Chapter 106: Haha, Suckers! This Old Man Has Cheats

A Madman’s Guide to Traveling the World

Miles Anthony was the only officer in the Royal Military who had never personally killed anyone, and also the only major general who had never physically punished his subordinates.

Yet he was known as the most terrifying major general in the army, the one every soldier feared the most.

Without exception.

The reason was simple.

Being punished by other officers might bring pain, exhaustion, or even a suffering so intense you'd want to die.

But he was different.

Under his punishment, even wanting to die was impossible.

Once dragged into this mental space, you were trapped in a state where you couldn't live and couldn't die.

No fatigue, no pain, no hunger...

It seemed almost pleasant on the surface, but over time, it would drive anyone completely insane.

Humans need stimulation to live. In an environment utterly devoid of stimulation, no one could endure.

In this contest of endurance, Miles didn't believe he would lose.

Before joining the military and becoming a major general, he had been an ascetic monk in the church.

Day after day, year after year, repeating the same monotonous routines had become his daily life.

He had even obtained a Law Mark called "Ascetic" from this experience.

This granted him a level of patience that normal humans could never imagine.

It also gave him an extraordinary ability: during meditation, his subjective experience of time was only one-tenth of the actual time passing.

Meditating for a day or two at a time was merely something that required a brief recovery period, even during his one-Law-Mark stage.

That was equivalent to a normal person meditating continuously for nearly a month.

During his ascetic practice, his energy consumption was greatly reduced. Even meditating for over a month wouldn't kill him from thirst, hunger, or holding his breath.

This ability wasn't particularly useful on its own, but when combined with the ability he created after becoming a Law Contemplator, it became unimaginably powerful.

He could endure loneliness and solitude that ordinary people couldn't fathom. After dragging an enemy's spirit into his mental space, he could ruthlessly make them experience ten times the suffering he himself endured.

This contest was unfair from the start.

But this was a life-and-death battle; fairness was never required.

In this world without fatigue or hunger, his longest record since becoming a Law Contemplator was meditating continuously for over five years.

During that time, he simply sat in a chair, completely motionless.

He remembered that he had also dragged an enemy into this space back then. He began meditating, completely ignoring the enemy who wanted to kill him at the time. When he finally couldn't hold on and opened his eyes, the enemy had already completely broken down and lost consciousness.

Therefore, he had great confidence in his ability.

Especially since his opponent now was a Law Seeker of [Absurdity], notorious for "never being able to sit still."

He was vaguely eager to see how long Samuel could hold out.

But...

...

White. Pure white. There was almost nothing in this completely white space.

Even the chair beneath Miles was an off-white color.

Miles sat in the chair, eyes closed, expression relaxed, breathing steady. He looked like he was sleeping.

But he wasn't.

If you looked closely, you could see his eyeballs twitching beneath his eyelids. If you listened carefully, you could hear his breathing growing heavy.

*I just need to endure a little longer...*

These words echoed repeatedly in his mind.

He could barely maintain his meditative state anymore.

His current appearance was vastly different from when he first entered this space with Samuel.

His originally handsome, upright face had become like a shriveled old man's. Even his body had changed from its former muscular build to skin and bones.

This was the world of the spirit. Changes in spiritual will would be reflected in the external appearances of the two people inside.

Like this Miles, whose current appearance was that of a withered husk.

Yet he continued to hold on, because he was certain that victory was just around the corner.

A long time had passed. So long that he himself couldn't remember exactly how long.

Samuel always kept the back of the clock facing him. He couldn't see the clock's face, couldn't read the time.

He vaguely remembered that on the first day here, Samuel initially sat or lay down, changing positions every few minutes, looking restless.

This was no surprise to Miles. He had seen this too many times.

Soon, Samuel used his ability to create a rectangular, glowing machine.

The machine was facing away from him, so he couldn't see what was on it.

He only remembered that Samuel sat in front of the machine for days on end.

There was no fatigue, no pain. Even sitting cross-legged for days wouldn't make your legs go numb.

At first, he didn't care. After all, people brought here weren't stripped of their extraordinary abilities. Finding ways to pass the time was common.

So he waited patiently, closing his eyes to meditate.

This meditation lasted a year.

A year later, he opened his eyes.

He saw Samuel seemingly trying to alleviate his inner torment through exercise, as if seeking stimulation through physical activity.

Samuel had created some machines Miles had never seen before, turning a small area around him into a gym.

But Miles merely stood up calmly, stretched his body, and eased the fatigue in his mind.

Although his body wouldn't tire, his mind would.

In this mental world, he could also create simple objects.

But there was no need.

Excessive pursuit of stimulation would only bring greater emptiness afterward.

It was better to empty his mind and focus on ascetic practice.

He created some bland-tasting food and a bottle of water, just as a psychological suggestion to himself.

After a brief rest, he entered his second meditation.

This time, he meditated longer—nearly three years.

It had been a long time since he last used this ability. In the meantime, he had grown quite a bit.

When he opened his eyes, he found Samuel apparently trying to get as far away from him as possible, moving in the opposite direction, going forward, onward.

Indeed, Samuel couldn't approach Miles, but he could keep moving away.

Over these two-plus years, Samuel had walked an unknown distance.

If it weren't for the fact that this was the mental world of both Miles and Samuel, Miles wouldn't have been able to see Samuel, who had been walking for over two years in the distance.

But because it was a mental world, the moment Miles ended his meditation, Samuel noticed immediately.

