The light of the violet crystal had fused with his blood to form a life lamp. After doing some study, Xu Qing was convinced the life lamp’s ability had something to do with time itself. However, he still wasn’t absolutely certain of the details. The soul-protecting properties of the black umbrella had not gone away just because he melted that life lamp. They still existed. As a matter of fact, those properties had improved compared to before.11

And the time indicated on the sundial seemed to be fourteen hours off real world time. Xu Qing didn’t know what mystery was contained in that difference, not even after putting a lot of thought into it.11

Over the seven days he had spent studying the new life lamp, he’d attempted to speed up the sundial. But it was impossible to get the ball of light, which of course contained a nascent soul, to either speed up, slow down, or stop. The sundial was obviously part of him, but at the same time, acted independently. In fact, even when Xu Qing took control of the nascent soul, for instance by taking it away from the sundial, the ball of light would...1