Chapter 326 Congrats! You can BS starting today!

[T- MANIFEST: TECET]

"!!!" After the mother said this chant, Alex, who was about to unleash a new attack, froze as he felt his body not responding to his commands.

"What?"

Alex tried in vain to move his body, but it did not work. His body stayed still in place, as if they were suddenly frozen!

"I... I can’t move my body at all!" Alex thought to himself urgently as he inspected his body.

To his shock and worry, he found out that it was not only his body that stopped moving.

Even all the inorganic objects inside Alex’s body, like air, water, and dirt all stopped moving too. They were not moving at all, as if there was some kind of force restricting them to move!

In face of this scene, all that Alex could do was to grit his teeth, as he frantically thought o a way to free himself.

"This woman... she just said the spell words that a Chronomancer uses. What did she say again? Right, its [T-MANIFEST: TECET]." Alex thought to himself as he felt that even his thoughts were staring to slow down now.

"TECET is a musical term which means silence in Latin. If I apply that meaning here, [T-MANIFEST: TECET] is most likely a spell that silences time!" Alex exclaimed as his forced himself to stay conscious.

"A spell that silences time... Isn’t that just similar to stopping time?" As he reached this line of thought, Alex eyes glinted as he realized what was happening

"So my opponent just froze my time. That’s was why I can’t move my body anymore. Its time was just frozen." Alex thought with an imaginary sigh. "As for my consciousness, it is still working now, as my consciousness was strengthened numerous times already. However, I can feel that my consciousness is starting to slow down too..."

After he reached this conclusion, Alex’s mind sparked as he realized what was going on.

"This woman... her goal on using this spell is to stop the entirety of me." Alex thought as he resisted the continuous deceleration of this consciousness. "She almost succeeded, as my body was already frozen. But my consciousness is still working, so I still have a chance to free myself!"

"Boom!" With this reassuring discovery that he had, Alex did not waste any more time as he activated an ability which he can still use right now.

"Skriong!"

The entirety of Alex’s Mental Power inside his brain got drained to its lowest levels, as Alex used his Esper Ability at its strongest form.

"Hong hong hong!"

Countless amounts of gravity waves appeared all around Alex, which then proceeded to smother the area around him with powerful gravity.

"Dong dong dong!"

With Alex using almost all of his Mental Power, the gravity created by his latest attack was of improbably levels.

"Hong hong hong!"

While this was happening, Alex made sure that all the gravity waves pressing down on his body disappeared, leaving him almost weightless.

He also only strengthened the gravity around him, and not on his body itself.

This created a massive gravitational difference between Alex’s body and his surroundings.

Right now, Alex’s body was not experiencing any kind of gravity. But as for his surroundings, they are now assaulted by a gravitational force that even Alex does not dare to approach!

And Alex’s opponent was inside this gravity area too!

"Hohoho... you are using gravity against time. That means that you have knowledge about the relationship between time and gravity..." The mother, who was unaffected by the gravity, said as she gave Alex an interested look.

"Hmph, for my current situation, I can only rely on using gravitational time dilation effect to escape." Alex thought to himself as he waited for his gamble to work. "It’s not like I can do anything here..."

With Alex’s interest in science, there is no way that he can just ignore one of Albert Einstein’s greatest works, which was the Theory of General Relativity.

It was this theory that gave Alex many ideas for his Gravitational Manipulation Power, and he used one of these ideas to break himself out today!

This idea was the concept of Gravitational Time Dilation.

According to the calculations in the theory, a person who was inside a weak gravitational area will experience a faster time compared to a person who was inside a strong gravitational area!

The reverse applies too, with the person inside a strong gravitational area having a slower time compared to a person inside a weak gravitational area.

This concept deftly explains why atomic clocks was slightly slower on the ground compared to the sky. After all, the gravity on the ground was stronger compared to the sky itself.

Not only that, but this also explains why time near a black hole was slower compared to a normal place. The gravity all around the black hole warps space-time so much that time is almost infinitesimally slow there.

Now, Alex used this very concept to free himself from this time stop.

By using his gravitational power, Alex removed all kinds of gravity on his body, while strengthening the gravity on his surroundings.

This created two gravitational areas.

First was the weak gravitational area, where Alex’s body was currently in.

Second was the strong gravitational area, where the mother’s body was currently in.

With the principle of gravitational time dilation, Alex’s current move has created a situation where his time was supposed to get faster, while the time on the mother was supposed to get slower!

Alex hopes that this kind of scenario will free him from his current dilemma!

After all, by making his time faster and the mother’s time slower, there is a chance that he can allow this time-stopped body to regain some of its time!

"Hah! Please work already!" Alex thought to himself as he waited for his gamble to work.

