Chapter 46: Temporal stasis (1)
"Boss, two more are arriving today," stated Mooglie.
"Hmm... Here we go again," sighed Tom, thinking he heard Mooglie speaking to him. If he used to feel like he understood Mooglie better before, now he was hallucinating hearing him speak even when he wasn't.
Since the number of his subordinates had increased, so had his hallucinations.
"I hope I'm not going crazy," Tom muttered as he rose from his meditation.
"Where are they coming from?" he asked Mooglie as he exited his tent.
Mooglie pointed in a direction, and Tom started walking in that direction.
'Our camp is starting to look like a village now,' he thought, noting the evolution of their camp that they had set up a few weeks ago.
The current number of Tom's subordinates had reached 20, and these subordinates needed places to live, which was why the number of tents had increased.
And due to the number of his subordinates increasing every day, the number of tents was also increasing daily.
But that didn't mean he was complaining; quite the opposite. Thanks to all the subordinates he had now, Tom's physical abilities were close to peak level 1, making his fights easier since his opponents were level 1.
'However, this won't be the case indefinitely,' thought Tom with a grim face.
From what he had learned, the upper echelons of the special unit were individuals at level 2 or infinitesimally close to level 2.
With things being like this, his little expansion would come to a halt very soon, and worse, he might lose his life in the process, given the power gap between each level is like a chasm.
No matter his Astralum of Time, he wouldn't stand a chance against a level 2.
However, there was some brightness amid the darkness. The more subordinates he gained, the stronger he became. Tom felt that his physical abilities would soon surpass level 1, but this alone wouldn't be enough to challenge a level 2.
The reason to this was quite straightforward.
When moving from one level to another, it wasn't just a boost in physical strength but various other enhancements like mental aptitude, reaction speed, an increase in etherium capacity, etherium control, and more.
In rare cases, individuals even gained abilities related to etherium, like the Wisemonkeys' concealment technique, although such cases were extremely rare.
Given all these factors, Tom knew that he couldn't compete with a level 2.
Certainly, when he gained a new subordinate, his mastery and etherium capacity increased, but that wasn't nearly as exaggerated as when going to level 2.
Fortunately, Tom had a solution that would allow him to have certain enhancements like the increase and mastery of his etherium, just as when leveling up.
As the voice that gave him his system had said, people with a Deviant-type Astralum could obtain such a boost by creating or learning a new technique related to it.
However, it was easier said than done. Tom didn't lack ideas for techniques. He had grown up reading fantasy novels, and in many of these novels, characters often had time-manipulating powers.
In some stories, a time user could travel through time as easily as they wanted, go back in time after losing members in a battle to regain it, or finish a fight before it even started.
However, now that he possessed time-manipulating abilities himself, he couldn't help but think that these stories were a load of crap.
Going back in time? Healing with his time powers? What a load of crap. It was currently extremely difficult to maintain time around things for mere seconds. How could he do all of these things?
But unfortunately, he had no choice. To obtain the enhancement the voice spoke about, he needed a new technique and quickly!
'But first, I must master Temporal Stasis,'thought Tom.
Tom was certain that, up to this point, his mastery over Temporal Stasis was still lacking.
Firstly, he couldn't stop time around things indefinitely, even if he still had etherium. It was comparable to holding one's breath; sooner or later, he would be forced to breathe, and in his case, it was sooner rather than later.
Secondly, the major reason he thought his mastery was truly lacking was that, so far, he couldn't stop the time of living beings around him.
If he hadn't seen with his own eyes that his powers allowed him to stop living beings in time during the café incident, he would have surely thought it impossible.
"But I know it's possible. Still, it's better to take one step at a time and focus on my current training."
The current training he referred to consisted of the two objectives he had set for himself.
The first one was to completely stop things in time. You could say this objective had already been achieved, even though he couldn't maintain it for long. He could do it, and that was what mattered.
The second objective was the tricky one, though. The goal was to be able to stop specific things in his vicinity when he activated his Astralum. On this point, however, he hadn't progressed one bit, even after several weeks.
Yet he could feel it; before he could stop living beings in time, he must first be capable of controlling and choosing what to stop in time and what not to.
"Hmm?"
As Tom walked lost in thought, he didn't realize he was already in front of his adversaries. It wasn't until a wooden club was swung at him by one of the members of the special unit sent to descend this time that he snapped back to reality.
However, he didn't fret or panic.
"If you wanted to defeat me by taking me by surprise, you should have attacked me together," Tom said, activating his Astralum of Time and freezing the club in time.
Just like with Matour, this maneuver destabilized his opponent, and Tom seized the opportunity to strike with a powerful blow that sent his adversary into the air.
Before the second one could regain his senses after the shock of seeing his comrade defeated so easily, Tom rushed toward him, intending to immobilize him.
However, at the last moment, the wisemonkey used his Astralum, which seemed to enable him to create and manipulate ice, and launched a volley of ice towards Tom.
"It's futile... It's already too late."
Before the wisemonkey had time to launch any attack, Tom appeared in front of him as well and delivered a blow that knocked him out.
"How can I improve?" Tom continued to ponder how to enhance his mastery over Temporal Stasis, as if he hadn't just defeated two wisemonkeys as if they were children.
But it was quite normal given the experience he had gained by fighting them and the strength he had acquired by making beaten wisemonkeys his subordinates. Tom felt that the only members of the unit who could defeat him were the top 4 in the hierarchy.
Confidence or arrogance, no one knew, but what was certain was that he would inevitably have to fight them.
Weekly Power Status
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Ranking 
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