BAM!

Passing through the portal created by the Celestial God Scale, Su Zhou once again experienced the sensation of transforming into a streak of light, traveling through a void filled with countless ice crystal-like worlds.

But before he could savor this wondrous feeling, he shot back into his own living room with a WHOOSH.

Compared to his destination point when traveling to the Divine Wood World, his return point to his own home was extremely stable. Su Zhou could confirm, thanks to the memories enhanced by the Wisdom Fruit, that he had returned to the exact spot from which he had departed.

’Are the departure and arrival points fixed? If so, then a lot of clever tricks are off the table.’

After confirming this, Su Zhou was a little disappointed. He had originally planned to use the Celestial God Scale’s world-traveling ability as a trump card to escape dangerous situations in the future!

It seemed that wouldn’t be possible now. If he could only return to his starting point, he couldn’t change anything. He’d still have to take any incoming attacks, and he’d still be trapped in an inescapable room he couldn’t get out of.

However, if he could obtain power in another world sufficient to break out of a dire situation—for example, the power to smash some inescapable maze to smithereens with a single punch—then the result would be more or less the same. There was no need to be too disappointed.

’Let me see what time it is.’

After mulling over the issue of the Celestial God Scale, the first thing Su Zhou did was raise his head and stare intently at the clock hanging in his living room. "Hmm... 10:17 AM... Huh? Not even a minute has passed?!"

Shocked, Su Zhou quickly put down his hiking backpack, which was stuffed with all sorts of strange Spirit Plants. He then strode over to the living room table and picked up the phone he had deliberately left there. He smoothly unlocked the screen, entered his password, swiped past the lock screen, and tapped on a certain poop-yellow forum app... No, no, no!

’This is no time to be browsing forums!’

Cursing himself for his nimble fingers and muscle memory, Su Zhou quickly exited the app and looked at the time.

"December 7th, 2014, 10:17 AM... Holy crap! Not even a minute has passed?!"

Just then, Yara’s ruby-like body elegantly slithered out from Su Zhou’s hair and draped itself over his ear.

After stretching its body, it spoke deliberately, "Ahh, lying on top of someone’s head for so many days... it feels so good to stretch now~"

"Yara, was that you?" Having lived with Yara for so long, how could Su Zhou not understand why it had suddenly appeared at this moment?

He narrowed his eyes, then reached out and plucked Yara from his ear. Ignoring its complaint of ’Hey, let me have a sip of blood!’, Su Zhou held it in front of him and asked seriously, "Was that you? Others might forget, but I haven’t. Among your sacred titles is ’Source of Sun and Moon, Master of Time’... Did you help me?"

—A time trap. The flow of time between the All Realms might not be the same.

Su Zhou still remembered this truth of the All Realms that Yara had once told him.

But, excluding those extremely rare worlds where the passage of time differed by hundreds of thousands of times, it should be impossible for him to have adventured in the Otherworld for nearly a month while not even a minute passed on Earth!

The second hand had barely even moved!

"That’s right."

There was no reason to hide it. Yara raised its head, bit the wrist Su Zhou had purposefully extended, and took a sip of blood.

After receiving its ’blood offering,’ it nodded in satisfaction before speaking slowly, "After all, you are my Contractor. You should have some privileges. You should know, even for one as active as myself, I have rarely formed contracts throughout the All Heavens and Myriads of Worlds in all of my long existence. Su Zhou, you are worthy."

"Is that so..." Su Zhou could faintly tell that Yara didn’t seem to want to elaborate on this topic. Yara was always reluctant to mention its past. Or rather, it could talk about it, but it was better if he didn’t ask.

So he simply nodded and expressed his sincere gratitude. "In any case, thank you. Thank you very much."

"Su Zhou, has anyone ever told you that when you suddenly get serious, you can make a snake’s scales stand on end?"

Although it was teasing, Yara accepted Su Zhou’s thanks without complaint. "Enough. We have a relationship of mutual aid and mutual benefit. Instead of thanking me, why don’t you take a look at how I’ve changed?"

With that, Yara coiled up smugly and spun around a few times on the table.

It looked like a sparkling ruby necklace.

"You... got bigger?"

After careful examination, Su Zhou didn’t give the seemingly correct but actually clueless answer that most straight guys would, like ’You’re even more beautiful than before.’ After observing it several times, he said with certainty, "Yes—I had a feeling when you were slithering over my ear just now. You’ve gotten bigger!"

"You got fat!" the ultimate straight guy declared.

If Yara had previously been thinner than a typical girl’s pinky finger, about five millimeters in diameter and four centimeters long, it was now about eight millimeters thick and seven centimeters long! It had nearly doubled in size!

"What do you mean, fat—this is called growth! Though, generally speaking, you’re not wrong." Yara flicked its tail and shook its head, seemingly extremely disappointed with Su Zhou’s clumsy use of adjectives. "Anyway, for this trip to the Divine Wood World, you undoubtedly scored full marks. Not only did you obtain a large amount of resources and a Cultivation Technique inheritance from the locals, but your power has also grown a great deal."