"W-wait!"
The expression on Black Mountain's bear face shifted from shock to bewilderment. He counted on his thick bear paws, trying to make sense of this information:
"One day outside could be... several years in here?!"
Red Wind gave him a look fit for an idiot. "You still don't get it after reading Zhao Si's records? There's something wrong with time here!"
Si Chen nodded and walked to the cave entrance to gaze into the distance. Red Bean quietly settled back onto his shoulder, rubbing its little head against his cheek.
It was thanks to Zhao Si's notes. Otherwise, even he might not have noticed the anomaly in time so soon.
After all, he wasn't particularly sensitive to time.
"Xie Changsheng came in first, followed by the people from the Profound Fire Cult and the Void Ascension Palace. Then came Hui Ming, Luo Qingyin, and Zhou Yan, and finally us."
Black Mountain still hadn't caught on, but Red Wind already understood.
"You mean... even if we came in one right after another, only a few breaths apart..."
"By the time we got here, a long time might already have passed," Si Chen finished.
He walked out of the cave and looked up at the clouds.
Red Wind instinctively tried to calculate the size of the discrepancy based on their order of entry and the intervals between them.
But Si Chen shook his head.
"It's no use."
Si Chen looked at his palm and briefly sensed it.
"Time here... isn't a river flowing at a steady pace."
"It speeds up and slows down... those who came in first might already have spent days here, or months, or even..."
"Years."
Black Mountain's scalp crawled as he listened. "Y-years?!"
Si Chen lowered his hand. "That's only a guess, but it's very likely."
That