous eye on it before. Now that he had over the past couple of days, it seemed to ripple in a certain pattern. It jumped once every few minutes like a heart.

It appeared to be alive, but it was just a dao star. Even if the combination of a myriad of daos formed a dao universe, logically speaking, that should not constitute life. That beating was surely not the beating of a heart.

Since it happened every few minutes, where did it come from?