"..."

A few more seconds passed by, which burned more and more of Alex’s remaining Mental Power.

"Hey! Work already!"

Fortunately for Alex, his all-or-nothing approach actually worked.

"Dum dum! Dum dum!"

Alex’s heart, which was frozen stiff earlier, started to beat again, although it was at an extremely slow rate.

Not only that, but every part of Alex’s body twitched as they slowly regained their ability to move!

From the looks of it, his approach to escape actually worked!

"Hahaha! How about that woman? Didn’t you see it? I broke your spell!" Alex thought to himself smugly as the restrictive power on his body started to disappear.

"Impressive. I thought that your mind will succumb under my time-stop spell. But you managed to make a comeback by creating a time dilation scenario. I applaud your effort for that." The mother said as she did nothing as Alex continued to recover. "You just showed me your decisiveness to use all of your power should the situation demand so. That kind of decisiveness is hard to find, and yet here I look at a person with that kind of mindset... Ha, I must be really lucky today!"

The mother seemed to be extremely delighted with what had happened, which was evident from an approving smile on her face.

"...."

As for Alex himself, he seemed to be not that worried for himself anymore as he only stared at the mother with a curious look.

There was no more fear or anger on Alex’s eyes, as he seemed to be genuinely curious right now.

At this point in time, although Alex was still wary of the mother, he was not as tense compared to before.

After all, the four moves that the woman just used on him made Alex realize one thing.

And that is that the mother was not intent of killing Alex!

She was just testing him with those four moves of hers!

Yes, it might sound ridiculous, but Alex’s emotion sense, which he was now using on the mother, told him that this was the case.

Of course Alex could have used his emotion sense to see that the woman was not intent on killing him earlier, but Alex neglected on using it earlier, as he was more focused on defending against a possible attack.

"So that was why my danger sense did not sense the first attack of this woman." Alex thought to himself as he remembered the first attack of the mother. "That first move of hers... it was not intended to damage me. She just used it... to observe my reaction."

Of course it was not only the first move that was like this.

The second move, although it looked like it was about to make Alex faint, was actually used in its weakened version, which allowed Alex to break free from it.

As for the third move, it only affected the [Will of Extreme Annihilation]. It did not even affect any part of Alex’s body.

As for the fourth and final move, it was the most dangerous move used on Alex.

But even with that, Alex realized that the mother still went easy on him.

"This woman could have done different things to prevent me from breaking free from the time-stop." Alex thought to himself as he clenched his fists. "But even with those chances, she did nothing to interrupt me. She... she just let me break free by myself."

Once he had reached this line of thought, Alex’s eyes narrowed as suspicion returned in his mind.

"If this woman was not intent on killing me, and she was only interested on testing me, then what was she testing me for?" Alex thought to himself as he watched the mother with narrowed eyes. "She said that those four moves of hers were her interview questions... These interview questions... what are they for? Are they questions for a kind of job that I can be hired for?"

Alex’s confusion must have been visible on his face, as the mother started to answer his unspoken questions.

"Alex, you must have been curious on why I did those things. Surely you are itching to know why I made you go through those moves." The mother said as she and Alex started to descend back to the ground.

"Of course I am curious. After all, I just found out that the Great TimeMaster was just testing me." Alex replied as he crossed his arms. "For someone as powerful as you, doing something like this is... intriguing."

"The Great TimeMaster? Please don’t call me like that. I am just a simple mother for today." The mother replied as she let out a light giggle. "I just brought my daughter to the restaurant to eat. There’s nothing great about that."

"..." Alex chose to not comment on this ridiculous deflection, as he waited for the mother to tell the truth.

historical

"Oh right, you’re still waiting for my answer." The mother, who saw Alex’s burning curious gaze, shook her head wryly as she straightened her hair. "So, my interview questions were something that I do before I hire a person for an important job."

"An important job?"

"Yes, and you Alex, has the qualifications for this job." The mother said as she started to smile.

Alex was not sure why, but he started to feel unsettled, as if he was about to immerse himself on a sticky situation.

"And I passed your interview questions?"

"Yes, and you did with flying colors." The mother replied as she just continued to smile.

"...So what’s that important job that you are talking about?"

Since he has no way to fight it out right now, Alex has no choice but to hear out the mother.

If he can’t beat the mother in a fight, then he will just use this ’important job’ to find a way to win!

If you can’t beat your enemy head-on, then just beat them with tricks!

"What you will have to do is just simple." The mother slowly said, as if she was relishing each second that she talked. "You just have to babysit my daughter while I was gone."

"B-b-babysit?"

"Yes, you will babysit my cute Annie. Is there any problem with that?"