Chapter 15 Stopping Time

The world around Arvell slowed down to a crawl. The blood-red rabbit that was about to pounce on the rodent froze in midair.

Arvell could see the look of terror in the rodent as it looked up at the rabbit that was pouncing on it, as well as the predatory glint that the rabbit had when looking back at the rodent.

Even as he took a step forward, the scenery did not change at all.

The two were quite literally 'frozen in time.'

'At least it worked, but I don't feel like that extra stuff Lykos told me helped-'

'HAHAHAHAHAHA'

Arvell heard a laugh ring out behind him and turned to look.

Lykos was laughing so hard that he fell backwards and hit the ground. Somehow not even that managed to end his laughing fit.

At that moment Arvell was able to consolidate his impression that he had been tricked.

It seemed the pose and him yelling 'The world! Stop Time!' was just another prank by Lykos.

Arvell's entire face burned red with embarrassment. He felt a desire to hunt Lykos instead of the rabbit

and eat him for breakfast instead.

Alas, he had no real body to get revenge on.

Forcefully calming himself, Arvell walked towards the red rabbit with his sword in hand.

"Status."

[Status Information]

Species: Blood Rabbit

Beast Rank: Early First Rank

[A rabbit that has a blood-red coat. While it's aggressive nature causes it to attack on sight, its meat is said to be quite tender and delicious]

He could feel that his Aether reserves were running low pretty fast from using time manipulation.

He had gone hunting in the past for sport with some royal guards, so he wasn't new to killing animals and then eating them afterwards.

He calmly beheaded the rabbit and while he did indeed cut the rabbit's head, the head still appeared to be somewhat attached. Since time was frozen, the head didn't fall to the ground, nor did it spurt blood.

The only blood that managed to separate itself from the rabbit was the blood on Arvell's sword.

He controlled the Aether in his time manipulation zone to stop freezing time and gathered them back to his body.

The rabbit's head instantly flew off, with blood flying everywhere. The rabbit's body fell to the ground beside the rodent and dyed the ground blood red.

Arvell felt a sudden bout of weakness and fell to one knee while desperately gasping for air.

The rodent looked up at the silver-haired 'human' that magically appeared before it and killed its predator.

While it felt relief, it also felt apprehension towards the human. Who knew if the human wanted to eat it too?

The rodent had to take care of its pregnant mate and help secure food for her and their unborn child.

If it died, its mate would die of starvation, or simply be eaten while scavenging for food. She could not run fast while carrying their kid. Furthermore, if anything happened to her, their unborn kid would soon follow.

It couldn't allow itself to die here.

However, the human collapsed on one knee and looked weakened.

The rodent used this chance to run away. After running further away, it turned around to look back.

Success! The rodent managed to run away! After securing some food, the rodent joyfully returned home to its mate.

While the rodent was running away, Arvell looked up tiredly at Lykos.

While he was still quite pissed with him, he was more concerned right now with his condition.

'This is the result of Aether depletion,' Lykos answered, 'It seems you burned through all of your Aether reserves completely.'

'I only used it for a few moments though?'

'There are three ways to use time manipulation. Speeding up time, slowing down time, and stopping time completely. Of the three, you instinctively used the third option: stopping time.'

Hearing Lykos's words, Arvell realized that while Lykos told him to 'slow down' time in his zone, he ended up upright stopping the flow of time completely.

It seemed that when Arvell heard himself yell 'Stop Time!', he instinctively stopped time as a whole, instead of slowing it.

'I said to do that as a joke, but who knew you were capable of stopping time right off of the bat! Arvell, you may not realize it, but your talent is monstrous.'

'Is stopping time that hard?'

'To manipulate Aether, you need a strong mental fortitude. The whole process of mental exertion that accompanies refining an Aether Core serves as 'training' for using Aether. Aether users can train their mental fortitude by pushing themselves to their limits when refining their core, and that increase in mental fortitude serves to allow them to control Aether better.'

Lykos pointed a finger at the dead rabbit

'Freezing time takes months if not years to learn. Most Aether wielders don't have that level of resolve yet, and they need to slowly build it up threw harsh mental training. It seems that your lust for power momentarily before your death helped shape your resolve considerably. Normally Aether wielders aren't made to fight to the death when they trained due to their incredibly low fertility rate, so developing this level of resolve is quite a long and tedious process for them.'

Hearing Lykos once again mention the tribe that manipulated Aether, Arvell felt immense curiosity towards them. Unfortunately, he had no desire to see that side of Lykos ever again, so he wisely didn't ask him.

Instead, he found the entire situation quite ironic.

Arvell was wanted dead by someone to the point where he was hunted down and killed. However, instead of getting killed, he was given a power that would far outstrip even his father. Now he found out he also became far more proficient at his newly gained power due to them unintentionally making his resolve to gain power much stronger.

He stood back up on his feet and realized that the rodent that was near him had already left.

'It ran away huh? Not that it affects me.'

Arvell picked up the rabbit's body and tiredly walked to a nearby cave while gathering wood and twigs with his spare arm.

He started up a fire and cooked the rabbit.

Arvell was taught to always eat his game after killing it, otherwise, it would be disrespectful to his prey.

While hunting with the soldiers in the past, he was shown how to gut animals, remove their blood, their beast core, and then cook them properly.

While Arvell wasn't accustomed to living in nature, hunting was completely different.

Shortly later a mouthwatering smell filled the cave that Arvell was sitting in.

(Growl)

Knowing that it could finally eat after a full day, Arvell's stomach was getting impatient.

Arvell removed the rabbit from the stick he used to cook it, he greedily devoured it until nothing remained.

Finally feeling satiated he reached into his pocket to admire his other 'reward' for killing the rabbit.

A shiny black-coloured Beast Core.