Closed-Door Cultivation

Inside the empty Time Chamber, Luo Zhiyuan was currently practicing a movement technique that fused the laws of light and time—Time Flow.

Bulieni told him, "This was created specifically for you by your teacher. It is a combat secret technique that has never been circulated in the universe. Once you cultivate it to the extreme, you will fully comprehend the three profound mysteries of the law of time, and you will be only one step away from becoming a Time Venerable."

"This set of movement techniques is primarily based on the law of time, with the law of light as a supplement. It is divided into three levels, and each level can be further categorized into four stages: entry, minor accomplishment, major accomplishment, and perfection."

"When using this technique for evasion, you can instantly swap the position of your physical body with your position along your time trajectory. When assisting in an attack, you can summon yourself from the time trajectory to attack simultaneously with your physical body."

Luo Zhiyuan felt a sense of familiarity; this technique seemed to have some similarities to the Godly Evasion he had already learned. Should it be relatively easy for him to get started, then?

However, Bulieni was not so optimistic. He explained:

"When Godly Evasion is used, it creates several illusions, and your physical body shuttles between these illusions at will. This achieves the same result as Time Flow when evading, but it is different when assisting in an attack."

"Godly Evasion uses illusions to create the appearance of an attack, but in reality, only your physical body has the ability to attack. It is just that the physical body moves so quickly that it creates the illusion that the phantoms are also attacking."

"But Time Flow summons the version of yourself that truly exists within the time trajectory to attack alongside your physical body. This is the biggest difference, and this point relies mainly on the law of time to complete."

"Although the difficulty of cultivating this technique increases gradually from low to high, the requirements for entry are very high. Your comprehension of the law of time needs to reach a certain realm before you can begin. Your comprehension of the law of time has only just entered the threshold; there is still a distance to go before you can reach the entry level of the first layer."

As one of the two supreme laws, the law of time is much more difficult to comprehend than the law of light. Generally speaking, one starts with the lower laws, and after improving one's comprehension of those, it becomes relatively easier to comprehend the law of time.

But Luo Zhiyuan did not need to do that; he possessed an innate secret technique of the law of time: Flowing Time.

After frequently using Flowing Time, his body formed a certain instinctive feedback, which allowed him to step over the threshold of the law of time.

Since that was the case, Bulieni arranged for him to use Flowing Time continuously, letting his body memorize and comprehend the feedback left on his body by the law of time more deeply.

To deepen this feedback, Bulieni even had him summon his Shadow Race Clone to exist simultaneously with his physical body, allowing the clone and the body to compare and feel the distortion of time.

Bulieni did not let Luo Zhiyuan directly increase Flowing Time to a high speed, but rather increased it slowly. At first, the two bodies had no reaction, but when it was increased to triple speed, his head felt waves of pain, and his eyes could not even clearly see the other version of himself beside him.

Bulieni shouted loudly in Luo Zhiyuan's sea of consciousness: "This is the feeling of time flow disorder caused by different time speeds! Physiological discomfort is nothing; hurry up and carefully experience the most intuitive manifestation of the law of time!"

Gritting his teeth, Luo Zhiyuan's face turned pale, and his body began to sway involuntarily. He tried his best to endure the physical discomfort to comprehend the law of time, until he fell to the ground, his consciousness blanked out, and he stopped the execution of Flowing Time.

"Luo kid, how is it? Do you have any special feelings?"

Shaking his head, Luo Zhiyuan replied in a low, pained voice: "No! Aside from my head splitting with pain, I didn't feel anything."

"It's okay, this is normal. I didn't expect you to gain anything on your first try. Rest for a bit, and once your body adapts, we'll continue!"

Just like that, Luo Zhiyuan kept executing Flowing Time, then fell down dizzy, and after recovering, repeated it again and again, until his body could no longer bear the load and he lay on the ground, falling into a deep sleep.

Bulieni secretly calculated the time, and once his physical state had recovered enough, he woke Luo Zhiyuan up again to continue this grueling, exploitative training.

The door of the Time Chamber opened, and Luo Zhiyuan walked out, rubbing his stomach as he muttered: "I've been eating various energy foods for so long that I've almost forgotten what real food tastes like. Now, I've finally been given a break."

"Bulieni, how long have we been practicing in the Time Chamber?"

After chuckling in his sea of consciousness, Bulieni asked: "What do you think?"

"I feel like I've spent several years in the Time Chamber. In reality, has it been a week?"

"Hahaha, you've been in the Time Chamber for almost three years, but only one day has passed in reality. Surprised? Unexpected?"

Luo Zhiyuan's footsteps faltered, and his eyes widened.

"I... I stayed in there for several years, and only one day passed outside? Bulieni, you're not kidding me, are you?"

"Pfft~ Who's kidding you? I told you earlier that this is a Time Chamber with a thousand-fold time flow rate. Can't you do the math yourself?"

Uh... 1 day = 1000 days?!

No problem, it really had been almost three years.

Luo Zhiyuan ran back to his bedroom and looked in the mirror. Even his height had increased significantly; he was now about the height of a thirteen or fourteen-year-old Earth teenager.

After staring blankly at the mirror for a moment, Luo Zhiyuan's expression changed, and he hurriedly logged into the Virtual Universe with an anonymous account to send a video call invitation to the Luo Family.

The video connected quickly, and his grandparents appeared. The moment the two elders smiled, their expressions froze on their faces.

"Uh... Little Zhiyuan? Is that you? How come you look, uh, much older?"

Luo Zhiyuan said with a bitter face: "Grandpa, Grandma, you didn't see wrong. It's me, Zhiyuan."

