Reborn To Master Time

An hour went by since I'd left the headmaster's office. I arrived at my room and was now lying on my bed, looking at a holographic screen in front of me. Lately, the situation with other kingdoms like Eza had been weighing on my mind. I honestly couldn’t think of a positive outcome, so I decided to focus on other things in the meantime.

At the moment, I had multiple locations marked on a map of the empire. If someone looked at this, they would probably be confused as to why I marked these places since there should be nothing at those locations, for now at least. There were at least three dungeons that appeared for every dungeon completed by knights all around the world. If it took fewer than a week to complete some of the lower-ranked dungeons, you could imagine just how frequently new ones would appear. With the use of [Recall], I was able to mark all the dungeons I wanted to visit in the future, including their ranks and the dates they would appear. Dungeons were a good source of income, but above all, they were a great way to hunt for special skills. I looked at the one that would appear within this month and started to think to myself.

I wonder who I should bring along.

“You can’t hear me knocking?”

My thoughts were suddenly cut off as I jolted up from my bed and looked around. Lily’s eyes fell on me as she squinted in suspicion.

“Was that some kind of test or something?” She spoke again in a stronger tone, giving me an expectant gaze. I sighed to myself as I started to relax my mind, wondering why [Future Sight] didn’t automatically activate on its own. Was it because I didn’t perceive her as a threat? I started to get curious about the difference between my authority and hers. Which of the two has a higher authority against nature?

“Nah, I almost died.”

“What? Who was it? And why didn’t you just tell me where you are!?” She started to ask questions in succession without even giving me a chance to speak.

If I'd told her where I was, then my whole bluff would have fallen apart. Lily was indeed strong, but the headmaster alone would have been more than enough to restrain the two of us without killing us. It would have been a worst-case scenario to be honest, but then again, I would've still come up with a better plan, so I wasn’t too worried.

“Don’t worry about that, I already took care of it. Anyways, do you still remember what I said my authority was?” I swiftly switched topics. Lily glared at me before letting out a sigh and answering,

“Yeah, you said it was time magic, right?”

“What?”

My eyes widened in surprise at her words as my thoughts suddenly went blank. At the same time, Lily seemed to have realized her mistake and frantically spoke in a fluster,

“W-wait? Time perception, it was time perception, right?”

“Um, yeah.”

I could see how she could have mixed up the two, but I somehow had an uneasy feeling about this. I decided not to ponder and continued,

“Well, that was actually just a unique skill. My actual power is time magic.”

“Um, okay?”

She seemed unimpressed by the sudden revelation, but I guess it was understandable. When it came to authorities, hers was far superior compared to others. I was once again curious and decided to try something.

“Take out your sword.” I jumped off the bed, took a piece of paper from my table, and walked to the other side of the room. Lily simply looked at me confused, so I decided to explain,

“I want to test something. Can you try and use your ability to cut this?”

I held the paper out in front of me as I activated [Future Sight] and stared at the paper. Lily was standing at least four meters away from me. After a long pause, she finally pulled her sword out and swung down while still standing there. It was a simple swing that produced a small sound, and there weren’t even shockwaves that followed it, and yet...

The paper I was holding started to separate in the middle as if a sword had cleanly cut through the middle.

Well, this is awkward.

I couldn’t see the future. To be precise, the only time I saw the paper cut was the same time it was cut in the middle. The description I got of [Future Sight] in my status window didn’t state any restrictions to the future I could see, but at the same time, I already knew just how powerful Lily was. Now that I thought about it, even at the last moment when Eliana almost killed me, the future of my death never really played out. This meant that the future itself wasn't 100% certain, and everyone other than myself could also change it before it happened.  

Ah, that’s right...

I suddenly remembered something and fetched another paper from my desk. This time, I decided to ask Lily something,

“By the way, do you have any other unique skills active?”

“Oh, yeah. I even forgot about that.” She replied nonchalantly as she shrugged her shoulders, as if saying ‘That’s not the reason I cut it.’ It had to be the same skill that made her presence waver sometimes as if she was fading in and out of existence.

“Try turning it off and cut this again.”

I began the second experiment and looked down at the paper. She swung her sword down, but this time, an image of the arc it followed flowed through my mind. The slice that would appear on the paper also flashed in my mind. I timed it perfectly and used [Object Perception] to quickly lift the paper into the air.

“W-what did you do?”

The paper was still fine in my hand and nothing happened. Lily seemed confused as I gave her a smile and spoke up,

“I just moved it before you cut it.”

Lily’s face turned sour as she stared at me for a few seconds before speaking again,

“Then it’s a tie. So let me do it one more time.”

Since when was this a competition? I thought that to myself, but I still indulged her as I held out the paper again with a smirk plastered on my face. She didn’t activate the stealthy skill from before, so I was confident in dodging the attack again. The mana around her started to vibrate slightly, and in the next moment, her eyes turned into slits like that of a cat, and she swung her sword swiftly.

I activated [Future Sight] and the image of the future conjured in my mind. Instead of a single slice through the paper, what I saw was beyond my comprehension. The paper was slashed from every single direction, but not only that, I could see my hands move to different locations, and all of them had the same outcome. A chill ran down my spine as I saw multiple fingers sliced clean from my hand in many of the images.

“W-what the fuck!?”

I jumped backward in surprise and almost crashed into the wall as I glared at Lily with angry eyes. On the other side, Lily furrowed her brow in confusion as she casually replied,

“What?”

“That wasn’t a single slash!” I retorted with a sharp tone, but she seemed even more confused as she responded,

“Huh? What are you talking about? I was going to do the same thing as last time.”

What?

What she was saying didn't make any sense. Did that mean [Future Sight] couldn’t predict the exact direction of the attack? Her authority allowed her to slice things through multiple dimensions, making the attack virtually unblockable. So maybe... A theory as to why [Future Sight] reacted this way suddenly appeared in my mind.

Since Lily knew I would move the paper, she might have been indecisive as to where exactly she should aim. But because her slashes would move into different dimensions, multiple possibilities were suddenly introduced, and [Future Sight] was barely able to conceive them clearly. The sudden revelations brought another idea to mind. Does that mean [Future Sight] could also be affected by feints? I would need to investigate that aspect using a different person. As my mind finally calmed down, I looked up at Lily and couldn't help but smile.

As expected of the Dragnok family.

With this, I was somewhat confident in our victory against Tim. It was time to dethrone the 8th King of Rezen Academy.