Entering the dimensional rift felt extremely painful to Erin.
Compared to entering warps or spatial channels, the dimensional rift was not fully stable. In spite of knowing this, since the chieftain went through it several times before, Erin presumed it was still good enough to enter safely.
What Erin failed to account for was that the chieftain's level was likely far above Erin's. The strength and power inside their bodies were not the same. Thus, while Erin still managed to get through the dimensional rift, his body couldn't fully withstand the unstable transfer.
On the other side, their small starship suddenly appeared above a large and damaged circular platform. It was in front of a portal that connected to the rift that they entered from.
Inside, both Erin and Aura were knocked into a deep state of unconsciousness. There were no obvious, physical wounds on either of them.
While unconscious, Erin's body started emitting an unusual energy. The formation of this energy started the moment he physically entered this space.
Even though the cockpit was air-locked, this odd energy moved unobstructed. Like a waterfall, all of the accumulated energy inside the cockpit gently flowed out and landed on top of the circular platform that the ship was floating above. Like a starving beast, this platform greedily absorbed every bit of this energy. The cracks on the platform started disappearing.
Time passed as minutes turned into hours and hours turned into days.
After about seven full days, the platform finally stopped absorbing energy. Erin's body also stopped emitting it too.
Although it still looked very ancient, the platform was no longer damaged. A vivid hourglass image appeared on top of the circular platform for mere seconds before slowly vanishing.
While it finally vanished, Erin was suddenly jolted awake. It was like the platform was waiting to absorb enough energy from Erin before taking away his state of unconsciousness.
Now wide awake, Erin was stunned when he saw the time on the starship's terminal.
Seven whole days actually passed in the blink of an eye!
He glanced at the back of the cockpit and noticed that Aura was unconscious. With the innate connection between the two, he knew that there was nothing wrong with Aura and that she was just in a deep sleep. It was only a matter of time before she woke up too.
Checking his body, Erin felt hungry but refreshed. He took out some rations to eat while thinking back to when he entered the rift. The pain he experienced was far worse than when his brain overloaded on the beastman languages. It was like he could feel the process of his body getting ripped apart and put back together. He was grateful to still be in one piece.
After eating, he took control of the starship and piloted it up.
After rising a few stories, it was stopped by an undetectable force. Erin sighed in relief since this matched the chieftain's words. Erin wasn't going to blindly believe everything and planned on verifying the facts himself.
Using the height as a vantage point, he glanced around and confirmed the details that the chieftain informed him of previously. Because it was this space's only source of light, the dome-shaped translucent barrier was the first thing to catch Erin's eyes. He followed the barrier to the edges, where the ruins abruptly ended before falling into uncharted space. The twilight atmosphere felt somewhere endearing to Erin.
Looking down at the ruins, he could see that most of the broken buildings were roughly two to three stories tall. With such a primitive structural design, this area felt very ancient.
Using the devices on the starship, Erin confirmed that the air inside this space was breathable and safe. There were no harmful contaminants detected in this air. He also sent out a few scans which detected nothing of interest.
Erin piloted the starship down before landing it on top of a large open space inside the ruins. With its barebone design still in-tact, this area was probably an open market plaza before it was destroyed. It was only a short walk away from the circular platform that the portal was on.
Since Aura was still in a deep state of sleep, Erin exited the starship by himself. Even though the odds of finding anything were ridiculously slim, he still wanted to personally explore these ruins himself.
The light emitting from the translucent barrier was fairly bright. Although it wasn't comparable to an actual sun, the light reminded Erin of a cloudy sunrise. It was enough for him to see ahead with ease.
Stepping over rocky rubble, Erin started looking through different broken buildings. Almost all of the ruins here didn't have a roof. Searching through them was fairly easy since there were hardly any dark corners.
In just a few hours, Erin had already glanced through over a hundred broken buildings. He quickly understood why Chieftain Morack lost interest in this place. There really wasn't anything at all. Even after sweeping away some rubble, the only thing Erin found was grey dirt.
Giving up his ground search, Erin returned to his small scout-type starship. Although the scans didn't detect anything, he could still fly around the rest of the ruins to try and eye out things.
Unfortunately, after circling the edges of the ruins several times, Erin still didn't manage to find anything of interest. Out of all the buildings he saw, the only thing that was actually intact was the nearby circular platform.
The only reason he didn't explore this area yet was because of the portal hovering on top of this large platform. It was slightly more troublesome with that nearby.
Erin landed the starship back in the nearby plaza and jumped off. Originally, although he was walking around in cybertronic armor, he had a protective necklace on instead of a helmet. However, since he was going to check out the platform near the portal, he replaced the necklace with the helmet instead.
With everything on, the full cybertronic armor could function as a space suit in case the portal somehow sucked him in. Though this was unlikely, Erin wasn't going to take the chance of being brutally suffocated in space. He wasn't strong enough to venture space with just his body.
After a short walk, he approached the edges of this circular platform.
For some odd reason, Erin felt a weird attraction to this area as he got closer. Unbeknownst to him, his lower body was literally glowing as it resonated with the platform. This glow started spreading to his upper body as he got closer and stopped before reaching his head. Because the cybertronic armor covered his glowing body completely, Erin didn't see these changes.
When Erin finally stepped onto the platform, the entire area started shaking.
The portal that was hovering over the platform disappeared!
"?!"
Erin was dumbfounded. That portal was his only way out of this locked space!
Before he could recollect himself, dust started rising from the platform rapidly. Parts of the platform started sinking into the ground slowly. Rather than collapsing, it looked like the platform was re-shaping itself.
When it finished changing, a spiral shaped passageway appeared. The entrance to this passageway appeared directly in front of Erin. He could tell that walking down this path would lead him somewhere underneath these ruins.
