(October, year 51 AK)
Yuta felt unpleasant pull, something was dragging him away from the place of peace and comfort, he wasn't fully conscious and instinctually resisted the pull, but it was futile. Next instant he had emerged from the water and lay on its surface as if it was solid ground.
He coughed out a mouthful of water and breathed heavily, and as soon as he was able to think again, he felt extremely tired and the next moment he was forcefully thrown out of the mindscape.
Yuta's mind being still a bit groggy and wasn't able to catch up with what was going on around him, and as such, he found himself falling down face-first into the ground.
"Ouch... what the..." Yuta mumbles as he lifts his head and looks around.
He found himself on the orphanage's playground, where he usually does his workouts, he assumed that he had fallen during his running laps.
'What happened...' He confusedly thought while his mind was quickly rebooting, 'Oh, right, I was trying to use my Time Control ability to time-travel back in time... Did it work? Seems like it! I wonder what day this is and how far into the past I went...'
Yuta stood up and went inside the orphanage to check up the calendar that was hanging in the living room. As he went inside, Manabu, who as usual was outside watching the kids, looked a bit confused and disapproving of his actions, but Yuta couldn't care about that at the moment.
'It's 15th of October...' Yuta thought as he looked at the calendar, 'It was 18th of October for me when I time-traveled, so I went three days back...'
'I feel mentally exhausted, my spiritual energy must be drained by the time-travel, and what about the problems I suspected could've happened, like the two souls in one body?'
...
Yuta went somewhere into the corner and sat down to think about what had happened.
'From the feedback I received from the River of Time last time, and from the feeling of it, I can conclude that this way of using the Time Control ability should be safe.'
'This world or rather the whole reality is one, as well as its timeline, there is no parallel timelines or different versions of this reality, the River of Time forms a single line and had no branches, that's what I'm able to interpret from my previous interactions with the River of Time.'
'And as River of Time is one and the same, my soul that had somewhat intertwined with it, is also one and the same no matter at what point on the river it currently is, it isn't bound by the time and it could move freely through the River of Time with no problems.'
'Well, while I can move freely through the River of Time, there are limitations to it as well. To move through the River of Time, my soul needs an anchor to do so, my body to be exact, because if there is no body at the point in time I want to travel to, then time-travel wouldn't be possible'
'As well it wouldn't be possible with my body before my transmigration, when original Yuta's soul was occupying it, hence it won't be a valid anchor for the time-travel either, so I can't travel past the point of the day of my transmigration.'
'Traveling forward in time is also not possible, because if I attempt to travel forward in time, my soul will disappear in the present and my body will die, and in such circumstances there wouldn't be an anchor in the future for me to travel to and time-travel will fail and won't even initiate in the first place...'
...
'It's all so confusing for me to wrap my head around all this concepts, but one thing is clear for now, there is no problems using the time-travel the way I did, there won't be any conflicts of the two of my souls fighting for the control of the body or anything like that!'
Coming to the conclusion that he wasn't in any immediate danger and didn't have to worry about some dangerous side effects of his time-travel suddenly popping up, Yuta went into his bed and quickly fell asleep, his mind and soul was being completely exhausted.
After sleeping for two hours Yuta was woken up to have lunch with the rest of the kids. After some sleep he felt much better, and although still a bit tired mentally, he felt fine for the most part.
After lunch he resumed his usual daily routine and later on when he went back to the training grounds to continue his attempts at the Tree-Climbing exercise, he suddenly thought.
'Wait a minute, today is 15th, and I was initially forged a connection with the River of Time on the 16th having my soul and spiritual energy enhanced by it. Technically this event didn't happen yet, but my spiritual energy is currently as strong as it was on the day of the time-travel – at the 18th.'
...
'Although I already have the connection with the River of Time and can't enhance my spiritual energy the second time, but this opens up some interesting possibilities. For example, I can improve my spiritual energy gradually over time and it won't be lost during the time-travel. Is there a limit to this? The importance of learning the proper ways to improve spiritual energy is even higher for me now!'
'Well, there is downsides for it too, the physical training I did during those three days before I did the time-travel – all that sweat and efforts was lost as if it never happened, I have to do it all over again...'
'The importance of finding some passive ways to train the body in the future, like some gravity seals, is rising even higher! The idea of putting so much effort into training and pushing myself like that, and all of it to be lost and had to be redone, my motivation for training would take a major hit, this time it was only three days, but what if I travel months or years later on...'
As Yuta being deep in thoughts, he proceeds to the Tree-Climbing exercise. He was trying to find the optimal amount of chakra he had to concentrate on his feet to stick to the tree, but after five minutes or so he was already exhausted, and his attempts wasn't successful this time, he fell to the ground multiple times and left many cracks on the tree's bark.
As he was laying on the ground and resting, he thought dejectedly, 'It would take a while to master it with my chakra reserves, five minutes and I'm completely spent... Well, at least now I was able to practice it at all! Before my spiritual energy was enhanced, I couldn't even properly start working on this exercise...'
'No wonder they didn't teach it in the academy, this shit is hard! Well, Sakura just after the academy was able to do it easily though, so it's not that hard... If Sakura was able to do it, then I can do it better! Yea, that's the spirit!'
With such half-joking thoughts, Yuta was lying on the grass and relaxing.
After his first successful time-travel, for the first time after his transmigration he felt more or less safe now, as now he finally has some good means to save himself from a certain death situation if push comes to shove.
'Now if some serious troubles come knocking on my door, I could just time-travel into the past and let the future me handle things, ha ha... This is the power of ultimate procrastination at its full potential! If there is something unpleasant, that I have to deal with in the future, I could just procrastinate and stay in the past indefinitely, until I would feel like I'm ready to deal with that crap, ha ha...'
For the first time in his new life Yuta felt like he could afford to just relax and do nothing for a moment, there is no rush, there is no deadline anymore for him to push himself extensively every moment of his new life just so he could survive the dangers that the future holds for him.
He knew he had a long and hard road ahead of him, but now he can set the pace at which he would walk through it.
He looked at the clouds, his blue eyes were clear and devoid of any worries.
'Wait a moment, did I achieve immortality without even knowing it? Well, it's a shitty kind of immortality to be honest, to be able to relive the same time period over and over again, but technically, I guess it could be classified as such.'
...
'Orochimaru, if only you could've known what I did without even trying, you would've died from frustration... His life's work, his magnum opus, the immortality jutsu that allows him to switch bodies and live indefinitely, just so he could pursue his dream of learning and mastering all the jutsu in the world...'
'Whose immortality technique is better I wonder, mine or his... Technically he could live indefinitely into the future, this is something that I couldn't do, at least not as it is right now, as my body would age and die.'
'But I could go into the past, effectively erasing all that had happened in that time period, and do things differently and make different choices. This is something Orochimaru won't be able to do ever, just with that I would say that my technique is better by far.'
'Damn, I just found my first application of the Time Control ability, and it is this great already! So many possibilities, I have a hard time trying to wrap my head around all of it!'
...
'It was all worth it!'
--- AN ---
That's it for the prologue of the story, I guess. I hope I didn't bore you too much with all the world, character, and ability-concept building during these 14 chapters.
Next is the academy arc and it won't be long until the end of the academy and the start of some action.
If you like the fic, please consider supporting me on patreon.
Currently there are 2 advanced chapters on Patreon (patreon dot com /SycoreNovels).
There will be up to 20 advanced chapters in the future.
Thanks to Loalola, jv1juncjvc, end_of_time, Rohan_ps and Jayroy_63 for the power stones! Maybe this week we would be able to get into the power ranking and get at least a bottom rank of the top 200.