Alex looked to his right and saw the brilliantly shining magma that was due to the concentrated light from the massive dome.
A fresh line of lava was left behind by the beam and it was now approaching them.
"You can leave if you want," Scarlet said.
"I should be fine with my dao, but… how hot can it get?" Alex asked.
"Very hot," Scarlet said. "Hot enough to melt most of the clothes you are wearing. Maybe even your body, down to its bones."
"Not even my Dao can stop it?" Alex asked with a surprised look on his face.
"Well, not normally," Scarlet said and suddenly started chuckling. "Don't worry, you'll be fine."
"Oh," Alex was taken aback. "You were joking?"
"No, I was telling the truth," she said. "The heat is definitely something that cannot be handled by someone like you. Even the Immortal me couldn't handle it, and I am a goddamn phoenix."
"Uhh, then shouldn't we move?" he asked.
"No, we have a way to handle the heat," she said. "Although, I should make sure it is still working."
She quickly spread her spiritual sense and checked something. "Okay, it's working fine," she said.
Alex didn't understand what was going on, but the beam was getting incredibly close to them. As it arrived right next to the massive piece of rock they were on, something happened that surprised Alex.
He couldn't tell what it was exactly, but there was a unique feeling about whatever was happening.
The rock they were on suddenly moved, placing itself a few meters to the side of the concentrated beam of sunlight. He expected an incredible amount of heat to hit him suddenly, but to his surprise, the heat was warm at best.
Before he could think of what was happening, the piece of rock suddenly started glowing. It was not just soaking in the heat, but also the light that was falling on it.
Then, it released all the sunlight inside the dome.
The sunlight spread far and wide, brightening the entire sanctuary.
"This is a Sunstone," Scarlet explained. "It can take in heat and light, and spread it out everywhere. It's usually used by regular people to place it on their home's roof so it can light up the room in the daytime. It is especially useful for underground, where sunlight can't get to so easily."
"But us phoenixes use it a little differently," She said. "We need the sun to improve our body, so we gather all the light from an area. But, that ends up causing the mess you see. So to rectify that problem, we use a massive piece of the sunstone to redistribute the light."
"That way, the plants, and animals inside can also get some sunlight, and not all is wasted… well, most of the time," she said.
Alex nodded as he heard that. He looked at the bright sanctuary where everything he could see was in the light.
"So this is the real Sunborn Sanctuary, huh?" he said. "Born of the sun, makes sense."
"It does," Scarlet said. "I didn't come up with that name though, it was my predecessor. So I can't really take credit."
She lay down on the stone and closed her eyes as she felt the gentle sunlight hit her. "Ah, I've missed this," she said with a small smile on her face.
Alex felt the sunlight too and it was quite hot if any normal person were there. However, to him, it felt warm. It prompted the question in him if his body really had anything to do with the sun since even this much sun wasn't doing anything to him.
'So it must really be about the yang then,' he thought.
Scarlet had gone completely quiet, so he was on his own. Now that he was finally done with being surprised by his situation, he started noticing the weird feeling he was having once again.
'What is this?' he wondered. His senses couldn't tell him anything. He looked towards Scarlet and nothing was wrong with her either.
"It feels so weird," he said softly, trying to figure out what was going on.
"What feels weird?" Scarlet asked without opening her eyes.
"I can't tell," he said. "I can only sense it. It feels like…"
He remembered a time when he had a similar experience, where he felt something he couldn't explain, and he later learned what exactly it was.
"Did something happen to the space around here?" Alex asked. But before Scarlet could even answer, he shook his head. "No, this is not space acting weird at all. It's something else."
Scarlet's eyes finally opened, and when they did, it was wide. "When exactly did you start feeling this?" she asked.
"Just now, when the platform moved into the beam," Alex said. "Does it have anything to do with the sun?"
Scarlet's eyes remained wide. "Let me know if it disappears okay?" she said and did something. The platform moved away from the beam of light, and with it, the feeling disappeared as well.
"Oh, it's gone," Alex said, a little surprised. "So it had to do with the sunlight then."
"No," Scarlet said. "What about now?"
The platform remained where it was, but the feeling returned once again.
"It's back," Alex said. "Wit, so it's not the sunlight?"
Scarlet's shock made it hard for her to speak at all. She simply couldn't believe that such a thing was happening at all.
"What's wrong?" Alex asked.
"Look, what do you see?" she said as she pointed toward the distance.
"Huh?" Alex turned around and saw that she was pointing at the waterfall that was far away. "I see the waterfall."
"No, look closely," Scarlet said.
Alex nodded and focused even more. After looking for just 2 seconds, he realized what was going on.
"Wait… what?" he asked, completely confused as the waterfall wasn't moving at all. "Why is the waterfall not moving?
"It is moving," Scarlet said. "It's just that we are moving way faster than it is, so it looks stationary to us."
"Moving way faster than…" Alex seemed to have realized something as well, so he quickly turned back around. "Wait, are you saying that we are in a time dilation?"
"Yes," Scarlet said. "The outside world is effectively frozen for us because of a formation I activated. When I get rid of it—"
The feeling disappeared from Alex.
"The outside world moves again," she finished.
Alex looked back at the waterfall that was flowing normally now. There was no more time difference, and there was no more feeling.
"Are you saying that what I am feeling… was time?" he asked.
"I believe so," Scarlet said. She activated the formation once more and the feeling returned. "You can feel it too, then. Just like me."
"I… can," Alex said, very surprised. The platform went back into the sun where the sunlight slowed down enough for it to just be warm, instead of blisteringly hot. It only now made sense to him why that was the case at all.
"But… how?" he asked. "Didn't you say someone couldn't sense time aura unless they were born with the talent?"
"I did," Scarlet said. "Without the talent, you could try for thousands upon thousands of years, and still not figure it out. If you can sense it then that means you have the talent for it. Congratulations."
Alex did not feel happy at all, only confused. "I wasn't," he said. "I definitely wasn't born with the talent to sense time being messed around with. I have been to many places such as this, and this is the only time I have ever sensed it."
"Really?" Scarlet asked.
"Yes," Alex said. "I can think of 4 separate instances where I spent a lot of time in places with slowed down time. One of them was even the result of a time dao application."
"Then… I don't know," Scarlet said. "Maybe it was something you could always do, but only just got the ability for it?"
"That doesn't sound right," he said. "I don't think I've done anything unique lately to warrant a sudden ability to sense time itself."
"Yeah, well, I don't know what else to say," she said. "If you weren't always able to do it, then something changed in between back then and now, which gave you the ability. Can you think of any such instances?"
"Hmm… let's see," Alex thought. His last experience with time aura had to be on the Ancestral battlefield. After that, he was captured by the old madman.
'Did the madman do something? No,' he thought. After the fight, he crashed into the Qi wall surrounding the Central continent, which he didn't find to be possible to teach him either.
"Then…" his eyes widened as he realized something. "I bonded with you."
"What?" Scarlet asked.
"I bonded with you, and you have the ability to sense time. So, maybe by association, I have the ability to sense time as well?" he asked.
"That's… how could that be possible?" Scarlet asked.
"Maybe it can," Alex said. "I have a strong physical body because Pearl can cultivate and that somehow cultivates my body. Whisker has a cultivation base all because I cultivate. Maybe in that way, because I am bonded to you, I now have your ability to sense time."
"That… I've never heard of something like that being possible at all," Scarlet said. "Sharing abilities between bonds is not a concept I'm knowledgeable about at all."
"Really?" Alex asked. "Can others not do that?"
"No," she said. "As far as I know, you're the only one who can do that."
