Speculation and Action

Chapter 418: Speculation and Action

What was the reason?

Was it an inherent "energy cost" of time reversal itself, inevitably draining the plane's foundational energy like friction generating heat?

Or had their series of "Paradox Experiments"—especially storing matter from this plane within an independent spacetime Pocket Dimension—caused some minute "tear" or "disturbance" to the world?

Benjamin was more inclined toward the latter possibility.

The reason was straightforward: before their reinforcement force had arrived, the vanguard legion led by Frost had already battled in this Samsara Plane for more than a hundred reincarnation cycles.

If every time reversal caused such obvious degradation, the wizards outside should have keenly detected the signs dozens of cycles ago. They would not have had to wait until now.

Of course, it was also possible that the two factors had compounded one another.

That time reversal itself caused minute losses, while their experiments were like carving fresh scratches into fragile glass, magnifying the effect.

"We need more data, as well as longer-term, more systematic monitoring," Benjamin admitted during the tactical meeting. "In the previous cycles, we lacked baseline records for environmental constants. The benchmarks we have established now are still unstable. We need to go through at least one or two more complete cycles before we can make a preliminary judgment on the trend and rate of degradation."

Frost approved of this assessment.

He ordered the wizards of the combat sequence to continue following their existing strategy, maintaining pressure on the Sickle-Skull Race while creating more experimental windows for the research effort.

The logistics and research sequences, meanwhile, devoted themselves fully to in-depth analysis of the existing data and to refining a more precise monitoring plan for the next cycle.

Yet amid all this activity, Benjamin himself had a more important verification to carry out.

He