The Young Master in the Shadows

Victor looked at Margret’s peaceful face, then slowly began to draw a rune in midair, then dropped some blood on Margret’s forehead, making her sleeping body suddenly tense up and freeze as a weird symbol began to emerge on her forehead.

He was right! Margret's soul was in one of the talismans he used back then. He could feel his connection with her now, it was the same kind of rune he used on Alpha. She had a part of his soul in her.

He didn’t consider it back then, but those soul talismans were created from the souls of other humans, and they must have also returned in time to their original bodies.

Victor sat down quietly and looked at Margaret's pretty face. Thinking about what to do… after thinking for a while he chuckled,

“How long are you planning to pretend to be asleep?” He asked her,

“As long as needed to find out what are you doing…” She had noticed him the moment he drew that wired rune on her making her body feel strange.

“Oh… It’s a simple soul technique, just making sure you are mine.” He said, making her quickly touch her forehead with a frown… There was nothing.

She slowly sat down, covering her body with a light blanket.

“Are you suspecting me because of my behavior today?” She asked, “Because I overreacted when the name Limbo was mentioned…” She added with a soft voice as she looked him in the eyes.

“I did…” He didn’t continue as he watched her bite her pretty lip.

“I… I… I can’t tell you… But you have to trust me… I am not your enemy…” She said, hesitating.

“No need, I already know that you are a time traveler.” He said. Making her gasp.

Yes, Margret was a time traveler like him… There were another three too. According to the fate log, only one had already made it, the other two didn’t. Victor had no idea if they would appear later though.

“AH…. How did you know…” Margret asked in astonishment. This was her deepest secret.

“I told you before, I know everything… You were the one who hid the camera and shot your uncle and his friends in action. You were also the one who told the police about him. If my guess was right, you have traveled from the future to someday three years ago.” He squinted his eyes watching her flabbergasted face. She must have returned in time three years further than he did due to time-space turbulence.

“Ahhhhh…. Yes…How….” She was very shocked and still didn't get how he knew, this conversation was something she practiced before, but not like this!.

“I have my ways, I should have known a long time ago.” He said, “Your very good intuition must be the product of your future soul merging with your present one.” He told her.

“Ah…” She didn’t know that. It’s true though, she always felt better, stronger. And her intuition was always right since returning.

“... What now?” She asked him, “Do you plan to cut me up and study me?” That was the first thing she thought of when she returned, that’s why she told no one. “I must tell you, I really don’t know how I traveled in time… The last thing I remember in my past life was dying…” She said as she looked down. She was a little disturbed, not knowing how he would treat her, now that he knew her deepest secret.

“Yes, Dying in excruciating pain. Your soul was extracted then you were used to creating a talisman… Those guys, Limbo Empire must have been the ones too.” Victor stated casually, making her look back at him with shock.

“You….” She was interrupted again,

“And if I guessed correctly, the reason you want to work with Aria and not Alpha, despite your suitability to be a spy, is because you want to use your future knowledge to make profits in the stock market.” He guessed correctly.

“Did you use the soul wine on me? When was it?” She asked angrily squinting her eyes, how else would he have known that.

“I didn’t. If my guess was correct it would not work on you. Your soul was already forged before when they made you a talisman. This makes it much stronger.” He said.

He was right, when she drugged the villagers she was not affected despite drinking with them.

"Is it one of your skills?" She asked nervously, he told her that he could see the future before.

"Nope." He said as he watched her lose her cool.

“Ah…. HOW DO YOU KNOW ALL OF THIS THEN?” She asked in distress, not caring that the blanket had long fallen off revealing her perfect body.

“Simple, I am a time traveler too, and your case was just a lucky coincidence because I used the talisman forged from your soul as a beacon.” He answered casually, making her freeze… She didn’t see that coming.

In fact, Victor’s method of time travel was very ingenious. He didn’t really exploit a bug but created one.

The Book of Time could only send the consciousness and soul of the user to one second in the past and it would change the soul in a way that it would no longer be usable after that.

