Star Odyssey

Lu Yin held his fishing rod tightly, subconsciously enhancing his strength to stabilize himself as he carefully lowered Lightstream into the River of Time.

The moment contact was made, he was nearly dragged away once again. This had nothing to do with Lu Yin’s strength, as it was not the River of Time pulling at him. Rather, Lightstream was the one pulling. Unfortunately, since Lightstream was part of him, he could not avoid being affected.

Lightstream was an inner world created by the power of space chasing time, and it led to space carrying time. As time flowed, space was dragged along.

Lightstream gave Lu Yin the ability to chase after time, but the inner world consisted of the power of space. Because of that, it was only normal for the River of Time to pull at the inner world.

Lu Yin quickly reeled Lightstream back in, but he failed to catch a droplet of the river this time.

He frowned and then tried again. He was determined to see if fishing could really improve Lightstream.

This could very well be the key to transforming his inner world.

Lu Yin continued to cast Lightstream into the River of Time, each time only barely avoiding being pulled away. He soon came to understand that, as long as he retrieved Lightstream quickly enough, he would not be dragged away.

The River of Time pulled at a constant rate, and Lu Yin eventually adjusted to that.

Finally, Lightstream caught another droplet and revealed another scene from the past. He saw an unknown person whose face was contorted. They were struggling or fighting. The vision ended with the person's head flying off. Clearly, they had died.

Once again, the droplet did not fall back into the River of Time, instead being consumed by Lightstream.

After testing it out, Lu Yin discovered that the droplet had improved Lightstream by three seconds, which perfectly corresponded to the length of the scene that he had pulled out.

It worked. While it had taken a number of attempts to catch a single droplet, this was still far faster and easier than finding a parallel universe where time passed faster.

Finding those universes was only the beginning, as gaining their acceptance took far more time.

Lu Yin was elated, and he immediately continued.

He cast his line repeatedly and successfully caught several more droplets, all of which allowed him to witness various scenes from the past.

Some of them showed him people, others strange creatures, and some nothing but pure darkness.

Eventually, Lu Yin stared blankly at a scene, as it was showing Undying God.

However, in the scene, Undying God did not look normal, but instead severely injured. Could Lu Yin have found a moment of skipped time?

Lu Yin stared intensely at the scene, though it vanished in an instant.

Undying God only skipped over brief moments of time, so Lu Yin found it surprising that he had fished out any of those moments.

Just what was Lu Yin pulling out from the River of Time? Were the scenes he was seeing really moments from the past?

No. Another possibility suddenly struck him; could he be fishing out moments of erased time?

The River of Time flowed without end. If Lightstream could pull out and absorb moments from the past, how was that any different from erasing a moment in time from the past? Lu Yin had thought about this, but he had not considered the matter too deeply. At this moment, he realized that his initial thought was accurate.

Lightstream was devouring moments in time, essentially erasing time, and that would subsequently alter history.

However, it was just as clear that neither Lu Yin nor Lightstream had that power.

Lightstream was not devouring moments from the past, but rather moments of time that had already been removed from the River of Time. These were moments of erased time.

Exactly like the moments of time that Undying God had skipped.

Undying God had skipped that moment in time, which had negated everything that had happened during that moment. Doing this had removed the moment from the River of Time, but that moment in time had still existed. Could Lu Yin interpret this as the droplet not being swept away with the rest of the river?

Only those droplets of erased time could be fished out with Lightstream.

This would explain why Lightstream so frequently returned with nothing when Lu Yin cast it into the River of Time. However, it also made sense that, when something was pulled out, the inner world would devour it.

Lightstream was not consuming the past, but rather moments of abandoned or erased time.

Lu Yin let out a breath, wondering if his thoughts were accurate. This led him to think of Mister Mu's Origin Tracer. Undying God had been killed because Mu Ke had found the moment in time that Undying God had skipped through Origin Tracer. In that case, what did the name “Origin Tracer” actually mean? Was the technique supposed to find moments of time that had been excluded from the River of Time?

Lu Yin suddenly remembered something that Ancestor Lu Yuan had mentioned about the Heavens Sect era. During that era, the Origin Progenitor had forbidden anyone from reversing time and altering the past. Mister Mu was able to locate and retrieve moments of erased time.

It seemed that both individuals were concerned with maintaining the stability of the River of Time.

In hindsight, Lu Yin felt like his current speculations were quite reasonable.

However, how much erased time was in the River of Time? Would fishing with Lightstream be even more effective and faster than using Origin Tracer?

Lu Yin would need to discuss this with Mister Mu when they next met.

Moments of erased time could be considered impurities in the River of Time, and Lu Yin was apparently one of the people who had been polluting the river.

He finally understood that the scenes of moving through a dark universe might be moments from when someone traveled at the speed of time.

It was even possible that Lu Yin had seen some moments when he had used Inverse Step.

With this in mind, he continued fishing in the River of Time.

The longer he fished, the more he found his speculations being confirmed. He saw moments of people traveling, though not across a universe, but rather across a battlefield.

He started to carefully examine each scene, wondering if any were related to him.

He had rather frequently traveled at the speed of time after acquiring the ability to do so.

Sure enough, he soon saw himself.

Lu Yin saw scenes from when he had invaded the First Scourge. He saw himself riding atop the summoned Seven-Star Mantis, as well as fighting against the being of pure energy. When seeing himself, Lu Yin also saw Ancient God using his Wielder - Void domain.

Time had never disappeared.

