The iron rod is straight.
But as long as you exert enough force, it can bend and even break.
Chen Xia whipped the iron rod into a wavy shape, effectively immobilizing the pitch-black figure.
In the vast heavens, he was subservient, relying solely on his ability to manipulate time to approach invincibility in the small world.
Sitting on a stone lion, Chen Xia flicked a cigarette out of his pack, held it in his mouth without lighting it, and gazed at the lifeless, pitch-black figure while pondering a question.
What is the essence of this world?
He had been contemplating it for the past few days but couldn't make sense of it. Perhaps his cultivation level was too low to support such pondering.
Chen Xia glanced at the gorilla captain beside him, who was now breathing heavily.
There was nothing he could do. He could only wait for the new government to clean up this mess.
A new doubt emerged in Chen Xia's mind: Does time stoppage count as part of the system's time? If it does, will it earn him any points?
It was worth a try.
Chen Xia decided to test it out.
The people from the new government arrived quickly and cleared everything up.
Chen Xia wasn't suspected because there were no witnesses at the scene.
After completing the scene documentation, he leisurely returned to his dwelling under the celestial bridge.
The world's rejection of Chen Xia was diminishing, indicating that he could start taking advantage of loopholes.
Three days later, the new government issued a notice.
All the scholars attending the academic symposium died, none survived.
The new government was furious.
But that had nothing to do with Chen Xia. He hadn't stepped out from under the celestial bridge for half a month.
He had been studying his time manipulation ability and, through continuous testing, he could now stop time within a radius of three hundred meters for thirty seconds.
Thirty seconds was enough to kill anyone in this small world.
But it wasn't enough for Chen Xia; he had something else in mind. Thirty seconds of pause was far from sufficient.
So he began diligently cultivating the "Giant Turtle's Breath Technique" and continuously practicing time stoppage every day.
Practice makes perfect, and that saying was indeed true. Chen Xia's time stoppage ability was progressing at a rate of one second per day.
It didn't seem fast, but Chen Xia excelled at accumulating small gains.
The new government had no more tasks, and even if they did, Chen Xia had no intention of doing them.
He could tell that this new government wasn't anything good; it was just a heap of lies and false beliefs.
Chen Xia didn't want to get involved. After all, he was an outsider, and this world would eventually have its own savior.
There was still a faint trace of the world's rejection towards him, and Chen Xia didn't want to integrate into this world either. Both sides had reached a mutual agreement—each going their separate ways.
Everything was peaceful.
Until the first year.
Chen Xia froze time under the celestial bridge, counting the seconds, holding it for a whole year, to see if the system would award him points.
The birds in the sky ceased to fly, and the dogs on the ground ceased to bark.
Only Chen Xia sat on a tattered mat, witnessing the outcome.
The time had just arrived.
His consciousness sank, and he saw clearly in his mind's eye that the system points had increased by one.
It worked!
Chen Xia's expression was filled with joy, and he knew exactly what he needed to do next. Every step from here on was crucial for him.
He was a cautious person who always wanted to leave himself a way out.
The Sword Sea of the Azure Heaven gave him a very uneasy feeling.
The old fisherman pulled him up, and then he drifted in the Sword Sea for a hundred years. He had no power to refuse any of it. Even if the old fisherman wanted to kill him, Chen Xia could only resign himself to fate.
In the Sword Sea, he had no other options.
You shouldn't leave your life in the hands of someone else's conscience.
Chen Xia wanted to take control himself, and as time went by, he felt more and more uneasy about it.
The old fisherman saved him because he saw potential in Chen Xia, the chosen one in the world.
Does that make sense?
It sounds reasonable.
But Chen Xia just couldn't believe it.
Especially the sinking of the Myriad Realms that followed. It sounded good for Chen Xia, and indeed, it was beneficial, but the problem was that the old fisherman didn't know that Chen Xia could make some adjustments.
If Chen Xia chose to sink into the Myriad Realms, it meant that he would spend hundreds of years in this small world.
In that case, Chen Xia's knowledge of the Sword Sea would be extremely limited.
Did the old fisherman not want him to have too much knowledge of the Sword Sea?
Chen Xia wasn't sure, but it was always good to have an extra plan.
One should always be cautious.
When you see a stray dog on the roadside, you would worry about it biting you.
So Chen Xia came up with a plan.
He wanted to freeze this entire small world in time!
To eliminate the constraints of time on himself and the world's will that rejected him.
As long as time stood still, he would be a native here.
This way, he could leave a strand of divine consciousness in this small world, using it as an external avatar for cultivation while his consciousness returned to his true self, allowing him to explore the Sword Sea and at least gain a preliminary understanding.
This was his first countermeasure.
With this operation, even if something unexpected happened to his true self, Chen Xia could rely on this strand of divine consciousness to be reborn.
He just didn't know if the old fisherman could use his great powers to sense this strand of divine consciousness.
Chen Xia felt a little troubled at the moment. He sighed. He couldn't afford to be lazy anymore. He had to diligently cultivate and practice every day.
After a year's time, he could freeze an area of four hundred meters, for a duration of six minutes.
If he wanted to freeze the entire small world, Chen Xia calculated that it would take about eighty to a hundred years.
The specific time would depend on his cultivation speed.
The range and duration of the time freeze increased every day.
It was a tedious process that required daily practice.
And as Chen Xia's realm improved, the number of seconds he could freeze each day also increased, from seconds initially to minutes now.
This number continued to rise.
Chen Xia immersed himself in the river of time. The pauses in time around him became more and more frequent. In a day of twenty-four hours, the time freeze would last for about twenty-three hours.
Of course, this was only for him. For others in the small world, time remained unchanged because they couldn't perceive the pause in time.
Chen Xia used the points given by the system to calculate the number of years.
It was currently the thirtieth year.
He froze the entire city, and the duration of the time freeze each day was in hours and seconds.
But it was still not enough.
Chen Xia wanted to achieve a freeze of thousands or even tens of thousands of years. Only then could he use this strand of divine consciousness as a trump card.
His current realm was at the peak of Foundation Establishment, and he was about to reach Golden Core.
The cultivation of the "Turtle's Breath Technique" was progressing quickly, and achieving the Nascent Soul stage would only take about eighty years.
Chen Xia was waiting, allocating the points he received each year to his strength and qi fortune.
His current strength was: [Empty].
Qi fortune: [Empty].
The seventieth year arrived.
The length of each day's time freeze was [Empty].
The world ceased to rotate, and the old man who was eating noodles in front of Chen Xia had maintained his action of lifting the noodles for five years.
Chen Xia seemed to have immersed himself in the river of time, pondering a question.
What exactly is time?
If it were a long river, could one cross it and see the past and future?
If that were possible, would it be feasible to seize the future from the present?
For example, if I were to slap you now, in ten seconds you would receive a resounding slap, inevitable and causing indelible psychological damage.
It involves some degree of causality.
This leads to yet another avenue.
His mind was filled with many doubts, embarking on contemplation. This was the enlightenment about time, representing his journey from initiation to true mastery.
The hundredth year arrived.
The sky of the small world was filled with Infant Thunder Tribulations, but none descended.
Because Chen Xia had halted the entire world.