So Victor had only one chance. All he needed to do was extend this 1 second. Sadly he had no way to modify this. And this was both practically and physically impossible. No one can modify an X-ranked artifact. No one had the skills and no one had the authority.

Victor was distressed over it for 10 years until it occurred to him one day after an eventful night at a brothel that had one of those big rotating beds with girls sitting around… He got it! He doesn’t have to modify the book, he can modify the world itself.

He remembers running like a maniac back to his office that night where he began to formulate his plan.

All he had to do was to find another world where the time flow there was slower than his own.

Traveling to another world was very costly normally, and required the efforts of entire organizations to open a stable gate. On top of that most other worlds were just inhabitable. If someone traveled there without a set coordinates he might end up in space or near a black hole. On top of that, stabilizing the gate would require tons of high-grade GEMs.

Victor never intended to travel though, he never intended to create a stable gate either. He planned to just open a gate to the other world and then throw a talisman inside of it, the talisman would be considered a part of his soul allowing him to alter his own time flow.

After confirming his plans, Victor began to work on them. And that’s when he encountered a problem. A big one. He couldn’t find a suitable world with the correct time flow ratio… The solution was to use several worlds so that their average effect on him would be just enough to send him to the right moment in the past.

After many trials and errors, and by secretly doing some calculations on the imperial family's private magical quantum supercomputer that Yulian helped him use, he was able to pinpoint four worlds that had the right time distortion ratio. According to his calculations, he should have returned in time, about a week before his ceremony with an error buffer of three days. It was not ideal, but the further he returned the riskier it got.

At that time what he did was another trick, to open four otherworldly gates at the same time would be considered madness. But he used a trick by creating a modified summoning… He summoned parts of the space fabric of the targeted four worlds by sacrificing one of the royal family's treasures, an X-ranked GEM. that he ‘borrowed’ for ‘research’ purposes.

This was sheer madness, his summoning was doomed to fail as the world itself would stop him… But he didn’t care as he just needed a few seconds to send the talismans into the summoning gates where the spacetime fabric was affected by the other worlds

That’s when he activated the book of time, just seconds before the world’s will annihilated him and his summoning circle.

“What? A what?” She frowned… “YOU TOO!” Margret yelled after 10 whole minutes.

“Yup, you don’t need to know the details, but this is the truth. I returned from 323 years in the future… It would have been my 340th birthday that week.” He pondered as she looked at him, not really getting what he was speaking about.

“You are telling the truth?” She asked skeptically as he took the blanket and covered her back. His youthful body was getting crazy under the blanket.

“99%,” He told the truth. “Didn’t you see how I always knew what to do? You can also ask Aria to show you the three movie scripts I sent her, you can probably recognize one of them.” He said, making her pause, not knowing what to say.

Yes… She suspected him.

Firstly, he always acted a bit older than his age, but she always presumed that this was due to his aristocratic upbringing.

Secondly, He always seemed to be there at the right time as if everything was happening according to his plan. But after he told the girls that he can read the future, she presumed that his always spot-on predictions were due to that.

Now she discovered that he was scamming her all the time.

She glared at him hatefully.

“How did you end up as a talisman?” He asked, ignoring her gaze.

“Ah… Well, I must tell you the entire story then.” She said with a sad smile. “In my past life, I never escaped my uncle's grasp. I just switched hands from one pimp to another… In the end, when I was 30 years old I was sold to a certain young man… I don’t know his name, as he calls himself Mr.X like some movie villain.” She said then stopped.

“He tortured you for a few months then extracted your soul,” Victor said,

“For two years.” She said, looking him straight in the eyes… watching as his face changed from shock to pity then back to his cheesy smile. It only took a fraction of a second.

“No wonder those talismans cost a fortune.” He said as he looked at her clear eyes looking back at him… He knew that she must have been through a lot.

“What now?” She asked again.

“Nothing, you are still my girl, and I am still your young master.” He said, making her pause, frown then giggle.

“I can live with that,” she said. Her plan never changed, and Victor was the perfect partner.

“One question though, why didn’t you just escape and create some business? Why did you tolerate your aunt and cousins?” Victor asked, he was curious.

