infighting event became the talk of the town for some time. But to the average person, the gossip soon ended since the impact on the outside was so minimal. For them, this gossip didn't have enough substance.

However, inside New Horizons, the discussion didn't stop. Not only was the one involved from their Sect, but also someone leaving their Sect. Because of that, their shock was intense.

In addition, the powers around had gained a new insight towards firepower. And from everyone around the region, the Clearsky Auction House was the happiest.

But while Ginn became the limelight, his faction showed no further movement. His group used all their time to plan their next moves.

---

Sometime later, Ben finally woke up.

Opening his eyes, He looked around carefully.

The room was dim. And within this silence, Ben could hear his breathing. Although he was fully conscious, he still took his time sharpening his sense and analyzing his body.

Feeling the connection with his shell stable, Ben sat up.

Eventually, Ben stretched his muscles. First, his neck, then his arms and back. Soon, he stood up and warmed up his whole body.

Once his blood flow caught up, Ben walked towards a shower head.

Arriving there, he touched a drawing on the wall. The water flowing in the ditch below flowed through an indentation in the wall. Eventually, arriving at the showerhead.

'So fancy.'

Ben took a long shower to help wake up.

Afterward, feeling refreshed and alive, Ben searched for a towel rather than using some fancy system to dry himself up.

Looking around, his awareness of the surroundings increased. Finally, he went for his package and moved to sit at the table on the other side of the room.

Sitting down, he turned a few lights on. Slowly, he retrieved some things from the bag and put them on the table. Next, he also took a few things from his chest.

With the towel on his shoulder, he organized everything.

'Work! Work!' He hoped.

Lastly, he removed an old hand clock, some flasks, small gems, and a few tools from his chest.

Ben inspected the old hand-clock artifact as he spun a tool in his hand.

Eventually, after tinkering for minutes, he found a way to open the clock.

After exposing the insides, he saw the tiny circuits that formed a very complex system.

"Eight centuries, and it still impresses me deeply."

Ben found this artifact in some unknown ruins from a middle-sized civilization cemetery. His best assessment was that this clock was at least 1 million years old and from a long-forgotten specialized institution.

Despite tinkering with it for so long, he never could decipher its content thoroughly. Likewise, due to its fragility and over-specialization, Ben didn't dissect it. He wasn't confident about putting it together after.

After examining the artifact for so long, he indeed figured out the auxiliaries systems since many carried some resemblance with the current industry standards. However, when considering the core pieces, he could at best guess that those touched the subject of time.

"Below a broken clock is some broken time. Beautiful bastards! I would hug and kiss the joker who decided to make this thing into a clock." He chuckled.

"How unfortunate that the technology is lost. If this thing, at least, wasn't overused."

Ben classified the machine-array mix inside the clock as out of gas. After too many uses, the system wouldn't activate anymore. Despite its broken state, Ben still worked on it, trying to understand the concept of time.

In anyone else's hand, perhaps they would find such research useless. However, one thing had always bothered Ben: all his fellow Earthlings had died within a hundred years, but they were born at different times here. This annoyance toward the misfit timelines had made him wary of how definitive is the flow of space-time.

Unfortunately, his research never amounted to anything substantial. Given his tool-set, his conclusion so far was that time is indeed very rigid.

After carefully fiddling with the object for some time, Ben dropped the towel on his lap. Next, his chest became filled with tattoos as they grew towards his arms until they reached his fingertips.

Tiny black needles grew from his fingertips, so he could begin the task of modding the clock. While he could by no means fix this artifact today, Ben's expertise gave him the ability to try to overclock the clock. Rather than breaking it, he chose to trigger its ability at least once again. He hoped to use this as a trump card.

"Little thing. I would love it if you could talk. Sorry to wake you up after such a long time, but wakey-wakey little thing. Show me at least a shadow of your past glory! I'll not waste it. Wakey, wakey!"

With his acknowledgment and material gathered using centuries of work, Ben started the most exciting journey of his whole life. To him, personally, time had always been the most mystical variable.

Minutes passed, and then hours. The long-focused work eventually allowed tinny circuits and drawings to fill the table.

While inside the clock, Ben broke some auxiliary nodes while fixing others.

Even while focusing his mind to the extreme, Ben would still whistle some melodies even so often, or he would talk alone out loud.

"Smoooll sun thingy, what do you do? Fucker, wake up!"

After long hours of no success, Ben swore at the inanimate object. Even while knowing that would change nothing, he still did it.

"Why is your brother, the space, so much easier to hang out with?"

Ben's tentacles now extended from his chest. Some supported him, others controlled some array or circuit, while a few were only hanging and waiting for something.

The view would give shivers even to the people from this world. However, anyone who looked deeper would find the whole process beautiful. As beautiful as seeing a master blacksmith forging, as beautiful as seeing a master musician compose, as beautiful as seeing a master swordsman train. Mastery.

Drawing. Tinkering. Small changes, one by one. Ben broke and rebuilt things around the core of the clock.

---

In this enclosed and silent room, Ben lost the sense of time as he kept working.

"WAKEY WAKEY," But this time, he shut up due to ripples in the space-time.

