Temporal Mark Prediction and Instant Spellcasting

Having returned from his research into the Time Stone, Li Wei did not immediately embark on new plundering. Instead, he entered a brief period of seclusion. He needed to deeply integrate and reconstruct the secrets of time he had just stolen within his existing power system. The process was like a top engineer writing an entirely new, powerful underlying protocol into an already complex combat operating system.

I. Time Perception + Telekinesis = [Temporal Mark Prediction]

Li Wei stood in the training grounds of the Mirror Dimension. His opponents were ten magical puppets controlled by the Crimson Empress, each simulating the combat patterns of elite Chitauri soldiers. They attacked him simultaneously from different angles at speeds far beyond supersonic, energy beams and physical blades weaving together into a net of death.

Previously, Li Wei would have needed to rely on telekinesis's wide-range perception and rapid reactions to deal with them. But now, he merely stood there calmly.

He activated [Enhanced Time Perception]. The world instantly became different in his eyes. Those swiftly incoming attacks were no longer lines that arrived in an instant, but stretches of time he could "read," each carrying a clear trajectory. He could "see" where an energy beam would arrive a few thousandths of a second later, and "read" the final point of impact of a blade's slash, along with every possible subsequent change.

At the same time, his telekinesis was no longer spread blindly over a wide area for defense or counterattacks. Instead, it became countless precise "scalpels," deployed in advance along the time trajectories he had "read"!

The instant an energy beam was fired, a tiny telekinetic barrier lasting 0.1 seconds appeared in its path. The beam struck it exactly and was annihilated.

When a high-speed blade was halfway through its swing, a faint but perfectly timed telekinetic force stalled its joint for 0.01 seconds, causing its trajectory to deviate and skim past Li Wei's clothes.

He could even predict the evasive move a puppet would make to avoid his potential counterattack. A "Startrail" warhead was already waiting at its "future position" of evasion!

This was [Temporal Mark Prediction]—not conventional prediction based on experience and dynamic vision, but directly reading the process by which an "attack" unfolded along the timeline, then interfering at key points in advance. To his opponents, Li Wei seemed able to foresee the future. Every attack appeared futile and laughable before him, and he could always neutralize the deadliest crises with the smallest, most precise movements. Combat had changed from "reacting" to "directing"; he wrote the outcome of the battle in advance.

II. Local Time Acceleration + Spellcasting = [Instant Spellcasting]

Next, he tested magic. Kamar-Taj's magic was powerful, but many complex spells required hand seals, chanting—mental guidance—and energy gathering. In high-speed combat, that was often a fatal opening.

Li Wei raised his hand, intending to cast a [Shield of Seraphim] that required roughly 1.5 seconds of preparation.

The instant he began forming the hand seals, he applied [Local Time Acceleration] to his hands and the mental core guiding his magic!

To the outside world, his hands blurred for an instant, and the complex magical shield condensed into shape as though it had appeared from nowhere! Its preparation time had been compressed from 1.5 seconds to almost zero!

He tried it repeatedly.

[Rings of Raggadorr]—instant cast!

[Holy Sword of Vishanti]—instant cast!

Even certain mid-tier offensive spells requiring even longer preparation, such as [Bolts of Balthakk]—which originally needed three seconds of guidance—achieved an effect close to "silent casting" and "instant casting" under the extreme time acceleration applied to his fingers and the spell-guidance area!

That was the secret of [Instant Spellcasting]! He had not skipped the casting steps; rather, by accelerating his own local time flow, he completed complex internal operations that normally required several seconds within a single instant of the outside world. The advantage this brought was revolutionary: imagine that while an opponent was still chanting the first incantation, Li Wei had already unleashed three complete Holy Swords of Vishanti!

The Cost and Limits of Fusion:

Of course, such a powerful fusion did not come without a price.

[Temporal Mark Prediction] consumed enormous mental power. Prolonged use quickly caused mental fatigue, and the more targets predicted at once and the more complex the attacks, the more its consumption rose exponentially.

[Instant Spellcasting], meanwhile, placed severe demands on both magical power and stamina. Local Time Acceleration meant outputting enormous energy within an extremely short period, while placing extremely high demands on the body's endurance. With his current physical condition and the stability of the "Phantom Time Core," instant-casting three to five mid-tier spells in succession was his limit. After that, he needed time to recover.

Even so, these two fusion abilities were enough to raise Li Wei's combat strength and survivability by several levels. He was no longer a mage who relied on "Startrail" and telekinesis for mid-range suppression and delicate manipulation. He had become a true "spacetime mage," one capable of controlling the rhythm of battle and posing a lethal threat at close, medium, and long range.

Further Expansion of His Worldview:

The success of this fusion also deepened Li Wei's understanding of the nature of power. He realized that the powers of different systems were not isolated. They were more like different "fundamental rules" that made up the world—time, space, energy, matter, and so on. True strength lay in understanding these rules and finding the "formulas" through which they connected and transformed into one another.

"Time, space, matter, energy, soul... Perhaps the Infinity Stones themselves are the ultimate manifestation of this 'materialization of rules.'" A grander and more dangerous ambition arose within Li Wei. "If I can completely understand and fuse these rules... could I, in a sense... become a 'creator'?"

The thought spread through his heart like wildfire. He knew this path was filled with the unknown and danger, but the instinct to "plunder the myriad worlds" made him unable to resist the temptation of such ultimate mysteries.

When he emerged from seclusion and opened his eyes again, his aura had become more restrained, yet even more unfathomable. He sensed that Kaecilius and his zealots seemed to have already begun moving.

"Perfect." A cold curve lifted at the corner of Li Wei's mouth. "I'll use you to... sharpen my new power."