Setsuna spent two weeks studying the book.
Time manipulation, from basic to complex, could be broken down into three levels:
Controlling his own time through acceleration or deceleration,
Manipulating the time of others or the surrounding space,
And finally, the most advanced—large-scale time reversal.
He decided to begin with the basics: self-time acceleration and deceleration.
By using magic or spiritual power to influence his own time, the principle was similar to Kurumi Tokisaki's First Bullet and Second Bullet.
Even though he didn't strictly use magic, converting the Wisdom Cube's output would let him achieve the same result.
"Tohru, come assist me with training!!"
Once he understood the theory, he called the maid dragon to his study.
Since it was dragon-based magic, Tohru naturally knew it.
"Oh? You're learning this?"
After hearing his intentions, the dragon maid scratched her head and tilted her head toward the massive book in front of Setsuna.
She sat cross-legged.
They sat on the floor facing each other.
"I'm not as proficient at time magic as Lucoa... but I should be able to teach you."
Tohru extended her hand and drew a red magic circle in the air.
She pointed to it for reference.
"I'll teach you self-time acceleration first. This spell burns your own time as the cost—but in your case, that shouldn't matter..."
"Memorize the pattern of this circle. Then use your internal energy—magic, spiritual energy, anything—to try and bend and accelerate your personal time."
Setsuna followed the instructions.
Whoosh—
His learning speed was astonishingly fast, and before long, he grasped the essence.
He closed his eyes, focused, gathered a large amount of energy, and followed Tohru's guidance to alter the internal rules of his body.
Crack—
The energy burst outward from within.
Setsuna suddenly felt a strange disorientation, as if he had experienced an eternity—or just a brief instant. His perception of time warped slightly.
When he opened his eyes again—
Whoosh—
Utter stillness.
The world seemed to have slowed down.
Tohru sat in front of him, frozen mid-explanation, one hand resting on her maid skirt, the other pointing to herself.
Her mouth half-open, expression earnest.
Her red eyes still reflected his figure.
"Time stopped? No... not exactly. I've just sped up my perception and reaction speed."
Setsuna turned his head.
In the fish tank on the table, a few tropical fish floated motionless in the water.
But on closer inspection, they were still barely moving their tails.
Looking down through the floor-to-ceiling windows,
everything in the city was slowed to a crawl.
Bulins and lolis on the street, the angels flying in the sky, the shipgirls out on the ocean...
All their movements appeared frozen.
Self-time acceleration drastically boosted reaction speed and reflexes by speeding up one's internal time.
Put simply, one second in the outside world now equaled an hour—or more—for Setsuna.
Of course, without a long enough lifespan, using this technique was tantamount to suicide.
"Oh... this is basically time stop, isn't it?"
Setsuna leaned over to Tohru.
He brushed aside her golden bangs and gently pinched her lovely cheek.
In certain doujinshi and shady videos, this theme was eternally popular.
Stopping—or slowing—time allowed the protagonist to do all sorts of bad things to the heroine.
"Hmm..."
He studied Tohru carefully.
Frozen in time, the dragon maid resembled a lifelike doll—beautiful and vivid in every detail.
From beneath her skirt, Tohru's large tail extended, floating in midair.
"So cute."
Setsuna gently kissed Tohru's forehead, brushed her hair into place, and refrained from taking further liberties.
Then, he sat on the sofa and watched the atomic clock.
22:27:15.
Under the effect of time acceleration, the timer was locked at that exact moment.
"1, 2, 3... 501, 502..."
Setsuna silently counted in his head.
He wanted to determine the exact multiplier of his time acceleration.
"1544, 1545, 1546..."
Time stretched longer than he expected.
This was his first use at full output of self-time acceleration.
The rate of temporal distortion had reached staggering levels.
Finally—
When he reached around 2000, the timer ticked over to 22:27:16.
"Over 2500x acceleration?!"
Setsuna was stunned. Including some adjustment time, he had managed to accelerate his internal time flow by 2500 times!
What did that even mean?
