Max could feel it now—a second heartbeat, a second stream of consciousness overlapping his own. The clone was not independent but it was alive, its existence bound to the embryonic planet and to him through the current of time.
It stood before Max, a clothing formed purely of mana wrapped around his body.
Max lowered his hand slowly, his body trembling from exhaustion. He turned to Old Man First and said softly, "It's done. The connection is complete."
The old man's eyes glimmered faintly. "You have just done what no one before you has dared to attempt," he said. "You have given life to a fragment of yourself through the flow of time."
Max exhaled deeply, closing his eyes as silence enveloped the vast sea of stars around him. A strange wave passed through his mind, spreading slowly, deliberately, until it reached the farthest corners of his consciousness.
