This Spiritual Energy is Lethal!
Chapter 366: Time Primordial Man

Chapter 366: Chapter 366: Time Primordial Man

"I’m glad we reached a consensus, which also avoided a bloody mess in the house," Lin Yaying chuckled, her words edged with sarcasm. "Clean up that viscera and muscle paste on the walls is no easy task, as you know."

Chen Ke didn’t care about Lin Yaying’s mockery; he just wanted to know more about the Symbiotic Stone.

"Does that mean we’ve settled our negotiations?" Li Moyang also breathed a sigh of relief.

"You could say that," Chen Ke said.

Li Moyang turned and walked to the glass cabinet, took out an unopened bottle of whiskey and three small cups, and handed one to Chen Ke and Lin Yaying, filling each.

"Here’s to our pleasant cooperation," Li Moyang was the first to raise his cup.

Chen Ke and Lin Yaying also symbolically raised their cups and made a toasting gesture in the air.

Chen Ke downed his whiskey in one go; the spicy liquid wrapped around his tongue, a sweet yet astringent taste exploding in his mouth and then flowing down his throat into the void.

He noticed Lin Yaying took only a sip, and when Li Moyang tipped his head back to drink, she poured her drink into the flowerpot behind her.

"Let’s sit and talk; tonight might be a long one," Li Moyang put his cup on the coffee table and settled into the sofa.

Chen Ke also sat on the sofa, feeling the leather was a bit sticky; he tried touching it and felt like he was touching another person’s back.

Lin Yaying didn’t sit down; she placed her cup on the mantel and leaned against the side with her arms crossed.

"So... what exactly do you want..." Chen Ke set down his cup, looking at Lin Yaying and Li Moyang.

"Chen Ke, what do you think of Opportunity City?" Li Moyang asked.

"Opportunity City... it’s not a nice place..." Chen Ke became lost in thought.

The city lacked vitality, dead and lifeless, and teeming with monsters—although not in the literal sense. But for Chen Ke himself, he wasn’t worried about finding places in Opportunity City filled with mutated monsters.

"I noticed many Black Box Spaces are right next to residential areas, with shopping malls on the left, homes on the right, and the abandoned factories and apartment buildings have not been demolished. Some ruins don’t even have isolation facilities..." Chen Ke said.

"I thought you would say there are no money-making opportunities here," Li Moyang remarked, surprised.

"Money..." Chen Ke snorted. He didn’t need money that much; in fact, if a person could truly go without sleep, food, and drink, then money wasn’t particularly useful.

No need for food, drink, or sleep meant no need to use any resources, and a person who doesn’t use resources can maximize the use of any resource they have.

That’s also why video game protagonists accumulate money quickly; no mandatory expenses to pay, so no matter how little they earn, it’s never too little.

But this came at a cost: life was measured in hours, only to live in the shadow of others’ killing intent. That was the irksome part for Chen Ke.

He was always in a rush to do things, perpetually busy despite having no needs, even more miserable than a working drone.

"...So it’s still possible, we can settle in here and then replace them," Li Moyang continued, but Chen Ke had zoned out and didn’t catch the last part.

"Oh... who are you trying to replace?" Chen Ke rubbed the corner of his eye.

"Don’t tell me you weren’t listening," Li Moyang said, a bit angry.

"Be patient, Li Moyang. Changing history isn’t done in one leap," Lin Yaying said.

"Okay, to put it simply, Chen Ke, help me take over Opportunity City," Li Moyang summarized.

Chen Ke smiled awkwardly and spread his hands. "I don’t quite understand what you mean. Are you running for mayor here? And you want me to assassinate all the other candidates?"

"No, no... Li Moyang wants to bring capital from the Fei Huang Republic to do spiritual business in the United Federation. And Opportunity City is a starting point," Lin Yaying said.

"The United Federation will not let us compete fairly, and we don’t want to take it slow either, so sometimes we resort to some extreme measures. Like... Corrigan, Si’s consortium suddenly losing its CEO. Although it doesn’t grind to a halt, it’s enough to cause them internal power struggles for a while. And you... what you need to do is to keep causing chaos... for the other spiritual producers in Opportunity City..." Li Moyang crossed his arms, looking at Chen Ke.

