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"Where did you hear these terms from?" Zicomo asked.

“Among those books you bought me to help me understand the world,” Lani replied.

Okay, he said he had no recollection of it; those books were all kept in Lani's room, and he had never read them.

However, Lani reminded Zicomo that he might be able to learn some scientific knowledge to broaden his thinking on developing the power of time.

After all, Einstein said that the end of science is theology.

"By the way, I haven't asked you why you came to see me," Zicomo asked Lani.

“I want to experience the magic of time,” Lani said.

Her tone was still the same as usual, but Zicomo sensed something was wrong.

When he acquired other powers before, Lani never seemed interested in them. Moreover, among them was the most mysterious power in the borderlands—the power of predetermined death.

Zicomo quickly realized what Lani was thinking.

She's trying to grow taller quickly by taking advantage of time!

Hermione's height has reached nearly 165cm due to her frequent use of the "Zen Garden" to read. The little witch is actually quite bothered; she seems to be growing too tall for her age.

Lani was unaware of Hermione's thoughts, otherwise she might have given her a beating.

Ever since Hermione's rapid growth spurt, she's been hiding in the "Zen Garden" all day, trying to grow taller than Hermione as quickly as possible. But Hermione is still unhappy about growing so fast! Is that even human?

In Zicomo's "Zen Garden," time flows at a rate of only a little over a hundred times, roughly equivalent to three days outside and a year inside.

Lani was provoked by Hermione at the beginning of the year, which gave her a strong desire to grow taller. Even though she spent every day in the "Zen Garden," only fifty or sixty years had passed there.

This also needs to take into account the time she spent with Zikomo outside, so this time needs to be halved.

Over thirty years, Lani, a goddess, only grew one centimeter in height, barely reaching 156cm.

So after hearing that Zicomo had mastered the power of time, she came up with the idea of ​​having Zicomo help her accelerate her growth.

“How would you like to experience this?” Zicomo asked.

"How about using your time power on me directly?" Lani blurted out without thinking.

Her goal was exactly as Zicomo had expected.

Zicomo sighed. The Moon Princess who dared to openly admit her involvement in the Night of Conspiracy had now learned to beat around the bush.

“Sure, how about turning back time like we did just now?” Zicomo teased.

Hearing Zicomo's teasing words, Lani knew perfectly well that Zicomo had seen through her intentions.

Seeing that her purpose had been exposed, Lani's embarrassment lasted only a moment before she said frankly, "I think it's better to accelerate time. It can increase my strength and speed up my growth."

Seeing this, Zicomo stopped teasing her and began to accelerate time for her.

The power of time enveloped Lani, accelerating at an average rate of about fifty years per half minute, and Lani's height was also slowly increasing.

After about seven or eight minutes, Zicomo estimated that Lani's height had grown to about 170cm, so he slowly withdrew his time manipulation.

Lani closed her eyes to feel the increase in power within her body, then opened them to look at Zicomo.

Zicomo knew what she meant and took out a full-length mirror as tall as a person and placed it in front of her.

Lani looked at her height in the mirror and nodded in satisfaction.

Although she is still half a head shorter than Zicomo, she is taller than Hermione, which is enough.

"How are you feeling?" Zicomo asked.

“Great power is more wondrous than the power of death,” Lani remarked.

Lani had personally experienced the power of death, but in her view, the power of time was far more wondrous than the power of death.

The power of death only erodes the human body and takes away human life.

The power of time can do the same thing, and even in more ways.

It can accelerate a person's time, causing them to age and die quickly, or it can reverse a person's time, even taking them back to before they were born.

Moreover, the power of time has more than just the use of killing; it has other applications as well. From a practical standpoint, the power of time is far superior to the power of death.

Just then, Hermione came to ask Zicomo for information about the Time-Turner, and that's when she saw Lani, who had grown taller.

After some questioning, she learned that Zicomo had used the power of time to accelerate Lani's growth.

Chapter 173 The Long-Lived Divine Being, Li Xuanjian Comes to the Door

Hermione was overjoyed to learn that Zicomo had mastered the abilities of time acceleration and time reversal.

It wasn't that she wanted to grow taller; quite the opposite, Hermione wanted to be shorter.

Using the "Zen Garden" not only helped her quickly accumulate knowledge, but also accelerated her growth.

Although the lifespan loss would only be a brief two years, Hermione still cared a great deal about it.

So she wants to restore her physical lifespan to the state it was two years ago.

Hermione shared her thoughts, and Lani and Zicomo reacted with different expressions after hearing them.

Lani couldn't quite understand Hermione's thought process; she was desperately trying to grow taller and dreamed about it constantly.

