The days following the Awakening Ceremony proved harder than Ye Chen had anticipated.
Not because of recriminations from his family—his father, Ye Haoran, though taciturn by nature, never uttered a single word of blame. His mother, Lin Wanqing, only redoubled her gentleness, as if trying to use love to compensate for the injustice the world had dealt her son.
The true difficulty came from outside.
"Did you hear? That Ye kid awakened a useless attribute."
"Space-Time? What kind of nonsense is that? Never heard of it."
"Tsk. Ye Haoran was once the pride of Qingshi City, and now his son turns out to be useless. How the mighty have fallen."
These words followed Ye Chen like shadows, clinging to him wherever he went. They echoed through the market, whispered in the alleyways, even murmured on the stone steps outside his own home. Children made faces at him when they passed. His peers looked at him with undisguised contempt.
But Ye Chen didn't care.
Or rather, what he cared about was entirely different from what these people imagined.
In the dim light of early dawn, Ye Chen slipped out of the house. Without telling anyone, he headed alone toward the outskirts of the city.
Behind Qingshi City lay a nameless barren mountain, a jumble of jagged rocks where few people ever ventured. This was exactly what Ye Chen wanted—a place with no distractions, a place where he could quietly study his so-called "useless attribute."
The mountain path was rough and steep, and his six-year-old body struggled with every step. But Ye Chen gritted his teeth and climbed on. Sweat soaked through his clothes; his knees were scraped and bleeding. He paid no attention.
After about an hour of walking, he stopped at a hidden valley. Surrounded on three sides by cliffs, with only a narrow crevice connecting it to the outside world, the valley would remain undiscovered by anyone not deliberately seeking it.
"This is it."
Gasping for breath, Ye Chen looked around. The valley was small but flat, its floor carpeted with thick layers of fallen leaves. In one corner stood a gnarled old tree, and at its roots lay a spring, water seeping from between the rocks with a gentle tinkling sound.
He sat down beneath the tree and closed his eyes, reaching back into the knowledge of his past life.
In the framework of quantum physics, time and space were not independent entities but interwoven into a four-dimensional spacetime continuum. Einstein's general theory of relativity showed that mass curved spacetime, and that curvature was the essence of gravity. If he could control spacetime, in theory he could control gravity, inertia, even…
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves." Ye Chen shook his head, pushing the wild thoughts aside for now.
Right now, he was far too weak. The awakening test had shown that his total Lingyuan reserves were barely a tenth of what an ordinary child possessed. With this meager amount of spiritual power, even maintaining "Time Perception" for one second was a struggle.
"So the priority is increasing my Lingyuan reserves."
But here lay the problem. The cultivation methods of this world were all designed around the nine basic attributes—Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth, Wind, Thunder, Light, Dark. Each had its corresponding techniques and disciplines. The Space-Time attribute, unprecedented, meant there were no existing methods he could follow.
"Then I'll create my own."
Ye Chen opened his eyes, his gaze resolute.
In his previous life, he had achieved success in physics by starting from scratch. Now, he was merely changing fields.
He began experimenting.
Step one was understanding exactly how his Lingyuan worked.
Closing his eyes, he sank his consciousness inward as he had during the Awakening Ceremony. Slowly, he began to "see"—deep within his body, a faint, nearly transparent substance flowed sluggishly. It had no fixed form, sometimes a wisp of mist, sometimes a stream, winding its way through him.
This was his Lingyuan.
Ye Chen tried to touch it with his consciousness. Startled, the mist contracted sharply, then slowly relaxed, as if testing his intentions.
"Don't be afraid," Ye Chen murmured silently, softening his mental approach.
Perhaps sensing his goodwill, the mist no longer retreated but slowly drifted toward his consciousness. At the moment of contact, he felt a strange resonance—as if something within him was awakening.
He opened his eyes again.
This time, the world looked completely different.
He could see the specks of dust floating in the air, each one spinning slowly in the sunlight. He could see an ant crawling up the distant rock face, every movement of its six legs crystal clear. He could even "feel" the wind—not through his skin, but through some inexplicable sense, directly perceiving the currents of air flowing around him.
"Is this… Spatial Perception?"
Ye Chen was stunned.
Earlier, he had only developed Time Perception, which sharpened his reaction speed. Now, he discovered a new ability—perception of the space around him.
He could "see" what was behind him without turning his head, knew exactly how many patches of moss grew on the rock face at his back. He could "sense" every hollow and protrusion of the valley, as if the entire space was opening itself to him.
"Time and space truly are connected."
A surge of joy welled up in Ye Chen. But it was quickly followed by a wave of dizziness. His vision blurred, his ears rang, and his whole body felt drained. He slumped weakly against the old tree.
His Lingyuan was exhausted.
He panted heavily, sweat streaming down his forehead like beads from a broken string. The sensation was like running a marathon—every limb screaming with fatigue.
"Only… a few seconds?" Ye Chen smiled wryly.
He roughly estimated that the fully activated perception state had lasted maybe five seconds. Five seconds had drained every bit of Lingyuan he had accumulated over several days.
"Too weak." He gritted his teeth. "I have to find a way to increase my reserves."
But how?
Leaning against the tree, he rested and thought. Then an idea flashed through his mind—in quantum physics, a vacuum was not empty but filled with virtual particle pairs. These pairs continuously popped into existence and annihilated, releasing energy. If he could use his Lingyuan to capture that energy…
"Worth a try."
Once his strength recovered somewhat, Ye Chen closed his eyes again.
This time, instead of rushing to activate his Lingyuan, he tried to make his consciousness "quieter." He imagined his awareness as a calm lake, not actively disturbing anything, simply "existing."
Time passed.
At first, nothing happened. But Ye Chen was in no hurry. In his previous life, experiments sometimes required months of waiting for a single useful data point. Patience was something he had.
He didn't know how long passed—maybe an hour, maybe more—before he finally sensed it.
An incredibly faint, almost imperceptible fluctuation. Like ripples spreading across a lake's surface, like echoes reverberating through the air. These fluctuations came from all directions, born from emptiness, vanishing in an instant.
"Virtual particles…" Ye Chen's heart stirred. "This world has them too!"
Carefully, he reached out with his consciousness to touch the fluctuations. But each time, before he could get close, they vanished. Like trying to grasp smoke—no matter how fast you moved, it slipped through your fingers.
Once, twice, ten times, twenty times…