Chen Ke narrowed his eyes, and for a moment, he felt as if he was staring into the eyes of a villain.

"Then... ensure that Li Moyang can continue to run his business without getting killed along the way," Lin Yaying said.

"The first task isn’t too hard... but what if an assassin attacks Li Moyang while I’m not by his side?" Chen Ke asked.

"This house can shield all spiritual powers. Superhumans will become ordinary people once they step inside, so I’ll just stay here, not going anywhere," Li Moyang said.

"But it can still be blown up with a bazooka, right? Staying here, you don’t have to worry about spiritual ability users, but you don’t seem to be made of iron - bullets and knives can kill you too," Chen Ke said with a smile.

"You see, Chen Ke, all my precautions are geared towards spiritual ability users. What does that tell you? Do you understand?" Li Moyang asked.

Chen Ke stared at Li Moyang, squinting his eyes, and said nothing.

"It means I don’t consider ordinary people a threat," Li Moyang stated coldly.

"And those who pose an extreme danger to Li Moyang, I will give you a list. You can take care of them before they make a move," Lin Yaying said.

"Oh... temporal tricks..." Chen Ke leaned back on the sofa and swirled his wine glass.

Li Moyang passed the bottle of whiskey to Chen Ke.

"If your foundation can foresee the future, then why not simply make what has happened just happen? Why go through the trouble of coming to our era?" Chen Ke asked.

"Because changing the future is a massive undertaking, and time doesn’t always conform to your wishes. If we act rashly on our own, the ramifications could spiral out of our control. So, Chen Ke, I’ve asked you before - what is time? You said it’s like a necklace... that was a jest, but now I want to tell you the essence of time," Lin Yaying said.

"The essence of time...?" Chen Ke was startled.

Xu Jing said time doesn’t exist, while Lin Yaying said otherwise... These two foundations seemed to have slightly different views on time.

"First, you need to understand the concept of the Time Primordial Man. You’re aware of the grandfather paradox hypothesis, aren’t you?" Lin Yaying said.

Chen Ke nodded. Of course, he knew, Parker was the biggest paradox before him.

"I’ll use this hypothesis to explain what the Time Primordial Man is. There’s a person called A. His grandfather is called B. In time, they have a preceding and succeeding relationship, which is easy to understand," Lin Yaying said.

"Yes, right, I understand," Chen Ke said.

"When A travels through time and arrives at B’s timeline, in fact, A and B have no relationship whatsoever," Lin Yaying said.

Chen Ke sat up a bit more and asked, "How is that possible? A is B’s descendant."

"That’s your era’s understanding of temporal sequence. Let me ask you, A lives to be 28, and those 28 years are consecutive, right? When he turns 29 and goes back to his grandfather B’s time, according to your logic, how old is A at that moment?" Lin Yaying asked with a smile.

Chen Ke remembered Wang Ailin’s prior speculations on time, and the reasoning was the same.

Regardless of whether you travel to the past or the future, the act of time travel is itself a future event for the traveler - it is the next moment they will experience.

"A returning to B’s timeline is part of A’s future. Of course, this explanation also isn’t valid, because in B’s time, A cannot exist. That’s why you have the confusion of the grandfather paradox," Lin Yaying said.

"So what exactly is A when he returns to B’s era?" Chen Ke asked.

"That’s the key, Chen Ke. The moment someone time travels, they’ve already jumped out of the temporal sequence. A is a continuation of B on the timeline, without B, there is no A - this will not change. But when A travels back to the era of B, A is no longer the same A. He is a transcender of time, a Time Primordial Man," Lin Yaying explained.

"What about the original A then?" Chen Ke asked.

"There will still be a great-grandson called A for B; it’s a balance brought by the universe’s mechanism for self-repairing temporal loopholes. That is to say, when you go back to your childhood, you won’t see your younger self but another child who has taken your place. Do you understand?" Lin Yaying said.