Hermione, on the other hand, had the opposite idea and actually wanted to be shorter.

Zicomo was equally surprised that Hermione would have such a thought. However, he couldn't help but understand, since women at any stage of life are always concerned about their age.

Hermione isn't like him and Lani, who are long-lived deities with long lifespans, so naturally she wouldn't care about those two years of her lifespan.

However, Zicomo did not agree with Hermione's idea.

For Zicomo, he couldn't wait for the fruit he had nurtured to ripen. He was already grateful he hadn't used ripening agents; how could he possibly allow the fruit to regress in its growth?

Therefore, Zicomo decisively rejected Hermione.

“I’m sorry, Hermione, I’m not very proficient with the power of time yet. I can’t control it so precisely if I’m just going to go back two years,” Zicomo said.

Zicomo's words were half true and half false. He could not yet control time precisely, but he could control it down to the year.

Upon hearing this, the little witch huffed and puffed out, "Then why can Lani grow up faster?"

“Lani is not purely human in the strict sense. Her lifespan is very long and her growth rate is very slow. So I only need to roughly control the acceleration of time. Don’t be fooled by the fact that she has grown more than ten centimeters taller. In fact, it has consumed more than seven hundred years of her lifespan.”

Since we've already come this far, Zicomo simply explained his own situation as well: "My situation is similar to Lani's, except that I can accelerate my growth by absorbing various special energies, which is why you see me suddenly growing taller every now and then."

Hermione stared in disbelief, she never imagined that she would have two long-lived beings by her side, one of whom was her closest cousin.

"So, you're actually magical creatures?" Hermione asked.

She did indeed learn from books that some magical creatures have extremely long lifespans.

Zicomo rolled his eyes speechlessly. "Fantastic creatures my foot! We're gods! We're beings that have broken through some kind of limit and successfully transformed."

Zicomo gave a brief introduction to the concept of the divine being.

The little witch stuck out her tongue shyly, then looked at Zicomo with bright eyes and asked, "Do you think I can break through to the realm of a god?"

Although Hermione knew that with Zicomo around, she didn't need to worry about her lifespan, being a god-like being didn't just mean longevity! It also represented immense power.

The reason why she was always easily defeated by Lani whenever she challenged her to a duel was because Lani was a god-like being with immense power.

Hermione is also a very competitive person. If it's not for anything else, she wants to become a god just to be able to defeat Lani once.

Zicomo thought about it for a moment, and it seemed that he really could create a god-like being, and not just in one way.

The simplest way would be for him to go to the borderlands, kill two demigods, turn them into magic crystals, and then use them to create a god-like body for Hermione.

However, this approach has some minor drawbacks. The final step is to integrate Hermione's soul into the body of the god-man. The soul energy contained in the magic crystal will enhance Hermione's soul to adapt it to the god-man's body.

This process is akin to a spiritual transformation, and it takes an extremely long time.

Moreover, those who become geniuses through this method are destined to have limited potential.

Moreover, it seems that there are no more gods or demigods left in the border region that Zicomo has killed; the only ones left are Marlenia and the goddess Marika from the Golden Tree.

Therefore, Zicomo was mainly considering the second method, which was to first use runes to maximize Hermione's own attributes, and then find a way to help her break through.

When Melina first entered the royal city of Rodel, before she and Zikomo parted ways, she gave Zikomo the method to transform runes into power.

This means converting runes, which represent experience points, into attribute points.

Since Zikomo became a god, the runes he obtained in the borderlands have become useless to him. He has now accumulated a large amount of runes, but that is still far from enough.

The highest level in the Elden Ring game is 713, and reaching that level requires at least 17 billion runes. Following a normal playthrough, you'll only reach around level 200 at most.

Therefore, Zicomo cannot help Hermione reach her limit in a short period of time using this method.

However, Zicomo had an idea in mind: when he entered the Golden Tree, he would take out some of the runes inside.

As we all know, the power of the borderlands is closely related to runes, and the so-called return to the tree is actually a process in which the golden tree reclaims runes and recovers power.

Therefore, Zicomo was certain that the Golden Tree contained a vast amount of runes. Perhaps he could even use these runes to create a god-like being.

Hermione was somewhat disappointed upon learning that she couldn't become a god in the short term. However, she wasn't too discouraged, because Zicomo promised her that he would use his time-manipulation powers to keep her in her eighteen-year-old state once she came of age.

In reality, it was about repeatedly rewinding time to rewind her physical condition. Sure enough, compared to improving her strength, Hermione was more concerned about her age.

…………

A few days later, Li Xuanjian and his junior brother paid a visit.