Chapter 4

As soon as Shi Yan thought his family could no longer see him, his figure began to blur and within seconds he was outside of the city gates. This was due to a combination of the speed that Shi Yan had built up over the past years of training and his time and space power.

As soon as he was far enough away Shi Yan quickly took out the diamond box and examined it. It was a beautiful prismatic black diamond box made of pure diamonds. It had a set of golden runes surrounding the whole structure; the runes seemed to suppress the power of whatever was inside the box and prevent it from going out of control and also hiding its presence.

The longer Shi Yan stared at the box the closer he felt to it. These feelings were not coming directly from himself but instead from the bracelets on his arm. He could feel their excitement and it felt as if they were reuniting with a long lost relative.

Shi Yan quickly opened the box and a bright light that seemed to take up the entire space appeared. When the light died down a beautiful small square cut white gem appeared floating in front of him. The longer he looked at the gem the closer he felt to it. It felt as if he was in a trance as he reached out his hand to touch the gem. As soon as his hand was about to come in contact with the gem, there was a flash and suddenly the gem moved faster than the speed of light and entered the white bracelet on his hand.

Shi Yan's body suddenly froze and he felt as if time completely stopped moving. A series of questions then appeared in Shi Yan's mind, questions that he never thought about asking.

"What is time?"

"Does it really exist or is it just a figment of our imaginations?"

"Is time a construct?"

"Is it something that was made to bind us to this world to this reality?"

A vision then appeared in front of his eyes and he could see as the time of many persons were sacrificed to create the weapons he had on his hand, he could see as a whole world and its inhabitants were sacrificed just to make a small part of this weapon, he could see a great war and how the gems were scattered across the different dimensions. Before he could see the exact locations of the scattered gems the vision ended.

"So other worlds exist, I feel as if my life just got a whole lot more troublesome"

"What is this strange feeling?"

Shi Yan felt as if he became a bit more powerful as if he gained a new power but could not tell what it was. He slowly opened his eyes and looked around then he suddenly exclaimed in surprise.

"Time, I can feel time"

Shi Yan quickly ran up to a large tree close to him and placed his hand on the dark bark of the tree. As he placed his hand on the tree he felt its time, it felt as if he could control it with little effort on his part, he could either reverse it or push it forward. He slowly began to guide the time within the tree to reverse.

As he guided time the tree began to regress in age, it moved from a large tree to a sapling within a matter of five minutes.

"I wonder how far I can push it forward"

As Shi Yan started to push time forward the tree became a large tree again but Shi Yan did not stop. He continued to send time into the tree until it became so large and tall that it would take about five grown men to form a circle around it. Shi Yan quickly stopped and removed his hand from the tree to check how much life force he lost.

"It takes a thousand units of life force to age a living thing by a thousand years and the same to reverse its time, at a rate of one second per year. I can only store about ten thousand units of life force in this body"

"I can kill a normal human in one to one hundred and thirty seconds depending on their age and circumstance with the only disadvantage being that I need direct contact for it to be effective."

"So this is the type of power I can expect in the future. With all the gems gathered there is no doubt that I can defeat the gods and probably even travel through time itself."

"I'll have to depend on luck to find the other gems"

"Let's start heading to the Yajju forest for some training I need to get stronger"

"First let's take back my time"

…

The power levels of persons within the Ketsueki continent were divided into six realms, beginner, intermediate, expert, king, saint and emperor which were then further subdivided into levels from one to three stars.

The Yajju forest was the largest forest within the Ketsueki continent, it took up about a quarter of the entire continent by itself and was a haven for beast hunters. It was divided into five parts, the outer forest, outer middle, the inner forest, the inner middle and the forest core.

The outer section of the beast forest was suitable for persons from one to three star beginners, the outer middle for one to three star intermediate, the inner forest for one to three star experts, while the inner middle section was more suitable for persons from one to three star kings. There was no one who would dare even think about entering the core unless it was a squadron consisting of 150 saints led by a half step emperor or an emperor level warrior for that was where all the powerful beasts gathered.

Majority of the persons within the Ketsueki continent had the element of blood and beasts within the Yajju forest had very powerful bloodlines. If someone who had the element of blood was able to encounter a beast with a powerful bloodline and absorbed its source blood they would be able to gain a huge boost in power.

Even if a person was not able to get the source blood of the beast they would still be able to sell the parts and blood core from the beast for a very high price.

"Sigh, where there is profit to be made there will be people"

Shi Yan stood outside the gates of a small town that was located right beside the Yajju forest. A lot of persons could be seen entering and exiting the town. The town had no name and was just a place that a group of merchants built up over time. There were many facilities located in the small town such as a smithy, restaurants, inns, brothels and many more.

"I should enter the forest first and then come back later to this town to sell beast parts"

Shi Yan lightly stepped on the ground and within a few seconds he was in the outer area of the Yajju forest.

Within minutes he encountered his first beast. It was an agility type beast called a Felinious. It seemed to be a part of the feline family and had a dark red coat of fur. Most beasts within the Ketsueki continent had this sort of colored fur.

"Should I kill him quickly or play around with him for a little while"

The beast did not wait for Shi Yan to finish his train of thought before it pounced on him. The beast saw Shi Yan as an easy meal and did not think that he would be able to retaliate.

"Is this beast looking down on me, is it stupid"

Shi Yan looked directly into the beast' eye and released a tiny amount of the resentment that he had for the gods.

The feline that was in mid air suddenly fell flat onto the ground all its fur stood on end and it wanted to get away as quickly as possible, but even before it was able to move its head exploded, splashing brain matter and blood all over the trees in the forest.

This beast was equivalent to the power level of a three star beginner and was not able to handle the small amount of resentment that Shi Yan released.

"This is what happens to the weak."

"If you don't have strength you will always be trampled and looked down on by others."

"This is the reason that I need to become stronger. Strong enough that even the gods would fear me."

While he was thinking of becoming stronger Shi Yan felt as if someone was looking at him. The stare quickly left as soon as it appeared.

"Help!" suddenly the cry of a woman echoed through the forest.

Slowly a wicked, blood chilling smile that would even make the bravest man shiver began to appear on Shi Yan's face.

"Ha-ha let's watch this play out"

Shi Yan slowly walked to the direction where he heard the scream. When he arrived at the scene he saw four men trying to take advantage of a beautiful young lady. The four men were all at the three star intermediate level.

Seeing this scene Shi Yan slowly drew his sword and quickly appeared behind one of the men he swung his sword and a head flew into the air with blood spraying from the neck.

The whole forest suddenly became quiet.

"You dare to kill our fourth brother, you are dead!" exclaimed the other three men.

Shi Yan only took a single glance at them and then sheathed his sword. As soon as his sword was in its sheath three heads fell onto the floor.

The woman froze looking at the dead bodies around her. Everything flashed by so quickly she had no idea what had happened all she knew was that one second Shi Yan was behind the fourth brother and in the next second they were all dead.

She slowly began to walk towards Shi Yan.

"Thank you for your help great sir, I would have been taken advantage of if it wasn't for you"

In just a few moments the lady was in front of Shi Yan with her hands behind her back and bowing in gratitude.

Suddenly...…..