The tug war is still ongoing, with Chron pushing all his potential into fighting the transparent rope tugging on him. On the other side however the being covered in flames was astonished that the 1 in one million power he was using to tug at the rope was still not enough to pull the mortal towards him.
Finally after a minute of desperation, Chron finally felt the world of pain he should have felt a long time ago. In the Mountain Everest however, people finally found what was left of Chron's body - his blood and guts. This became one of the most mysterious and also the most gory 'serial killer' act ever recorded in the world.
Chron's body was no more, his soul however was still desperately fighting the tugging, which irritated the great being to no end.
"His body was reduced to nothing, and he is still not stopping? What's wrong with this mortal?! At this point, if he continued fighting this great one's call, his soul would also be reduced to nothing." The Great Being was very annoyed that his to be slave has not even labored for him yet, but is now dying of exhaustion. So in spite of the Great Being's sky high pride, he decided to finally use a bit more of his power to force Chron's Soul to his dimension.
Chron has been desperately fighting the greatest pain he ever felt in his life, if you ask him why he was enduring the pain, he's answer would be 'I don't know'. Chron has been called a lunatic by people around him all his life because he kept throwing himself to dangerous situations just to see if he had talent to be the best in that situation. If he failed, he would call it a stupid decision and would make another stupid decision, he never regretted any of his stupid decisions.
At this point however, Chron felt the pain almost instantly disappear. He was scared of where he might end up, so he wouldn't dare open his eyes. He however felt flames so hot, it made him feel as if time slowed down and he was again tortured by burning pain.
"Am I in hell?" is the first thought that came to Chron's mind, which he unknowingly said out loud.
"No child, you are not in hell, look at the great me and tell me if you will ever see someone as majestic as the great me in the hell you spoke of." To Chron's surprise a gentle voice responded to him, though the words uttered did not match the gentleness of the voice at all.
"Are you sure? You're not tricking me are you?"- Chron
"Just open your g*d*mn eyes mortal!" Again, the gentleness of the voice did not match the harsh words uttered, the voice even cracked a bit at the end and the gentleness was lost. "I'm sorry I just feel disrespected by the fact that you dare not believe in the great words uttered by the great ME!"
Chron have studied lots of things, it may seem weird but one of them is voice expression, he can read someone's mood by hearing their voice. This however is one of the times where he became completely confused and could not read the voice's owner's true mood was. He, however also know fear and had a premonition that if he still refuse to open his eyes, something bad would happen to him, so he did.
What he saw was something he would never forget, it was a phoenix sitting in a majestic fiery throne wearing the most blind enducing and beautiful crown he could ever imagine.
When he looked around, instead of what he imagined of fiery hell, what he saw is a giant palace full of luxury and lavishness. It has everything a Giant Emperor he could imagine would have in their Castle.
"Look at the Great Me!" the gentleness from the voice finally collapsed and Chron finally felt that the tone of the voice finally matched the words uttered by the Phoenix. Though he was not happy at all that he managed to anger a Phoenix that could kill him in just a split second.
Luckily for Chron though, the Phoenix seemed to snap out of his anger and was amicable again, through this change in mood he realized that the Phoenix needed something from him, and it is something that would even make the 'Great One' put aside his pride.
"What do you need from me?" Unluckily for Chron though his intrusive thoughts won - AGAIN, and he asked one of the stupidest questions you can ask to a very narcissistic person, well in this case a very narcissistic flaming bird.
The moment he asked the question, the palace became hotter, though the Phoenix in front of him never seemed to have a reaction to the question. "Mortal you are being impudent! Would someone as great as the Great Me need anything from an ant like mortal that you are?"
