The Innkeeper

Chapter 1177 Temple of Frozen Dawn II

"All contestants, welcome to the Temple of Frozen Dawn," a voice echoed through the rainforest that Lex seemed to find himself in. "You are in a segment of the Origin realm that has been cut off from the rest of it for billions of years. How or why it was cut off, nobody knows. All we can tell is that something very significant happened here long ago.

"The temple has opened up naturally and on its own, and based on our calculations, in exactly 721 hours, whatever event happened billions of years ago will happen once more. When that happens, time in this small piece of space will freeze for another few billion years. Just to be clear, without a clear, consistent flow of time, your soul will not survive. So in a few billion years, when time resumes in this place, your body will be perfectly intact but your soul will be gone.

"The condition to pass this stream of the tournament is to identify the anomaly that took place and stop it. If, in 721 hours, the anomaly does not happen, this piece of space will be automatically assimilated by the rest of the Origin, and everyone in this space will pass. If it does happen, then everyone in this space will die. There is no way to exit this space without preventing the anomaly. Good luck."

Lex had only just raised his eyebrow, unable to even complete a thought, when a familiar sound rang in his ear. Only this time, the notification sound that the system made was deafening, and reeked of urgency.

New Emergency Quest: PREVENT THE DESTRUCTION OF THE SYSTEM!

Quest time limit: 721 HOURS!

Quest Reward: THE SYSTEM WON'T DIE!

Remarks: WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING??? @#$***

"That's not promising," said Lex out loud, and tried to connect to the Midnight realm. But the connection was cut off. He was isolated from the outside.

"Hey, Mary, can you hear me?" Lex asked.

"Yes," she answered in an extremely low voice.

"I take it this is not good," he said very casually, as he began to spread out his spirit sense. It was strange. The surrounding plants were technically alive, but they lacked… soul.

"No, Lex. This is not good. This is phenomenal!"

Mary appeared in front of him, her entire figure exuding a sense of excitement.

"You're in a time bubble! Lex, the rarest, most valuable resources in the entire universe exist in time bubbles! The 721 hours is not just the time limit to stop the anomaly, but it's also your countdown for how many valuable things you can get your hands on. Once the time bubble is resolved, those treasures will also disappear."

"The system doesn't seem to share your excitement," Lex commented.

"Of course not. It's scared. Even Dao Lords can die in time bubbles, let alone a system."

"In that case, why don't we try to identify the anomaly before we go looking for treasures, huh?"

Truth be told, Lex might have panicked as well if his instincts were not so clearly telling him where to go. It was as if every fiber of his being and forsaken every other function, other than to direct Lex to move in a certain direction. It was as if even his body sensed the extreme threat that this place posed on him.

"Isn't there an easy loophole for stuff like this?" Lex asked. "After all, someone could just send a clone in here. If it died, their main body outside the time bubble could still survive."

"You wish," Mary said, scoffing. "You think time is a joke? There is a reason why no one alive, regardless of their cultivation realm, tries to do anything funny with time. Its destruction is absolute. In fact, there are some people who say Death was born in an attempt to mimic the destruction wrought by time."

"Death was… born? What does that mean?"

Mary was silent for a moment, before she hesitantly said, "I'm not exactly sure. It's just something I've heard. You better not focus too much on it. If you ever become a Dao Lord, you can begin looking into it."

Lex got the distinct feeling that Mary was not revealing everything she knew, but this was not exactly the best time to get distracted.

Within the range of his spirit sense Lex discovered thousands of other contestants, all below the Earth Immortal realm. It seemed like there was a cultivation level limit to enter the Temple of Frozen Dawn.

Lex flew into the sky to get a good look at his surroundings, and saw an expansive forest that seemed to extend to eternity. He focused in on the direction his instincts were guiding him, and saw a distant hill, too far to make out the details.

Lex tried to see if he could teleport, but his spatial abilities weren't working, so he began flying at full speed in that direction.

"Lex, to be entirely honest, although time bubbles are very dangerous, they're not necessarily difficult to resolve. Just be sure to avoid time fractures and you'll be fine. But if you see any treasures radiating an aura of time, any treasures at all, don't hesitate to grab them. I guarantee that these are not things you will ever find outside of a time bubble. You have to absorb them on the spot."

"Let me guess, you want me to grab some for you as well."

Mary smiled sheepishly.

"Look if you come across some, and you're unable to absorb all of it in time, and decide to spare some for me, I'd be eternally grateful."

Mary looked at him lovingly, and Lex was reminded of the fact that her current appearance was selected because he used to have a crush on this character as a child. This was unfair emotional blackmail - not that Lex knew of any kind of fair emotional blackmail. But still.

"We'll see what happens. For now, let's focus on the anomaly. If everything in here is dead, I don't expect to face any kind of danger."

As soon as he said that, Mary facepalmed. Even she knew by now what flags were, and of Lex's consistent habit of raising the wrong ones.