Chapter 39: The Time-Skipping Chef
The morning after the "Heist of the Alpha Chamber," the Divine Sky Academy woke up to a catastrophic alarm.
EMERGENCY. LEY LINE PRESSURE DROP. SECTOR 1.
Elders rushed to the Central Spire in their pajamas. The Grand Formation Master checked the gauges and nearly fainted. The Liquid Spirit Pool—a reserve of energy that had taken a century to accumulate—was half empty.
"It's gone!" the Formation Master screamed, pulling at his beard. "Fifty years of reserves! Vanished in 24 hours! Did the Spire leak? Did a Void Beast eat the foundation?"
"Check the logs!" Headmaster Sirius barked. "Who was in there?"
The logs were pulled up.
[User: Team Aerthos.]
[Activity: Meditation.]
[Energy Consumption: Normal.]
"Normal?" Sirius stared at the screen. "Ria hacked the logs," he realized, his face turning purple. "That boy... Rudra... he didn't just meditate. He drank the pool with a straw!"
Sirius slammed his fist on the console.
"Arrest him! No... wait. If we accuse him of eating a Ley Line, we have to prove how a Core Formation student did it. If we can't prove it, we look incompetent. And if the Aethelgard Clan finds out we let a commoner drain the Royal Reserve..."
He slumped.
"Cover it up. Blame it on... tectonic shifts. But get that boy out of my Academy. I don't care how. Just make him leave."
District 9: The Slums.
While the administration panicked, I was making breakfast.
I stood in the dilapidated kitchen of our villa. On the counter sat a kettle, a bag of coffee beans, and a cup.
"Ria," I said. "Timer."
"Time tracking initiated," Ria replied from the doorway.
I looked at the coffee beans.
Normally, I would grind them, boil water, pour it, and wait. Total time: 5 minutes.
I focused.
My eyes flashed with the Clockwork Gears of Chronos.
The world slowed down. I saw the timeline of the coffee making process as a series of frames. Frame 1: Beans. Frame 1000: Coffee.
'Ability: Time Skip.'
I reached out. I didn't perform the actions. I skipped the actions.
I deleted the time between "Intention" and "Result."
ZAP.
One millisecond later, I was holding a steaming cup of fresh coffee. The beans were gone. The kettle was hot.
I hadn't moved fast. I had simply removed the duration of the work.
"Time elapsed: 0.00 seconds," Ria reported, her sensors glitching. "Master, you have violated the laws of thermodynamics."
"I prefer to call it 'efficiency'," I took a sip. "Perfect brew."
Seraphina walked in, yawning. She was wearing one of my shirts, which looked like a dress on her.
"Did you just warp reality for caffeine?" she asked, rubbing her eyes.
"Priorities, Lilith," I handed her a cup (made normally).
Suddenly, the ground shook.
Dust fell from the ceiling into my coffee.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
The sound of heavy marching. Not footsteps. Golems.
"Company," I sighed. "And just when I got the roast right."
The Eviction Notice.
We walked out to the courtyard of District 9.
The sky above our island was darkened by a fleet of ten Aethelgard Warships.
Descending from the ships were hundreds of Platinum Golems and Royal Enforcers.
Leading them, floating on a golden disc, was Prince Aethelred.
He looked smug. He was flanked by two Spirit Severing Elders—his personal bodyguards.
"Attention, Residents of District 9!" Aethelred's voice boomed.
Prince Valerian ran out, buttoning his shirt. "What is it now? Another duel?"
"No," Aethelred smiled cruelly. "An Inspection."
He unrolled a scroll.
"Due to the... seismic instability caused by the recent Ranking War (which was actually caused by the Whale I dropped), the Academy Council has deemed District 9 unsafe for habitation. This island is condemned."
He pointed at our villa.
"All residents are to be evicted immediately. The structures will be demolished for public safety."
"Demolished?" Anya ran out, hugging her bear. "But my room is in there! And my snacks!"
"Collateral damage," Aethelred sneered. "You have five minutes to leave. If you are still here, you will be crushed along with the trash."
He looked at me.
"Oh, and since you will be homeless... the Academy rules state that students without a dormitory must be expelled. What a tragedy."
It was a bureaucratic attack. He couldn't kill me legally, so he was destroying my home to force an expulsion.
"You are petty, Pinky," I called out, finishing my coffee.
"I am efficient," Aethelred countered. "Elders! Demolish the villa!"
The two Spirit Severing Elders stepped forward. They began to charge massive spells. One held a Fire Orb, the other a Lightning Hammer.
They were going to blow the villa—and us—off the map.
"Seraphina," I said softly. "Hold my cup."
Seraphina took the coffee. Her eyes glowed violet. "Can I kill them?"
"No," I cracked my knuckles. "I need to test something."
I walked forward.
"Hey!" I shouted at the Elders. "You didn't file the proper paperwork!"
"Silence, ant!" The Fire Elder roared. "Burn!"
He threw the Fire Orb. It was a massive sphere of magma, hot enough to melt the island. It flew toward me at sonic speed.
I didn't dodge.
I looked at the fireball.
