The Sky darkens as the end of the sixth month approaches. Just another couple of days. I keep working on increasing the size of my latest iteration of the temporal expansion device while trying to make it safer and cheaper.

With a high mana cost, I can make time pass six times faster in a volume of roughly a cubic meter. But as I tune the reflectors that bounce the initial effect back and forth and make the large mana consumption, in the order of a thousand per second down to something more manageable I just feel elated at even having this avenue. Compared to the absurd cost of achieving the same time expansion using a single pass of an extremely powerful source, even a thousand mana per second feels like it is free.

But the same reflecting effect that allows me to bend those rules also causes problems of its own, randomly building momentum and uncontrollable bursts of space if I let it run rampant. Even specially tuned shields would be helpless without a lot of mana to back them.

But even as that threatens to overwhelm all my efforts, an idea at the back of my mind shines a bit brighter.

I take an oval portal about 2 feet wide and lower it over my body.

Each inch it goes down, the portal hugs me perfectly as if I’m being vacuum molded. The fact I can’t enter the inner world if an annoying feature loses some of its drawbacks if I can do this.

I shrink the portal around one of my feet until all but a tiny circle is covered with it. And to power that only a mild strain on my will that is equivalent to keeping the original oval shape intact and even that is soon gone as I deliver it to one of my seeds.

With the closest thing to absolute control of the space that now surrounds my body, I turn on all the runes around me while standing there.

The warping starts slowly, as I give it barely enough juice to warp time by 5 percent. On the other side, I start turning up the gain of the reflectors. One percent, ten, fifty, seventy, ninety.

As it keeps climbing upward, the bouncing stops losing so much power with each bounce and really picks up steam, multiplying the effect, by five, ten, fifty fold its original power.

The edgy currents of space threaten to overwhelm me, but each time I feel one of them my mind is already instinctively taking power away and as they cross the portal surrounding me. A few seeds that trained their spatial perception and manipulation beyond the minimal levels to open a space bag all draw their will and help.

A fivefold increase in the first minute is nearly enough to overwhelm me but that is just the newness of the situation. As the minutes pass and I start to get a feel for the threat and how to deal with it, less and less mental effort, goes into the endeavor.

I glance at the clock: 20 minutes in real time.

That is just under an hour.

On the other side, I take a look at the mana counter and a wide smile lights my face. About 116 thousand mana points. Just short of a hundred per second. Too much to sustain for long periods, but with my closeness to the epicenter of the whole thing, I could simply increase the gain of the mirrors bouncing a lot further without the spatial storms threatening the very runes powering their effect and worse yet killing anyone inside.

And while I’m significantly sturdier than most other people, I doubt just over a hundred constitution would do more than slow my death by a second.

Even the Titan would be hard pressed to survive something like this.

Though even as the thought of their race, what happened and how I simply added a little to their plight twists my gut.

Shaking away the unpleasant thoughts I drag myself back to the space around me.

Lowering the mana consumption of the mirrors powering the effect, the entire exercise suddenly becomes a lot more manageable, while time is still passing about 3 times faster. With enough leftover mental bandwidth, even if there is a cost associated with keeping this effect going, the extra time I gain is definitely worth the trouble.

As I get that tenuous balance in place, time seems to take on a different meaning.

I’m rushing, but I’m also quite well situated now that I succeeded at least in this first step. This is the first real usable example of a temporal expansion chamber. And from now on each step forward learning about time snowballs and it simply adds more of this limited resource for me to finish perfect the design.

That impression proves true as over the next few days see me reaching roughly an elevenfold time expansion at the maximum rate, while about 6-7 times with a more manageable mana consumption.

The automaton comes and goes as always but this time I don’t return to the village which forces him to come over and collect the money along with the small group working to perfect the portals to other instances.

The interaction is brief and even if I feel he wants to say something, he gives up in the end.

It is no matter.

He seemed to care about me and humanity in general, but he didn’t like the direction we were going, that much was clear. Or rather the direction I was going.

With the ever increasing prices, most of the other instances start sharply dropping the number of people inhabiting them, though while a third of the total population seemed to be a lot less than the total, the people remaining behind tended to be the cream of the crop. While sending actual physical items was still very limited given the inherent risks of keeping a portal like that open for more than a fraction of a second, just talking to the hundred instances we already had contact with started to catapult our development once again.

I still had to find the rough address of each instance manually, taking an hour here and there, but from there, the operators could easily triangulate based on mana consumption with the help of a few formulas and runic computers. Though with their speed and limited complexity it would probably be more adequate to call them calculators.

The hours pass and I make my way back to the village, ready to input my mana in person on the smithy hoping that my increased control would be enough to at least take one more step.

+11 Weapons.

A little over an hour later, I do succeed in taking the next step. I needed to drag out every small improvement I made and even learn a new trick or two, but I succeed in the end.

I should probably add resource control lessons to my routine so I can improve that. That would help across the board, including in my time dilation studies.

In an almost mechanical fashion, the attacks come. The first one, small and pitiful, something that spawns for the whole instance.

Exactly 1000 attacks, one for each village.

I wield my Qi, as the seeds and Aspen wield mana opening large holes and trapping hundreds, thousands of the enemy underground. Though as the attack ends, I don’t allow the others to simply kill off the stragglers.

