Xiang Yu checked the time. "The time in this plane is slightly different from that in the Chu-Han plane. It should have just started nightfall on Yu Ji's side. I'll teach her the Lingbo Weibu (a martial arts technique). Compared to the Tibu (another martial arts technique), Yu Ji is more suited to the Lingbo Weibu. Wine God, connect with Yu Ji."
"Alright, it really feels like three autumns have passed since we last met, hehe." Hao Jiu thought to himself, if you miss Yu Ji, just say so, why make up an excuse about teaching her martial arts?
"Yu Ji, are you alright over there? I had a match with a master named Xiaoyaozi today and learned a lot. I also just learned a martial art called Lingbo Weibu, a very exquisite movement technique. I'll teach it to you now..." Xiang Yu communicated with Yu Ji through the Shadow System, and then...
"What is King Xiang saying?" Yu Ji was a little confused. Didn't King Xiang just arrive in that plane? I've only just started cultivating, and you're already talking to me again. Yu Ji's words stunned Xiang Yu and Hao Jiu.
"Yu Ji, how long exactly is it that you say you just started cultivating?" Xiang Yu was not unfamiliar with this situation. The time flow rate in the sixth branch plane was seventeen times that of the main plane. Xiang Yu had not seen Yu Ji for half a month and missed her very much. Yu Ji, on the other hand, had only been separated from Xiang Yu for less than a day. But Yu Ji's use of "just" was too exaggerated.
"A dozen or so breaths?" Yu Ji couldn't quite say, as the time was simply too short.
Hao Jiu gasped. When he and Xiang Yu traveled through time, it was around noon in the Chu-Han world, but it was dusk when they arrived in the Tian Long Ba Bu world. In other words, the time in the Tian Long Ba Bu world was more than five hours ahead of the Chu-Han world.
There was nothing wrong with that, since the two planes are not the same 'sun', and there is no need for all planes to have the same sunrise and sunset.
The problem is that about eight hours have passed since dusk, but only a dozen or so breaths have passed in the Chu-Han world, which is less than a minute!
What is the flow of time in this plane? It's at least five hundred times, or even a thousand times, faster than the Chu-Han plane!
For cultivation geniuses in mid-to-high-level planes, the rapid passage of time can quickly improve their strength, which is a good thing. However, for relatively ordinary people, the faster time passes, the faster they age and the earlier they die, which may not necessarily be a good thing.
Of course, since all living beings in the entire plane experience the same flow of time, without any comparison with other planes, the people living inside have no idea that their lifespan is only one-thousandth of that in the outside world.
But the question is, is there really a dimension that can withstand a time flow rate a thousand times faster?
Assuming a plane's lifespan is hundreds of millions of years, a flow rate a thousand times faster could exist for 100,000 years, which seems reasonable. But in reality, it's not calculated that way at all. How can running 100 miles at high speed without stopping be the same as walking 100 miles at a leisurely pace?
Perhaps this is the root cause of the impending collapse of the plane—a time flow rate a thousand times faster!
In comparison, the seventeen-fold flow rate of the sixth branch plane of Chu-Han is simply pathetic, and suddenly it loses its appeal.
Xiang Yu frowned. "God of Wine, you said we've arrived decades too early. The main story of Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils hasn't even started yet, so Xiao Feng and the others haven't been born. So, according to this flow of time, if we return to the Chu-Han world, how long will it take to reach the main story?"
"Based on a time flow rate of a thousand times, it should take about a month. This time, we have a chance to recruit Xiao Feng and also obtain a plane with a time flow rate of a thousand times. The plane blockade is complete. I'll set up an eternal night blockade to permanently occupy this plane. From now on, this will be our logistics base!"
Hao Jiu licked his lips. It seemed like this was actually a good thing?
Chapter 374 Yet Again
Hao Jiu felt dizzy. Recruiting Xiao Feng was a small matter. This plane with a flow rate of a thousand times was equivalent to endless energy and resources!
Happiness came too suddenly! I killed a monster in the newbie village and got a top-tier piece of equipment that I couldn't buy with real money. Is this a real private server?
