"Shopkeeper Sylvester's guidance—I will engrave it in my heart."
Inside the trash can shop, after carefully pondering Sylvester's words, Jade decided that unless she encountered a major obstacle, she would not use the ability known as [Word Magic (Show me the money)].
Yet even after choosing to impose self-restraint, Jade could not help but marvel at the might of this Word Magic.
She pinched her refined, fair chin and mused, "It's not as if Word Magic have never appeared in the cosmos. For example, not long ago, the Stellaron Hunters who guided the Astral Express to the Xianzhou Luofu—among them, that woman named Kafka—possessed an ability called [Spirit Whisper] that could manipulate hearts as if playing with puppets. That alone was already a fearsome ability."
After saying this, she smiled and shook her head. "But compared to this purple Curio before us, it's simply child's play. The influence range of [Word Magic (Show me the money)] reaches deep into the cosmos, and it even carries the power to wipe out civilizations. It's truly mesmerizing."
Hearing this, Sylvester merely smiled faintly. "That counts as something?"
He waved his hand dismissively and said, "This Word Magic may have decent effects, but in its place of origin, it doesn't even rank."
One sentence stirred up a thousand waves.
Jade was utterly shocked by these words and immediately asked, "There are even stronger Word Magics?"
In her view, the ability she had obtained was already absurdly powerful—direct control over wealth itself. Could it really get stronger than that?
The others present were equally shaken.
Feixiao's ears twitched as she focused intently, waiting for Sylvester's enlightenment.
Jingliu, Aventurine, and Topaz & Numby remained silent, but the slight straightening of their postures revealed their attitudes.
Sylvester swept his gaze across the group and chuckled softly. "Of course there are. Tell me—what inventor of an art would make acquiring wealth their strongest ability, while setting aside techniques of slaughter? And how could the source of this purple Curio be any different? This is merely that dragon's plaything."
"That makes sense!"
Everyone suddenly realized the truth.
To supreme powerhouses, what was money? Combat strength was what truly mattered.
They had been so awed by the power of [Word Magic (Show me the money)] that they had forgotten this point entirely.
But if a Word Magic capable of targeting the entire universe could only be considered low-grade, then just how powerful would the truly top-level Word Magic be?
Could it be that with nothing more than a few words, one could destroy celestial bodies—or directly cause death?
That would be far too arbitrary… far too terrifying.
"That dragon?"
Amid her shock, Feixiao caught onto a particular term.
She said, "A dragon who invented this Word Magic? Then could its place of origin be similar to the Xianzhou—somewhere dragons and humans coexist?"
In response to her question, Sylvester rubbed his chin and smiled. "Yes—and no."
"It is indeed a world where humans and dragons coexist. But they did not live in harmony. On the contrary, they were utterly incompatible, like fire and water."
"The dragon race once enslaved the humans of that world. And what they relied on—aside from their physical might—was the Word Magic art invented by the sole emperor of that dragon race: the Black Dragon named Nidhogg."
"This…" Feixiao was momentarily at a loss for words. This was completely different from what she had imagined.
If dragons were replaced with the Vidyadhara, such talk on the Xianzhou would certainly be deemed separatist rhetoric. One would be sent straight into a deluxe cell of the Shackling Prison, set for life—three meals a day included, white rice guaranteed.
Jade, however, after a brief sigh of reflection, did not particularly care about the fate of that planet's humans.
After all, the IPC's Market Development Department far outnumbered those dragon beasts. The number of planets they plundered and enslaved was no less than those developed by the Strategic Investment Department.
What was foreign invasion, really? Human-on-human cruelty was far more brutal.
Casting these stray thoughts aside, she pressed on. "Then what exactly are the truly powerful Word Magic like?"
Hearing this, Sylvester took a sip of tea to moisten his throat.
He began to explain the authority of the dragon race at length. "Nidhogg etched the source of Word Magics directly into the genes of dragons. As a result, generally speaking, only dragons and half-dragons possess the ability to use Word Magics. And the purer the bloodline, the stronger the Word Magic."
"And Nidhogg's Word Magic system coincidentally overlaps with the periodic table of elements. At present, there are 121 confirmed Sequence Word Magics. As for playthings like [Word Magic (Show me the money)], as well as the supreme authorities of the Dragon Kings, they fall outside the sequences. But that doesn't mean the Sequence Word Magics are weak."
Sylvester's gaze swept across the group, seeing the near-overflowing thirst in their eyes. He continued, "For example, Sequence 84—Time Zero. Even in the cosmos, this is an extremely rare ability to manipulate time. When activated, it constructs a domain centered on the user. Within that domain, the flow of time slows down—and only within the user's perception is time slowed."
"If cultivated to its utmost limit, freely toying with time would hardly be anything unexpected."
His words were not idle boasting. In its original world, Time Zero fell far short of this level, and Dragon Emperor Nidhogg's combat power was also nowhere near that of an Emanator.
But how could something that came out of a Curio Trash Can be so simple?
Just like [Word Magic (Show me the money)], all such items undergo universal adaptability enhancement!
Credits are, after all, a universal currency. If this Word Magic were in its original version, how could it possibly affect them? At most, it might influence a few dollars.
"Freely toying with time? That's… a bit too fantastical, isn't it?"
Although Sylvester would not lie in theory, Jade could not help but cry out in shock.
Holding it in any longer was unbearable.
Because abilities that could influence time were simply too rare.
Before Sylvester opened his shop, one would have to reach at least an Aeon-level existence.
One was the already-suspected-dead Finality, Terminus, and the other was the Aeon of The Hunt worshiped by the Xianzhou—Lan. Even THEY were still unimaginably far from toying with time.
And beyond that, the only thing in the cosmos ever known to affect time was the [Zafkiel's Sixth Bullet - Vav], which had ended up in the hands of the first trash can opener, Fu Xuan of the Xianzhou Luofu.
Aside from that, there had been no further rumors of anything related to time.
Ever since humanity entered the steam age, they had been pondering the invention of time machines. With the advent of relativity, it was once believed that the theoretical gaps had finally been filled.
But to this day, such things remained nothing more than illusory dreams.
Moreover, once time could be toyed with, could that really be considered a good thing for the universe?
A faction that controlled such power could alter an "imperfect" past at will, like loading a game save. And opposing factions would inevitably revise things in response.
When both sides could no longer endure it and each traveled back to the other's weakest moment to erase them outright—what would happen then?
The entire universe would likely fall into causal ripples brought about by time paradoxes.
And before that, would the Aeon of Equilibrium, HooH, intervene first—or would Finality be directly summoned? That was impossible to predict.
But still…
If such a thing were truly placed before one's eyes, who would refuse it?
Jade asked herself honestly—she absolutely could not withstand such temptation.
Faintly, she found herself genuinely beginning to look forward to the day she would see it.
She just didn't know whether that day was infinitely far away—
Or right before her eyes.
===BREAK===
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