If someone lived constantly under 2500x time acceleration, they would appear to age 2500 times faster.
Living a single day like that would burn through about seven years of lifespan—after just a few days, a young man would become an old geezer.
Thankfully, with ship-human integration, Setsuna's lifespan was virtually infinite.
This skill would be an overwhelming advantage in battle. At over 2000x acceleration, enemy movements would seem like still frames in a movie.
Click—
Setsuna deactivated the time acceleration.
The world came roaring back to life.
Tohru looked around in confusion.
The Setsuna who had been sitting across from her was now lounging on a distant sofa.
"Commander... you learned that pretty fast, huh? Did you calculate your acceleration multiplier?"
The dragon girl quickly grasped what had happened.
"About 2500x."
Setsuna replied.
"Ohh—you're almost at adult dragon level."
Tohru nodded, surprised by his rapid progress.
Then, blushing, she lightly touched her own forehead.
"...Still, Commander, taking advantage of a girl like that isn't very gentlemanly, you know?"
"???"
"Wait, you noticed that?"
Setsuna twitched. He had moved extremely fast.
Logically, at 2000x speed, she shouldn't have been able to detect anything.
"Commander, I'm a dragon. Don't underestimate us. Besides, I was the one who taught you that move."
Tohru wagged her tail and squinted her eyes mischievously.
"If you tried that on Lucoa, who knows how she'd punish you."
"..."
"Punishment, huh..."
Setsuna thought for a moment. That big dragon lady was impossible to read—no one ever knew what she was thinking.
He stepped forward and gave Tohru a hug.
"Well... thank you."
"Ehehe~"
Tohru nuzzled against him and kissed his forehead.
"You should've said so earlier. It's not like I'd say no, hehe~"
"..."
With self-time acceleration mastered,
Next came self-time deceleration.
This ability struck Setsuna as odd—essentially the opposite of acceleration.
Once activated, his internal time slowed by over 2000x, and from the outside, he would appear to be moving in extreme slow motion.
If the previous ability burned through one's lifespan, perhaps time deceleration could extend it?
Like a turtle, he could just find a corner, hunker down, and one of his days would equal years in the outside world.
"Mm..."
"As a beginner, you can only manipulate your own time—so time deceleration isn't super useful yet. Once you expand your range to external space, though, that's when things get exciting."
"At that point, you could slow or even freeze time in an entire area."
Tohru folded her arms and explained.
Step by step, meal by meal.
Setsuna's ability to quickly master time acceleration and deceleration had already surprised her.
Expanding from controlling one's own time to manipulating others' or the environment's would take significantly more effort.
"..."
Setsuna sat on the ground, deep in thought.
He had a hunch this self-time manipulation could be useful in... other ways.
"Wait a sec—Eternal Swnofall and I are one entity, right? So, my time distortion applies to it too?"
"Uh... theoretically, yes."
Tohru scratched her head again. She hadn't encountered this kind of tech-magic hybrid before.
Since Setsuna was fused with the ship, the Eternal Swnofall essentially counted as part of his body.
"Perfect."
"I have a bold idea."
Whoosh—
Setsuna projected the Eternal Swnofall's hull into the night sky.
"If that's the case... then people inside the ship would also experience the effects of the time warp."
"Meaning—we could spend days of fun inside while only a few hours pass outside..."
He instantly opened a communication channel.
"Taihou, Richelieu, Yat Sen, Mio, Belfast, Nagato, and Kurumi—assemble aboard the Eternal Swnofall later tonight. I'll be spending time with all of you."
"Yes, yes—everyone's invited, it's fine!"
"???"
Tohru stared, dumbfounded.
What was this?
Using time magic to host nightly debauchery in his ship?!
At this rate, it didn't matter how big his harem grew. Just increase the time distortion multiplier.
Eternal Swnofall?
Tohru figured they might as well rename the Alliance's flagship to Eternal Lewd Party.
"Wait! Commander!!"
Seeing Setsuna gathering his things to head out, the dragon maid dove at him.
"Take me with you!!!!"
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