The Ring Is Incomplete
Lin Fan woke up with a start in his rented room. This time, the Time Ring Ritual not only granted him a significant amount of time power, but also allowed him to experiment with Time Clone. Most importantly, he obtained information about the second candle.
"And then there was that last person on the rooftop." Lin Fan recalled the person who jumped off the rooftop last; the person wore a black cloak and a strange black mask, making it impossible to tell who they were.
"Beep beep beep." The phone beeped randomly. Lin Fan opened it and found it was a call from the company. This made Lin Fan frown, after all, he had just returned to the past and found traces of a candle at the company.
"Didn't they announce a three-day work suspension after the candle incident?" Lin Fan recalled the text message from his boss. Why would someone from the company call him?
"Hello, is this Lin Fan?" The voice on the other end of the phone was the boss's secretary, who said in a tone that was hard to tell whether it was surprise or shock, "Come to the company immediately, the police are waiting for you, the boss is dead."
"The police?" Cold sweat instantly broke out on Lin Fan's forehead. How did the police suddenly come up again? And how did that stingy boss die?
"That's right. The boss's time of death was determined to be two nights ago. You were the last one to leave that day, and the police only called you in for questioning to ask some questions." The secretary said with a hint of schadenfreude, "After all, you and the boss had quite a few conflicts. If you hadn't come to the company, the police would have come to you to ask for help."
"Okay, I'll go right away." Lin Fan forced himself to calm down.
"There are three possibilities for the death of Boss Desperate. One is that the candle was the culprit. Besides the imperial court, someone else is looking for the candle. After all, if someone from the imperial court kills Boss Desperate, the police won't be involved."
"The second possibility is that I killed my boss, and there's a future version of myself who's gone mad and is trying to frame me for murder. If my traces are left at the scene of the murder, it would be extremely disadvantageous for me, since the police have cordoned off the scene, which means they've already examined it."
"The third possibility is the masked man in black from last night; his identity is still to be confirmed."
"Before that, I need to go back." Lin Fan prepared for the Time Ring Ritual again. If he went to the company now, he wouldn't know anything and might be caught as soon as he arrived. Of course, if he ran away, he would definitely be put on the wanted list. So the best option was to go back two days ago and check the scene.
As the ring continued to expand, Lin Fan seized the opportunity and reached the earliest time he could reach. At this time, his past self had not yet possessed him; his past self was on his way to work.
Watching the rising sun, Lin Fan quietly waited for his opportunity. The power of time flowed slowly, ready to condense a Time Clone at any time. Soon, Lin Fan entered the elevator alone, but what puzzled Lin Fan was that the elevator's surveillance cameras were not broken.
"Strange things are happening more and more often." Lin Fan waited for a while, and the same day before, he also descended upon the past. The barrier that had been blocking him reappeared, giving Lin Fan a large amount of time power.
"I need to go to the monitoring room to take a look." Lin Fan took the opportunity to go to the restroom and quietly condensed Time Clone. He heard a noise outside the door and watched the consciousness from a day ago leave. He then entered the Time Clone.
"Finally free." Lin Fan activated his Time Clone, quietly waiting until no one was outside. He pushed open the door, wondering how to get out, and saw a person wearing a black cloak and a strange mask looking at him.
"I thought you were going to stay inside a few more minutes." The Masked Man's voice sounded distorted, making it impossible to identify who it was.
"Who are you?" Lin Fan asked shyly, covering her body while trying to ascertain the other person's identity.
"I am nobody right now. If I had to name someone, you could call me the founder of the Ring of Time and Space," the Masked Man said slowly. "My identity is still uncertain; I am still in the future, so I could be anyone."
"I might be an avatar of the great being of the Time-Space Circle, or perhaps a prank by that guy Shadow B in the future, or maybe anyone in the Ring of Time and Space who underwent the Time Ring Ritual," the Masked Man said, pointing at Lin Fan. "Why don't you take off my mask and see which one I am?"
"Let's forget about it." Lin Fan's mind was a complete mess. He understood some of what the other person was saying, but he was totally confused about the specifics.
"Your candle is about to be lit. Seize the opportunity. The snake's words are entirely up to you." The Masked Man smiled, then turned into black smoke and dissipated, leaving behind his black clothes, cloak, and mask.
"How inexplicable." Lin Fan listened to those words, his heart filled with doubt. Looking at the clothes that had fallen to the ground, and hearing the footsteps slowly approaching outside, he gritted his teeth, picked up the clothes that had fallen to the ground, went into a toilet stall, and changed his clothes.
Once Lin Fan put on the clothes and cloak, he sensed the special ability of the garment. People without special vision could not see the person wearing the cloak, which was the legendary invisibility cloak. The reason Lin Fan could see him was because he was now Time Clone, essentially composed of the power of time.
The mask also has a special ability: it can conceal the wearer's aura, heart rate, temperature, and other information, preventing them from being leaked out. When paired with a cloak, it seems to be invisible to ordinary people, as long as they are not foolish enough to deliberately run into them.
"It's practically a divine artifact for time travelers," Lin Fan thought. With this equipment, he could act much more boldly.
He confidently left the restroom and ran to the monitoring center in the center of the building. After a quick check, he found that all the building's surveillance cameras were working properly, including the one at the educational institution on the second floor.
"First, turn off the surveillance cameras in the elevator and on the second floor. I'll have to make another trip later to destroy those cameras to complete the timeline." A sudden realization dawned on Lin Fan, and he quickly ran off to finish the task.
A surge of time power flowed into his body. Unlike the time power obtained through the disruption of spacetime, this time power brought about by completing the spacetime cycle seemed to possess unique mysteries. It guided Lin Fan's original time power, forming a ring within his body, although the ring was incomplete.
"It's those times." The first thing Lin Fan thought of was the time that the candle above his head had absorbed, but the candle was still with him. So, regarding those gaps, Lin Fan remembered the inch of time he had traded away, and the time that had been taken away by his mentor's Shadow B.
"I see. In the advanced stages of the Time Ring Ritual, the time power within one's body must form a ring. The time consumed by magic also returns to oneself. Only the time that has been traded away is controlled by others. Without replenishing that time, I can never complete my own time ring."
A sense of urgency rose within Lin Fan once again; the feeling of having one's lifeline held in someone's hands was not pleasant.
"Looking forward to your performance, Crimson Snake!" A ring in the sky rotated, shielding the spacetime fluctuations here from the Countermeasure Bureau's observation.
Um, I'll update again later. I have some things to do this afternoon, so I can't finish the promised fourth update. I'm really sorry.