173: Chapter 173 The World, The World Stops!

"It is time to award the Philosopher's Stone."

Su Bai's voice wasn't loud.

However, the arena's newly recovered commotion seemed to have been pressed with a pause button once again by these words.

Countless spectators still maintained their cheering postures, the excitement on their faces had yet to dissipate, yet their gazes had already involuntarily fallen into the Empress's hands.

A teacup had suddenly appeared there.

The cup lid was slightly tilted, and the clear tea soup reflected the golden light spilling from the dome without stirring a single ripple.

The Empress looked down at the teacup.

She was very certain that three breaths ago, this cup was still placed on the jade table beside her.

She was also very certain that she had never reached out to take it.

As a Ninth-Order powerhouse standing at the pinnacle of the Dragon Nation, her Mental Power field shrouded the entire arena at all times, making it difficult for any spatial fluctuations, mana changes, or even the budding of killing intent to escape her perception.

Yet at that very instant just now, she saw nothing at all.

There was no Space Folding.

There were no afterimages.

There were no airflow changes caused by high-speed movement.

Su Bai was as if he had never left his seat.

Yet the teacup had already quietly landed in the palm of her hand.

"Just now..."

The Empress raised her eyes, unmasked astonishment surfacing within her golden pupils for the first time.

"Did the time in the arena stop?"

This sentence spread across the entire venue through the amplification array.

The audience seats that had just quieted down instantly exploded.

"Time Stop?!"

"Her Majesty said it herself, could that still be fake?"

"Su Bai was sitting in the VIP seats just now, how did he send the teacup over?"

"Wait, didn't he just advance to the Third Order?"

"Now Third-Order Card Creators can pause the time of Ninth-Order powerhouses? Did I miss some version update?"

The bullet comments scrolled across the live broadcast screen at a near-frantic speed.

Some people frantically replayed the recording from just now, some slowed the playback speed down to one ten-thousandth, and some technicians directly called upon the raw data of thousands of drones hovering above the arena.

The results were all the same.

In the previous frame, the teacup was still on the jade table.

In the next frame, the teacup had already appeared in the Empress's hand.

There was no process in between at all.

Even the tournament array specially used to capture spatial displacement only popped up a line of confusing prompts.

[No spatial movement trajectory detected.]

[No high-speed motion trajectory detected.]

[An extremely brief blank exists in the detection record.]

[Reason for blank: Unknown.]

Seeing the last line, the expressions of the high-order powerhouses inside the arena all changed.

Ordinary spectators couldn't understand what this meant, but they were very clear.

The tournament array had not failed to record Su Bai's actions.

It hadn't even been able to complete the act of recording it itself.

"To think it is actually the Law of Time..."

The Purple-Robed Chief muttered to himself, his line of sight moving back and forth between Su Bai and Qin Ye.

Qin Ye was still standing in the center of the Purgatory Arena, the [World] behind her had faded, yet it still retained a trace of soul-stirring Mental Power fluctuations.

During the match just now, Qin Ye relied precisely on this ability to evade the Empress's Scorching Sun in the Palm and swept through thirty-four National Competition prodigies within eighteen seconds.

Now, the exact same ability appeared on Su Bai.

"Critical Refund, is it?"

Zhao Dahai lowered his voice, looking at Su Bai with a complex expression.

"The card you made allowed Qin Ye to awaken Time Stop, and then you took Time Stop back?"

"Pretty much."

Su Bai sat back down properly, answering quite casually.

As if what he inherited just now wasn't the Law of Time sufficient to rewrite combat rules, but merely casually taking back a lent pen from Qin Ye.

Zhao Dahai opened his mouth.

In the end, he silently moved half a step to the side.

"What are you dodging for?" Su Bai asked.

"I'm thinking, before offending you in the future, should I first check if my mouth has been stuffed with a grenade."

"Rest assured."

Su Bai patted his shoulder.

"When that time truly arrives, it'll be too late for you to check."

Zhao Dahai: "..."

Lin Xiao endured for half a day, but still couldn't help laughing out loud.

On the other side of the VIP seats, Li Qingyue did not participate in the casual chat of a few people.

Her cold and detached eyes lingered constantly on Su Bai, her brow slightly knitted.

She sensed the lingering Mental Power fluctuations.

That fluctuation was extremely similar to when Qin Ye used [World]; pure, tyrannical, directly touching the timeline from the soul level without any traces of traditional spell formulas operating.

More importantly, she did not sense the aura of the Hourglass of Causality.

Su Bai had also mastered Time Stop previously.

