The wheel of time is relentless, never letting up for a single second. Each of my actions takes a sliver of the scarce time remaining and although I’m tentatively hopeful whenever I look at my progress, the end is approaching. Each second forward, even as new ways to develop and acquire money from the system are uncovered is greatly outpaced by the exponential cost of my stay at the end of each month.

The 7th month cost me an arm in the form of 80 gold and in the 8th month the other arm and a leg. Those 8 mithril came close to bankrupting me given how many other projects I needed funds for. While during this process, I could keep up with my temporal expansion chamber, there is a hard limit of around 37 times which would match the real universe’s speed. But even closing in on that much proved to be too dangerous given the strange creatures lurking somewhere just beyond reach.

I still didn’t know what they were and I had a feeling I wouldn’t for quite some time, but with a consistent if very limited increase of 30 fold in time was already unbelievable.

Which is not all rainbow and sunshine. Even if to achieve that I didn't need to purposefully exclude most of the system’s helpful functions, each time I stepped out the difference was noticeable as my actions drove even further from its graces. The subtle guidance grew fainter and fainter and it had been well over a year of relative time since I felt anything that I beyond other more permanent system functions.

This is a trade off I would take any day given the monstrous growth that so much time afforded me, especially in areas that the system didn’t help to begin with. To have more time to figure things out myself, instead of relying on the ‘inspirations’ and other mechanisms of the system. I just needed to keep in mind the cost.

After spending a good 20 real hours in instance time inside the chamber, I get out.

Unconstrained by the 100 square foot box, I let my muscles dig my bare feet into the earth.

Explosions drive me forward, as a mild strain pushes me faster now than I could move some three or four months ago without even touching my mana or Qi. Before starting to play with time, there was always something more I could do. While that restriction still applied, I suddenly had so much more of my time or rather I had most of it back.

I try to feel the careful balance inside myself.

The stats from the system feel different, but I don’t pay attention to that, I just lean into the changes I made. The chemical and structural changes raised my body beyond anything I could have dreamed. Changes that made me in a minor way akin to a Titan even if I had made no real progress in deciphering their secrets.

“Hahh, hahahaa.” I can almost feel the lumbering form in my inner world, even if it was training elsewhere right now.

I am still far, far away from being able to match it and even now, there seems to be a fundamental ceiling to some of my stats, especially ones like strength and constitution that on occasion required several meditation sessions to increase by just one point but I had raised a fair bit with years of relative time in my hands.

Name: Nash

Level:100

Titles:3

Class: One with the World (*)

100 M+/0 EXP

Strength

118

Soul

66

Constitution

115

Agility

122

Dexterity

116

Endurance

158

Perception

271

Intelligence

168

Willpower

181

Health

2152/2154

1434

/day

Qi

3420/3420

293,1

/hour

Stamina

564/1356

20,45

/min

I glance at my stat window. I’m far from a Titan, but it is progress nonetheless. Slow and steady progress all around the board mostly free from the system’s interference. The one stat that set itself apart: Soul, could not be so easily increased. Neither purposeful meditation nor any method I knew of could reliably increase it. It usually grew by simply going about my business and overcoming obstacles until suddenly it increased.

Before I realize it, I’m already at the village and in the range perception field of the Titan. The laughter threatens to die off as I feel its healing limbs and how little of its will is alive. But while it would take time for him to fully heal in both mind and body, at least now he has a chance.

Unwinding and resting from the small but very purposeful effects of the time chamber, it takes me minutes to talk to a few people and sit beside the forge ready to give a little of my Qi to fuel the production of yet another weapon.

So far I was still deadlocked at the 17+ tier of weapons even with all the extra time to train control of my new resource and time is growing shorter.

I could technically not even leave the time chamber, but while a mild acceleration in some ways helped, anything above 2 times flat out hindered all my efforts so I settled for doing the old fashioned way.

Some 45 minutes later, two weapons and 24 gold coins richer I step out of the smithy. Something that would have made me jump for joy just a couple of months ago now was just another drop in the bucket. Especially against the sky high price of 80 Mithril if I want to extend my stay even one more month.

I reach the Treasury inside the Town hall, fighting the spatial distortions to look at the main horde.

Although it was definitely not in my reach if I only relied on the income from Blackwood which would add up to barely over 8 Mithril or even the generous assumption that I would average double that with my improvements over the month, there was another choice. I could tap the enormous pool of funds that was mostly made up of trade with other instances.

It was a very limited pipeline given the absurd mana costs and Charlie was reinvesting just about every cent back into expanding it as fast as possible given the enormous benefits that it was providing to every instance we came in contact with. We were getting there, learning and trading so much more than mere coins for the product of our extensive mining operations or the products that our teams upon teams of craftsmen created.

