which node: /usr/bin/node

node -v: v10.24.0

And for you?

When I install it from https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_16.x then I get:

node -v: v16.15.0

And indeed, then the time goes down by a factor of 10:

time node -e 'console.log(123);'

Now outputs:

    123
    
    real 0m0.058s
    user 0m0.046s
    sys 0m0.013s