Wheel of Time

Let's start by reading his memories; maybe he knows where his inner core is.

Memories flooded in, and Tu Ran searched carefully.

Finally, in a fleeting image, she saw the inner core.

As she had guessed, the man had no idea about this ability.

A few days ago, he was chased by two beasts and lost his backpack, along with all his food and equipment.

The beasts guarded the tree, and he endured two days up in it.

During that time, he was so hungry that he dug into the tree trunk, scraping out the wood fibers to chew on for sugar.

Inside the trunk lived a nest of fat, juicy worms.

They were pure protein, so the man caught and ate them too.

As luck would have it, the inner core of the “Wheel of Time” was inside one of those worms.

In his memory, when he ate one worm, he bit down on a small, hard thing, but the very act of eating worms was hard for him to stomach, so he didn’t dare think too much—he just squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed it whole.

He had no idea where that inner core had ended up in his body since.

What was she to do? Tu Ran crouched there, hesitating.

She hoped the inner core was in his abdomen.

Whether it came out through vomiting or cutting, either way, he could survive.

If it were in the back of his neck, his body had already fused with the core, and no matter how skilled she was at extraction, without the core, his chances of survival were slim.

But deep down, Tu Ran knew that the likelihood of it being in the back of his neck was highest.

Should she just give up now? Tu Ran didn’t want to.

She needed this ability.

She could already imagine how many people would swarm once news of this ability got out.

How many would fight over the inner core.

Her only advantage right now was knowing about it before anyone else—she had to seize this opportunity fate had handed her.

The man was already down.

At this point, she had to see it through.

Tu Ran aimed the dagger tip at the back of his neck.

With years of medical training, she made a single cut that sent blood streaming down his neck.

Biting the bullet, she dug around and finally found it near the cervical spine.

She pulled out the pearl, wrapped the wound on his neck with gauze, and quickly injected two shots of recovery serum she had prepared in advance.

Even though losing the inner core might mean he wouldn’t live much longer, Tu Ran felt uneasy, so she gave him the recovery shots.

She silently said: If you survive, I’ll compensate you; if you die, don’t blame me as a ghost.

By the time everything was handled, fifty minutes had passed. The man was still asleep, but the hallucinogenic mushroom’s effects lasted only an hour, so he would wake soon.

Tu Ran placed all the fruits Fatty had picked beside him as recompense, then left with Fatty.

She had considered leaving him weapons and food, but since those might reveal her identity, she refrained.

Leaving the area, Tu Ran and Fatty walked to a narrow stream and rinsed the inner core clean.

She swallowed it.

As the core dissolved into a flow of energy that surged through her limbs and bones, a light screen appeared in her mind.

【Wheel of Time】

Below were two paragraphs of introduction, exactly like the ones she had seen before.

Tu Ran tried to activate the ability.

She first targeted the bracelet on her wrist.

The “Wheel of Time” could turn the gears of an object’s time, sending it back to a past state or forward to a future one.

As she pondered how to use this power, an image of a time wheel appeared in her mind.

It was made up of three parts: year, month, and day.

Tu Ran tried turning the year dial, pushing it all the way to one thousand years later.

The bracelet’s most noticeable change was that it aged considerably, its luster gone.

In one go, she turned the bracelet’s time to the maximum value that the “Wheel of Time” could reach.

The maximum was one hundred million years.

After a hundred million years, the bracelet was visibly aged, its surface mottled with reddish-brown spots.

Tu Ran squeezed it hard, and the bracelet shattered into dust.

Like powder, it scattered in the wind.

“Oh! It broke, it broke!” Fatty exclaimed excitedly.

Tu Ran was excited too; she had finally dismantled that time bomb.

But her relief didn’t last long—her legs went weak, all strength drained from her body, and she collapsed to her knees.

“Boss, boss, what’s wrong?” Fatty hurriedly supported her, asking anxiously.

Tu Ran didn’t even have the strength to speak.

The “Wheel of Time” consumed far too much energy.

And she had pushed the time to a hundred million years in one shot.

As a result, even the “Adamantine Body” couldn’t repair her body right away.

She leaned on Fatty’s wing, speaking weakly, “Find… a safe cave. I need… rest.”

Tu Ran’s vision went black, and she fainted.

In the second before she lost consciousness, she thought: Why was she so foolish, ignoring the warning on the light screen and recklessly pushing it to the maximum?

No wonder she passed out.

Serves her right!

Seeing Tu Ran faint like that, Fatty was startled.

“Chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp” It flapped its wings helplessly, chirping and twittering, trying to wake Tu Ran.

It couldn’t figure out why she had been full of energy just a moment ago and now suddenly passed out.

“Chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp”

Tu Ran didn’t respond.

Fatty was so anxious it ran around in circles.

What to do? What to do?

Finally, it remembered Tu Ran’s last instruction.

Find a safe cave.

Fatty slapped its forehead. Right, find a safe cave!

Finding caves was its specialty!

It turned and walked off.

After a dozen meters, it suddenly felt like something was missing.

What was missing?

It paced around restlessly.

Ah! It had left the boss behind!

Fatty hurried back.

Tu Ran was still lying there.

Fatty felt guilty and quickly lifted her with its wing, hoisting her onto its shoulder.

It surveyed the surroundings, figured out where they were, and headed west.

Tu Ran dreamed many dreams, all of scenes from the first world.

She played with the other kids at the orphanage.

Because she couldn’t outcompete the other kids, she often missed out on afternoon fruit, small and thin as she was. The director grandpa would then give her extra treats.

In middle school, she got into a fight with a classmate and lost, ending up with a black eye and a swollen face, but she extorted a large sum of money from the other party, and the director grandpa bought her good food.

In high school, she worked part-time during lunch breaks and was often late for afternoon classes, getting punished by the teacher to stand.

After learning about her situation, the teacher still kept a stern face while lecturing her about not studying hard, but also applied for various financial aids for her.

In college, the director grandpa passed away, and she paid tuition entirely through her own part-time jobs, supplemented by the school’s financial support, scraping by and living reasonably well.