So he turned back and took two steps toward Miles.

Those two steps nullified all the effort of the past two years.

With just two steps, he returned to the starting point and saw the computer and clock he had left there.

Miles's lips twitched slightly, curving upward in a small arc.

He loved seeing the expressions on people he dragged here when they realized that walking a vast distance only to have it all reset with a few steps.

Many people broke down at that moment.

His emotions had become somewhat blunted from long-term ascetic practice, but he sincerely hoped to see a look of utter collapse on Samuel's face.

Unfortunately, he didn't.

Samuel didn't scream in pain, didn't throw a tantrum, and didn't try to hurt himself.

"Ah, I should have just driven. Wasted all that time walking," Samuel said casually.

Miles felt Samuel was putting on an act, pretending.

After all, he could clearly see Samuel's "body trembling."

This pleased him somewhat.

He didn't think Samuel was acting.

He had seen too many similar reactions, almost identical to what Samuel was showing.

For him, it had been less than five months of meditation. But for Samuel, it was four years of torture.

He didn't bother responding to Samuel, who was trying to strike up a conversation. Feeling better, he closed his eyes again.

This time, he broke his own record, surpassing five years.

It had been a long time since he'd last used this ability... He had grown too...

But he didn't bother counting exactly how much longer.

However, when he opened his eyes, he saw Samuel looking completely calm.

Nearly ten years, and Samuel was utterly composed.

The "body trembling" he had shown earlier was gone.

This caught Miles off guard for a moment. He began to wonder if Samuel had gone mad.

But no.

Samuel showed no pain, no madness, no despair.

This made Miles's heart start to stir with a bit of impatience.

For the first time, his appearance in this space changed slightly.

Some wrinkles appeared on his face, but he quickly smoothed them away.

Then came the fourth time, the fifth time, the sixth time...

He entered meditation again and again, came out again and again.

Each time he emerged, he saw Samuel, looking unchanged, even greeting him.

The expression, the movements...

It was as if they had only been apart for a few minutes!

This made Miles's mind increasingly hard to calm.

He continued meditating. Seventh time, eighth time, ninth time, tenth time...

Each meditation session was shorter than the last, harder to settle into.

The shortest time, he barely managed less than a month of silence. That was equivalent to just sitting quietly for three days.

For a Gem-level Law Contemplator with the "Ascetic" Law Mark, he couldn't even endure three days of sitting still!

This might not even match some ordinary ascetics.

When he opened his eyes for the tenth time, Miles already looked ancient and frail.

But this time, he got a pleasant surprise.

He saw Samuel collapsed on the ground, his body slightly melting.

This was the world of the spirit. Changes in spirit would be reflected in the appearance.

This meant Samuel was close to breaking down.

This filled Miles with immense joy.

It instantly rejuvenated his spiritual body by decades.

In his next meditation, perhaps because his state of mind had achieved a breakthrough, he meditated for a full ten years.

Then came one attempt after another, one adjustment of mindset after another.

He stopped focusing on Samuel and began pursuing his own breakthrough.

Once... once... and once again...

This time, he didn't know which number of time he was opening his eyes.

He had long stopped actively counting time.

He only knew that a very, very long time had passed, so long that time itself had lost meaning.

By now, he was as withered as a mummy, his spirit on the verge of drying up.

At that moment, a sound came from this space, like the flow of wet cement.

It came from Samuel.

At some point, Samuel had completely lost his human shape.

Miles leaned back in his chair, his body trembling, barely able to move.

He looked at Samuel, looking at the mass of writhing, tentacled flesh that Samuel had become.

But according to the feedback from this mental space, he knew very well that Samuel hadn't broken down yet.

He watched as Samuel's tentacle reached out to the side, grabbing the clock that was nearby.

"How long has it been?"

A part of Samuel's flesh-like body opened like a mouth, emitting Samuel's own voice.

"It's been decades..." Miles replied to Samuel, somewhat generously, though his answer was just a guess.

And it was wrong.

Samuel had specially equipped the clock with a calendar function. From the start of the count, every 24 hours, it would automatically add a day.

Fully automatic, no manual operation needed, to avoid ever forgetting to count and not knowing whether a day had truly passed.

On the clock, the time was clearly displayed.

There were still two hours until 87,640 hours.

That was a full hundred years.

To be honest, Samuel somewhat admired the man before him.

He had sat rigidly in this empty space for ten years, just to drive Samuel insane.

Therefore, Samuel showed him this appearance of being on the verge of collapse, looking like he was about to completely break down.

But...

The fleshy mass that was Samuel squirmed gently. A tentacle extended, turned around, and inserted itself into his body. It stirred a bit, then pulled out a mass of silver-white substance.

Samuel casually smeared it on the ground.

That was his memory.

You're tough to deal with? No problem. I can just keep periodically disposing of the memories I've made since coming here.

Even though he had been trapped here for ten years, Samuel's memories were still stuck less than twenty minutes after his arrival.

Haha, suckers! This old man has cheats!

He had said earlier that this place was far inferior to Ethen's Perpetual Arboretum.

Although he didn't know the exact rules of the Perpetual Arboretum, it definitely wouldn't give Samuel such a loophole to exploit.

He showed this appearance just to trick Miles into maintaining his current domain, to give him a glimmer of hope and stop him from giving up.

Miles seemed to truly believe the dawn of victory was right before his eyes...

Hehe.