'Frame 1: Launch. Frame 50: Impact.'
Time Skip.
I skipped the travel time of the fireball. But I didn't skip it to hit me.
I skipped myself to the source.
ZIP.
To the onlookers, I vanished.
The fireball hit the empty ground where I had been, exploding harmlessly.
I appeared instantly directly in front of the Fire Elder, floating in the air.
I was nose-to-nose with him.
"You have something on your face," I whispered.
The Elder's eyes went wide. "Wha—"
I flicked his forehead.
Gravity Seal: 50x Impact.
THWACK.
The flick hit him with the force of a falling meteor.
His protective barrier shattered instantly. His head snapped back. He rocketed backward, crashing through the hull of one of the Warships above.
CRASH.
Smoke poured from the ship. The Elder didn't come back down.
The second Elder (Lightning) froze. "Teleportation? No... there was no spatial fluctuation! How did you move?"
"I didn't move," I said, standing on the floating disc beside Aethelred. "I just arrived."
Aethelred screamed like a girl and fell off his disc.
"Get him! Kill him!"
The Lightning Elder swung his hammer. "Thunderclap!"
A web of lightning surrounded me. There was no escape.
Time Skip.
I deleted the 0.1 seconds where the lightning existed.
I stepped through the lightning while it didn't exist in my timeline.
I appeared behind the Elder.
"Too slow."
I grabbed the back of his robes and threw him downward.
He crashed into the mud of District 9, creating a crater.
I landed on Aethelred's golden disc, hijacking it.
I looked down at the army of Golems and Enforcers.
"Anyone else want to help with the demolition?" I asked.
Silence.
Absolute, terrified silence.
They had just watched a Core Formation student take out two Spirit Severing Elders in less than a second. He moved without moving. He struck without swinging.
Aethelred scrambled up from the mud, his fine clothes ruined.
"You... you monster! You attacked Royal Elders! That is treason!"
"Self-defense," I corrected, steering the disc down to hover in front of him. "They attacked my home. I defended my property."
I leaned down.
"Listen closely, Aethelred. You keep trying to play games. Bounties. Evictions. Politics."
My eyes flashed silver. The Clockwork Gears spun audibly.
"I am tired of games."
I pointed at the sky, at the fleet of warships.
"Ria. Antakala."
Ria threw my black sword into the air.
I caught it.
"You want to see a demolition?" I asked.
'Seal 3: Sword Emperor.'
'Concept: Mass Severance.'
I swung the sword upward.
I didn't aim at a specific ship. I aimed at the formation.
Time Skip.
I skipped the travel time of the slash.
Usually, a sword slash travels through the air.
My slash appeared inside the engines of all ten ships simultaneously.
SHING.
A single, silent cut echoed across the sky.
For a second, nothing happened.
Then...
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
All ten Aethelgard Warships exploded at the same time. Their mana cores were severed cleanly in half.
Debris rained down into the void below (missing the island thanks to Seraphina's barrier).
The army of Golems deactivated as their command ships died. They slumped over like tin toys.
Aethelred fell to his knees. He watched his fleet—worth billions of stones—turn into fireworks.
"My ships... my armada..."
I landed the disc and stepped off.
I sheathed Antakala.
"Consider that your eviction notice," I said cold. "Get off my island. If I see you here again, the next thing I cut won't be a ship."
Aethelred looked at me.
The arrogance was gone. Replaced by pure, primal terror.
He realized, finally, that he wasn't fighting a student. He was fighting a calamity that happened to be wearing a student's face.
"Retreat!" Aethelred screamed, scrambling backward. "Retreat!"
The Enforcers dragged the unconscious Elders and ran. They fled to the upper islands, terrified that the Time-Skipping Demon would change his mind.
The Aftermath.
District 9 was quiet again.
I walked back to the villa.
Seraphina was waiting with my coffee. It was still hot.
"Show off," she smirked, handing me the cup.
"I needed to calibrate the range," I shrugged, taking a sip. "Cutting ten ships at once is tricky."
Valerian and Lyra stared at me.
"You... you just destroyed the Royal Fleet," Valerian whispered. "There will be war. The King... the Aethelgard Clan... they won't ignore this."
"Let them come," I said. "I have a Clone to feed."
I turned to Old Mo, who was sweeping up the debris of a fallen golem.
"Mo. How is the repair on your dantian coming along?"
"Slowly," Mo grunted. "But I can feel Qi again."
"Good. Because we need to fortify this island," I looked at the crumbling buildings. "If we're going to stay here, we need defenses that can stop a Demigod. Aethelred was just a pawn. Next time, they'll send a Knight."
I looked at the Ouroboros Ring.
Inside, Chronos was meditating. He had absorbed the experience of the battle.
'Time Skip Proficiency: 100%.'
'New Ability Unlocked: Local Time Loop.'
I smiled.
"Anya," I called out.
"Yes, Big Brother?" Anya ran over, covered in golem dust.
"Do you want to build a castle?"
Anya's eyes lit up. "A pink one?"
"Whatever color you want," I promised. "But we build it out of their bones."
End of Chapter 39.