I reign supreme in the Western fantasy world for eternity.

Ji Tian walked towards the core of the sect's grand formation, intending to improve it. As he walked, his nascent soul divine sense spread silently like ripples, instantly enveloping the entire sect.

The red dragon was lying in its new nest, its tail tip curling around the reverse scale as it examined it repeatedly; in the Spirit Spring Cave, the silver patterns on the dragon egg flickered; in the open space behind the mountain, Jenny squatted beside the silverback bear, feeding it spirit fruit, while Shirley strode over carrying three broken pine trees, humming an off-key tune.

Inside the library, Ophelia softly explained the essentials of the basic techniques to Lilith and her group. Mason took out paper and pen and quickly took notes. Alice, who had sneaked in to do something naughty, was grabbed by her second senior sister and thrown out.

Feeling the vibrant life and flourishing of all things within the sect, Ji Tian nodded in satisfaction.

At the same time, he stepped onto the stone platform at the core of the formation. The formation patterns under his feet lit up for a moment like ripples on water before falling silent again.

This "Primordial Five Elements Formation" was set up when he was in the middle stage of the Golden Core realm. It is based on the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, with the five elements generating each other and forming a self-circulating cycle. In this world, it can be considered a top-notch protective formation.

From his current perspective as a Nascent Soul cultivator, it was rough everywhere: the runes were too shallow, the spiritual energy nodes were not evenly distributed, and most importantly, the various restrictions that lacked intelligent recognition had also blocked him.

Ji Tian shook his head and sighed, "I was too young back then, and I didn't think things through enough."

Just like when you write code for the first time, as long as it runs, who cares about coupling?

He sat down cross-legged, his divine sense surging into the depths of the array patterns like a tidal wave.

Having undergone the tempering of the Heavenly Tribulation, the divine sense of the Nascent Soul stage is now far stronger than before. The rune paths that used to require meticulous analysis can now be fully understood with a single thought.

He saw the trajectory of spiritual energy flowing through the array patterns, the tiny blockages at the nodes where the five elements interacted, and the "dead knots" he had forcibly created with magic back then.

"In this place, the conversion efficiency of fire into earth is reduced by half a percent. No wonder the temperature and humidity in the spirit herb garden in the back mountain are always wrong, and the mushrooms keep dying." He muttered to himself, and with a flick of his finger in the void, a blade formed from spiritual energy precisely cut into the array pattern, severing the twisted loop and then reconnecting it.

The array pattern lit up briefly and emitted a "ding" sound unique to the Wind Spirit Moon Shadow Sect.

He then looked at another place, where there were space-jumping restriction runes. The idea was good, to prevent external enemies from teleporting in, but in practice, it often ended up protecting himself, ultimately resulting in a poor execution.

"A formation is not something so inconvenient. Change it for me." Ji Tian stretched out his finger, gently touched the runes, and then re-engraved them.

The new restriction logic has become "intelligent": the auras of sect disciples and guest elders are entered into a whitelist, allowing them to enter and exit freely; outsiders are completely blocked.

He also added a "rebound" effect to the barrier—if any foolish person tries to teleport in, they will be bounced hundreds of miles away, in a random position.

"If the message gets to the wasteland, he's lucky; if it gets to the crater, he's unlucky," Ji Tian nodded in satisfaction.

The optimization of the formation took almost half an hour. When he straightened up, the operating efficiency of the entire "Hun Yuan Five Elements Formation" had increased by at least 30%, and the throughput of spiritual energy had doubled. Even the red dragon poked its head out of its nest, sniffed the air in confusion, and muttered, "Why does it feel like the magic element has suddenly become more concentrated?" But no one around responded.

Still not satisfied after doing all that, Ji Tian took out the storage ring that Mason had given him, which he had been studying repeatedly, from his sleeve.

The ring turned in my palm, gleaming warmly in the moonlight.

His divine sense probed into it, heading straight for the magical pattern that "reduces the flow of time".

"Spatial anchoring, stabilization and reinforcement, elemental isolation... these are all routine operations, and he learned them after a period of research. But the 'flow of time' is the essence of the entire ring."

His fingertips traced the surface of the ring, sensing the fluctuations of the laws contained within the magical patterns. "The ability to influence the flow of time indicates that the creator has already touched the threshold of the 'Law of Time.' Although it only reduces the flow of time within a specific space, it's still considered top-tier in this world."

He closed his eyes, his consciousness like a delicate scalpel, dissecting the runes of the time array piece by piece, preparing to use them as a guide to perform time magic.

In his previous life, he had a special fondness for "the path of time" in online novels.

Which of those great supernatural powers that can reverse life and death and turn back time is not the ultimate manifestation of the laws of time?

He wrote poems about the passing of time and pondered the meaning of "the arising and ceasing of things in the palm of one's hand," but this was the first time he had truly touched the texture of time.

In his view, time is essentially a kind of "order." Everything has its own order of existence. From the past to the present, from the present to the future, this is the "order." And changing time is changing this order.

He took out the white robe, which was smeared with Lilith's tears and snot, from his Purple Mansion space. It was a gift from Elena, and it would be a pity to throw it away.

"Let's start with the simplest thing. We won't reverse time, nor will we speed it up—we'll just 'rewind' the state of a piece of clothing."

He spread his white robes on the stone platform, made a hand seal with his right hand, and held the storage ring in his left hand, stimulating the fluctuations of the time array within the ring.

A very faint, almost transparent ripple emanated from the ring and slowly covered the white robe.

The folds of the white robe began to smooth out, and the traces of tears and ashes gradually faded from the fabric, as if an invisible hand was wiping them away.

Ji Tian kept a close eye on the process, not daring to relax for a moment.

He discovered that the difficulty of time travel, besides the enormous consumption of spiritual energy, also lay in "location." He needed to find the most suitable state before it from the historical projection; otherwise, time might flow backward, turning clothes back into a ball of cotton thread, or even back to when it didn't exist.

The wrinkles on the white dress disappeared at a speed visible to the naked eye, the stains were extracted from the fibers and turned into fine dust that drifted away, and the fabric was restored to the way it was when Elena first gave it to her: white, crisp, and with a faint fragrance.

Ji Tian picked up the white robe, unfolded it, and looked at it.

"Not bad, you succeeded on your first try." He smiled slightly. "By doing this, we could try to see if we can revert a person's state to the point of 'the return of the three energies'."

He paused, then shook his head.

"No. Inanimate objects and living objects are two different things. Clothes don't have 'memory,' but people do. Forcibly rewinding someone's state can easily erase their memories and experiences if you're not careful. It should only be attempted as a last resort."

He folded the white robe neatly and stored it in his Purple Mansion space.

"However, if it's just to revert the appearance of a piece of clothing, that would be incredibly useful... it just does consume a bit of spiritual energy."

With his mind at ease, he stood up and took one last look at the core of the great formation.

The array patterns flowed slowly under the moonlight, and spiritual energy breathed in and out like breathing. In the distance, the disciples' residences were dimly lit, and occasionally laughter could be heard.

"The grand formation is complete, and we've even grasped the basics of time manipulation." Ji Tian stood with his hands behind his back, gazing at the gradually brightening eastern horizon. "Next, it's time to prepare a training plan for our new disciples."

He stepped down from the stone platform and walked towards the main hall.

After taking a few steps, he stopped again.

Oh right, Sherry is going to spar with Alex tomorrow, I need to give him some defensive buffs beforehand... no, I should just watch from the sidelines.