"Something's not right. Has the God of Wine ever considered the reason for the existence of this thousand-fold flow-speed plane? Does the God's Shop have any items that can accelerate the time of a plane? And what is their value?" Xiang Yu was somewhat puzzled. Wasn't this just like what the God of Wine often said—a pie falling from the sky, or someone delivering a pillow when you're dozing off? Could he really have encountered such a good thing?
"How could there possibly be a time-accelerating item for sale? Perhaps this plane had such a high time flow rate when it was created... No!" Hao Jiu's smile froze instantly at this point.
"Did the God of Wine also sense something strange about this?" Although Xiang Yu didn't quite understand the rules of plane creation, he could imagine that creating a world with a speed a thousand times faster would be extremely difficult. Could such a thing happen in a lower plane?
"Indeed, there's something seriously wrong with this. How could such a top-tier dimension be so sought after! Let alone a dimension that can accelerate a thousand times, even one that can accelerate a hundred times would be fiercely fought over!"
Hao Jiu cursed under his breath. At first, he thought it was the luck module that had worked, giving them incredible luck and allowing them to get a top-tier dimension with a thousand times the speed for free. But after Xiang Yu reminded him and he calmed down, Hao Jiu immediately realized the problem.
If it had been a thousand times faster from the moment of its birth, then the God of the System would have discovered it long ago. After all, if he could give this plane a mission, he must know the situation of this plane.
This is a thousand times faster! Not only are thousand-times faster planes rare, but the method to create a thousand-times faster plane is also extremely important!
Even if we assume that the God of Systems was careless and failed to discover the extraordinary nature of this plane, and that all the systems happened to overlook this exceptional plane with its thousand times faster time flow, then...
It's unlikely that this plane has had a thousand times the speed of time since its birth, because this is the world of Tian Long Ba Bu. Since the plane is named Tian Long Ba Bu, it would be very early if it started from the generation of Xiaoyaozi.
Even starting from Duan Siming, the founding emperor of Dali, or Murong Longcheng, the ancestor of the Murong clan of Gusu who created the Dou Zhuan Xing Yi technique, the story of Tian Long Ba Bu could not withstand three months in the outside world due to the effect of a thousand times the time flow.
Even if the story of Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils ends and the world continues to develop freely, at a speed a thousand times faster, about a year in the outside world, this world would have developed into the modern world. How could this world still have the nerve to call itself Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils?
Therefore, the beginning of this plane's creation was definitely not at a thousand times the speed of time flow. It is very likely that the change has just begun and will not be a long-term change. It is also very simple to confirm.
Most tasks have a release time. The longer the time since the release, the more likely the task target is to leave the task plane. However, under normal circumstances, the target system that can be judged as a normal task is one that intends to reside permanently in that plane.
Unstable targets are listed as time-limited tasks, but the task in the Tian Long Ba Bu world is a regular task without a time limit, proving that the target system will reside in this world for a period of time.
Although the system god does not know exactly how it determined that the target is Hao Jiu, the error should not be too great. If the task was issued more than a year ago, it means that the Tianlong Babu plane did not have a thousand times the time flow rate from the beginning.
Otherwise, when Hao Jiu arrives in this world, he will find that it is a modern world, or a world that has absolutely nothing to do with Tian Long Ba Bu.
Thinking of this, Hao Jiu decisively opened the task interface and saw that the task was posted more than a year ago.
Therefore, the conclusion is obvious: this dimension has a time flow rate a thousand times faster, which is definitely the work of other systems!
But what kind of supernatural power could increase the flow of time in different planes by more than a thousand times?
Hao Jiu had searched for the time acceleration module in the God's Shop a long time ago. An item that accelerated time eight times was already selling for a high price of one million points, while an item that accelerated time a thousand times, even if the God of the System had it, would not put it out for sale.
Therefore, the spectacular phenomenon of time accelerating a thousand times in the eight realms of Tianlong is either due to the awakening of supernatural powers in the target system, or the target system obtaining an extremely powerful item through unorthodox means.
Let's call the system world three major forces: the God of Systems, the Holy Lords and Enforcers, and the loose, wild system alliance, which is similar to independent cultivators.
That free market is where the Wild System trades; you could also call it a black market. The market's administrator is the leader of this Wild System Alliance, a very mysterious figure whose identity is unknown to anyone. Apart from opening the free market, this system doesn't seem to have taken any other actions.
