Eteria, Year 2052.
Life in Eteria continued on, as mundane and magical it can be. The star was never found, it was as if everything they experienced was a mirage.
Scientists, magicians, and warriors alike were confused, even more so the powerhouses behind the machinery they call civilization.
Two calm years passed by, with no mention of the star. Conflicts between countries, competition and killing for resources, and technological advancements continued.
It was already wintertime, just a few more weeks until the calendar resets.
In a large, 3-story villa, surrounded by hand-bricked walls baked and prepared from rare and strong earth metals, with a large garden at the back with various flora and micro-fauna abound.
A young child no more than 2 years of age was calmly watching the falling snow outside the window of his house, silently gazing through the window of the second floor, staring intently at the outside sky.
As he stared, his eyes started to change to silver-like saucer in one eye, and an endless darkness on the other. It was a whirlpool that had no bottom, seemingly like a black hole.
At that moment, a small tear appeared in space in front of the child and snow came pouring out, but oddly, before it even managed to reach the child, it rapidly changed from solid to liquid to gas in less than a second.
Seeing this, the child's eyes returned to normal green irises and smiled.
"Huh, total control of this ability is truly marvelous, yet it is a bit tiring with my current strength… interestingly enough, I feel I am getting stronger every passing minute. It's small, but its there…"
"I wonder if I can use this opportunity to travel through spacetime..." the child muttered, seeing the countless possibilities with his ability.
"Negative. Your current power level is not high enough to resist the boundary effect of the will of the world."
A voice sounded out in the child's mind.
The child was named Xander. After reincarnating into the world of Eteria, the moment he could properly exercise physical movement, he immediately checked his control over space and time. After all, this was what he asked for the mysterious God that put him here in the first place.
However, that was a mistake.
He had, at the moment he opened his eyes for a small bit, not even a noticeable opening, shit almost hit the fans.
His unconscious movement had caused a phenomenon upon his birth. How? It was because he had opened the different planes of existence at that moment, allowing different worlds to interact with his world, leading to the manifestation of elemental energies, there was a magnificent phenomenon that was within the VIP hospital ward where his parents were in, stunning doctors, family members, and friends alike.
Basically, he connected multiple dimensions wherein elements existed in. And in those dimensions, there were beings that were quite different from the beings in the physical dimension where he, Xander, currently resides in.
Although the phenomenon was not permanent, and those planes of existences rapidly disconnected and disappeared without leaving any traces in the space, those who were present at birth misconstrued it to him being talented in magic, and even the magician with precognition abilities, a 'diviner' for other people, couldn't help but attribute it as an auspicious blessing.
…When in fact what they saw were the inhabitants of those planes of existences curiously moving towards these rifts at that time, as they detecting elemental energies not existing in their respective planes and were naturally confused and curious.
After all, if you had lived without light for a long time, know it doesn't exist and doesn't appear in your world, and then suddenly in the distance you see something like it, wouldn't you be curious to why it was there?
Both Xander's parents were quite proud and happy for Xander's potential as magician.
And truly, these people were not disappointed with Xander's growth.
At 3 months old, he was already able to walk.
At 6 months old, he was able to talk, albeit not continuously.
At 12 months old, he could read, write and understand nuances. It happened on his birthday, reading out the written message on the cake.
By 2 years old, he could already control the elemental particles around him consciously, making them flow into his body and strengthen it, day by day. Upon seeing this talent, both his parents were quite excited at the future heights their son would reach.
Sadly, they didn't know Xander was completely talented in one of the most abstract and archaic field of magic and modern science: time and space. In fact, he was merely showcasing his dominance over the elemental particles around him to flow towards his body.
The child sighed, and stopped playing around and began to read the books his parents had prepared for him. The rift disappeared completely as well as the almost non-existent fluctuations it produced.
'Basic Theory of Relativity and its relation to Magic'
'Entanglement and the concept of Space'
'Historical Analysis: Breakdown of the most important figures in history'
'Basic Magic: Drawing an array in less than 20 steps'
'Magic: is it a particle or is it a wave?'
...
Of course, these books were not simply pushed by his parents, but was selected carefully by them and his other family members who had observed his growth in the past 2 years.
As he saw the stack of books, his eyes started to glow.
At age 1, he had gotten the hang of it using his space-time mastery. From individual targets, small areas to even as large as his bed room, he could manipulate space and time within.
