Dimensional Codex - Chapter 58

Chapter 58: Northern Border, Snowfield Forest

Fang Zheng discovered that he really seemed to be naturally incompatible with the transmission.

And the proof was that he had now been teleported to no man’s land, where birds didn’t even sh*t.

I mean it, literally.

Where the hell am I?

Walking in the forest, Fang Zheng couldn’t figure out where he was. If it was just the forest, it would not have been that big of a problem. But the problem was that the forest seemed a bit strange. Because even during winter, there were generally animals in a forest generally. Even if most animals went into hibernation, there should have been some signs of life.

But there was nothing here.

Fang Zheng had wandered in the forest for an entire day and night but he had not encountered any animals! He didn’t find any bird flying in the sky. Fang Zheng was flustered by this. F***, don’t tell me that the freaking system had some teleportation error and it threw me in this ghastly place with no life? If that’s the case, this is going to be troublesome!

The only silver line was that Fang Zheng found a river in the forest, which also made him breathe a sigh of relief. According to Fang Zheng’s memory, there must have been some human settlement above or below the river. Although the probability wasn’t that high, it was better than wandering around in the forest. After the modification of his body, Fang Zheng might not have been as hungry as an ordinary person, but he still needed to eat. If he ended up being lost for too long, he would have to feed on bark.

Be that as it may, Fang Zheng didn’t idle his time away. He was also fumbling about his time ability while rushing to see if he could come up with something. After all, he had spent so much effort and time in the world of Edge of Tomorrow to acquire this ability. Naturally, it couldn’t just be used to burn incense on the table.

Boredom had always been the best motivation to stimulate research. During his time on the road, Fang Zheng indeed found some ways to use the time ability.

Teleport!

Of course, this teleport was not the kind of teleport that traveled through space but a teleport through time. For example, if Fang Zheng could run a distance of 5 kilometers in 10 minutes, then his teleport would reduce this process to one second. That is to say, Fang Zheng could appear five kilometers away in an instant, but this was not through the barrier of space; it was simply accelerating the flow of time.

And since the scope of time ability was centered on Fang Zheng himself, as long as he could move, there was no need to worry about leaving the scope of the ability.

But there was another drawback to this method, and that was the consumption of physical energy.

Time teleportation wasn’t the same as space teleportation. Space teleportation connected two locations to shorten the distance but time teleportation only sped up the flow of time; it would not reduce the consumption of energy. So, if Fang Zheng accelerated time and ran 100 meters, he would still consume the same amount of stamina if he were to run 100 meters normally. And this was a less than obvious drawback.

Furthermore, accelerating time would also increase Fang Zheng’s physical growth. The price of being 10 minutes faster than others was to get 10 minutes older than the others. These 10 minutes might not have been that conspicuous on the surface but they would add up bit by bit over time. When these 10 minutes were added up to 10 years, then it was another matter.

Fortunately, the Zerg gene in Fang Zheng’s body perfectly solved this problem. According to what Mylune told him, the growth of the Zergs followed a very unique cycle. When they swallow the genes and evolved, their bodies would remain at the peak of this form until the next phagocytic evolution. This was why each older Zerg was harder to deal with than the other. But because of the unique war ideology of Zergs, few Zergs could live for so long.

In other words, while everyone else grew one year older in one year, Fang Zheng would only grow one year older with each evolution. So, no matter how many times Fang Zheng used the time ability, he would not grow older than the others.

What’s more, Fang Zheng discovered another aspect of Time Manipulation ability. And that was that the duration and the range of time manipulation were relative!

The current level of Fang Zheng’s Time Manipulation was E, with an upper limit of 10 minutes, and everything within a radius of five meters around Fang Zheng would be affected by it. But Fang Zheng could increase the time limit by reducing the area or he could extend the range by reducing the time limit. For example, Fang Zheng could extend the area of effect from 10 meters to 100 meters but the upper limit of his time manipulation would be reduced to one minute, and vice versa. If Fang Zheng reduced the area of effect to a radius of one meter, then the duration of his time manipulation would be increased to 20 minutes.

Besides, Fang Zheng also figured out a more complex way to use it!

And this also came from his perception of time ability. Because in the Time Manipulation intro, it stated that he could manipulate time at will!

This meant that Fang Zheng could not only accelerate the flow of time, but he could also reduce or freeze the flow of time!

And on this basis, Fang Zheng re-trained a set of effective combat skills, which he called Overlaying Assault.

In fact, the entire process was pretty simple. When Fang Zheng was facing a target, he could choose to teleport, or accelerate the flow of time for eight minutes and teleport himself to the target’s side, stop time, rewind time by 10 seconds and brandish his sword, accelerate time by 10 seconds and launch another strike, then accelerate time by another 30 seconds and use Judgement, and then with enough energy left, accelerate time by another five seconds and use Templar’s Verdict before accelerating time one last minute and then get away from the target.

In the eyes of the onlookers, Fang Zheng would appear before the target in the blink of an eye. And after a few gleams of swords, plus Judgement, plus Sword of Justice, plus Templar’s Verdict… Fang Zheng would have disappeared, leaving his opponent dead.

