[You acquired an artifact]

“What?”

“Book? Tales? What the hell was that light?” His mind couldn’t process the situation properly.

“Is this a dream or am I going crazy?” He spoke, hearing the sound of his voice after so long, and he felt his dry throat ache a little.

‘Come to think of it, this is a world of magic, so this kind of thing might be possible.’

After the initial shock, he calmed down. He began to think about his current situation.

‘Could this be possible? Has my moment finally come? Like in those webtoons I used to read where the protagonist suddenly gets a super powerful ability and starts his journey.’

He was very excited. This moment could change his entire life. Maybe his miserable situation could finally come to an end.

‘What did I get?’

‘Skill theft? Necromancy? Cultivation 100 times faster than normal? Future prediction?’

He decided to calm down.

“As long as I can regain my cultivation, that’s something.”

He took a deep breath and then thought:

‘Magush.’

Again, a familiar golden hologram appeared in front of his face. He read the runes.

Name: Tristan

Species: Human

Age: 10

Realm: Mortal

Core: Solid Red (Blocked)

Talents:

Abilities:

Artifacts: [Fragment of the book The Tales of the Creation of Heavens and Earth]

‘It’s really here. I obtained an artifact; this wasn’t a hallucination.’

‘Please let this be something incredible. Please let this be something incredible. Universe, be kind to me, just this once.’

After pleading for the universe’s benevolence, he decided to read the description of the artifact’s features that he had just received.

Artifact Name: Fragment of the book The Tales of the Creation of Heavens and Earth

Level: Divine

Type: Tool

Ability: Tales of the Past

“So it’s a tool; well, I would have preferred a legendary weapon. But I guess I can’t complain.”

Artifact Description:

From the skin of the Primordial God, the creator of all universes, an artifact was made, and this artifact was called the Book of the Tales of the Creation of Heavens and Earth. Inside it was the knowledge of all the tales created in all universes, both past and future. This book was eventually found by #### and remained in his possession for a long time until the last Hero of a dying universe and the Saint of Immortal Flames managed to attack the book and cast one of its pages into another universe.

“That... is a lot of information.”

‘Primordial God? There’s more than one universe? Who are the Hero and the Saint of Flames?’

He didn’t understand the meaning of most of what he had just read.

“Let’s see.”

Ability Description: [Tales of the Past]

Unlike the original Book of the Tales of the Creation of Heavens and Earth, this fragment contains only the tales written in the past of the seventh lower universe.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

He could think of many things at that moment and theorize about the mysteries of the universe and the deities, but he decided to focus on something else.

‘A book of tales? Seriously?’

‘And this thing contains only the tales of the past from the so-called seventh lower universe?’

‘Damn, what if this universe has nothing to do with the world I’m living in now?’

Sigh.

‘First, I need to see if the tales talk about this universe and then if there’s any tale about learning a powerful ability or at least a way to recover my cultivation.’

He tried to summon his new artifact.

‘How do I use this?’

Nothing happened.

‘Why won’t the page of the book The Tales of the Creation of Heavens and Earth appear again?’

Normally, artifacts took 6 to 8 seconds to manifest, but Tristan waited, and nothing happened.

‘What if I think of a tale?’

He felt his consciousness being pulled from his body and taken elsewhere. Now he was in a gray, ghostly form, and in front of him, countless golden pages appeared.

The golden pages arranged themselves into a tube, with Tristan's body floating in the center. When he looked up and down, he couldn’t see the end of the pages.

“Weird... oh?”

In his spiritual form, it seemed like his thoughts turned into sound.

“An artifact that doesn’t need to manifest to be activated and works within my soul. I’ve never heard of something like this before.”

After being impressed by everything that was happening, he focused his gaze on one of the golden pages.

“Well, let’s see what’s written here.”

Tristan reached out for one of the golden pages, and it flew into his hand. The golden page contained a text with a tale unknown to him, but he could read it. He read the tale for a while.

“It’s just a regular story; there’s nothing useful in it.”

He looked up and down.

“Damn, this place is way too big; it’s impossible to find something useful like this.”

“What’s going on outside?”

He thought about returning to his cell, and when he opened his eyes again, Tristan was back in his physical body. He looked under the door to see if anyone was coming.

‘It seems like no one besides me could see the golden light when the book fragment invaded my cell. The criminals in the other cells would have probably screamed in terror, and the guards in the hallway would have noticed as well, but everything is the same as before.’

'It looks like I have plenty of time to study this.’

Thinking once more about the endless pages of tales, Tristan was once again a spirit surrounded by golden pages.

“The first thing I need to do is confirm if the tales here are from this universe and if there’s an easier way to find them; otherwise, all of this will be completely useless.”

Confirming this was quite easy. Tristan only needed to find a story he had learned in this world.

“Like the tale of the Jade Sword Emperor, for example.”

When he thought of it, all the pages of tales moved, and many began to disappear until only a few hundred thousand remained in front of him, which was still a lot.

“So this place responds to my thoughts.”

“I’ll see if I can find a story I already know, like the battle of the Jade Sword Emperor against the Immortal Demon of the West.”

Thinking of that, all the pages moved again, and a significant portion disappeared. Now, only a few thousand pages remained. Tristan reached for a page and began to read it.

“It looks like the story my mother used to tell me, but some events are a bit different.”

He grabbed another page, and then another, and after reading and comparing all of them, he realized they all told the same story he knew, but with some details being different.

“Seems like this thing really has all the tales, even the various versions of a single tale are here.”

“Now it’s time to see if I can find something useful.”

“Supreme cultivation technique.”

He wasn’t surprised when a much larger number of pages appeared. Tristan spent some time looking at them one by one and soon realized that the tales were extremely common. He wasn’t an expert in this, but he thought many of these tales were just nonsense.

Sighing sadly, he made a few more attempts.

“Cultivation restoration technique. Cure for blocked cultivation. Boy with blocked cultivation finds a cure.”

Tristan made attempt after attempt, and each time, his disappointment grew. What was contained in the tales was too complex, and he didn’t even know if it was real.

“Find an ancient dragon, discover the legacy of an ancient hero, help a beggar on the street who is actually an immortal healer master,” Tristan said indignantly.

“None of this is feasible for me in my current situation.”

He returned to his body. His cell remained the same as he had left it; nothing had changed.

“This is useless!”

‘How can a divine artifact made from the skin of a god be useless?’

‘Is it because it’s just a page?’

‘Damn it!’

Tristan lay on the ground, depressed, his stomach still growling with hunger.

‘I’ll probably still die of hunger before I find anything useful in this damn fragment if there’s even anything useful in it.’

He closed his eyes frustrated and felt a profound sleep approaching, which would probably be his last.

Then he heard a noise. He opened his eyes again, and in the darkness of his cell, he could hear the sound of dirt falling. After searching a bit, he saw that a centipede about 15 centimeters long had entered his cell through a hole in the ceiling.

Fighting the urge to embrace the sweet relief of death once again, he stood up once more. He looked at the ground and picked up a rock. Then he aimed and threw the rock at the centipede.

The rock hit the centipede, crushing it, and its body fell to the ground.

“Well, it seems I still have some time left to live,” he said with a half-smile on his face.