Ren Zhong replied with a smile, "Everything is going smoothly."

Wen Lei asked again, "I just tried to message Zheng Tian and Ou Youning, but didn't receive any reply. Is there a malfunction in the communication system?"

Ren Zhong shook his head on the screen, "No malfunction, due to confidentiality needs, temporarily, only I can contact Source Star one-way."

"Oh, I see. Ren, what's the matter?" Wen Lei knew Ren Zhong rarely wasted words, let alone made small talk or engaged in chit-chat; a communication must mean something.

Ren Zhong got straight to the point, "I remember your wrist watch is an ancient clockwork mechanical design, right?"

"Yes, Ren." Wen Lei replied while feeling somewhat nostalgic as he picked up the wrist watch and waved it in front of the camera. He hadn't expected that, after so many years, Ren Zhong would still remember this watch with a childhood photo of him and Ai Jiasan inside.

Ren Zhong: "Do you ever forget to wind it?"

Wen Lei immediately patted his chest, "No, how could I forget? Even when I'm in frozen hibernation, I have my colleague wind it once a week. It hasn't stopped running for twenty years."

At that moment, Sun Ai provided the analysis report, "Uncle, I just estimated the precision of Wen Lei's watch through the video camera comparison. It slows down by one second per year on average, which is decent for a clockwork mechanical watch."

Ren Zhong nodded slightly and asked again, "In these twenty years, have you adjusted its time?"

Wen Lei shook his head with slight surprise, "Just once, when I first met you, I randomly corrected the time; it inexplicably had a two-minute discrepancy. Later, I adjusted it even to the second hand, then never touched it again. What's up?"

Ren Zhong responded with a sound, "Nothing, I'll think about it first."

Time had gone by for twenty years, and Wen Lei's wrist watch had a total discrepancy of 31 seconds. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

Out of these 31 seconds, 20 seconds must be reduced for mechanical error.

Therefore, in actuality, Wen Lei's watch was only 11 seconds slower than Source Star's standard time, but 7,638 seconds slower than the Empire's standard time.

In the hibernation space, Ren Zhong controlled external mechanics to retrieve a notebook from the office desk drawer, and turned to page nine; in the virtual projection, Ren Zhong saw an entire page full of numbers starting from 6781, continuing with 6782, 6783 all the way to 7638.

He had a secret habit of always carrying a paper notebook with him and occasionally jotting down numbers on it.

Inadvertently, over these years, he had written these numbers from 1 all the way to 7638.

Only he knew what these numbers represented.

It was precisely the total number of deaths and resets he had experienced since being resurrected in the ancient frozen storage.

Earlier, Sun Ai calculated a discrepancy time of 7627 seconds; the difference between the two numbers left 11, making all his speculations unconcealed but still uncertain.

Now, through Wen Lei's wrist watch, Ren Zhong had gotten the answer.

Recalling those years since beginning training and embarking on the warrior path, he had only used 11 resurrections to successfully destroy the previous generation's "net" with Sun Ai's help.

Wen Lei's last time correcting his watch should be right when he walked out of the dense forest, evading the Hunter and killing the Crystal Winged Dragonfly, leading to consecutive deaths. At that time, the timeline already had issues, consistently slowing by a second, resulting in a two-minute discrepancy, just self-corrected by the previous "net". The anomaly wasn't excessive, hence it hadn't raised alerts.

After the previous "net" lost control and disconnected, communication between Source Star and the Mechanical Empire was severed, no longer able to synchronize time.

Standard timing devices on Source Star were replaced by Tracer's AI and some standard atomic clocks, beginning to gradually deviate from the Empire's standard time.

Now Sun Ai had become the new "net", initially doing its first time calibration along Source Star's standard time, with the discrepancy between this and the Empire's standard time being 7627 seconds.

"Wen Lei, I've got nothing else. Go ahead and take care of your own business."

"Oh, alright."

"Wait a minute."

"Wen Lei, you've shown considerable talent in mechanical structures. Your genetic potential should not be wasted. Life must continue; you ought not stand still. You should come out, find someone you like, and get married. As I've told others before, here on the side of the Empire, I also look forward to someday receiving assistance from Source Star."

Wen Lei pondered for a long time before nodding heavily, "Alright, Ren."

Ren Zhong had just disconnected the communication when Sun Ai hurriedly asked, "How was it? Any new ideas?"