The teleportation plaza returned to order.
The alchemy wizards responsible for maintaining the formation had already gathered around the teleportation array emitting wisps of blue smoke and begun inspecting the damaged rune arrays. Benjamin took a look and confirmed that only some energy circuits had overloaded; the spatial anchor had not been damaged. He let out a slight sigh of relief. At least the compensation would not be too costly.
Just as he was about to head for the Academy's conference hall, a familiar voice suddenly came from behind him.
"Ben... jamin?"
Benjamin turned around.
Not far away, a young man in a black wizard's robe waved in his direction.
Bill; Spirit; Blake.
A Soul School genius who had entered Noren Academy in the same class as him, and now the largest distributor of his Liquid Adamantine within Noren Workshop's sphere of operations. Benjamin smiled faintly.
"Blake."
Blake hurried over.
"What a coincidence. I thought I'd mistaken you for someone else just now."
Yet the instant Blake spoke, Benjamin suddenly froze.
Because... it was too slow.
Blake's lips slowly parted, every word seeming to have been artificially stretched out as it emerged from his mouth bit by bit.
"How... have... you... been... lately...?"
The voice was not distorted. It was simply astonishingly slow.
Even Blake's gesture of raising his hand in greeting seemed to have been slowed several times over.
Merely standing there and waiting, Benjamin could not help but feel something strange stirring within him.
Faster.
A little faster.
At this speed, he almost could not resist finishing the rest of the sentence for him.
But as soon as that thought arose, he immediately understood.
It was not that Blake had become slower. It was that Benjamin himself had become faster.
More precisely.
Their perceptions of the passage of