Freeze - 170

In the morning three days later, Zhou Fan woke up silently. He stared at the ceiling for a while and his thoughts drifted off.

'I can't stay here much longer. I'm becoming too content. It isn't good. But how can I leave? Their lifespans may be long, but leaving them for hundreds of thousands of years is bound to change them. I want them to stay as they are.'

Although he knew his desires were selfish, Zhou Fan couldn't help but have such thoughts. He couldn't stay forever. Even if he spent a hundred years with them, he would have to leave for a much longer time later on. By then, he would be even more attached to them.

He knew that he could technically bring them on his cultivation journey, but intelligent beings changed when so much time passed. They tended to be much more independent and much less lively. Zhou Fan knew that if he took the animals, nothing would ever be the same.

At the very least, they wouldn't be as immature and funny as they are currently.

Regardless, Zhou Fan knew that something had to happen. He didn't plan on leaving soon, but when he did, he needed to know what the best course of action was.

'Whatever. I'll spend the next few years thinking about it. I have plenty of time.' Zhou Fan thought to himself.

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In what felt like both the blink of an eye and an entire lifetime, five years passed. Throughout those years, Zhou Fan had repeated the daily life with the animals. Surprisingly, it never once got boring.

He had not added any more animals, keeping only the chicken, the fox, the deer, the butterfly, the mole, the crow, the koi, and the bearded dragon. After around a year, the crow became more friendly and social, but he oftentimes disappeared for days.

As for the koi, it never left the pond. It had the intelligence to speak, yet it never did that either. He had been living the most boring and consistent life of all living beings within the manor.

Zhou Fan had lived the life that many would dream of in the last five years, but as more time passed, he felt more and more anxious. He was becoming soft. He smiled whenever he saw the chicken, and laughed at all of his terribly unfunny jokes as if they were crowd killers. It was the same with the other animals.

He not only felt happy, but he felt fear. He knew that time was coming for him to leave, and he wasn't sure how he would leave everything and everyone behind.

After dinner and a bath, Zhou Fan grabbed the chicken and laid him in front of the door like he had been every day for the past five years.

This night, however, something changed. For the first time, Zhou Fan had a dream. It wasn't something cast upon him by another, but something he had instinctually done to himself.

In the middle of the night, Zhou Fan woke up panting and sweating while staring at the ceiling.

'Is it really possible?' He asked himself.

'Can I really do it, or would it kill everyone and everything within the manor?'

'Maybe, just maybe, everything can stay the same.' He thought to himself.

He was breathing heavier than earlier, and his nervousness had reached its peak. In what could only be described as a maniac episode, Zhou Fan's breaths were becoming faster and faster as he thought.

Suddenly, it stopped.

"Freeze." He said calmly.

His voice echoed around the manor, the galaxy, and the very tree-like cluster that he had first visited.

Then, it froze. Not everything, but the manor. it was perfectly encapsulated in ice. Not quite pure ice, but ice infused with life Qi. Zhou Fan had a dream about it.

If his theory was true, then the ice would freeze everything and everyone within the manor, but keep them alive. It was almost the same concept as freezing time, but much much different.

Still, if Zhou Fan was correct, it had nearly the same effect. The animals would remain in the same state as they were when he said freeze, until nearly a billion years had passed, or someone stronger unfroze them.

Right before it had frozen, Zhou Fan teleported outside of the manors barrier. The amount of power he had used was no joke. His Qi reserves were completely emptied in a millisecond despite the ice only covering the manor.

Normally, he could freeze an entire galaxy with all of his Qi. Yet, with the ice Qi and life Qi he used, and him multiplying their already incredible base power by thousands of times, his reserves were cleaned out.

Zhou Fan was only able to get one look at the manor, now perfectly frozen like an ice sculpture, before he passed out from Qi exhaustion.

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This time, the Qi exhaustion was different than before. Normally, using all of his Qi would still leave small bits behind, as if they were stains on a wall in a room once filled with water.

This time, however, he had scraped even those stains off the wall in order to perfectly freeze everything. He spent an entire year in a state of near death.

Only after a year passed did Zhou Fans Qi start recovering. After a week, it was completely recovered, and Zhou Fan woke up.

He hadn't drifted too far. He was now just outside the black hole. Despite its gravity, he weighed more than many planets combined. He normally used Qi to lighten his weight, but he was unable to do that while his Qi reserves were absolutely empty.

It was close, but the black hole had yet to even touch his skin before he woke up.

Once he was fully conscious, he looked at the manor. He was feeling less crazy, but he didn't feel any remorse. The animals wouldn't like being separated or forced to live non-mortal lives just as much as Zhou Fan wouldn't like them to.

Now, he could come back when he was bored and stronger. Perhaps by then he would be able to control the power of time, making the process much easier.