RE: LORD OF TIME

William looked at his status window with a surprised look, and his mouth twitched slightly.

”As I thought, I need to explore on my own to figure out my trial to leave this place...” He muttered under his breath, staring at his updated trial.

---) Complete the Following Trials to leave the Trial Realm...

1. Reach Varhan City.

???

William’s eyes narrowed slightly as he read about his trial.

The first thing that caught his attention was the word ”Trials.”

It meant that he needed to complete more than one trial to leave this place, and among them, the first one was to reach this city called Varhan.

As for where this city was and how to find it...

William shifted his attention toward the thing inside the hut he had just entered, and his eyes narrowed.

”A map, huh...”

There was a square-shaped stone embedded in the wall, with a large map drawn on it.

The map was hand-drafted using something that was similar to black ink.

William walked closer to the map and looked at it carefully.

On the map, he soon found the location of the village he was in.

”Harsi Village...” He muttered the name of the village written on the map, and his eyes narrowed.

He shifted his attention in the direction where he had seen the giant bull monster earlier and saw that a bull’s head was drawn there.

”It seems that giant monster has been living here for a long time,” William muttered to himself and soon found the location of Varhan City.

It was very easy to find it on the map, as other than Harsi Village and Varhan City, there were no other settlements drawn or marked on the map.

There were just routes that led in different directions without any precise locations.

”I wonder how long it would take me to reach this Varhan City?”

Although he found the map, it was impossible to determine the distance between Harsi Village and Varhan City, as this rough map was more of a direction indicator than something that showed him everything.

”Well, the food I have on me is enough for about a month if I use it sparingly. But it’s better to solve this problem as soon as possible.” William took a deep breath and stared intently at the map on the wall.

After a minute, he closed his eyes and went through his memory. Confirming that he had fully memorized the map without missing anything, he turned around to leave, as there was nothing other than the stone map in the hut.

’I hope this Varhan City is not very far, as Aether Energy is also another problem.’

Earlier, William had used a little amount of Aether Energy to deal with all the Night Crawlers.

Normally, his body would have absorbed the Aether Energy from the surroundings, and that small amount of Energy would have recovered on its own even if he did not do anything.

But now that this place was completely devoid of Aether Energy, the Aether Energy he used wasn’t going to recover.

He would have to use Aether Stones or enter the Time Chamber to replenish his Aether Energy.

But the problem was that even the energy of both of these sources was limited.

Aether Stones went without saying. Once he used up the stones, they would be gone.

As for the Time Chamber, it was because this Trial Realm was completely isolated from the outside world that the energy within it was limited.

From what Eva told him, the Time Chamber had a very high-level Aether Energy gathering formation engraved in it. This formation directly absorbed Aether Energy from the Void Realm even though the Time Chamber was placed inside Eva’s storage space.

But because this Trial Realm was completely isolated, the formation couldn’t absorb Aether Energy from the Void Realm.

Now, the energy inside it was also limited, and once he used it up, it would be gone.

’Good thing my body is strong, or if I had to rely on Aether Energy to do everything, it would have been a real headache.’ William thought and was about to step out of the hut.

But just as he was about to step out, he suddenly stopped, and an instinctive feeling arose from his heart.

Like he had missed something inside the hut.

Frowning slightly at the strange feeling, William turned around and looked at the small space of the hut carefully.

But the entire hut was empty, with nothing inside it. Other than dust that had gathered over the years, there was nothing there, not even a stone.

”Was my feeling wrong?” William looked around again but still didn’t find anything.

Shaking his head, he was about to leave when his eyes swept past the map embedded in the wall, and his gaze paused.

Narrowing his eyes, William walked toward the map and stopped just a few centimeters away from it.

Looking at it closely, he noticed a slight gap at the upper edge of the square-shaped stone map.

’Is there something hidden behind this map?’

This thought arose in his mind, and without hesitation, he grabbed the map and tried to pull it out of the wall.

But what surprised William was that despite using all of his strength, he could only shake the map a bit and was unable to pull it out.

It was as if it was stuck to the wall using the strongest glue in the world.

’There is definitely something behind this stone map...’

A sharp glint flashed in William’s eyes, and Aether Energy covered his arms, increasing his strength slightly.

William pulled at the stone map with all of his strength. Veins bulged on his arms, and his face turned red.

A few seconds later, the stone map finally moved a bit and slowly slid out.

As the stone map was pulled out, William noticed there was actually a hidden compartment behind it.

His eyes lit up when he saw this, and with a pull of his hands, the stone map was finally pulled out.

Bang!

He placed the heavy stone map down with a loud bang and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

”This thing is damn heavy...” He muttered under his breath and shifted his eyes toward the hidden compartment that appeared before him.

Leaning forward, he looked inside and raised an eyebrow when he saw a glowing white sphere inside the compartment.

”What is this?” William frowned slightly and took a step forward to take a closer look.

And as he looked closely, his eyes couldn’t help but widen slightly as he stared at the thing inside the sphere.

”Is that... a child?”