Xu Huo casually leafed through the book. Strictly speaking, it was more like an entertaining popular-science book. Most of it covered the theory behind clockmaking, explained in simple terms that even beginners could read without much difficulty.
However, its discussion of the concept of "time" had earned unanimous praise from critics.
The author proposed that time "never stands still" and explained what she meant by the phrase. She believed that whether it was time as we normally understood it or time near certain special universes, its method of calculation might seem to change, but the concept of "time" itself was eternal and unchanging. In contrast to "time," she also discussed "Curved Time."
The concept of "Curved Time" had existed in the game for a long time, but generally only academic researchers analyzed and explained it in depth. Ordinary people found it difficult to understand, and Curved Time could not be applied in everyday life—or at least, that point was debatable. For example, Xu Huo's Super Artifact, Three Seconds of Life, was actually an application of Curved Time. That at least proved that artifacts related to Curved Time existed in the game.
The book's author, Jing Shi, explained that "time travel" under normal time was impossible, because time could only move forward. The only way "time travel" might be possible was within Curved Time.
Much like a wormhole could fold space to let someone cover a distance quickly, "Curved Time" worked the same way. It bent and jumped, coexisting with "time."
Of course, "time" was merely a concept humans had come up with to make it easier to understand changes in matter. If you set aside the concept of "time," you could see it as two forces passing through each other. When one force interfered with the other, the two forces