Mage Manual
Chapter 481 - 397: Accident

Chapter 481: Chapter 397: Accident

So heavy.

Even with the protection of the "Anchor" spell, the moment he stepped into the Flowing Gold River, a deep sense of powerlessness still overwhelmed Ash’s soul.

It wasn’t because the current was too fast or the water too heavy; in fact, the "Anchor" indeed blocked any external factor that could affect him, much like the spell’s literal implication. In this state, Ash could wade through mountains of flies and mounds of dung without a speck of filth adhering to him.

But "Anchor" only severed the external influence on a Mage, not the Mage’s channels for receiving external information—the five senses.

When one is too weak, an excess of information is also a poison.

The countless echoes churned out by the waters of the Flowing Gold River, the myriad scenes reflected in the surging waves. Ash felt as if he could hear the sighs of countless beings in their birth, aging, sickness, and death, and see the interwoven tableau of the long years of all creatures. Merely processing this overload of information nearly caused his soul to stutter!

Clearly, with his capacity for receiving information, he could not possibly digest so much at once; it was like sitting in math class where the underachiever can only grasp the most superficial knowledge, while the complex formulas written on the board are beyond their understanding and retention.

Now, it was as if the teacher was hammering into the underachiever’s head, forcefully stuffing hundreds of GB of study materials into the underachiever’s brain!

Even if Ash closed his eyes and plugged his ears, he could still feel that what flowed over him was not merely river water, but the lifetimes of all creatures. When his fingers swept backward, he brushed past the pasts of millions of people; when his feet fluttered in the river, he accidentally trampled upon the glorious history of some city.

A sudden epiphany dawned on him: The so-called Time Faction is not about the existence of some force named ’time,’ but rather, the flow of beings forms time, and the essence of time is flow.

Every drop of the Flowing Gold River originated from reality, perhaps from humans, the Longevity Species Elves, short-lived mayflies, or maybe from drifting clouds, immovable rocks, and withering leaves. After understanding this, Ash found that although he was still constantly receiving an excess of information, it no longer affected his thinking. Moreover, an excellent forgetting mechanism was at work, rapidly throwing the newly crammed files directly into the recycle bin for complete destruction.

Indeed, the Flowing Gold River was the most terrifying natural spectacle of the Time Continent—even "Anchor" could not fully protect a Mage... As Ash involuntarily worried about his operators, he looked up and saw two people already swimming ahead of him.

The Witch swam the fastest, and the Sword Maiden followed—there were no Mages who couldn’t swim. As a basic requirement to traverse the Sea of Knowledge, even a Mage from the desert would become a swimming expert.

Faced with the onslaught of information from the Flowing Gold River, it took Ash a second to update his drivers, while the Sword Maiden and the Witch almost instantly adapted to the river’s environment.

Ash couldn’t help but sigh inwardly: Truly, these were the talented Mages specially selected by the "Aurora’s Mage Manual." An ordinary person like him really had a huge gap compared to them.

But they had only just overcome the basic threshold of the Flowing Gold River; the real danger was yet to come.

The duration of "Anchor" was only five seconds, and the moment it expired, the vastness of time nearly crushed the three of them in an instant!

Ash felt his strength drain rapidly, his vision blur as if he was seeing through an analog phone’s camera mode, his throat emitting a broken, disjointed sound like a malfunctioning fan, his thoughts sluggish as if seized by a rusted bolt.

Although Ash immediately re-entered the "Anchor" state, during those few, exposed breaths in the Flowing Gold River, he aged by decades!

It was to be expected after all, simply approaching the Flowing Gold River accelerated aging, and now they were swimming directly in it— it was already a miracle they hadn’t dissolved on the spot, perhaps the river was merely being absent-minded and lazy.

Also, because of the "Anchor" state, Ash couldn’t consume soul energy to restore his aging soul and had to continue swimming. Although the Flowing Gold River wasn’t very wide, and it seemed a burst of speed could get them across, Ash figured he could, at most, withstand two or three more washes; if he didn’t escape soon, he would literally be ’swallowed by the Time Wave.’

The two-colored "Anchor" ultimately had only a 20% chance of triggering; unless he could raise the trigger chance to 100%, the Flowing Gold River remained a no-go zone for the living!

Many Technique Spirits of time inhabited the river, and upon seeing Ash daringly swim in, they perhaps thought he was some new species of Technique Spirit, coming over to greet him. Among them, just the rare Technique Spirits Ash recognized numbered over ten, including the precious Technique Spirit ’Listen to the Day,’ lost by the Witch in the Amnesia Cabin, but he truly didn’t even have the luxury to stop and pick up the trash, desperately struggling to swim forward.