Finally triggering the artifact one last time, Ben's high senses noticed the small changes in his surroundings.

All the dull black tentacles aimed for the clock in this instant, trying to seal its phenomena.

They all moved fast, surrounding the artifact and pulling it into Ben's black tattooed chest.

Once the clock was gone, space and time stabilized instantly.

Not trying anything else, Ben closed his eyes and controlled his mind to focus on the memories of not long ago.

He went back repeatedly to his memories, trying to feel the changes one more time.

He engraved all the small things in his mind so that he couldn't forget them easily.

After reviewing that moment for a few minutes, Ben finally opened his eyes.

"Like a mortal reaching for the moon..." he whispered.

Tears fell from his eyes as he held a shocked and powerless expression.

Fear and despair, he cried.

Ben was so shocked that it took him some time to try stabilizing his mind and controlling this deep emotion. However, even when he attempted it, he still found it difficult to calm down.

Once his sanity returned, his eyes slowly moved and focused on the table before him. Looking at the result of his mastery, he found it laughable.

"I play with rocks by my foot while thinking about the moon."

"No. No. No. No..."

He put his leg up on the chair, relocating it closer to him. He hugged them and moved in smaller, trying to occupy the least space.

He sat in the fetal position, his head laying down on his naked tights, and his eyes closed.

There Ben stayed, silent, slowly digesting his unstable mental state.

Fortunately, this isn't the first time his mind broke down like this. While the shocks were never this great, his life so far had trained him well. Over the years, he became somewhat resistant to fear and despair.

His wild emotions numbed down, so his reactions became systematic. Most of his humanity was due to his effort. And not a natural outcome after the experiences of his long life.

However, some things never changed. Below, what Ben considered a monster, was still a consciousness from Earth.

He may be able to change and protect his body and mind, but until today, he never chose to forget his instinct or completely numb down his sense of self. Indeed, he believed that doing so wasn't that different from killing himself little by little.

Adopting this path made the occurrences of today possible.

However, until he decided otherwise, he would keep accepting his fragility coming back to bite his ass.

Slowly but surely, he came back to himself. His state of consciousness brought him back.

He may not have all the answers, but he felt alive.

His legs wet back down, and his hands fell to the side. Laying down on the chair, he relaxed.

He put his trouble in the back of his mind for later. Although he didn't forget, he focused on his sense now.

His tears dried, his heart beating normalized, and Ben felt alright.

He opened his eyes and looked above.

"Who am I?" he asked. "Philip. Ben. Carl. Dyn. Leo. Me."

"Where am I?" he asked. "Spirit World. Qhechan Empire. Evergreen City."

"What am I?" he asked. "Barely human."

He touched his head and then his chest and neck.

"Am I okay?" he asked.

He fixed his sitting position into a straight-up posture.

His eyes moved about randomly, looking at what was before him.

Inside his head, he kept running a few mind exercises.

And once he finally felt alright, he took a few deep breaths.

Ben then organized the mess. Since most of the built-in systems are auxiliaries only, nothing else was worth keeping.

'The clock is inside...' He looked at his chest. The flower-shaped tattoo gained its eighth petal.

'Worth it? Hm, I don't know...'

Ben cleaned everything.

What he could still use, he put back in his storage. Then, he used a little furnace available in the room to burn all the trash.

After finishing all the work he set himself up to do involving the clock, Ben took another shower.

Once refreshed, he sat on the low bed and meditated, removing and consuming one small white marble from his chest.

Later, without much difficulty, he found sets of clothes, from which he chose one: a gray robe set. Then, he dressed up, putting the golden statue in his right pocket.

He looked around, searching for anything irregular. Besides cleaning, he also made sure he saw no signs of anything too essential left behind, including the little white marble from the Sunset Ruins.

He left the room only after checking everything a few times.

---

A few hours earlier, outside.

Inside an office, Ginn met with Brian Highpeak about the investigation his Unit had been doing.

Interrupting, someone knocked on the door.

"Come in," Ginn responded.

Opening the door, Louis Krat entered the room.

"How was it? Any news?" Ginn asked.

"Eleven weeks and four days, and no signs yet. But food is ready if both of you want to eat." Louis replied.

---

A few months later, Leo Moon left the isolated room.

Right outside, Leo found a teenage girl napping.

Of course, he would rather not interrupt her healthful sleep time, so he walked out while trying to remember the building layout.

Walking along the corridor, Leo was surprised at how the girl was the only one on the watch-out. Moreover, he was unable to leave because the area was closed off.

Thus, he walked back, but he encountered no success in the opposite direction, either. On the other side, he only found more rooms until the end of the corridor, some open and others closed. Despite wanting to avoid it, he returned and woke up the girl.

"Greetings, young lady," Leo said while coughing loudly.

"Ah!" the girl woke up surprised. She readily stood up from a meditating position, organized her appearance, and greeted back.

"Good morning, Sir!"

"I'm locked in here. Could you show me the way out?"

"Oh right," finally remembering what job she was doing, she took the key from her pocket and mentioned: "Please follow me, Sir."

She led the way out. But due to the grogginess from waking up, she forgot to inform them where they were going.

Yet, Leo still followed her without saying another word.