Hourglass of Time and Threads of Causality

Ancient One fulfilled his promise and opened Kamar-Taj's deepest forbidden archive—the Court of Time—to Li Wei. This was not a courtyard in the physical sense, but an independent dimension shrouded in eternal twilight. Countless records of time's mysteries did not exist as books, but as flowing rivers of light, frozen images of fleeting moments, and even trees of causality that continuously grew and vanished, all suspended in the void.

The instant Li Wei stepped inside, he felt his connection to the main universe's flow of time weaken, as though he had become an "observer" of time rather than a "participant."

Phase One: Theoretical Upheaval—Time Was Not Linear, and Causality Was Reversible.

The first sphere of knowledge he touched utterly shattered his fixed understanding of time. Time was not a ceaseless, one-way river, but a boundless ocean made up of countless "possibilities." Every choice split off new tributaries, and powerful beings—such as Ancient One, or his future self—could briefly set foot upon those tributaries and even... prune them away.

"The Eye of Agamotto, the Time Stone, does not 'create' time. It 'sorts' and 'defines' time." Ancient One's voice echoed through his mind as he personally guided him. "Among infinite possibilities, it forcibly establishes a 'main road' and grants its wielder the authority to 'rewind,' 'pause,' or 'fast-forward' along that road."

Li Wei absorbed these theories hungrily. He realized that all his previous acts of plunder had created "points of disturbance" along time's main road, spawning countless new branches. Time magic was the key to understanding and controlling the relationship between those branches and the trunk.

Phase Two: Basic Practice—Perception and Fine Control.

Theory was followed by practice. The first spell Ancient One taught him was not powerful time reversal, but the most basic [Enhanced Time Perception].

Li Wei sat cross-legged in the Court of Time, opened his mind, and tried to "hear" the sound of time flowing and "see" the traces left by time's passage upon all things. With telekinesis pushed to its utmost microscopic perception and the absolute calm provided by the Astral Visualization Technique, he gradually "saw" it—the tables and chairs were not motionless; their molecules moved violently on the scale of time. The paths of birds outside the window became slowly extending "world lines" in his eyes. He could even vaguely sense lingering images of others' "past" and faint possibilities of their "future."

Next came practice with [Local Time Acceleration/Deceleration]. This did not affect an entire space, but extremely small, isolated objects. He tried to make a fallen leaf rot away before it reached the ground, or to make a droplet of water nearly freeze in place as it fell.

This consumed an enormous amount of mental and magical energy and required exquisite understanding of temporal structure. The slightest carelessness could trigger a backlash from temporal paradoxes. At first, he could only speed up or slow down the rusting of a coin by a few seconds, and his own sense of time would become confused afterward, leaving him dizzy and disoriented.

But Li Wei's advantages became unmistakable at this moment. His powerful Soul Anchor, which resisted confusion in his sense of time; his telekinesis' fine control, which precisely confined the area of effect; and the extraordinary adaptability brought by his fused X-Gene allowed him to master these fundamentals at an astonishing speed. A few days later, he could make a cup of hot tea undergo a complete cycle from boiling to freezing and back to room temperature within ten seconds, without affecting the cup itself.

Phase Three: A Forbidden Touch—First Experience with a Time Loop.

After mastering enough fundamentals, Ancient One allowed him to attempt a more dangerous and more famous spell—a simplified version of [Time Loop].

He placed Li Wei inside a miniature time loop no larger than a study. The loop lasted only ten seconds. Within those ten seconds, no matter what Li Wei did, everything would reset to its starting point once time ran out.

The first experience was despairing. No matter where he went or what spell he cast, he returned to the starting point ten seconds later, though his memories remained. He tried dozens of times and could not break the loop. It was not because he lacked power, but because he could not find the loop's "node" or rules.

He forced himself to calm down and used the time perception he had just learned to carefully observe every detail within the loop. At last, he found it—this loop was not flawless. In the instant before the reset, the spatial structure developed an extremely subtle ripple, like a wrinkle on water.

"Right there!" In another loop, he gathered every scrap of temporal magic knowledge he had just begun to grasp, mixed it with spatial magic and immense telekinetic power, and precisely thrust into the reset ripple like a scalpel the instant it appeared!

Bzzz—

A faint sound rang out, as though glass had shattered. The ten-second loop was forcibly broken!

Though he had only broken a practice loop weakened countless times over by Ancient One, Li Wei still felt exhaustion and exhilaration deep within his soul. He had touched the threshold of time's laws!

Revolutionary Effects on Combat Methods and Worldview:

A Dimensional Blow to Combat Methods:

Peak Prediction: With time perception, he could "see" the trajectory of an opponent's attack along the timeline, achieving true, absolute prediction.

Local Time Difference: He could impose a one-thousandth-of-a-second delay upon an opponent's fist or attach a hundredfold acceleration to a bullet fired by his side, making attacks completely impossible to defend against.

Tactical Reset: Though he still could not apply it on a large scale in actual combat, when a tiny but critical tactical error occurred, he had already gained the initial possibility of "reloading and trying again."

Aging/Restoration Strikes: He could act directly upon living organisms, accelerating their aging process or allowing wounds to heal under temporal acceleration, whether on himself or his allies.

A Complete Reshaping of His Worldview:

From "Plunderer" to "Gardener": He no longer saw all things merely as resources to be plundered. He saw the countless tangled timelines and possibilities surrounding them. He began to consider how to "prune" branches unfavorable to himself and how to "cultivate" beneficial futures.

The Weight of Causality: He understood more deeply the ripples each of his plundering acts stirred in time's great river. Killing the protagonists of Chronicle was not merely the disappearance of a single point; it erased every possibility they could have had in the future. He had to bear that "causality."

The Perspective of Eternity: Contact with the mysteries of time made him view life and death from a more transcendent perspective. The survival or demise of an individual became insignificant on the scale of time, yet the convergence of countless individual choices could determine the fate of the entire universe.

When Li Wei temporarily emerged from his deep study and experiments, his gaze had become even more profound, as though it contained the accumulation of countless years. He spread open his palm, and a wisp of faint temporal energy flowed between his fingertips like golden grains of sand, appearing and vanishing.

"Now," he said, looking at Ancient One, "I think I'm ready to face the Eye of Agamotto."

He was no longer satisfied with learning and imitation. He wanted to begin understanding and, eventually... add the authority over time itself to his ever-evolving list of "plunder."