But unfortunately, this ability was not without a loophole. Fang Zheng could manipulate time but could not distort and change time. He could indeed achieve the purpose of Time Manipulate through acceleration and deceleration of time but he himself could not resist the process. In other words, if it took Fang Zheng eight minutes to reach the target’s side, then he would arrive next to the target one minute later if he accelerated the flow of time for eight minutes. And he could not rewind time two minutes back to launch an attack. If Fang Zheng did this, then his own body would return to where he should have been two minutes ago.

Similarly, if Fang Zheng’s sword took five seconds to hit the enemy, then he could not rewind a second back within these five seconds, and then attack again to form an offense of five attacks per second. If Fang Zheng wanted to modify it, he could only do so if he judged that his attack would not strike the enemy, then he could rewind time to five seconds back and attack from another angle.

Furthermore, it should be noted that no matter how Fang Zheng rewound or accelerated time, the total time he could manipulate was always limited. He was unable to convert this duration to infinity. No matter what used the Time Manipulation, he had to ensure that the duration he used did not exceed the default range.

Therefore, whether Fang Zheng accelerated for one second, or rewound for one second, the Time Manipulation ability would always count it as 1 second, 1 second, 1 second… adding it up to the time limit.

If one treated time as money, then Fang Zheng only had a certain amount of money in his hands, which he could only spend; he could never take it back.

Besides, Fang Zheng also discovered a flaw in this time ability.

Once he cast any stronger skill when manipulating time, the duration would be reduced.

This was discovered when Fang Zheng used the Royal Crusader Art. If he resorted to ordinary attacks within a limited time, he would not feel anything special. But if he wanted to use those powerful sword arts such as Crusader Art+Judgement+Divine Storm+Templar’s Verdict, the consumption was quite scary. He couldn’t even maintain his ability; it could even cause him to lose all his strength. This made Fang Zheng mindful of this. If he insisted on launching a set of strikes, he could only maintain his time ability for three minutes, at most.

And this was still against wooden stakes. If it were those powerful enemies?

Well, the Son of Chaos can be disregarded but if it was the lich lord or Great Knights like Marth and Shidon, how long would my ability last in front of them?

Originally, Fang Zheng believed that with the ability to manipulate time at hand, he could do whatever he wanted within a period of time. But now it seemed that if the opponent was strong enough, then his control of time would be weakened. And in case he ran into an enemy he couldn’t deal with, it wouldn’t be impossible for the enemy to be immune to it.

Along the way, Fang Zheng was busy experimenting with his own abilities. The description of the ability was just an introduction. He still had to contemplate how to use it. As a game designer and a senior player, naturally, Fang Zheng was very experienced in this regard. He directly regarded it as a skill and began to test whether this skill was auxiliary or if it could be used as the main offense… So far, it fared better when treated as aux. However, Fang Zheng felt that if he upgraded it, it might have some potential for offense.

Of course, it was ineffective now.

“Hmm!?”

Just when Fang Zheng was busy studying his ability, he suddenly raised his head and looked ahead in surprise. Because Fang Zheng keenly sensed life forms just now, and there were a lot of them!

The Zerg gene was rather sharp when it came to senses. At this moment, Fang Zheng could clearly sense many life energies converging in one place not far from him in his mind. This feeling was a bit similar to looking at the red dots on the minimap in an interstellar game. Although it was a kind violation, it was all good since it was useful.

Finally, someone’s alive!

Fang Zheng immediately became excited as this thought crossed his mind. He sped up and ran forward at once.

It didn’t take long for Fang Zheng to arrive at his destination. Just as Fang Zheng had guessed, where there was water, there were also humans; a small town appeared in front of Fang Zheng. From the outside. This small town could be regarded the epitome of beauty, but now, it had nothing to do with beauty and peace.

The reason was very simple; it was being attacked.

More importantly, the attackers weren’t humans.

“That’s…”

Standing on a tree, Fang Zheng furrowed his brow, staring at the scene in front of him. Just outside the town, a three to four-meter tall fence was blocking the intruder’s footsteps. But those invaders didn’t give up attacking in light of this. It was a pack of black wolves that were as big as war horses, and their numbers reached over 100. These black wolves were circling around the wall, frantically slamming into the gate. Some black wolves were even spewing flames on the wall.

Monsters?

Of course, Fang Zheng knew that there were monsters in this world, and there were a lot of them. At first, he didn’t care about them. But since he learned that the spirit crystals could be used to recharge the in-game currency, he had set his aim on monsters. But Fang Zheng had never imagined that he would actually run into such a group of monsters here!

Obviously, the town was unable to resist the attack from this pack of monsters. Fang Zheng saw militia firing arrows or throwing spears at those black wolves from above the fence. But these attacks were simply ineffective. The fur of those black wolves was thick as armor. The arrows and spear slid off their bodies, posing no threat at all.

If those people hadn’t put a lot of stones at the gate to block it, they might not have been able to hold on till now.

However, it was only until now.

The small town could no longer hold on against the attack of those black wolves; it was about to be breached. Of course, Fang Zheng could guess what would happen to this beautiful town if the black wolves broke through the defense.

But… as far as Fang Zheng was concerned, it wasn’t a problem.

I might have done countless experiments but isn’t actual combat always the best way to test anything? What’s more, those black wolves are monsters…

As this thought crossed his mind, the black wolves in Fang Zheng’s eyes were no different from a pile of money in his path.

It’s time to farm!