Chapter 1296: The Most Important Thing for a Wizard_3

Using them to define one’s own “temporal coordinates,” then in theory, an individual might be able, within a limited local range, to break free from the influence of the external macroscopic flow of time.

There was a very vivid metaphor in the notes: time is like a great river surging endlessly forward, and most living beings are like fish in the river, able only to drift downstream. The Time Converter is like a small speedboat going against the current, but with limited fuel, and it cannot deviate too far from the main channel.

What Musa wanted to do, however, was to let the fish temporarily leap out of the water and hover in the air, tied with a solid cable to some fixed point on the riverbank, thereby gaining a brief chance to observe the river, and even attempt to move in different directions, without worrying about being swept away by the current.

“Isn’t this just trying to jump beyond the Three Realms and stand outside the Five Elements.” When Ian studied Magic, he would also bring in some theories and sayings from his homeland.

This had provided no small amount of help in his study of Magic.

After all, all things in the world.

Different paths, same destination.

Musa’s idea was clearly extremely similar to a certain Eastern concept; one could almost say it was bold to the point of madness, for that was, after all, to jump beyond the Three Realms and stand outside the Five Elements.

The last existence capable of doing that was an invincible monkey. Aside from this line of thought, Musa had other ideas, another even more outrageous conjecture involving the notion of “time copies” or “branches of possibility.” He hypothesized that every choice might create a briefly existing, parallel branch of the timeline.

The “past” that the Time Converter returns to might not be the genuine, singular history, but rather the “copy” most likely projected based on the user’s cognition and choices.

One of his research goals was how to enter a specific “copy” in a stable way, and carry out larger-scale exploration within it, without triggering a violent collapse of the main timeline.

He even envisioned.

If he could locate the “branch of possibility” created when his wife and child entered that underground project, perhaps he could, without affecting the main timeline, glimpse what happened to them.

And thus bring about change.

In Ian’s eyes, these ideas were without doubt extremely insane and fraught with danger. Detach time perception? A slightest misstep, and the Caster might be completely lost in the chaotic currents of time, becoming an eternal wandering soul. Stabilize a time copy? That involves interfering with the basic structure of reality.

Its consequences are hard to predict even for a Legendary Wizard.

“If you’re not careful, you’ll end up trapped in a so‑called discarded fate, or perhaps what you enter in the first place is precisely that erroneous spacetime and world of destiny I once experienced.”

Ian’s knowledge and experience were both richer than Musa’s.

And yet.

Even so, Ian had to admit that Musa’s theories, though crude, though filled with assumptions, possessed a breadth of thought and a courage unshackled by tradition.

Truly astonishing.

Ian himself had not failed to ponder the deeper mysteries of time.

Dumbledore was the same as Ian; at their level and with their wisdom, they had long since gone beyond the surface of the Time Converter and touched upon certain essences of the Time Rule.

They realized early on that time is indeed not absolute, that it can be “deceived,” or, more accurately, “used” and “negotiated” with. Dumbledore had once cleverly exploited prophecy and the lag of information to arrange his layout upon the chessboard of time. Ian’s own understanding of high‑dimensional Magic also made him understand that, from a higher vantage point, the boundaries between past, present, and future might not be as distinct as mortals perceive.

Yet compared with Musa, the research of the two of them, whether in depth or boldness, seemed not quite so “fanatical,” which in turn indirectly confirmed a Wizard Law Ian had once summarized.

“For Wizards, the most important thing is an imagination that gallops unhindered and defies all convention.”