“Do you want a cute girl like me to be alone in the seats at the age of 14? I am not that retarded,” she said, “I also can’t start a business without capital, so I waited until I finished school and was planning to hunt for a rich young master,” she added,

“Tom was your first choice?” he chuckled,

“Don’t laugh at me!” She scolded, “I didn’t know how perverted he was at the beginning… But I had no better choice, he was both naive and seemed to be getting richer every day. I suspected that he was a drug dealer first, I had the plan to marry him then report him to the police and take all of his money.” She confessed.

“Oh…” Victor was surprised, this girl was dangerous.

“Then I met you…. I decided to scam you instead, you seemed like a pervert, and I thought I could easily eat you up.”

“And you ended up being eaten up,” he said,

“We’ll have yet to see about that.” She said as she suddenly hugged him, putting her hand on his chest, hiding her blushing face, “It all changed when you brought us to that dungeon. At that time I realized that you belonged to a different world… Then you saved my life…” She said softly,

“Then you ruined my expensive shirt by crying on it… ” he said, remembering that day… “Ouch…” she bit him.

“Can’t you appreciate a romantic atmosphere?” she asked as she looked hatefully at him,

“What is so romantic about an old couple in teenagers' bodies sharing a bed?” he stated,

“You are the old one… I was only 33 when I died!” She complained, “And think about it, we are distended to share this fate,” she said as she began to wiggle her slender finger on his chest.

“I might be a little cruel telling you this at this moment, but I used four talismans to travel back in time… And I am pretty sure now that we were not the only time travelers,” he said, making her freeze again.

“There are others? Males or females?” she asked as she eyed him.

“I have no Idea… My skill is showing me that one of them is a female with the name Claricia… No info about the other two,” he said.

“Is your skill really Future Prediction?” She asked, ignoring the girl’s name, she never heard of her.

“You must never ask anyone about his skills, this is rude.” He said,

“Come on… I am your partner here….” she said, looking at him with one raised eyebrow as her face got close to his.

“I can’t tell you…. But it’s not a future prediction. Think of it as a future trend prediction. I can see the plan, but not the execution,” he said slipping back a little,

“What’s planned for me?” she asked,

“I have no Idea. I am completely broke, and my skill costs a fortune of Order Points to activate.” He stated.

“Oh… too bad...” she said as she examined his face, he was not lying. She had been close enough to him later that she began to read his expressions.

“So… You now know my entire life story, what about you? Were you married in your past life?” she asked him

“Of course…” He said,

“Did you have children?” she asked,

“Yes… Why are you asking?” he frowned,

“Just making sure that the tools are already tested… I don’t want to reach the goal just to discover that the ball is deflated.” She said, reaching under the blanket…

“Slut.” He said as jumped from the bed and headed to the door quickly while covering his crotch,

“Where are you going?” She asked with a cheesy smile,

“Escaping for my life… For my little brother’s life.” He said, heading to the bathroom… He should probably continue his night on the couch after that.

Margret watched him close the door behind him then threw herself on his pillow, inhaling deeply… She knew that the reason he escaped was probably that he didn’t want to tell her anything. That’s why she molested him in the first place, she was giving him an excuse to escape the awkward atmosphere. She wondered what secrets he kept, what kind of person would live for 300 years? How did he travel through time? What will happen in the future?

She sighed again… She didn’t really care about all of that, what she pondered about was whether she should tell him that she had fallen for him.

It was not at the dungeon when he saved her life. Sure she was enchanted by him at that time, but she was not a small girl to fall for a charming prince.

It was slow, it began when he carefully explained to her how to be a player, carefully warning her about many things, then when she moved in with him. The way he moved, the way he talked. It was all like a well-choreographed show. But despite all that, she could see someone who really cared about his family, someone who would be ruthless to anyone who would hurt them.

Somehow, just like that, she fell in love with him. It was this simple. She was a simple girl anyway.

She buried her face in his pillow hiding her blush,

“NO…” She decided. She won’t tell him… She would make him confess for her first! If not willingly, then moaning in bed.

In the end, It was a sleepless night for her too.