Daniel was confused.
'What just happened? Why did I fall through the slope?' thought Daniel.
He carefully looked around, but didn't see anything except for a long looking corridor.
He tried to go back outside, but it was closed.
'So my only option is to go into that scary looking corridor?'
He then slowly walked into the dark. One hand on the wall because it was pitch-dark.
Eventually after 30 minutes of torture, he met a dead end. However after touching around, he found a lever.
'Should I turn it? Screw it. I have no way back so it is my only option. I don't want to sit here and starve to death.' Daniel contemplated.
He turned the lever, but when it was completely turned, a bright light was released. It was like a flashbang.
"Ahhhh, my eyes!" screamed Daniel while covering his eyes with his hands.
After his eyes got used to the light, he looked around. He saw a garden with many plants he didn't recognise. The garden was huge, he couldn't even see the end of it. Before stood a 1 metre tall pillar with a book on it.
He walked towards the book.
'Tome of Time?' thought Daniel. 'I have never heard of it. It sounds powerful. Well on the other hand, I am only a mortal person so there are many things I don't know.'
He picked up the Tome of Time and wanted to open it. But when it opened, it released a green light that went into Daniel's forehead. Daniel immediately fell unconsious on the ground.
After a brief moment, he stood up.
'So this is the garden of Etreros. Etreros was the previous owner of this book and the creator of this garden.'
While he was thinking, a silhouette slowly took form before him.
"Welcome. If you see this message, it means that you are the first person to have found this place. This also means that you can inherit all that was mine.
Of course, not everything can be accessed right now. You can only access those things when you reach higher ranks. You have to have enough strength to control the them. Same with the Tome of Time.
Right then, you may have inherited the Tome of Time, but you only unlocked the first page. You can't open the next page without strength.
But first, you have to refine the Tome of Time by dropping you blood on it and after the transformation open it. After that, you can alter the time flow in this garden. Don't worry about you limited mortal lifespan. In the garden are enough life prolonging herbs and on the 3rd page you can find a cultivation technique on how to reverse time flow in yourself. By reaching perfection on that technique, you can't die by old age and injuries heal incredibly fast."
'That's a lot of information.' Daniel thought.
If it was before, he couldn't manage to remember everything. But for some reason, his memory increased. He didn't have eidetic memory, but he wasn't far off.
'Well firstly, he said to drop my blood on the book so I'll do that first.'
Right after, he bit on his wrist. Blood was slowly flowing out and falling on the book. When the first drop of blood hit the book, the same green light as before went into his forehead. This time, the light was bigger and it didn't stay there, but went down.
Daniel suddenly felt pain near his stomach. It started with little pain, but it increased fast.
If one looked inside his body, they would see meridians getting formed. These meridians were not ordinary meridians either, they had a green glow.
After the pain subsided, Daniel felt like a new man.
"I feel like I could punch a hole in a stone wall. Is this how cultivators feel? Am I a cultivator now. Oh right, the voice said something about opening the tome for real."
On the first page of the Tome of Time stood a breathing method. Using that method, one can gather Qi out of the air.
In the garden, the Qi ws very dense and by altering the time flow, Etreros managed to be a Heaven realm cultivator. Even higher than the emperors of the empires.
Cultivation realms are from low to high Foundation Establishment, Body Refining, Spiritual Surge, Core Refining, Nascent Soul, King, Emperor, Heaven, Immortal.
Each realm has 9 stages. The first 3 stages of a rank are called the early realm, stage 4, 5, 6 the mid realm, and 7, 8 and 9 the high realm. When one has one step already in the next major realm, one has reached peak realm.
Daniel had already reached stage 3 Foundation Establishment realm because of the green light. He even has one step in stage 4.
'A garden huh? I wonder what kind of plants there are. They must be high rank since a Heaven realm cultivator nurtured them. I wonder if there is something like a manual around here.'
Just as he thought that, a green light shone inside the garden.