I don't have anything to add to the excellent advice you've already received for how to do what you asked. I just want to point out that hitting a web server twice a second to figure out the time and doing things efficiently aren't exactly compatible. Perhaps you want ntp?

On Unix-based systems there are ntpd and ntpdate. On Windows there's the W32time service, which can be configured to use NTP time sources rather than the default (which IIRC is the domain controller's time if you're in a domain).

The most efficient code is that which is already written and running. Wrapping heavy resources in light layers of interface does not make a lightweight whole. Reimplementing what exists on the system is great for learning a concept, but it's lousy for making the system efficient.