Chen Yu picked up one of the spirit stones between his fingers, examining it closely in the dim light filtering through the shack's cracked walls. The stone was warm to the touch and seemed to pulse with a gentle rhythm, like a heartbeat made of pure energy captured in crystal form. As he turned it over in his palm, something strange happened that made his skin prickle.
He felt a pull.
It was faint but unmistakable, like an invisible thread tugging at the stone from somewhere deep within himself, somewhere that shouldn't exist in normal anatomy. Chen Yu froze completely, his eyes widening as he recognized the sensation's source. It was coming from that mysterious space, the one where his original body floated in endless darkness.
Curious and more than a bit nervous about what might happen, he relaxed his grip and allowed the connection to form properly. The moment he did, the spirit stone began to dim noticeably. Its glow faded gradually as if something was drinking from it like a vampire, and Chen Yu could sense the space inside him stirring to life, drawing energy from the stone like a person sipping water through a straw.
"Wait, what?" Chen Yu pulled back instinctively, cutting off the connection with a mental jerk. The spirit stone stopped dimming immediately, though it was noticeably less bright than before, maybe twenty percent duller. He stared at it with confusion, then at his hand, then at nothing in particular as his mind raced to understand what just happened.
The space could absorb spirit stones?
He didn't fully enter the space this time, instead just extending his consciousness toward it mentally while keeping one foot in reality so to speak, maintaining his connection to his physical body. What he found inside made his breath catch in his throat. There was energy there now where before had been only emptiness, a small amount but definitely present, like a thin mist floating in that endless void. He could feel it, sense it somehow, and he knew instinctively that he could direct it and use it.
But use it for what exactly?
Chen Yu's thoughts immediately went to his clone body, the one that was still stupidly jogging in place after the command he'd given it what felt like hours ago but was probably only minutes.
With a mental push that felt clumsy and unpracticed, he directed a small portion of that absorbed energy toward the body, watching to see what would happen.
For a moment, nothing seemed to change at all. The body kept jogging at the same steady pace it had maintained since he'd commanded it. But then Chen Yu noticed something odd that made him focus harder. The movements weren't getting faster exactly, but something about them felt subtly different in a way he couldn't quite pin down.
He watched more carefully now, paying attention to every tiny detail he could perceive through his mental connection.
Then it hit him like a truck.
Time was moving faster for the clone.
Not by much, and not in an obvious dramatic way like something from a movie, but the subtle signs were definitely there once he knew what to look for. The rhythm of the jogging had a certain quality to it, like watching a video on slightly increased playback speed, barely noticeable unless you really paid attention. Chen Yu's heart started pounding with excitement as the implications crashed over him in waves.
"No way," he whispered to the empty shack, a grin spreading across his face that probably made him look insane. "No fucking way!"
He couldn't help himself at all. Chen Yu jumped up from the sleeping mat and did a little dance right there in his shabby shack, pumping his fists and spinning around like a complete idiot who'd just won the lottery. He didn't care how ridiculous he looked or that he was acting like a child. This was incredible! This was beyond incredible! If the space could accelerate time even a little bit, the possibilities were literally endless!
After his brief celebration that left him slightly dizzy, Chen Yu forced himself to calm down and think more carefully about what this meant.
He needed to test this properly, figure out exactly what the space could do and what its limitations were. The body was still jogging mindlessly, so he stopped that command and gave it a new one instead, something more useful for testing.
But this time, instead of directing the energy at the clone's body to speed up physical movement, he focused it on the mind itself, curious if mental processes could also be accelerated.
Chen Yu racked his brain for something difficult enough to test with properly and settled on a complex mathematical problem he vaguely remembered from his college days back on Earth, something about differential equations that had taken him the better part of an hour to solve back then when he still cared about grades. He fed the problem to the clone's mind through their connection and commanded it to solve it, then watched carefully through his mental link to observe what happened.
The clone's awareness stirred sluggishly at first, beginning to work through the problem step by step. And as Chen Yu fed more of that absorbed energy into the clone's mind, he could sense time accelerating around it like watching reality speed up. Not dramatically or overwhelmingly, but noticeably enough to measure. The clone's thought processes sped up considerably, working through calculations and logic at an enhanced pace that would've been impossible normally.
Chen Yu monitored the flow of energy carefully, watching as it drained away steadily like water leaking from a cracked container. Based on what he could sense through their connection, the acceleration was only about one and a half times normal speed, maybe a bit less, and the small amount of energy he'd absorbed from partially draining that spirit stone would probably only last about ten minutes before running out completely.
Still, ten minutes at 1.5x speed meant the clone experienced fifteen minutes subjectively. That was five extra minutes of thinking time gained from nothing. It might not sound like much when said out loud, but Chen Yu's mind was already racing ahead to the implications and possibilities this opened up.
He waited impatiently, his patience wearing thin as the clone worked methodically through the problem in that accelerated time. Finally, after what felt like forever but was probably only a few minutes, the answer came through their connection. The solution flowed into Chen Yu's mind like water pouring into an empty cup, complete with all the steps and logical reasoning the clone had used to reach it, as if he'd solved it himself.
"Holy shit," Chen Yu breathed, staring at nothing as understanding dawned fully. "Holy shit, this is..."
His hands started trembling with barely contained excitement and he had to clench them into fists to stop the shaking. The possibilities were spinning through his mind so fast he could barely keep track of them all, each one more exciting than the last.
He could give the clone cultivation techniques to study and comprehend at accelerated speed, then receive that comprehension back through their connection as if he'd done the studying himself. He could have the clone practice martial arts or study alchemy or learn formation theory, and all that knowledge and muscle memory and understanding would transfer to him without him lifting a finger. And if he could make the body actually cultivate in the space with accelerated time flowing, wouldn't that cultivation progress and the strengthening it brought transfer to his real body too?
Chen Yu actually started drooling a little bit as his imagination ran completely wild with the possibilities.
If he had enough spirit stones, enough energy to fuel the space continuously, how fast could he cultivate compared to normal people? If he could maintain even a 1.5x acceleration constantly without stopping, that would turn one year into one and a half years of cultivation progress. And what if the acceleration got stronger with more energy pumped in? What if he could reach 2x with enough stones? 3x? 10x? What if there was no upper limit?
"I could become a genius," he muttered half to himself, wiping the drool from his chin with a shaky hand. "No, not a genius. A monster. I could cultivate faster than anyone in this entire world!"
But then reality crashed back in and tempered his runaway excitement like cold water. He only had five spirit stones total, and one was already partially drained from his test. He didn't know how much total energy each stone contained or how long it would last under continuous use. He also didn't know if there were hard limits to the space's abilities, if the acceleration could actually go higher than 1.5x, or if there were any dangerous downsides or side effects he hadn't discovered yet.
Chen Yu took a deep breath, forcing himself to think clearly instead of getting lost in fantasy. He needed to be smart about this resource. He couldn't just burn through all his spirit stones in a single day testing random things. These were precious resources worth killing over, and he had no reliable way to get more right now stuck in this isolated shack.
First things first, he needed to actually start cultivating properly before any of this mattered. The space was an incredible advantage, maybe the golden finger every transmigrator hoped for, but it was completely useless if he didn't have any actual cultivation to accelerate.
Chen Yu looked down at the cultivation manual still sitting on his sleeping mat where he'd left it, then at the remaining spirit stones arranged in a small pile. A plan was slowly forming in his mind, taking shape piece by piece, and for the first time since waking up in this strange world, he felt genuine hope burning hot in his chest.