"It really is Zhiyuan! How did you suddenly grow up like this? And, let me see, you've grown quite a bit taller too. When we saw you a while ago, you weren't like this, were you?"

Luo Zhiyuan was also a bit overwhelmed and found it hard to explain, so he said: "It's like this: I'm currently using a type of Evolution Fluid to cultivate, which can increase my cultivation speed, but the side effect is that it makes my body develop rapidly as well."

"I only just discovered this problem myself, so I contacted you immediately because I have to continue training like this. I was afraid that you wouldn't recognize me later on."

"By the way, where's Mom? Why don't I see her?"

The two elders sighed and said: "Your mom went to work at the company. There's only the two of us at home right now. Oh, we miss you so much, Little Zhiyuan. You must train hard and come back to see us soon."

Afraid of hearing the two elders continue to nag, Luo Zhiyuan quickly said: "Okay, Grandpa and Grandma, I will train hard and I'm going to continue right now. Remember to tell Mom and Dad about my changes so they don't fail to recognize me later. I'm going now, talk to you next time, goodbye!"

Closing the video call, Luo Zhiyuan sighed and exited the Virtual Universe.

"Bulieni, did you do this on purpose? You didn't even tell me I was growing, just waiting to see me get scared?"

Bulieni said in a low voice: "Uh... would you believe me if I said I didn't notice? I've never experienced growing up, so it really wasn't on purpose..."

That was true. Bulieni was an intelligent life form. After obtaining the Evolution Heart, he became immortal after a single glass of wine. Where would he know about growing up? Luo Zhiyuan had truly wronged Bulieni.

"Fine, I believe you. However, I think if I train for another day, my body will grow into an adult's physique. There shouldn't be any more changes after that. I just don't know if my parents can accept their son growing up overnight."

"Oh, that's not important. Hurry to the Killing Field in the Virtual Universe. The training plan I customized for you requires the Killing Field to assist in the training."

"No way, I have to eat something first before I go train. My mouth has been ruined by those energy foods!"

Luo Zhiyuan sent his guards to buy some monster meat rich in energy, then grilled some himself to feast on. After gorging himself, he rubbed his belly and sprawled out comfortably. Only after catching his breath for a while did he log into the Virtual Universe using his new identity.

Compared to the Black Dragon Mountain Empire, the Killing Field of the Xuanyi Universe Kingdom was no different, save for having more people and a larger space; even the background was identical.

After completing the formalities, Luo Zhiyuan walked straight into his Killing Space.

Inside the Killing Space lay a vast, empty wilderness, which had been set up to be almost identical to the environment of the Time Chamber.

Bulieni hovered to one side, grinning hideously at Luo Zhiyuan. "Hehe, kid Luo, it's time to test the results of your day of training. Get ready."

Luo Zhiyuan grinned back and said confidently, "Bring it on!"

As the words fell, 100 Star-level 8 Virtual Warriors appeared in the wilderness—half were fighters, half were controllers—and launched an attack on Luo Zhiyuan.

Luo Zhiyuan stepped onto his Lightning Shuttle, activating its first combat form. A one-meter-long Light Shuttle formed in front of him. After advancing a short distance, another Luo Zhiyuan appeared behind him, also stepping on a Lightning Shuttle, and charged toward the Virtual Warriors alongside him.

The two Luo Zhiyuans darted and weaved through the hundred Virtual Warriors, controlling the one-meter-long Light Shuttle like a laser beam that shot out and refracted continuously. In just a few moments, they had slaughtered all 100 Virtual Warriors of the same level!

"Good! Very good!" Bulieni shouted happily.

"In less than three years, you've managed to reach the entry-level stage of the first layer of Time Flow. I am truly happy."

"Although you have the help of a unique innate secret technique, it would have been impossible to reach this point so quickly without immense perseverance!"

"Kid Luo, you lack neither talent, nor perseverance, nor the secret inheritance technique given to you by your teacher. You have already embarked on your own path to becoming a powerhouse."

"Come, I will now set up opponents for you based on the issues you have with this secret technique. Once you can defeat 100 opponents, you will be able to bring this Time Flow to the minor accomplishment stage."

Luo Zhiyuan nodded silently, feeling very satisfied with the results of his "one day" of training. Although he was still at Star-level 8, his physical attributes had improved comprehensively under the high-gravity environment.

A simple comparison shows that the current Luo Zhiyuan is already much stronger than Luo Feng was when he first participated in the Genius Tournament in the original story. When Luo Feng participated in the Genius Tournament, he was a Star-level 7 spirit reader with a mind power amplitude of 58, a level five domain, and had just stepped across the threshold of the Origin Law of Metal.

At this moment, Luo Zhiyuan's physical force output has reached 50, his mind power amplitude has reached 60, and his comprehension of the Law of Light and the Law of Time has greatly improved. His Light Domain has even risen directly to the ninth level!

Such tremendous progress was required just to reach the entry-level stage of the first layer of Time Flow; one can only imagine how high the requirements for this secret technique are.

Therefore, Luo Zhiyuan continued his training and battles with great enthusiasm.

PS: I'm exhausted! I wasn't happy for even two hours yesterday before they changed my contract status and moved us to a different ranking list.

Now I'm on the New Book Contract Ranking, 27th in the light novel category. I'm about to cry...

Brothers, please give me your collections and recommendation votes. Those who can afford it, feel free to drop a tip or two. Looking at that list, there are books with fewer collections, fewer recommendations, and fewer words than us, yet they are ahead of us just because they might have a couple more tips...

The guy at the top of the overall list is even more ridiculous; he has 880,000 words, why is he still hanging around on the new book list...

I really don't know what the point of this ranking is.

Anyway, now that we've been moved, I hope you all can help me out. Thank you!