SSS Ranked Awakening: All My Skills Are at Level 100 Chapter 424: The Tower—7

A detailed progress bar, visible on a transparent screen before him, showed Leon the merging process beginning at 10% and steadily advancing each second.

DING!

[Integration Progress: 15%... 16%... 17%...]

A mild concern surfaced in Leon, fearing his established settlement and meticulously tended farmlands might face destruction or severe damage from this forceful expansion. Despite this worry, he felt genuine relief that the event wasn't truly disastrous or life-threatening.

This expansion appeared to be a beneficial realm upgrade, and he had complete faith in his people's safety—he had equipped them with ample cores and sufficient training for emergencies.

As the progress bar hit 20% and continued its ascent, Leon observed another significant development.

"Have you noticed?" he voiced to Seraphine, his tone laced with concern. "The atmospheric mana density is gradually, but undeniably, thinning."

"Yes, I've noticed it as well, Leon," Seraphine replied, her expression clouding with worry. "This is truly not good. While the dimension's size expansion is theoretically advantageous, it pales in comparison to losing the incredibly rich mana concentration we already possessed. This realm was already vast—we haven't even fully explored it after all this time. This represents a substantial net loss overall."

Leon offered a slow nod, entirely concurring with her precise summation.

"There's nothing we can do now. The process is already underway. I can only hope this tower will somehow compensate for the loss in the long run."

Nevertheless, he felt a genuine sense of relief that the time dilation within the dimension remained unchanged—that thousand-fold acceleration was the most crucial element of this treasure for his exponential advancement.

However, just as the progress bar reached precisely 50% completion—

ALERT!

A new message materialized before him, flashing urgently in red text.

[CRITICAL CONFLICT DETECTED]

[Law of Time Interference Detected in Integration Zone]

[Ascension Tower’s Intrinsic Spatial-Temporal Framework Directly Conflicts with External Time Manipulation]

[Forcefully Removing Law of Time Interference to Complete Successful Integration]

[Master Permission Status: NOT REQUIRED FOR RESOLUTION]

Shit! Shit! SHIT!

Leon’s mind raced in sheer panic.

I don't grasp the technicalities of this message, but the terrifying core meaning is clear—the 1000x time acceleration within this realm is somehow impeding the Ascension Tower's awakening!

And this damned tower is forcibly stripping that fundamental property from my dimensional realm without consent!

No! Absolutely not! I should never have agreed to this! This is far too great a loss!

His Dimensional Hourglass was mythical-ranked; he had foolishly assumed its core properties would remain untouched, especially since the tower was, at best, only legendary-ranked.

Fuck! I was completely wrong!

Seraphine observed Leon's face drain of color, his usually composed features now etched with profound distress and trouble.

"What happened? Why the sudden look of distress?" Her voice resonated with genuine worry.

"That—" Leon’s words choked painfully in his throat. The magnitude of this catastrophic loss was too immense to articulate easily.

Instantly, a fundamental alteration permeated the entire dimensional realm simultaneously.

Every inhabitant, irrespective of their location, sensed the profound shift in the very fabric of reality.

Leon, possessing an incredibly high-ranked time affinity, instantly and precisely recognized that time within the dimension was no longer flowing at the previous 1000x rate compared to the outside world.

However, due to his profound attunement to time at Rank 7, he could ascertain the new acceleration ratio. It hadn't reverted entirely to match the outside world, but it was now only approximately 10 times faster.

Better than a complete loss, yet still an immense reduction.

For him, with his Tome of Eternal Practice—which demanded exceptionally high intelligence stats for effective simulated mental training—this change might not be as utterly devastating as it would be for those like Seraphine and the others living in the dimension who relied wholly on the time acceleration.

Noticing Seraphine's increasingly perplexed and concerned expression, Leon proceeded to meticulously explain the catastrophe that had just unfolded.

Seraphine listened intently and immediately grasped the sheer devastation this loss represented for everyone's cultivation speed. Yet, she stepped forward, embracing him even more tightly than before, offering gentle consolation.

