My Servant System

"What do you know about Time and Space Magic?

Lilith's ever present smile was gone now as she asked that, the Demoness looking at each of us before focusing on Leone as she answered first, the Vampire raised a hand and offered "The only known Time Mage - at least as far as the Empire is aware of - was Saturna Vera, and she deduced that the walls of the Labyrinthian were older than practically all other landmasses inside of the Empire."

"Correct... what about the magics themselves though? Any ideas besides the obvious?"

"You mean besides Time Magic has something to do with warping the flow of time itself while Space Magic warps reality to either increase or decrease the distance between things? No, we don't really know much more about them because, simply put, they are at the point of becoming theoretical in nature due to their impossible rarity."

The black Demoness chuckled at Jahi's reply, before she turned towards Mom as she said "Not only are they statistically impossible at this point, but all records of Saturna Vera are shrouded in mystery and many don't even know if she actually existed at all. A quirk of her magic, potentially, or a story made up from well over two thousand years ago.", which made Lilith chuckle some more.

"Saturna Vera did - in fact - exist, and not only did she exist, but I can tell you that she existed and that her magic was very real. Fascinating doesn't describe it, and no one besides her understands what Time Magic really is, but~!"

Drumming her fingers on the table, Lilith gave us a new smile, one fueled by immense amusement and an abundance of expectation as she said "We do still know something about Time Magic. As 'impossible' as it sounds, it is actually capable of stopping or accelerating the flow of time, and on top of that it is possible to 'reverse' time as well. It stops aging, but it also can send someone back in time."

The others were more shocked than I was, since it was a concept I was all too familiar with from the media of my old world, so I wasn't that surprised to hear that yet another world had something similar to it, but still... it was quite the thing to hear, and on top of that I was very intrigued on where this was going.

"Do you also recall that other report from so long ago that someone might have seen a Time Crystal deep inside of the Labyrinthian? Guarded by one of those gigantic and very powerful monsters? Turns out that Time Crystal was just the tip of this 'iceberg'."

"If you're about to tell me that you haven't actually been here for years I might just have to hit you, Lilith."

The Demon Wolf was just laughed at as Lilith shook her head and replied "I've been here for decades, Fenyras. Not just decades of 'our' time, but decades of altered time as well. See, the reason this city is so damn fascinating is that it is trapped inside of a bubble of slowed time. For us, it trickles by as usual; a second is still a second, but outside?"

Even as we all scrambled to our feet at that, even as I rushed outside as her earlier question about the sky began to make sense, Lilith just kept speaking, undisturbed by this revelation and not as amused as she normally was.

"A second here is like a minute out there; a minute becomes an hour, an hour turns into two and a half days... time snowballs inside of this city in ways that seem impossible. And that's not even the best part."

We had been in here for a few minutes already, and as I looked up at the sky I saw that the sun had shifted immensely up above, moving far too quickly now that I noticed this discrepancy in time.

When I rushed back inside, I stared at Lilith and saw the Demoness nodding to herself as she said "We won't be affected by this; we can always leave the premises of the city to escape this effect. It only seems to work from the outermost building inwards, so if we make our way back out we can return to 'normal'.

However, there is something inside of the city that is fascinating. The closer to the center of this city that you go, the more warped time becomes, and the more it begins to actually affect... everything. You, the world, magic... everything."

Looking at her hand, the Demoness nodded again before giving us a small smile as she added "It can strengthen and weaken in equal measures. A second in the right spot can give you a year's supply of mana to work with, for free. A second in the wrong spot ages you a year. But that's not even the most interesting thing I found."

She got up and stepped out of the building, pointing towards the center of the city and directing our attention not towards the road, but towards the other buildings that we could see, specifically their doors; now that we were looking closely, now that we were searching for something different, there was so much more to see.
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On each door were symbols, and they shifted at random whenever we looked away; each door was covered in a complex sequence of runes that formed magical sentences - not magic itself, not spells or incantations, but strings of runes that told a story.

"'Four cores come together to extract large power'... 'Two cores collide to create one stronger power'... each of these doors are like... trials..?"

"That's what I was requiring from all of you. All of these doors are some kind of task, some kind of trial, and a majority of them require two, three, or four people; there are some that are five, six, seven or eight, but those are few and far between, just like the ones that need a single person.

I've tried two of these 'trials', and that... that is why you are all here. The things inside of these trials are incredible, but the risks... The two I tried sent me into parts of the Labyrinthian in different periods of time, and the things that were there... This wasn't the only civilization present within these walls."