By age 2, with his own memories and newfound knowledge on the science of time and space, he had refined his own control of the two elements.
Right now, he had started to slow down time around him, making the passage of time faster for him, within the space. A semi-spherical glow appeared, created by the spatial and time difference of the two areas, causing elemental particles within to act differently. Within this place, he was able to read all these books almost in an instant for others.
If someone was there observing him who have a basic understanding of time elements, they would realize that it was weird that his physical appearance wasn't changing at all even with the presence of time magic around him.
The answer was simple. He merely slowed the time around him and his time remain unaffected, relegated to a separate space.
Time in dimension A is twisted, but his time is in dimension B, so it isn't affected. His physical time is modified, so his actions and thoughts moves along the faster time. However, his actual time, the time of his body, his soul, and his mental power are all in the regular time flow.
This was one of the simplest applications that he found out after using his imagination and experience from his previous life, as well as currently reading books.
Truly, reading those isekai novels were quite helpful. Fantasy and science fiction truly are gateways to greater imagination.
Time passed by for Xander. It took him 6 days to read the books from end to end, and digest and understand its contents, but for the world outside, only a few hours had passed.
What made it more of a cheat was that he had photographic memory, all thanks to the system granted to him.
He immediately summoned the system to check his status.
Xander Cloverfield
Lvl 3 (50% till next level)
Mundane-3
Str: 5
Vit: ?
Int: ?
Dex: 5
Luck: ?
Skills:
Time Mastery: Max
Space Mastery: Max
Basic Magic Foundation: 3/10
Intermediate Magic Foundation: 2/10
Advanced Magic: 1/10
Legendary Magic: 0/10
Mythic Magic: 0/10
What's weird with Xander is that you can classify him as a magician already, but his magic foundation would not even let him pass the basic tests set for magicians.
Generally, to be considered stepping into the ranks of a magician, the general attributes of the person should be above 10 for each category.
At the same time, he never had needed magical essences to use space and time magic, so technically he can use them infinitely and indefinitely, without any problem, as what he had wished.
Here is where it gets annoying for him.
Every time he casts a wide range time or space magic, like the range of a continent or a planet, he has to make sure he is strong enough to fight off against the will of the world, or more specifically, the will of the universe.
The strength here refers not to his quantified attributes, but rather an overall growth. He had to utilize his overall growth in power to cancel the constraints of the universe itself on his magic, given that he is not absorbing the magical essences of space and time in the universe, but commanding them.
It's like a hacker, utilizing your phone to send spam messages. He didn't need to own the phone and the number (absorb the magical essences) to send these spam or fake messages to others (the elements of space and time, and all beneath it).
For example, he could cause a black hole the size of a penny to appear in Eteria and he would still be strong enough to fight the will of the world. Sadly, if he did that, he wouldn't survive long in outer space due to boredom. He hasn't even managed to move yet faster than light, or teleport that far. He could accelerate the time within an area and receive no repercussions as well, as long as it is within the limits the universe can handle.
With his raw and rough control over the elements, he is going against the universe every time he casts a spell related to space and time.
If he wanted to do higher level magic, like combining space and time magic to break through the universe and traverse other multiverses? Breaking through the universe and traveling into the space beyond it? Far from it. The rebound from the will of the universe was enough to erase his existence.
According to the system, he needed to at least breakthrough the Divine or Sage realm before freely traversing the wide multiverse, capable of moving within the endless void without being corroded… as long as he didn't meet any other creatures within it.
So what is the Divine realm?
See, the people in the planet of Eteria, heck, even other planets and civilizations, are divided into classes based on their magic cultivation:
Mundane, Elite, Master, Legendary, Mythic, Demigod, and Divine, Sage, and God.
Each class is divided into 9 levels, with each 3 levels being a minor breakthrough.
Majority of the common and elite people and clans in Eteria are around Mundane-3 to Mythic-9. Rarely would there be someone beyond the Mythic class, as by the time they are at the Mythic class, they are able to escape the planet's control and freely explore the cosmos, and continue to strengthen themselves.
However, most of these Mythic and Demigod magicians would stay instead, because of the dangers that lurked in the starry skies; out of thousands of Mythic class magicians that left to explore the cosmos over the past millenniums, less than 3% came back to tell the tales of their adventures. Demigods have a low return rate as well, no more than 7%.
According to the process of magic cultivation, the moment he breaks through Elite-9 and reach Master class, it would mean he has officially embarked to the road of becoming a God.