Since the portal was gone now, the passageway was his only viable option right now. There was nothing else in the ruins. He wasn't desperate enough to try breaking through the ruin's translucent barrier yet either. In his mind, that option was reserved as a worst case scenario.
Erin noticed that the passageway was surprisingly well-lit. The walls had inlaid crystals emitting light.
After walking down this spiral passageway for over an hour, he finally reached the end of the passage. There were no doors. It simply opened up into a large stone hall filled with pillars and statues.
The pillars and floor were all made of white stone. The statues appeared to be made of silver and had a full-armor design. These statues lined the hall like guards in a throne room. While they were humanoid in shape, there were obvious lizard-like tails from behind each statue. The helmets were also abnormally large and pointed to the front.
'Are the heads similar to a lizard too?'
Erin thought to himself as he stared at the statues' full-helms.
Although this sight was unexpected, it wasn't enough to stun him.
At the end of this hall, there was a giant white dragon statue standing upright. Unlike the floors and pillars, the white stone used in this dragon statue gave off a metallic sheen.
It was holding a large, upright hourglass with the claws of its forearms. The hourglass was also not a statue. It was an actual hourglass with sands actively dripping down.
Focusing his attention on the hourglass, Erin realized that it was only a few grains away from completion.
As the final grains landed, the hourglass started dematerializing from top to bottom. It turned into scattered bits of light that eventually gathered into a small, perfect sphere.
The sphere flew down from the dragon statue and stopped a couple meters away from Erin's face. Even though Erin was covered from head-to-toe in armor, the floating sphere could 'see' the light emitting from his body.
Confused, Erin furrowed his eyebrows as he stared cautiously at the floating ball of light. He wasn't aware that this floating sphere was scanning him too.
Like a parent-in-law granting their approval, the sphere recognized Erin and began transforming.
Before Erin got a chance to react, the sphere changed itself into a small translucent being. With a conical hat and a beard that stretched to its knees, the spiritual-like being looked identical to a gnome.
"Interesting. After so many millenniums, I never expected to return here."
The floating, translucent gnome muttered as it glanced around the large room. It stopped its eyes over Erin's body. Like an x-ray, the floating gnome could easily see past the cybertronic armor with ease. The glow from Erin's body was unmistakable.
"..You are?"
Erin didn't know what to make of this. He walked down here expecting old relics or historic artifacts. He even braced himself in case he encountered ancient golems or traps. A ghost-like being wasn't something he anticipated.
"I am a Timekeeper."
"..."
"..Is that supposed to be a type of profession?"
Erin had no idea what a Timekeeper was.
"Goodness. Has humanity's common knowledge degraded that much?"
"I am a being that has mastered part of the Laws of Time. You can consider me as one of the many figures that help govern the Mortal Multiverse. I do not have a physical form here because my true body lies in the Ascended Realm."
Still somewhat disbelieving, Erin nodded as he glanced at the floating gnome. His eyes spoke volumes as he continued staring at the gnome like he was looking at a lunatic.
The floating gnome sighed. It could easily read Erin's thoughts.
"Perhaps the term 'Overseer' rings a bell?"
The gnome threw out a word that caught Erin's full attention.
"Are you the Overseer?!"
Erin was pleasantly caught off-guard.
"No. The Overseer is the one who ranks the highest amongst the Timekeepers. As for myself, I am near the bottom in terms of both power and rank. In spite of this, our faction in the Ascended Realm ranks amongst the top."
The gnome clarified. He didn't mind if it sounded a little demeaning. In the grand scheme of things, his position was still above countless mortals and immortals.
Although Erin was disappointed, this information still satisfied him a lot. He was willing to trust this weird, floating gnome a tiny bit more.
"Then, your purpose in front of me is..?" Erin carefully asked.
"For you, this is a sort of fate."
"For me, this is a mandatory task."
The Overseer forced this assignment on him. The gnome mentally grumbled because of that. It was not his fault that Erin wandered into a space under the gnome's jurisdiction.
"..A task?"
"Indeed. Although your mortal body is as common as the stars, your soul is extremely extraordinary. If not for that, the Overseer wouldn't have invested so much in you." The gnome answered. At the same time, the gnome flinched as he felt a burst of external pressure on his original body.
'It seems I spoke too much.' The gnome internally sighed.
"In any case, I must get to the point. It seems that my time here is now limited." The gnome chuckled.
"Erin Dawn, you have been selected as a Timekeeper candidate. This kind of luck is something that even I am envious of. Rather than having to study the Laws of Time from scratch, you'll be given the chance to gain an inheritance related to it."
"Naturally, this is not free. You must obtain a certain amount of contribution within the Mortal Multiverse before being granted this inheritance. The Timekeepers place a great deal of importance on two concepts: Order and Continuity. Any deeds that support the growth or stability of these concepts may garner you contribution to some extent."
"By the way, I can read your thoughts. Do not confuse the position of Timekeeper for a mere class or profession. It is far beyond that."
"In the Ascended Realm, Timekeepers are individuals with immense authority. This kind of power can easily tip the balance within the Mortal Multiverse."
"For example, even as one of the weakest Timekeepers, if I wanted to reduce the entire Beastman Universe into nothing, I can. However, because this disrupts the Order and Continuity of the Mortal Multiverse, the Overseer will most likely reduce me into nothing in exchange. The life of a weaker Timekeeper is worth slightly more than an entire mortal universe."
"While you let that sink in, take this."
The floating, translucent gnome conjured up a small hourglass. It floated down in front of Erin before turning into energy and entering his body.
"That hourglass will grant you the ability to understand how much contribution you've accumulated. It also has many useful functions that are currently locked. You will gain access to these functions by reaching certain contribution milestones."
"Now that you have the hourglass, my time is up. Good luck!"
The translucent, floating gnome promptly vanished.