The next morning, in the enclosed training room.
Cool white shadowless lamps shone overhead. Medical equipment stood along the walls, steady waveforms tracing across the monitors.
Shoko leaned against a table, leafing through a record book, the sleeves of her white coat rolled up to her forearms to reveal slender wrists.
"Ready?" She looked up at Qingxiao and tapped the record sheet with her pen.
"I'll say it again. With your brain's tolerance, you can hold out for one minute at most.
"Any longer, and the nerve damage will be irreversible."
"Got it."
Qingxiao stood in the middle of the training room and rolled his neck, his joints cracking crisply. "Here goes."
Faint Cursed Energy seeped along his nerves, precisely stimulating the brain's response centers.
In the first second, his scalp tingled faintly. The hum of the equipment beside him wavered, then stretched out and softened, as though submerged in deep water.
At thirty seconds, the world began to "sink."
He stared at the markings on the opposite wall. Against the previously blurry lines, a speck of dust slowly tumbled upward, moving so slowly that he could see the light reflected from every edge.
The sensation of air flowing over the back of his hand became distinct, like thick, warm water brushing his skin.
The wind outside the window and the distant footsteps in the corridor all stretched into long, low notes, the interval between each vibration perfectly clear.
At exactly one minute, Shoko's voice reached him, so slow it seemed to have been broken into individual words that drifted softly into his ears. "Time's up."
Qingxiao did not move. He even had attention to spare.
In this slowed-down world, his thinking had not slowed in the slightest. Instead, with all the information around him slowing down, his thoughts became