"It’s alright. We’ll figure something out and find another method in the future somehow. Ten times faster is honestly still not bad at all compared to normal cultivation."

She didn’t carry even a single speck of blame in her voice or expression—only the firm resolve to keep moving forward despite whatever obstacles they might face.

"You just have to keep moving forward despite the setbacks you encounter," she told him with conviction. "That’s something I realized long ago when I lost my entire family. I was reminded of it again when I nearly lost my life in the Forbidden Mist. But I never stopped moving forward, no matter what."

Her eyes warmed as she looked in his.

"Isn’t that how I was able to meet you, lovely disciple?"

Hearing her genuinely supportive words, Leon felt considerably better about the situation.

He couldn’t help but lean down and kiss her forehead lovingly, thanking her wordlessly for the emotional support.

While the integration process continued steadily in the background, something else entirely was happening elsewhere in a hidden location...

____

Inside an unknown place deep within the Time Dimension itself.

In the middle of a dimly lit, extraordinarily ornate room, glowing gently with ambient magical illumination. Warm flickering light danced across polished white marble floors, and countless luxurious velvet cushions were scattered artfully around the elegant space.

A figure of absolutely divine beauty sat there in the center—long silver-white hair cascading down her back like a waterfall of moonlight, glowing silver-white mysterious eyes that seemed capable of piercing through the very fabric of reality itself.

Despite her overwhelmingly divine and ethereal appearance, her current actions were completely unrefined, undignified, and totally uncontrolled.

She was currently laughing so hard she’d completely abandoned all sense of decorum or composure.

"AHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

She wore an expensive, fancy, silken cloak draped loosely over her shoulders, underneath which she wore absolutely nothing for some completely inexplicable reason.

Her voice was incredibly loud—she was literally screaming with pure unrestrained joy at the absolute top of her lungs.

"THE SEAL HAS WEAKENED! AHAHAHAHAHA!"

"It’s so much weaker than before! Ahaha—no, wait! It’s not just weaker—it’s exactly one hundred times weaker than it was before!"

"AHAHAHA!"

"My future beast of a master—I think the great me is not actually fated to serve under anyone after all! AHAHAHA!"

She danced around the room in barely contained ecstatic joy, her cloak flowing dramatically.

"In a hundred years—no, no! Even less time than that! Considering I don’t have to constantly use my precious divine energy and law enforcement to maintain this cursed realm binding anymore—the seal is literally a hundred times weaker now!"

"Soon I’ll be able to break out of this ancient imprisonment myself without needing anyone’s help at all!"

She looked gleefully at a silver translucent screen floating in the air before her, watching Leon’s visibly disappointed expression as he realized he’d just lost the incredible time dilation power of his dimension.

"Ahahah! Don’t worry at all, my beastly unintentional savior! I, Xyvarithiel the Everlasting Ephemera, will definitely repay this enormous kindness properly!"

"This measly 1000x time dilation? Hmph! Just you wait and see—I’ll show you what a real, genuine time treasure can actually do!"

"But that’s definitely not enough proper compensation for saving someone as great and magnificent as me, even if it was completely unintentional on your part."

She’d been secretly watching him for an extremely long time through various observation methods. She knew exactly how incredible his natural talent truly was.

"Hmm, if it’s him specifically..."

Her divine face flushed slightly red with embarrassment.

"Yes! I’ll let him have his way with me just once as a special reward! In addition to the incredibly powerful treasure I’m going to give him in the future—that would surely be more than enough compensation for this favor!"

"Hahah! I’m so incredibly generous!"

Her face turned even redder as she spoke those words aloud, vivid memories flooding back of the hundreds of times she’d inadvertently witnessed those extremely intimate moments between him and his so-called wives through her passive observation abilities.

"Yes... just once should definitely be fine as payment..."

She muttered to herself, her divine composure completely shattered by her own embarrassing thoughts.

____