The light on the altar receded like a tide.
Benjamin slowly opened his eyes.
A thousand-meter-tall giant of dark gold sat cross-legged at the center of the altar.
"Phew—I'm back."
As his true form Dharma Image began to shine once more, Benjamin's consciousness fully awakened as well.
With a thought, his Dharma body began to contract.
The dark golden radiance collapsed inward. His thousand-meter body seemed to be compressed by an invisible force, finally turning into a streak of golden light that sank into the human body he had manifested.
Back in his normal form, Benjamin stood atop the altar and rolled his neck.
Nothing around him seemed to have changed much, so he habitually sensed his biological clock.
Then Benjamin froze.
"—How long?"
He sensed it again.
Three hundred years.
Strictly speaking, it had been three hundred and two years, one month, and ten days.
Benjamin blinked, finding it hard to accept for a moment.
In his subjective perception, the process of advancing to the Dao-Integration Realm had been long, but at most it should have taken a few hours.
Yet in reality, a full three hundred years had passed.
It seemed that when immersed in comprehending laws, one's sense of time lost all meaning.
But it made sense. That state of resonating with heaven and earth, melding with the Great Dao, had been so exquisite that it felt like a fleeting dream.
"Cultivation knows no years," Benjamin murmured. There was a hint of emotion in his voice, but he quickly regained his calm.
The materials in the Great Dao Library had actually mentioned such situations.
But when it truly happened to him, Benjamin still found it rather astonishing.
Three hundred years might encompass several generations for mortals, but for wizards, it was merely a somewhat longer period of