After Hao Jiu joined the Enforcers, the Elf Queen gave him some Enforcer rules and long-term bounty missions, one of which was to find this Free Market Administrator.
However, it is obvious that this administrator is very cunning and extremely powerful, making it impossible to trace. Logically, since there are transactions in the free market, tracing back to the source should have revealed some clues about the market administrator.
Tens of thousands of years have passed, and they still haven't found it. The devil is always one step ahead; without proper security considerations, no fool would dare to take the lead.
Furthermore, law enforcement officers can also have the free market module, the reason being to facilitate the tracking of administrators. There are even rumors that the Holy Lord system has this module!
It can be said that the free market is a highly integrated module. It was designed so that everyone could use it. Not only was it distributed for free, but the code was also made public. There are no security risks or backdoors. It is as if it was really dedicated to making things convenient for the vast majority of systems.
After numerous verifications and tests by powerful beings, the conclusion is that it is truly a wonderful system that benefits all worlds, especially in protecting the privacy of traders, where it does a better job than the internal mall system of law enforcement!
As a result, the free market module became popular, and many artificially created systems later directly incorporated the free market module system, which was both cheap and easy to use.
While this free market is very free, it is precisely this freedom that will gradually connect all the wild systems into a whole, eventually forming a force that cannot be ignored and is not impossible to counter the law enforcement.
The system god is the previous dynasty, the holy lord is the current dynasty, and the free market administrator probably wants to turn the holy lord into the previous dynasty, risking execution to make selfless contributions? Anyway, Hao Jiu doesn't believe there is such a stupid system.
Hao Jiu judged that the accelerated time flow in the Tianlong Babu interface this time might be related to the free market. There are many experts among the people, and you can often find some good treasures on the black market. Moreover, some flawed or side-effect-prone items or illegal items are relatively cheap.
Perhaps this item that can accelerate speed a thousandfold is such a thing, and the so-called flaw should be the collapse of the plane or an even more serious consequence.
Of course, accelerating the flow of time across dimensions by a thousand times could also be the awakened supernatural power of a certain system. If that's the case, it's probably yet another top-tier system.
Don't think that everyone in lower dimensions is a nobody. Since his debut, how many big shots has Hao Jiu encountered?
Hao Jiu suddenly shuddered at the thought. Could it be this bad?
Chapter 375 No Waste
Logically speaking, a system possessing such an incredibly powerful awakened ability as accelerating time across dimensions by a thousand times should belong to someone who is either a powerful figure, a subordinate of a powerful figure, a slave, or a tool for accelerating time.
It might even be qualified as an exclusive tool for a system god or holy lord. A system of this status shouldn't be wandering around in a lower plane unless it's fleeing a disaster.
However, Hao Jiu understood the key point after thinking about it carefully. A thousand-fold acceleration of the plane sounds incredible, but if this acceleration is only temporary and has many limitations, then it can't be considered a great supernatural power.
At most, it can be used in the short term to earn energy, quickly improve one's realm, practice skills, or train an army.
It is of great help to emerging forces, but it is not particularly effective for those who have already dominated their regions.
Hao Jiu could think of accelerating the flow of time to assist the host's cultivation, and the system masters must have thought of it too, but they might not use it because it's a rather clumsy method.
Instead of accelerating the process, wouldn't it be better to shorten the difficulty of leveling up for the host and directly improve the host's strength in one step? Why make the host spend thousands or even tens of thousands of years cultivating?
Even if it is used, it will not accelerate the entire plane, but only a very small area, such as a room or a city, so that the host or his elite troops will benefit.
For example, the vampire system that previously invaded the Chu-Han world created a progenitor-level vampire with just one modification potion. Isn't that better than accelerating the time flow of the world and letting the host start as a slave vampire and cultivate all the way to a progenitor-level vampire?
Even if it seems to outsiders that this host has increased his strength in a very short time, he actually cultivated for a long time in the accelerated plane. Isn't he tired?
Moreover, for those in the plane who don't have long lifespans, time acceleration is not a good thing at all; what's truly beneficial is time deceleration.
It's probably only newbie systems like Hao Jiu that would be interested in the ability to accelerate time, ultimately it's all about earning energy.