Perhaps because this section of the Flowing Gold River was just a very small tributary, Ash and the others quickly swam halfway across. When they were only a meter or two away from the bank, the five seconds passed and Anchor was lifted once again.

Ash had braced himself for the time wash, but perhaps because the White Bull had wandered far away, the current of the Flowing Gold River suddenly quickened. The turbulent waves splashed a few drops of flowing gold, one of which fell into Ash’s ear and slid into his soul as smoothly as milk.

Even though Ash would enter the "Anchor" state with the next breath, his ear still exploded. But this time what he heard was not the echoes of others’ lives, but his own soul’s Echo!

"Ugh, what an ugly child, looks a lot like you." "No, more like you, I’m not this ugly." "I just gave birth and you can’t even let me have this, clearly as ugly as you!" "You two, newborn babies always look this way!"

"Brother, why are we not the same size?" "Ash, that’s normal, once you grow up you’ll... Σ(っ°Д°;)っ What the! Wait, why?"

"(*/*ω＼*) Hush, Ash, keep it down, this is my classmate, came over to study..." "Mom! Bro’s brought a girl classmate home!"

"Ugh, what an ugly child, looks just like your dad." "Do you have any manners, how can you curse like that at my grandson, if you want to curse at your brother be direct!" "Exactly!"

"I found an internship, and if I’m lucky, I might continue working at this company." "Then have you found a girlfriend?" "It’s a mobile game company, with fourteen months pay and a year-end bonus, plus housing allowance..." "Then have you found a girlfriend?" "Damn it, can’t you ask something else?" "How much did your fund lose?" "I haven’t found a girlfriend."

"I told you no need to come back, Dad just threw his back out, I’m watching over him." "You, don’t come any closer!" "What’s the matter, Igula, weren’t you going to fight me ten times? Now you’ve won once, I’ve won once, still 8 more to go."

"Cough cough haha, such a shame, Valcas, you were so close to dragging me down to pad the floor with corpses, luckily the Executioner was faster... luckily you’re an Elf despised by the people!"

"Freyja, come with me, I need you."

"Meiwa, the Kingdom of Gospel almost doesn’t have this species anymore... But neither of you are Mages, how did you get through the Void Realm passage? Anyway, starting today, you two are employees of the Funeral Service Office."

Echoes stir up memories, emotions surge with remembrances!

All these seemingly nonsensical voices filled his ears, Ash’s mind was almost instantly shattered by the noise, his soul forcibly trapped in past echoes, struggling even to keep himself from sinking, let alone continue swimming!

Time Flowing Gold, a lifetime in a moment!

The Sword Maiden seemed to notice his predicament and struggled to come back to pull him along, but just that slight delay, just five seconds slipping away, almost turned them both into withered corpses in their twilight years!

They had lost the ability to cross the Flowing Gold River.

...

...

"Alafa Senheiser." Denzel said, "You have a Talent for armor, try to bring them back."

The named Heroic Soul Commander nodded silently, suited up his troop types, and stepped into the Flowing Gold River area. The temporal power of the Flowing Gold River was just as effective on Heroic Souls, but their armor’s reduction effect worked on time as well. For commanders like Alafa, his stacked armor reduction limit reached a staggering 95%, though at a significant drain of his soul energy, it could reverse the tide in critical moments.

Soon Alafa returned to the legion, empty-handed.

"They aren’t on the shore," Alafa explained. "Crossing the Flowing Gold River requires breaking the Time Barrier, and my Time Faction Realm is not sufficient."

"Time Barrier..." Denzel bit her thin lip, a sense of powerlessness flooding her.

She had pushed the resources at her disposal to the limit, but unbelievably, those Mages had special troop types resistant to the Flowing Gold River water and were even able to break the Time Barrier and cross the Flowing Gold River—water which was essentially toxic to Mages. Only genius Mages who understood the nature of time could manipulate and access Flowing Gold River water, which was the so-called Time Barrier.

In short, the Time Barrier was a mechanism to measure the upper limits of a Mage, where only those with potential to climb the Time Faction Legendary Realm could potentially pass through.

Although it was just theoretical potential, all three Mages had made it through, which was outrageous—yet their ability to team up and drive across the Time Continent already defied belief, so being genius Mages wasn’t that surprising in comparison.

Unexpected, unexpected, unexpected...

Although this was only the first pursuit, there were many more Spider Tower rounds to come, and these three Mages were bound to stay in the Time Continent for many more rounds. But Denzel’s one-sixth soul fragment was telling her—the same trick would not work on them twice.

She needed to resort to even dirtier tactics. she thought.