"Clones...and resurrection?"
Lin Yi's pupils contracted as he echoed her words.
"Correct."
Qian Huan raised a finger. A glow gathered at her fingertip, quickly outlining another figure beside Lin Yi, nearly identical to him.
At first, the figure was blurry, but it soon solidified. Its aura and expression—even the trace of shock in its eyes that Lin Yi had just suppressed—were exactly the same as his own.
"By 'clone,' I mean specifically a Space-Time Clone."
"This isn't a simple energy image or an illusion. It's a method of locking onto the space-time coordinates of a past version of you at a specific moment in the River of Time, then using the power of space to summon—or, rather, teleport—that version into the present to fight alongside you or handle your affairs."
Lin Yi looked at the version of himself beside him, like a reflection in a mirror. He felt a strange connection, as if he could sense the other's thoughts, yet he knew perfectly well that it was an independent individual.
"Generally speaking," Qian Huan continued, as the clone performed a few simple combat moves in near-perfect sync with Lin Yi's own movements,
"summoning yourself from about one second in the past is the most common and safest option."
"With only a one-second gap, the clone's combat strength, memories, and thought patterns are essentially identical to yours in the present. There's no risk of a gap in its understanding or abilities from being summoned too far back. It can immediately join a fight or carry out a task without being completely lost and having no idea what's going on."
However, she changed tack. A faint film appeared across the clone, its surface constantly rippling with tiny grains of light that seemed to flow like sand through time.
"But this clone has