Even when moving at the speed of time or reversing time, time still passed. All that changed was that those moments of time were no longer a part of the River of Time. If the River of Time was the primary stream that directed time across the entire megaverse, then the moments of time that Lu Yin was fishing out could be considered side-branches.

No matter what happened, time would exist and continue to flow, though not always within the primary River of Time that carried all of existence.

There were certain things that could be erased or undone, but time itself could never be truly erased.

Lu Yin finally understood this.

He also understood why Ancestor Lu Yuan and others had never mentioned this directly. They would have simply told Lu Yin that sharing such knowledge was useless because true understanding could only come from personal realization.

Clearly the Origin Progenitor and many others already knew what Lu Yin had realized, but would telling him allow him to truly understand it? Possibly not.

At this moment, he genuinely understood.

In that case, what about the mist? Lu Yin looked back. The mist in the Mirari Realm was time in gaseous form. Did the mist also consist of moments of time that had been removed from the River of Time? Could the mist be consumed by Lightstream?

Lu Yin was tempted to try, but he quickly thought better of it. He realized that he had been wrong about the mist. Lightstream was able to consume moments of time that had been removed from the River of Time, but the time that formed the mist had never experienced anything. The only way for Lightstream to absorb the mist would be if it encountered the part of the mist that had eroded someone else before.

Most of the mist had probably never touched anyone, which meant that it had never experienced any sort of event. The mist was just pure time, and it could even return to the River of Time. It was essentially vapor that had risen from the river. This mist could not be used to improve Lightstream.

Lu Yin looked away from the mist and continued fishing. The mist was out of the question, as he was quite confident that his speculations were correct.

Again and again he fished, constantly increasing how far back in time Lightstream could look.

When Lu Yin had first entered the Mirari Realm, he had been able to look 600 seconds into the past, but he had already extended that time to more than 700 seconds. Well, Lu Yin had no idea how long he had been working on Lightstream for, but it felt like it had been a very long time, subjectively speaking.

Still, it would have taken decades to do the same outside of the Mirari Realm.

It was clear that fishing in the River of Time was far more efficient than seeking out parallel universes with different flows of time.

Lu Yin did not even need to move. Just sitting next to the river was enough.

Well, that was not entirely true. He still needed to move away from the shifting mist.

Additionally, since Lu Yin was fishing for moments of time that were not part of the River of Time itself, it was a good idea to periodically change locations.

These lost moments of time were like fish in the River of Time, and Lu Yin was able to genuinely feel the pleasure of fishing.

Lu Yin finally had a direction for transforming Lightstream. He had been contemplating and speculating about it for a long time, and he still needed to accumulate a great deal of time before the inner world could transform. In fact, Lu Yin estimated that Lightstream would need to be improved to at least 1000 seconds before he could attempt anything.

Hmm? One day, Lu Yin saw a scene of himself appear. How was he seeing himself?

He stared intently, as the scene seemed to be from when he had been an Enlighter.

The image disappeared very quickly.

Lu Yin felt a chill. Had someone been watching him? Could it have been Mister Mu? Every time Mister Mu appeared, time froze.

No, that had not been one of the times when Lu Yin had met with Mister Mu. Besides, every time Lu Yin met with Mister Mu, time had remained frozen for as long as they spoke.

In that case, who had been observing Lu Yin? Not only that, but who had been watching him with a method that stopped time?

Some time later, Lu Yin saw himself yet again. This time, it was a scene of when he had been an Envoy, and it was right after his first stellular tribulation. Who could have been watching him? There was no way it had been Mister Mu.

Lu Yin's expression turned grim. He continued fishing, but his back was covered with cold sweat. Could someone have been observing him his entire life?

The more he thought about it, the more chilled he felt. Someone had been observing him, and he had never even known about it.

His first thought was Whiteless God, the most mysterious of the Seven Skygods. She had appeared a few times, but she had only ever given a few threats or retreated without putting up much of a fight. In fact, she had always been so passive that not even Ancestor Lu Tianyi or anyone else was certain how powerful Whiteless God really was.

However, if Whiteless God had been the hidden observer, then she could have simply killed Lu Yin during any of these moments. Lu Yin pulled out scenes of himself being observed throughout his entire cultivation journey. He saw himself as an Enlighter, an Envoy, and even as an Explorer.

Someone had been observing Lu Yin at least since he had been an Explorer.

If Whiteless God were the culprit, she would have killed him. There was almost no chance that she was a human spy.

However, if it had not been Whiteless God, then who else could have been watching Lu Yin so closely?

Was he still being watched?

Lu Yin abruptly waved his hand, activating Lightstream so that he could look back in time.

There was nothing, but it was possible that he was simply unable to detect being observed.

Whoever had been watching him was undoubtedly a powerhouse far beyond his level.

Lu Yin hoped that the observer was a protector, and not an enemy. The possibility seemed high, but if they were actually an enemy, then their intentions were completely beyond Lu Yin’s comprehension.

Could it be someone from Aeternus? An outsider powerhouse? Or maybe someone from humanity's past?

Lu Yin could not make any sense of the matter, but he thought about it for a long time before he regathered himself.

No matter what, no one could be observing him in the Mirari Realm. Before entering, he had been with the Origin Progenitor and Mister Mu. If someone was able to hide from those two, then Lu Yin could only accept their observation.

It was even possible that being watched was not even a bad thing.

OMA's Thoughts

Translated By: OMA

Edited By: Neshi/Nyxnox

TLC'ed By: OMA