That power originated from the Magical Girl System, and when activated, it had to pass through the soul gem and the Hourglass of Causality to intercept a small segment of time from the normal timeline.

Yet just now, there was no hourglass rotating.

There were no mana circuits.

Not even the wish power fluctuations unique to the Magical Girl System.

Su Bai directly used Mental Power to make the world stop operating.

Li Qingyue quickly came to a conclusion that even she herself felt was preposterous.

Su Bai inherited Qin Ye's Stand ability.

To be precise, the moment the Stand System gained the world's recognition, he possessed his own [World].

Thinking of this, Li Qingyue gently took a breath.

She could of course inquire in public.

The Empress would also inevitably give her enough time to check Su Bai's soul state.

Yet in the end, she said nothing at all.

Every Card Creator had their own secrets, and the fact that Su Bai could trust her and hand over the core design of the Stand System for her to view was already enough.

As a master, what she should do was guard the secret for her disciple.

As for how to ask after returning, that was another matter.

Li Qingyue decided to prepare a table of dishes that Su Bai liked tonight.

If Su Bai still refused to confess honestly, she would take away the dessert.

Thinking of this highly deterrent punishment, Li Qingyue nodded with satisfaction.

The Empress did not know that the spacetime supreme beside her had already arranged the interrogation plan for after dinner.

She put the teacup back onto the jade table, her gaze lingering on Su Bai for several breaths before suddenly laughing.

"What a World: Time Stop."

"Beloved Subject Su, the surprises you have given Us today already exceed the National Competition of the past ten years combined."

"Your Majesty flatters me."

Su Bai revealed a polite smile.

"So, the Philosopher's Stone?"

The corner of the Empress's eye twitched slightly.

This person really wasn't prepared to say even a bit more polite nonsense.

When others received her praise, they wished they could write a ten-thousand-word memorial of gratitude on the spot.

Look at Su Bai instead.

Opening his mouth is the Philosopher's Stone, closing his mouth is still the Philosopher's Stone, terrified that she, the Dragon Nation Empress, would renege on the National Competition champion's reward.

"Since We have promised, naturally We will not go back on Our word."

The Empress raised her right hand.

The nine golden dragons of national fortune originally circling above the arena simultaneously let out long roars.

The dragon roars were not piercing, yet they penetrated the layers of barriers of the arena and spread across the entire imperial capital.

The next moment, nine pillars of light soaring into the sky lit up from the direction of the imperial city.

Within every pillar of light, countless tiny golden characters rotated and ascended. Those characters recorded the Dragon Nation's wars, sacrifices, glory, and heritage of several hundred years, every single character bearing the heavy national fortune.

The nine golden dragons left the sky above the arena and respectively plunged into the nine pillars of light.

Boom!

The earth of the imperial capital trembled slightly.

A golden array covering the entire imperial city slowly materialized. The array was composed of nine nested concentric rings, and on each ring stood an ancient guardian condensed from national fortune.

The first layer of the seal opened.

Golden chains traversed the sky.

The second layer of the seal opened.

Phantoms of rivers and mountains stretching for ten thousand miles surfaced above the imperial city.

The third layer, the fourth layer, the fifth layer...

As the seals were unlocked layer by layer, the air inside the arena became increasingly heavy, and many low-order professionals even produced an urge to kneel and worship.

By the time the eighth layer of the seal opened, the Ninth-Order powerhouses in the VIP seats also sat up straight one after another.

They had already sensed an indescribable aura.

That aura did not have a strong sense of oppression, nor did it possess any obvious attributes, yet it caused the laws within everyone's bodies to simultaneously produce a faint vibration.

As if something older than space-time, elements, and causality was slowly opening its eyes.

"The Nine-Layer National Fortune Seal..."

Qi Yuan gazed toward the direction of the imperial city with a solemn expression.

"To think the Dragon Nation actually sent the national treasure fragment to the arena."

"It is only a projection channel." Li Qingyue softly corrected.

"The Philosopher's Stone's main body is still in the National Treasure Secret Realm. Her Majesty is using the nine layers of national fortune as a bridge to guide a portion of its power here."

Qi Yuan nodded.

This was already astonishing enough.

The Philosopher's Stone was related to the foundational law reserves of the Dragon Nation, and normally even Ninth-Order powerhouses did not have the qualification to see it casually.

For Su Bai, the Empress actually opened the national treasure projection channel during a nationwide broadcast.

The ninth golden dragon plunged into the final ring.

Snap.

An extremely crisp cracking sound rang out between heaven and earth.

A slender golden crack unfolded from the sky above the arena.