Chapter 3911: A Pool And Nail’s Worth Of Time

Lin Mu listened quietly, as he had already expected something similar. From the prisoners’ perspective, the crystal skull certainly represented their deity, their guardian, their executioner, their only source of certainty.

But from Lin Mu’s observations, things looked rather different. He had never sensed genuine demonic energy. Nor had he sensed the aura of an ancient demon spirit. Everything pointed toward another possibility.

Some sort of ancient formation.

Perhaps one designed to harvest vitality or perhaps one powered through blood sacrifices. The exact purpose remained uncertain. Even so, Lin Mu possessed enough experience with formations to recognize several familiar traces.

He chose to remain silent as interrupting the prisoner would accomplish nothing.

The man continued.

"I’ve lived in the Mad Demon Depths for..." He briefly paused while calculating. "...Four Pools and Nineteen Fingernails."

Lin Mu immediately raised a hand. "Wait."

The prisoner instantly stopped talking. "My lord?"

"What exactly does that mean?" Lin Mu asked. "The terms you’ve used."

"Pools and fingernails, I’ve heard them before." He remembered the diary carved upon the flattened stones.

Every entry had measured time exactly the same way.

’Three Pools, eighteen Fingernails.’

’Four Pools, Seven Fingernails.’

At the time, he possessed no reference. But now, perhaps he would finally understand.

The prisoner blinked before awkwardly scratching the back of his head.

"My apologies, my lord. I forgot you’ve only recently arrived."

The surrounding prisoners quietly nodded. To them, those measurements had become second nature.

The prisoner slowly explained. "Down here... We don’t have the sun and we don’t have the moon. We don’t have seasons and we don’t even know whether it’s day or night."

"So... The prisoners from long ago created another way and they passed it down."

Lin Mu silently listened.

"There are mainly two ways we measure time. The first is Pools." The prisoner pointed vaguely toward the darkness beyond the mound. "Throughout the caverns... There are many natural pools. They sit beneath stalactites and water constantly drips from the ceiling... Very slowly."

"The droplets gather inside those depressions. and when one pool finally fills... We empty it into another reservoir." he stated before taking a look at Lin Mu to make sure the man wasn’t upset or anything.

"That becomes one Pool." He took a breath. "And the process starts again."

Lin Mu pictured the system in his mind. It was simple and primitive. Perhaps even more primitive than ancient humans who had no civilization. Yet it was effective. At least, as long as enough prisoners remained alive to maintain it.

The prisoner continued. "The second measurement is Fingernails."

This time, he extended his left hand. Only now did Lin Mu notice something he had overlooked earlier. The man’s index fingernail appeared strangely uneven. Half of it looked newer than the rest.

The remaining portion had clearly broken away sometime previously.

No... Broken wasn’t entirely accurate, it looked deliberately removed.

The prisoner noticed Lin Mu’s gaze and he smiled weakly.

"This." He raised the finger slightly. "When a fingernail grows completely... We tear it off."

Lin Mu quietly raised an eyebrow. "You remove it yourselves?"

The man nodded. "Everyone does. We’ve always done it. We don’t know exactly how long a fingernail takes. But everyone agreed long ago that one full nail became one Fingernail of time." The man pointed to everyone.

"And when it grows back completely... We, remove it again." He lowered his hand. "The elders compared both measurements over many generations, and they found that one Pool roughly equals fifty Fingernails. So that’s what we use."

Several nearby prisoners quietly confirmed his explanation. "That’s how everyone counts. My grandfather used the same system."

Another prisoner suddenly stopped himself and his expression briefly darkened. "...before he died."

Lin Mu silently processed the explanation, but he also found it a bit alarming. Especially the last part.

’His grandfather? Were entire generations born here too?’ Lin Mu furrowed his brows, as he had not expected this.

Still for now he had to push it to the back of his mind and focus on the other things. His thoughts rapidly organized the information. A normal mortal’s fingernail generally required several months to fully regrow after complete removal.

The exact period varied according to health, nutrition consumed and age. Many factors affected it and most estimates placed it somewhere between four and six months. But the prisoners clearly suffered severe malnutrition.

Their bodies remained weakened, as such that should have slowed nail growth considerably. Even so, using six months as a rough average produced a useful estimate.

’Fifty Fingernails is approximately twenty five years and equal to one Pool.’ Lin Mu quietly performed the calculation several more times.

The result remained close enough.

The first prisoner’s earlier statement immediately gained new meaning.

’Four Pools and nineteen Fingernails. Roughly... A century.’ Lin Mu counted. ’Perhaps slightly more.’

The time would change depending upon variations in nail growth. Lin Mu finally understood why the diary had used those strange measurements. To an outsider... The system sounded almost absurd, crude and wildly imprecise.

It was completely disconnected from ordinary calendars. Yet for people trapped beneath the earth without sunlight, without stars and without changing seasons, what other choice truly existed?

Their entire world consisted of endless darkness, the dripping of water, the slow growth of fingernails and those tiny changes became the only reliable markers that time continued moving.

Without them... The years would blur together into one endless nightmare.

Lin Mu looked toward the prisoners once more. For many cultivators, one century barely deserved notice. But inside the Mad Demon Depths, those centuries had been counted one fingernail at a time, one drop of water at a time, and one filled pool at a time.

The crude system carried little precision.

Yet it gave the prisoners something far more valuable than accuracy. It gave them continuity... A way to remember yesterday and... A way to believe tomorrow still existed.

Perhaps that simple illusion had preserved the sanity of countless prisoners who otherwise would have lost themselves entirely within the endless darkness of the Mad Demon Depths.

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