Even beyond the initial ideas, other instances were starting to trade and communicate between themselves for a modest fee. Our intervention however was not exclusive for a lack of desire, but even the few who managed to get a good glimpse of the ‘finished ‘ portals still couldn’t come close to replicating it.

The most valuable commodity, knowledge, was at an all time high feeding us with a constant stream of unexpected solutions to problems we didn't even know we had.

I walk to the side of the town hall. Waiting for me is the very first tree that I slept under just after arriving in this new and alien place. The one place that resembled home. That was alive in a sense that I couldn’t quite articulate.

Except it was different. The trunk of the tree was taller, wider and it had fully become part of my little hut. It had also become livelier, just like every other part of the instance was leaving behind the mechanical functions and order that the system imposed during its creation of this instance.

For the hundredth time I feed a few points of Qi and its roots reach even deeper and taller. It grows another inch before my seeds take up and start fueling its growth even more. I take a look at the few experiments still running in relative isolation to mana and other system resources inside, though this is not the best place for that with most new experiments sitting a good 10 miles away and as far from any potential source of mana as possible.

As I’m about to leave, something tumbles in the corner of my brain. A new idea. Something of a goodbye gift.

A seed in the hearth of the village, a symbol in place of Pando. It would even likely accumulate a bit of Aether. When the last person left, it couldn’t stay here given that even the most optimistic predictions of what would happen to everything in the instance are dire, but before then there was a lot to gain.

As far as I knew the system would atomize and store all the mass before it remade the grounds under the loose directions that the council’s low level flunkeys provided for each individual race. Still, unless something went workably wrong, the last person to leave could get it back with the help of a faux inner world even if it had to leave behind most of its body.

As the idea builds steam in my head, the perfect match for the tree comes to me. A certain seed that wanted something of a partner, but wasn’t keen on the moving nature of humans or any other animals. A kind and nurturing seed that wouldn't strangle what little life may already exist in this tree.

I didn’t know if it would develop any intelligence this millennium or even if that possibility was in the cards, but better safe than sorry. If I ever found out that I killed a budding life from sheer negligence I would no longer sleep like a baby.

The transplantation takes me seconds and after letting the seed out the familiar stream of mana flows from my inner world batteries and the tree starts growing once again.

I run back to my little temporal room as the small exercise and interactions with the others started sparking off new ideas for old problems. The temporal expansion chamber starts running at the maximum sustainable rate in a few minutes. An action that would have been extremely reckless when I was still getting used to it, but I learned and grew through it all.

Time whirls in a different manner from what the first few months in the instance had taught me. The absolute rush of the instance gives way to a more familiar pace, a pace that I had grown relatively used to back on Earth but even with all my progress, something still halted my progress. As much as I wanted to return, the fundamental problem of lacking the raw horsepower to jump back into the void is still there. Something even harder than jumping from the ground into a flying plane.

Seemingly more fundamental problems had either been solved or were well on their way, but this avenue had seen no progress. Even the map of the galaxy had come, as troublesome as prompting it to appear in my book was even being only the thin needle leading from my position to Earth, but enough for my immediate use. It took over a month to feed information while focusing exclusively on it for even this much but I succeeded. Getting to the Void on my own, however, remained as troublesome as before.

The 20 to 30 day stretches sometimes pass in a single session, other times I split it into multiple times, but it was a constant gigantic mana sink that had threatened to collapse the mana economy of the instance at the start.

Which is a problem I solved by massively expanding the number of rabbit colonies in the inner world.

The last days draw closer even as I keep pushing to safely extract a little more time and use the time as effectively as possible. A little of the anxiety comes back but two days before the next end of the month my mind shifts.

My eyes lock on the goal and any nerves are gone. Not because I’m somehow infallible, but because there was no other choice and I put my feet forward.

There is no time to screw up.

I take the whole day and stretched into 25 day long meditation trying to ride the wave of my sense of purpose before visiting the blacksmith. I will accomplish what I set out to do there assuming +20 gear is the step for me to become his apprentice.

If it's not it won’t do to needlessly cry, and if I succeed, Alex, Merlin and the remaining 50 percent of the original village will be here to enjoy the spoils.

My mind is clear and sharp. So sharp in fact that all the distractions that would normally take me a minute or two to fully block out are instantly absent from my mind.

Sitting in the first real place where I learned anything in this instance, I draw the universe in. I let myself be a conduit for my Qi. I become that which didn’t exist until a moment ago.

My creation field spins up reaching Blackwood and the calm waters of my Qi flow out with nary a ripple until I lose myself.

I become one with the world.