He looked around the room. Even though he had worked hard for an hour, the place still looked terrible. He had maybe cleaned five percent of the ground floor. There were still hallways, a kitchen, a dining room, and another floor upstairs. It would take weeks for him to clean the pavilion alone by hand.
Calian stared at the bucket of murky water beside him. He saw the reflection of his dirty and tired face on the water's surface. His gaze met his own shadow.
Suddenly, he laughed softly. A laugh that sounded foolish.
"Why am I struggling?" he whispered to the dirty water. "I'm thinking like a servant, not like a power holder."
He looked at his hands again. This time, he didn't see weakness. He saw potential.
"I have something better than muscles. I have Time."
Slowly, the pain in his shoulders still screamed, but he ignored it. He stood up, his legs shaking slightly. He walked toward a long, high-backed sofa in the middle of the room that he hadn't touched yet. The sofa was in a sorry state. The velvet upholstery was torn badly, dull yellow foam was poking out, and one of its legs was broken, making it tilt sadly. The sofa looked like trash ready to be burned.
Calian reached out his right hand toward the sofa's backrest. He closed his eyes for a moment, searching for the feeling. He didn't summon Mana. He knew the "core" in his heart was empty. No heat energy flowed.
Instead, he focused his will. He imagined the concept of time attached to the sofa. He saw the object's timeline. Not the sofa as it was now, but the sofa as it used to be. The sofa when it was newly placed in this room decades ago.
He remembered the theory in the black book: Reversion. Returning a physical object to a previous state within its own timeline.
"Return," Calian commanded softly.
He touched the torn backrest.
Instantly, a bone-chilling cold sensation shot from his fingertips. It wasn't the cold of ice, but the cold of absolute void. The world around him seemed to flicker. The sound of the wind outside stopped for a second.
And the miracle happened.
Under his palm, the torn, dull, and stained fabric began to move. Severed threads reconnected at a speed the human eye couldn't follow. The fabric color, faded by dust and sun, turned into a bright, deep, luxurious maroon. The protruding foam seemed to be sucked back in, solidifying and becoming neat.
The broken leg on the floor vibrated, then moved back up, reattaching to the frame without leaving a single crack. The rotting wood turned into shiny, sturdy mahogany.
In three seconds, the trash sofa vanished.
In front of him now stood a maroon velvet sofa that looked one hundred percent new. It was as if the sofa had just been delivered from the capital's best furniture maker this morning. It no longer smelled musty, but smelled of new wood, fresh varnish, and clean fabric.
Calian was stunned. His mouth hung open slightly. He took a step back, staring at his own hands in amazement, then at the sofa again. He touched the surface. Smooth. Soft. Perfect.
"This..." his eyes widened in disbelief. His heart beat fast, not from fatigue, but from the euphoria exploding in his chest. "This isn't repair magic. Repair magic only patches what is broken. This... this actually rewinds the object's time to its prime."
And the most surprising thing: he didn't feel tired.
Usually, using magic required mana which drained mental stamina. But this? He didn't use mana. He actually felt strange... he felt hungry, as if this 'Time Loop' power was feeding off the energy of the entropy (damage) he removed from the energy existing within his body. The greater the damage he restored, the stronger he felt.
He laughed.
A small laugh that turned into a loose laugh echoing in the empty hall, bouncing off the stone walls.
"Father said I was a zero? Father said I was useless?" Calian laughed while holding his stomach, tears of joy pooling in the corners of his eyes. "I just saved dozens of gold coins on antique furniture restoration in just three seconds! Tower wizards would need days to do this!"
He turned around, looking at the still messy hall with a new perspective. His eyes now glowed bright purple in the darkness, filled with burning ambition. This hall was no longer a pile of trash. It was a canvas for his power.
"Alright. Let's clean this place up. My way."
Calian started walking. His steps were light, full of confidence. He no longer swept. He walked in the center of the room like an orchestra conductor leading a symphony.
He touched the long oak dining table whose surface was full of deep scratches, water stains, and rotting legs.
"Reversion."
Zing!
The table sparkled. In the blink of an eye, the varnish became wet and shiny again, deep scratches vanished as if they never existed, becoming perfectly smooth like a black mirror.
He walked to the large window covered in velvet curtains that had disintegrated into moth nests and dust. He touched the fabric.
"Reversion."
The curtains knitted themselves back together. Holes closed, dust vanished (returning to a time where the dust hadn't settled yet), and the color turned to bright gold with an elegant floral pattern. The curtains now hung heavy and graceful.
Calian walked to the cracked and mossy stone wall near the fireplace. He placed both palms on the cold surface. This time he wanted to try a larger scale.
"Reversion Area."
BZZZTT!
A wave of transparent distortion spread from his hands across the entire wall like ripples in water. The green moss shrank rapidly, retreating into seeds, then disappearing as if blown away by the wind of time. Large cracks in the stone closed with a soft grinding sound as the rocks rejoined. The crumbling cement became solid again. Peeling paint reattached and smoothed out, turning the dull wall into a clean, sturdy stone wall.
Calian moved like a ghost dancing in his own palace. He wasn't repairing damage; he was erasing the history of that damage from existence.
One hour later.
The Main Hall of the West Pavilion no longer looked like a haunted house. It looked like the lobby of a small royal palace.
The white marble floor was so clean and shiny that Calian could see his reflection clearly under his feet. The crystal chandelier above—previously black and covered in spiderwebs—now sparkled, reflecting the light of his oil lantern. Every crystal bead was perfectly clear, the gold chain shining without a speck of rust. A thick red carpet was spread in the center of the room, looking soft and luxurious.