The Power of Time

"Phew, is that about it?" Feng Xue wiped away non-existent beads of sweat, crumpling a pile of small, loose parts into a ball. Gum, a watch movement, electrodes, wires—if you couldn't directly identify the materials, who would imagine that these things could be assembled into a bomb?

"But to be honest, the yield isn't actually that big..." Holding three packs of chewing gum, Feng Xue shook her head. Although it wasn't big, it was still enough to blow up one or two carriages and paralyze the entire train.

After putting away these dangerous items, Feng Xue put the previously packed luggage back in its original place, scanned it again to make sure nothing was missing, and then turned and walked towards the back of the carriage.

Although one problem had been ruled out, he didn't think that was the only potential hazard on the entire vehicle. Putting aside everything else, the person selling bullets at the station was a very serious hidden danger.

Upon arriving at the Hard Seat carriage, seeing that all the passengers were already asleep, Feng Xue opened her Circle Realm and scanned each of their luggage, searching for dangerous items.

However, just as he stepped into his assigned carriage, number two, and Circle Realm to explore, the lights, which should have been turned off, suddenly came on. Not just one carriage, but starting from the front of the train, illuminating the entire train in an instant.

Not just the car lights, almost instantly, Feng Xue's Circle Realm sensed a strange contact. Then, a voice, following his perception, directly entered his consciousness—

"Excuse me, passenger, is there anything I can help you with?"

"This passenger..."

"This passenger..."

The sound was like a demonic whisper, rushing directly into Feng Xue's consciousness from the very depths of his senses. His expression changed drastically as he tried to pull his senses back immediately, only to find that they were being forcefully held back.

"What's going on? Why are the lights on after midnight? Why are there still flight attendants at this hour? The rules of the first system should be the most complete and stable! There's no reason for them to break the rules!"

Feng Xue's mind raced, and in his field of vision, the flight attendant in a red uniform was slowly pushing a trolley toward him.

Without further thought, he immediately activated the ability of the Visage of Oath, locked his consciousness onto a passenger in the hard sleeper compartment of carriage number five, and instantly Teleportation.

In the next instant, Feng Xue's body traversed several carriages, appearing directly behind a passenger. Giving the passenger no time to wake up, he sprang from his sleeper, entering a state of Ghostly Evasion. However...

"Excuse me, passenger, how can I help you...?"

The voices continued to travel through Feng Xue's senses into his mind. It was as if the flight attendants had completely locked onto him, with constant inquiries ringing in his ears. The rumbling sound of the trolley approaching further cornered Feng Xue.

"Ah, yes, yes, yes!"

With a shake of the blanket, Feng Xue uttered a four-word mantra. In an instant, all the attention focused on him was wiped away, but then, new sounds surged in along with the senses that had not yet been pulled back.

"Grass!"

Seeing flight attendants in different colored uniforms approaching from both in front and behind her, Feng Xue took out her pocket watch and pressed the button on it forcefully.

"Za Warudo, Toki yo, tomare!"

"Click!"

With the soft ticking of a pocket watch, the whole world seemed to lose its color; the sounds around us froze in that instant, leaving only the ticking of the second hand echoing in our ears.

Name: Phantom Object - Time Stop Pocket Watch

Elements: [Time], [Stop], [Timer], [Evil Spirit], [Mystery], [Items]

Synopsis: A silver pocket watch harboring Evil Spirit has been granted the power to stop time by some mysterious force. However, please restrain yourself from using this power, or you will be rejected by the entire world and eventually lost in the cracks of time.

Note: Some people would want to rule the world if they could stop time for nine seconds, while you just want to be lewd.

Clatter!

Clatter!

With each tick of the second hand, Feng Xue felt the disharmony between himself and the current timeline intensify. Without hesitation, he immediately shook the small blanket, uttered the four-word mantra to clear his focus, and simultaneously swung the watch chain, causing the pocket watch to rotate counter-clockwise around himself—

"Halt! The Eternal Cosmic Sundial Year God!"

Instantly, a white-haired, red-eyed girl dressed in a plain white robe emerged from the pocket watch. Without a word, Feng Xue directly issued the command:

"Sever all my senses."

"OK!"

A cold voice came from the expressionless "Tai Sui God," and its figure melted and splashed in Feng Xue's sight, as if a very heavy shadow had descended from the sky, and heavy pressure covered the entire train. In an instant, Feng Xue felt dizzy.

The senses that had been torn apart and unable to return were forcibly severed in an instant, and the feeling of everything going black made Feng Xue almost vomit blood.

With a thought, he leaped again, and in the next instant, he was already at the back of carriage number six.

Pushing aside the passenger who was pressing down on him, Feng Xue used her Ghostly Evasion to slip through the connection points until she reached her room, where she pressed the button on her pocket watch.

The jarring, clattering sound abruptly stopped, the vibrations of the train's movement returned to my feet, and everything around me came alive again.

"Seven seconds? That should only cause a disruption in the sense of time, it's still within acceptable limits."

Feeling the rejection she was experiencing, Feng Xue relaxed slightly. Although the side effects of the pocket watch sounded ominous, they weren't irreversible. Besides spending time to gradually eliminate them, traveling back in time was also a good option.

According to his tests in the supernatural Game World, if you stay still, the repulsion will recover about one second per day. However, if you go through the door, it can be refreshed in just one trip. The principle is that when crossing the boundary, the door (or the Infinite City) will automatically adjust the relationship between the time difference on both sides.

However, such adjustments should be limited; at least Feng Xue doesn't know, nor dares to try, what kind of impact it would have if this sense of rejection were to accumulate to its fullest extent.

After all, the idea of getting lost in the cracks of time is not something that can be tested casually.

He would absolutely not attempt anything lightly until he possessed the power over time.

Shaking his head to suppress the unimportant matters, Feng Xue pondered the rules. Looking at the still brightly lit carriage, he couldn't help but frown.

"What's going on with this weird Weird Tale? I've heard of being punished for triggering rules, but I've never heard of a rule-breaking Weird Tale automatically violating the rules... Huh?!"

Feng Xue's inner monologue, which he had been subconsciously glancing at the pocket watch, suddenly froze. In his view, the hour hand on the pocket watch was not pointing to 12, which was a few minutes earlier, but rather to 7!

"Holy crap, what's going on? Loser Eats Dust?"

The concept of being ostracized comes from a time-stop movie, where the protagonist's prolonged time stop caused him to become detached from the main timeline and unable to return to the normal timeline—it's quite a wild idea...