"Then why did you bring me here? To reward me?" - Chron
"Y-yes! That is it! This Great One is gonna reward you!" - Phoenix
"For what?" - Chron
"Uhh... Mortal you are being rude again! Just accept my reward, someone as great as me don't have to explain the great things I am doing to someone as trivial as you," - Phoenix
Chron almost facepalmed because he could clearly observe from the Phoenix's actions how much he wanna hide the thing he needed from Chron, which is ironic because he calls himself the 'Great One' and he needs help from a 'Mortal' like him. Though the reward also tempted Chron, just the thought of something given by a being as powerful as the one in front of him makes him drool. So even though it might seem stupid, he accepted the reward offered by the Phoenix not thinking of the consequences he might face.
"Hmph, it's good that you finally realized how great of a being I AM, very well here's the contract for the reward read it and sign behind the paper if you're satisfied with it." A huge piece of paper then appeared out of nowhere and floated until it was in front of Chron.
Now don't be surprised but Chron also learned a bit of Law and even worked as a Lawyer for a while so he knows the importance of a piece of paper and his signature. So he read the whole paper, not missing a word.
It read:
‡————————————————————————‡
This Great Me's Reward for A Puny Mortal Like You
Rewards:
1. This Great Me is preparing for a restart and needs a Time Mage to take care of me. You will be my Tamer and will help the Great Me to grow stronger than the Great Being in front of you right now.
2. This Great Being is willing to give a puny mortal like you a special dimension. It will be up to your puny hands on how you will use this Great One's Special Dimension.
3. This Great Being is also willing to put my all into serving a mortal like you for one day every year.
Condition:
1. You should develop your meager skill in Time Magic above all of your other skills. Once any of your puny skill's levels became equal to your Time Magic, This Great One will kill you.
‡————————————————————————‡
Chron was very satisfied with the contract, due to his meticulousness he had also already finished looking at the back of the paper and even checked if there are extra hidden pages. He had even searched for any fraud in the contract, which luckily for him - there was none.
The contract also made him realize what the Phoenix needed from him, which also excited him to no end. He's a Time Mage!
Chron can do and was a lot of things, and Time Magic can now be added to the things he can now do. However Chron was also an overthinker and assumed a lot of things from the information he just got. The information he came up with was Time Mages are very very rare! So rare and valuable that the Great Phoenix even resigned to give him a lot of things just to make someone as 'puny' as him take care of him.
"Don't be cocky, the only reason the Great Me picked a puny Time Mage like you out of a lot of Time Mages was because you are the first out of a million Time Mages I have seen that have never dabbled in Time Magic," was the Phoenix's immediate response when he saw Chron being proud of what he just found out.
Contrary to what Phoenix thought though, Chron was not discouraged at all. Just having Time Mage was more than enough to offset the little bit of disappointment he would have felt otherwise, though his conjectures about how rare Time Mages were earlier was also proved wrong.
Unknown to Chron though, Time Mages really was as rare or even rarer than what his conjectures was. The only reason why the Phoenix saw millions of Time Mages was because Time Magic is just that strong and out of those millions of Time Mages, a hundred thousand or more might have already been very very old.
After his internal convo, Chron finally asked the Phoenix for something to help him sign the contract.
"What's that?" To Chron's surprise, the Phoenix's eyes widened, as if shocked at something that was behind him, and that also made him curiously turn to look.
The moment he turned his back from the contract, about a hundred papers a bit smaller than the first one and attached themselves to the back of the piece of the first paper.
Chron saw nothing, so he was confused by whatever the Phoenix might have seen. Although a bit suspicious, his excitement regarding his future prospects outweighed his need to read the contract again, it also helped that the back of the page - where he would have to sign is still the same as ever.
"Oh.. haha This Great Me has thought that some puny being is trying to enter this Great One's Space, turns out this Great One thought wrong. Don't worry about it, just put your palm on the signature and the contract would be signed." - Phoenix
"Ooookaaay? I'll do that." Is what Chron said while looking weirdly at his hands, however he realized that magic was true and a palm print might not even be considered magic to a magical world. So he closed his eyes and enthusiastically put his palm on the paper.
"Ha.. ha ha... HAHAHAHHAHAHA!" The moment the palm print was on the contract, Chron heard the most obnoxious laugh he had ever heard in his life.