Hao Jiu's awakened supernatural power, the Infinite Shadow System, is essentially about increasing the speed of energy gain and completing the initial capital accumulation as soon as possible. However, his method is to win by quantity. Ten thousand shadow systems are definitely much more effective than a single host, which can accelerate time by a thousand times.
That being said, if this thousandfold acceleration had no limitations or side effects, then this supernatural power would be quite extraordinary, capable of rapidly producing a massive amount of low-level cannon fodder troops.
It can also be used for the mass production of high-grade medicinal herbs and other resources that take a long time to mature, as well as magical artifacts and elixirs that require a long time to refine.
Of course, this is on the premise that the cost of using a thousand times acceleration is not too high. If it really destroys a plane every time it is used, then its practicality is very poor.
It's truly defying the heavens, but it's a useless defying the heavens. For example, the value of pi can now be accurate to ten trillion decimal places. It's scary enough, it's defying the heavens enough, but it's completely useless!
If we use a value of pi with 39 digits of precision to calculate the size of the universe, the error is less than the volume of an atom. What's the point of having more digits?
The value of exploring more digits of pi lies solely in determining whether pi is a repeating decimal, nothing more.
Even if it's a repeating decimal, so what?
"God of Wine, time in this plane is accelerated a thousandfold. Could this be a tactic of the target system?" Xiang Yu naturally hoped that his opponent would be as strong as possible.
"Very likely. But there's still something I don't understand: what is the purpose of the target system accelerating time? If you want to use the power of time against your enemy, slowing down your opponent's time and making them move in slow motion would be the best method."
While it's true that speeding up time to the extreme can kill, a time flow a thousand times faster is far from enough; a speed of ten million times would be more appropriate, enough to make mortals age and die in the blink of an eye.
If you absolutely must use a thousand times the speed of time to kill the enemy, then you'd have to seal off the plane for at least a hundred years, right? Even mortals might not be able to kill someone in less than a hundred years.
"But we've sealed off this dimension. If we don't want to be in this dimension, we can simply unseal it, teleport away, and come back in a month."
Hao Jiu found it increasingly suspicious. If the other party's system's acceleration of time was aimed at them, and it didn't have any actual destructive power, wouldn't using it be like alerting the enemy and exposing themselves?
Xiang Yu snorted coldly, "I'm afraid it's the same. Our sealing of the plane is the same as theirs. If we open the plane lock, they can travel through time and space. If we don't open it, we will age continuously under their time acceleration, and even die of old age. It's just a pity that they don't know that I can also live forever. I can use the Xiaoyaozi card or cultivate the Longevity Technique myself."
"If that's the case, then the other party must be very confident in evading our search, right? After all, even a mortal can't be killed in less than a hundred years. If we can't find them even after a hundred years, then things will be very serious."
This means the target system definitely has a way to evade my system radar. Even if we could use our immortality technique to keep wearing them down, we don't know how long it would take to find them.
Hao Jiu is now worried about whether the system radar is effective. If the target system cannot block the system radar, then the other side's move is a joke. If it can be blocked, why didn't the mission indicate that the system radar is ineffective?
"Should we still go to Shaolin Temple? I feel like we won't find a target so easily this time. That high monk is probably not the target host. Going there would be a waste of time."
Xiang Yu felt that if the God of Wine were to conduct a full-range radar scan, he would have a 90% chance of finding the target. However, Xiang Yu was 100% certain that the God of Wine would never use this tactic unless he was at his wit's end. Therefore, he could only try his luck for now.
"Of course we should go! Isn't Xiang Yu also looking forward to fighting that old Shaolin monk with the Buddhist name Qianqian? Since the target system wants to hide, let it hide. From now until the end of the main story of Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils, it's only a little over sixty years. We can afford to wait."
I can use this time to complete my second awakening, and Xiang Yu can also try to break through to the Earth Realm of Overlord. When we have free time, we can do some chivalrous deeds to earn some chivalry points, and then select a few people with good character and talent to bind to the Shadow System.
"Hehe, this is quite an opportunity, and I'm afraid I won't encounter it again in the future. I can't waste time at a thousand times the speed! I'd like to see how long I can maintain this thousand times the speed of time," Hao Jiu said smugly.
I've already made up my mind. Even if I have to use the all-around system radar scan in the end, I have to make up for the energy I've consumed during this time. Where's the hidden master? Here's a system for you!