Chapter 47: Temporal stasis (2)
Mmm," Tom made an acknowledgment sound as the two wisemonkies bowed themselves before him.
"Follow me," he said to the wisemonkies, who followed after him to their small village.
Once they arrived, he entrusted the two to Mooglie, who had become his right-hand man - not because he was the strongest, but due to seniority. Then, Tom went to his tent to continue his training.
Since his tent was very large, he could train inside without any issues.
He assumed a meditation position and began to contemplate how to achieve his goal of being able to selectively stop things in time.
He pondered for a while before finally deciding that using his Astralum might provide a clue.
Without delay, Tom used his Time Astralum in his tent. He didn't completely stop things in time - it would consume too much Etherium - but rather slowed them down.
He took a stone and threw it into the air, then attempted to observe the effects of his Astralum on the stone.
Unfortunately, like all the other times he had tried something similar, he didn't notice anything. So, he increased the intensity of his time stop by freezing the stone entirely in time.
As previously explained, when Tom used Temporal Stasis, it was like plunging things around him into a thick syrup, and the thicker the syrup, the more things around him slowed down until they stopped completely. This is what he wanted to observe - the slowing down of things.
"Sigh... Another failure. Why can't I see-" he lamented, but then Tom was struck by a stroke of genius.
"To see, that's the answer! Except, seeing with my eyes is not the correct answer. Why didn't I think of that sooner?" Tom mumbled excitedly.
Without further ado, he tried what he had thought of.
First, he closed his eyes and began to observe his surroundings with Etherium. He threw the stone again, and as it descended, he used his Time Astralum to slow it down. Then he observed through Etherium what was happening around the stone. But still, he noticed nothing. So, he repeated the experiment but this time slowed the stone down even more.
This time, unlike before, he saw something subtle appear for a moment before disappearing.
This change motivated Tom even more. He conducted another trial, but this time he didn't just slow down the stone; he stopped it completely.
This time, he fully observed what happened. When he understood what had happened, his eyes widened in surprise.
It was just a brief moment - because it was challenging to concentrate on both observing his surroundings using Etherium and using his Astralum simultaneously - but it was enough.
What he saw was a kind of energy or force that was different from Etherium, wrapping around the stone, suspending it in the air.
"What was that?"
Tom tried again, and as before, he saw this strange force wrapping around the stone.
He wasn't sure why, but he felt that this energy was familiar to him.
"Since this energy- or force- only appears when I use my Time Astralum, it means this energy is related to my Astralum. But how is that possible? The only energy I use when activating my Astralum is Etherium. So, where does this force come from?" Tom wondered.
Seeing that he wouldn't get an answer by doing nothing, Tom decided to try something else this time.
He closed his eyes again and, this time, introspected inside his body. Then he activated his Astralum.
He followed how the Etherium moved toward his core and entered it to serve as the fuel for his Astralum's activation. Then he stopped the introspection and returned to reality while still following the development of the Etherium throughout the activation his astralum.
This was where he made a discovery that shook the very foundations of everything he knew. At some point, the Etherium disappeared, and the only thing left was this strange force.
"Where did the Etherium go?"
Unable to comprehend what was happening, Tom repeated the same thing again and again, but the result always remained the same: at some point, the Etherium disappeared, and this force or energy appeared.
Furthermore, he felt that he could manipulate this force just like he manipulated Etherium. What was even more bizarre was that this force seemed to have a connection with Etherium. He didn't know why he thought that, but he was sure it was the case.
"Is this force unique to the Time Astralum, or..."
To check if it was unique to the Time Astralum or not, he had the idea to use his Deconstruction Astralum, which he had neglected all this time.
He arranged a stack of stones in front of him and used his Deconstruction Astralum on the pile.
As with all the previous times he had used his Deconstruction Astralum, the stones separated from each other under the influence of a force.
However, unlike before when he thought this force was Etherium, Tom realized that it wasn't the case.
This force he believed to be Etherium was, in fact, not Etherium but another force similar to the one he encountered when he activated his time astralum.
"Since there are two different forces for the two Astralums, and in both cases, Etherium disappeared and another force replaced it, we can deduce that these forces are products of Etherium, some kind of sub-forces," Tom concluded.
The fact that there were sub-forces of Etherium was shocking to Tom. However, the reason he found this theory hard to accept was that he had never heard of anything like sub-forces before.
It's important to note that when Tom entered the world of trials, it was two years after Earthlings had learned about Etherium, Astralums, and other things.
For something that took him just over a month to learn, it was impossible that no one had noticed it in two years. So, why had he never heard of it?
Unbeknownst to Tom, it wasn't that Earthlings didn't know about Etherium's sub-forces, but rather that to realize this fact about Etherium, one needed to have a much higher level than Tom's before noticing it.
That's why only a tiny fraction of Earthlings were aware, but for some reason, they had chosen not to share the information.
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