Chapter 1031 If Not

Dyon's rage blinked away when he heard these two voices, replaced with a pleasantly surprised expression.

His fingers snapped, causing his golden runic flame to appear and illuminate the small cage.

As expected, he immediately found two adorable little hamsters resting on his knees. One had soft white fur with eyes as dark as the depths of space. The other had soft jet-black fur, with eyes of such pure whiteness that they likely would have shone through the dark even without Dyon's flame.

Dyon grinned, tossing his runic flame to hover in the air to leave his hand free to pet the two adorable Celestial Hamsters.

The black furred hamster, Little Yang, puffed his cheeks in mock disapproval, but the glimmer in his eyes betrayed the fact that he quite enjoyed Dyon's care for him. As for Little Yin, she giggled lightly, rubbing her chubby cheeks into Dyon's large hand.

"Why'd you two troublemakers decide to come back?" Dyon asked.

"Big Brother Dyon, I never wanted to leave in the first place! It was this big meanie that made me go."

Dyon laughed. He didn't blame them for leaving at all. In fact, the moment he let them go, he had prepared himself for them to never come back. He just didn't like the idea of them choosing him for such superficial reasons as intelligence.

"Since you wanted to make things hard on yourself, I decided to help you out. It's not my fault you didn't know how to accept a good thing."

Dyon nodded. "Our relationship will be stronger this way." He said seriously.

"Big Brother Dyon, we came back because you proved your character. Willingly taking that beating to save these poor soul slaves is enough."

Dyon smiled lightly. He never expected that something he did on a whim would be the reason they came back, that was unexpected. But, he had no doubt that with their help, this would be much easier. Who could be better to scout out the situation than the unfindable Celestial Hamster?

It had been more than 8 months now since he last saw them, but they didn't change at all.

Little Yang still wasn't in a happy mood. "We almost left when you treated a Holy Princess like that. That was too much."

Dyon shook his head. "If I wasn't strong enough, I would have died. I have no pity for her. Even ten years of punishment is too little for her, even if it was just a mistake."

Little Yin pouted. "You should forgive her soon, Big Brother. Although we didn't know why she was there before, after using our abilities on her statue, we know she was there for an important purpose."

Dyon raised an eyebrow. "Isn't she aware of the rules of the tower? If she attacked a genius, she would have lost her right to remain there and her purpose for staying there all this time would be meaningless. How important could her purpose have been if she so easily gave it up for such a false assumption?"

Of course, Dyon knew what ability Little Yin was referring to. Because of their resonance with time will, they were able to understand the history of inanimate objects by utilizing the historical path of time will. This was the sister path of fortune telling, but obviously, in reverse. It was also much less demanding on a person to utilize.

For example, the Elvin Kingdom's technique to see the future required sacrificing a life. However, using the historical path required no such thing.

Even though Celestial Hamsters were the embodiment of time will and as such weren't held by the same restrictions as other species, they still couldn't recklessly foretell the future or they would pay a price as well, even if it wasn't their life.

This aside, it wasn't a surprise that Little Yin and Yang used their abilities on the statue to understand the situation.

"Wait, you two have been following me this entire time, right?" Dyon suddenly got very excited. But, his heart sunk when he saw them shaking their little chubby heads.

"Big Sister Evangeline told us to not say anything and she has good reason too. It'll hurt you if you know before you're strong enough to know. The good news is, with us, you'll be strong enough to know much sooner!" Little Yin said with a beaming smile.

Dyon frowned in disappointment. "Why can't people understand that I don't care about danger."

"You don't understand." Little Yang intervened. "This isn't what you're thinking. You must think that she has some powerful enemies of some sort and therefore doesn't want you to pursue her? Something along those lines."

"Yes. Isn't that what it is?" Dyon asked in confusion.

"No. That isn't what it is. If you know before you're strong enough, you won't be able to withstand Heaven's Wrath. The truth of this situation is literally out of your reach because you're not strong enough to deal with the implications.

"The only reason why Evangeline can interact with you without worry is because she's powerful enough. She can take on the punishment without giving up anything. And the only reason she could tell us without worry is because we embody time will. But, you're a mere essence gatherer, neither your resonance with the universe nor your personal power is enough.

"If you come to understand too soon, the laws of time will rip you apart because you'll be taken as an accomplice."

"The laws of time?..." Dyon blinked, he suddenly felt a cold sweat on his back. A Law was something only a transcendent could wield…

"It's better that you stay confused. Since you're so unconvinced, you should know that Evangeline isn't a dao formation expert. She's a half-step transcendent."

​ ...

Dyon sighed. "Nevermind then."

He really couldn't understand Evangeline's motives, but the fact she used the Nine Cloud Yang nectar on him was enough to make him believe that she wanted to help him rather than hurt him.

At first, Dyon thought that Evangeline had just stumbled upon the poison, and not knowing its value, used it on him because it was convenient.

Just for perspective, a Planet level spiritual plant had its age calculated in millions of years, sometimes even tens of million. Just the idea of a plant taking that long to mature should make its value obvious.

There was only one category of plant above it on the mortal plane, and that was the Star level spiritual plant. But, those were so rare that they might as well be extinct. For all intents and purposes, the highest level of spiritual plant available to them was of the planet level…

Even Eli who was blessed by the heavens would need tens of thousands of years to nurture a garden of Planet level plants, and that was if and only if he focused on a single kind.

However, when Dyon realized Evangeline's level of array alchemy, he began to question many things. There was no way someone of her level would not understand the value of the Nine Cloud Yang.

"Big brother, big brother." Little Yin's adorable voice woke Dyon from his thoughts. "Form a contract with us!"

Little Yang grunted. "One of the abilities of our Celestial Hamster race is to mitigate the risk of using a time will. If we grow powerful enough, you'll be able to do something no human can do on their own: use time will as the supreme law it's meant to be. However, we're still to young right now. Plus, from what we can see, your understanding of time will is still at the pitiful will level."

Dyon laughed. "I never spent much time on time will because it uses a ridiculous amount of stamina while being nearly useless."

Dyon could still remember the last time he used time will in battle on its own. He had just exited the Demon Sage's legacy world and had to fight 11 geniuses at once. He still cringed when he thought about how much stamina he wasted using time will to slow projectiles shooting toward him. Definitely a waste.

"Of course it's useless to you. If a human wanted to use time will on another human, they'd have to pay a massive price. Time will is wasted on humans because there needs to be a massive power gap for it to be used without side effect." Little Yang explained.

When he heard this, Dyon couldn't help but think of Gin who was currently locked up in the Demon Sage Tower. He had given up his natural talent, reducing his tails from 8 to 7, just to slow Dyon's flow of time of a fraction of a second.