Concept of Time

## Preface

Time was only the change of all things, an illusion of thoughts and consciousness. When the flow of time changed, that was only changing the conscious perception of the change in all things.

If one is caught in this change of time, one would be stuck in a maze of thought; a hallucination of going back in circles and having lost all sense of direction. Thus, Time was originally a conscious illusion of all things towards change.

...However, in a higher placement, it seemed as if this wasn’t necessarily true.

Even if a martial artist held onto their heart and mind, they could still be caught up in a whirlpool of time and space without being aware of it.

In essence, Time was simply far more illusory and baffling than space. To change time was generally only to alter one's own relative time. The universal flow would remain unimpeded even if one reaches the peak of martial arts.

## Introduction

Time flew forwards like an arrow, ruthless shooting towards one direction. Sometimes it was fast, sometimes it was slow, but it would never turn back. This was the so-called **Arrow of Time**.

The Concept of Time touches upon the **Laws of Time** and is divided into ten different levels. Considered to be one of the most mysterious Laws along with the Concept of Space. The Space and Time Laws are known as second amongst the most difficult Laws to comprehend.

The truth was that time and space often existed as one existence. If a powerful force field could twist space, then it would likely change the flow of time. It wasn’t strange for both time and space to always be affected simultaneously.

The axis of space, the eons that passed since ancient times, the universe was the fusion of space and time.

Time was much more abstract compared to space. One could sense space, but time was completely insubstantial. Regardless of his eyes or his perception, it was impossible to sense.

As for the distortion of time, that was subjective to one’s own time, and was different from the flow rate of normal time.

## Level

* First level: **Stagnation**
	+ Ability: The Concept of Stagnation of the Time Laws *slowed down oneself, but slowed down the opponent even more*. This not only included movements, but also thoughts, senses, response times, and more. Everything crawled to a halt.
* Second level: **Slow**
	+ Ability: Capable of *slowing down one's time, to the point of causing time to reverse*!
	+ One can use this concept in forming time formations specifically used to slow down one's time. This technique is used by many to increase the flow of time inside the formation or slow down time, so that when time is slowed, it would seem like several dozen years passed by in the real world while you had only experienced only a few years.
* Third level: **Fast**
	+ Ability: Capable of a*ccelerating one's time, to the point of causing time to move extremely fast*!
	+ One can use this concept in forming time formations specifically used to accelerate one's time.
	+ This technique is used by many to increase the flow of time inside the formation or slow down time, so that when time is accelerated, it would seem like only a few years passed by in the real world while you had experienced more than a dozen years.
	+ Accelerating time couldn’t be considered some profound use of the Concept of Time. Geniuses of large sects didn’t use this to train often; they would only occasionally use it for specific circumstances.
	+ This was mainly because accelerating the time within wouldn’t extend one’s life. If ten years passed inside the isolated time space, one would age ten years. There wasn’t much meaning in doing this. Another reason was that there would also be slight distortions in the Laws due to the different flow of time, and meditating in there on the Laws would have minor errors. Doing this for a short period of time was okay, but meditating on these distorted Laws for an extended period of time wouldn’t provide any benefits.
* Fourth level: **Freeze**
	+ Ability: The ability to *freeze time, forcing it into a standstill in a certain area*.
	+ When the Concept of Stagnation is used to the extreme, it can cause time to nearly come to a standstill!
* Fifth level: **Genesis**
	+ Ability: Capable of creating independent time formations.
* Sixth level: **Distortion**
	+ Ability: Capable of creating Time Vortexes.
* Seventh level: **Time Travel**
	+ Ability: Capable of peering through all of time.
	+ There were no instances of true time travel in the novel, so the ability may be related to the supernatural intuition of a True Divinity.
* Eighth level: **Time Dimension**
	+ Ability: Capable of forming true dimensions of spacetime independent from the world.
* Ninth level: **World's End**
	+ Ability: Capable of causing the collapse of time in a True Realm.
* Tenth level: **World's Beginning**
	+ Ability: Capable of creating a boundless world.

## Trivia

* To a martial artist, time was their most terrifying opponent. The martial arts road could be said to be a daily struggle with the heavens. In the currently known martial arts boundary, no one had ever been able to obtain eternal life. No matter how remarkable or talented you were, and whether you were an unrivalled Emperor or the highest under the heavens, in the end, time would slowly sap away all of your strength. Time would age you until the fires of your life were exhausted, and you finally died.
* The Laws of Time had the supernatural and unstoppable ability to decay all of existence. This was the so-called entropy that the Concepts of the five main elements were unable to achieve. Because a martial artist defied the heavens, their lifespan was almost decided by their cultivation.
* Although there were some heavenly materials that were able to extend a martial artist’s lifespan, that was only unearthing their undeveloped life potential – it was by no means a way to extend their life that defied the heavens. The only method of truly extending one’s life was to go against the will of the heavens and walk further down the road of martial arts.