I try to communicate, but while I have learned a little of the goblin’s language, they have no interest in talking back. Ahjarahh, our Arch shaman, sees fit to follow down and try to entice a few to join our side, so to speak.

Initially not hopeful for success, I’m pleasantly surprised. After seeing someone of their own race moving around freely, a few of the clearer minded ones chose to take our offer. Only a dozen in total, but that Arch shaman seems to be convincing.

Soon the remaining goblins are teleported out. And everyone gets ready for the next attack, even as the train of reinforcements arrives.

Hopefully, after my success, I expand my efforts by pushing as hard as I can while simultaneously trapping hundreds of the goblins away from the protection of the Arch Shamans.

Multiple Arch Shamans.

The defenses hold, even if I occasionally stop pushing and give a hand, but that is just for safety.

The enormous defenses and hidden runic contraptions in faux inner worlds do their job and defend us as Merlin expertly wields his magic in ways that seem impossible.

Though for as hard pressed as we are during the massive attack, I keep up my efforts and eventually, I trap a good 4 thousand of them, only a single Shaman is knocked out, given that with their magic, they are able to control the soil around them and escape fairly easily even if doing that for the roots is not quite that easy.

With nary a surprise, the second attack is dealt with fairly easily, especially with the sheer number of reinforcements that arrived well in time. Though in my gut a small knot develops.

There wasn’t even a hint of Miltree, our Arch shaman’s son. Nearly holding my breath, the time for the last attack arrives and a mass larger than any attack before, which was expected holds at a far away.

A summoning starts taking place. A being from another place brought into our instance and firmly under the enemy’s control. I feel the change in the air, even as my entire will is stretching across the gap and I make as much of a nuisance as possible in their efforts.

I even keep a tread of my will in the very summoning, though in the end, what I expected ends up happening.

A Titan steps forward. The Titan steps forward. A being of power and akin to myself in that walks outside the system, an entire race that was captured and turned into meat puppets for the invading armies.

I try to connect with it, though even the longest tendril of the inner world comes short and need to use my roots to extend my will that far away.

One step towards connection.

There is something behind its eyes. These are not empty windows, they gleen with the remnants of life. Nearly dead and fading, but life nonetheless. There is a living being that will not be easily broken, given flesh by the shamans, for the only thing alive is its spirit.

The mechanical components of its flesh may have been as healthy as ever, and we had deprived it of some of its flesh and bones, but the only unchanged thing was its will and soul.

Something stirs within me and an Idea pops up. I extend a hand out.

The attack starts in earnest and all my seeds, well trained after the last month learning to wield mana, help in the battle as Aspen traps the enemy by the dozen. But my will keeps focused on the single being slowly making its way to us. As it reaches some 500 meters, I use my perception field to try and connect even more deeply with it while opening portals to let my skin nearly touch it.

I try to reach past the noise and cacophony directing the Titan and something comes to the forefront of my mind. This being is OLD. It is a kindred spirit of Pando, reaching Millennia.

Something in my efforts passes through the fog in its mind, even without me consciously trying to get its attention and the giant halts mid stride.

Thoughts turn over in its head, just as I see the enemy shamans widening their eyes and feverishly chanting to keep whatever control mechanism they established to the Titan. But in my mind, I have a plan, a path towards a future with one less being laying on the ground bleeding. And a majestic being of strength and toughness at that.

I can feel the very cells regenerate in place of its legs and which are significantly weaker after me taking them last time around and a different source in its chest as the portal.

I had talked extensively with Ahjrahh, but no matter how I thought about it, with no interference half a dozen shamans could keep control of the Titan. But he was still there somewhere, I could get in the way, if I could prod it into action… I wouldn’t need to eliminate every single shaman to free him.

So I let my will loose. I detract the tightness in my chest and push everything I am feeling at the Titan before reaching with my soul. I try to show something, to have him seek freedom as is the natural state of all living beings.

Panting, even if the exhaustion is not physical a small aspect that I never paid any attention to comes to mind.

But suddenly extended as I’m while the fight rages on around me, I sense an opening. Even better, an invitation for something that didn’t quite cross my mind before and proof that my idea would work. I shift the spectrum I can observe and suddenly his soul is impossible to overlook. A gigantic or a tiny pinprick for all I knew, all I had to compare it with was my own and he was some 700 meters if mine was a kilometer wide as I tended to visualize it.

Though I had changed the shape, that volume was constant all throughout even as my stats significantly increased. I welcome the invitation moments before I cross the threshold and the duality hits me. Inhabiting two bodies at once.

I try to peer into a fog, not a defensive measure, but simply the way someone's soul interacts with my senses. I navigate forward guided by a portion of his will.

A small shiver of fear hits me as the thought of what would happen if the Titan chose to lock down the small gap that it opened up, but there is something still living, something untainted by the Goblin Shamans in the middle. My very surroundings guide me to a tight knot of Aether closing around Titan’s will and all his resources.

I move forward, touch the trappings and let them flow out trying to cage that piece of myself. But I’m faster, and like a kid, I run before the fat man’s arms can swing and catch me. More and more of the trappings try to envelop me all the way back and while nobody without Aether should be able to alter or strengthen the base structure, the shaman’s mana seems to help guide and strengthen that thing.

A mass of infectious, knots tries to engulf me entirely, but I find peace on my island, even as the whole thing starts seeping in through the holes that I open up in the ever growing defenses around my soul.

Let the games begin.