In his familiar workshop in Orario, Noah stared blankly up at the ceiling.
It took him several minutes to process the incredibly strange experience he had just gone through.
He threw off his blanket.
As he was about to sit up, he noticed something heavy pressing down on his chest.
It was the Grimoire.
It was the exact same blank magic book he had been holding before he fell asleep.
"Was it all... just a dream?"
He reached out to pick up the book, but as his fingers brushed the cover, he suddenly felt a strange residual warmth on his palm.
This lingering heat was not an illusion.
It was the exact same phantom warmth he had felt after piercing the fat promoter's heart with a sword, causing hot blood to stain his entire hand.
Could a dream feel so incredibly real that it actually left physical sensations on his real body?
Even though he was wide awake, the phantom feeling of hot blood still lingered on his skin.
After a brief moment of confusion, Noah picked up the Grimoire.
Out of sheer boredom, he casually flipped open the cover to look at the blank pages, just like he had the night before.
But suddenly, he stopped.
The pages that had been completely blank were now filled with ink.
"What is this?"
He stared at the Grimoire in shock.
The first few pages were now completely covered in text.
Reading it carefully, Noah realized the content was not written in any language he knew.
Yet, for some inexplicable reason, his brain perfectly understood the strange, symbol-like characters.
...
[Chapter 1122: Slave Gladiator] The small Western nation of the Vermillion Empire is struggling.
Because the royal family's power is weak, they cannot eradicate the deep-rooted corruption hiding within their own country.
King Sirius Vermillion advocates for the complete destruction of the illegal underground arenas that despise human rights, but he faces many political obstacles.
Vermillion's Second Princess, Stella Vermillion, was born with unparalleled talent and determination.
Desiring to hone her own strength in real combat, she secretly entered the illegal arena competitions hidden within her kingdom, single-handedly defeating numerous veteran gladiators with her raw power.
The corrupt arena organizers, having discovered her true identity, colluded with illegal slave traders. Fearing the princess's power, they set a trap for her.
They replaced the criminal swordsman who was supposed to duel the princess with an innocent slave boy, hoping to force her into a political scandal.
...
This was an exact record of what he had just experienced in the dream!
But why would a story about his dream suddenly appear in what was supposed to be a blank Grimoire?
Just as he was pondering this mystery, three pieces of information suddenly flowed directly into his mind.
This feeling.... he was incredibly familiar with it!
[Visenya's Book]
* Currently acting as the physical anchor for Noah's magic: [Yog-Sothoth].
This is Truth Seeker!
Noah's eyes went wide.
He quickly swept his gaze over the various tools and weapons scattered around his workshop.
Instantly, detailed information about every single item popped into his head.
His Appraisal skill had activated normally.
His powers were back!
This should have been a moment to celebrate, yet he felt an unprecedented wave of confusion.
For an ordinary person, having Truth Seeker meant that the mysteries of the world could be easily identified and analyzed.
Yet, because he had just absorbed way too much information all at once, his brain was struggling to untangle the messy threads.
'Calm down.'
'Handle things one by one.'
Noah took a deep breath. He naturally grabbed the raw mind in the air, manipulating the ice element to physically cool down his overheating brain.
Spell-Weaver was also functioning normally again.
Then, he looked down at the book.
The Appraisal result clearly stated that this Grimoire had become a physical part of his new magic!
Moreover, his magic actually had a name now.
It was no longer a glitched, unreadable mess of question marks.
Right now, his highest priority was to check his own Falna!
Noah activated Truth Seeker on himself.
[Name]: Noah
[Level]: Lv. 2
[Stats]: Strength: E499
Endurance: E499
Dexterity: E499
Agility: E499
Magic: E499
[Development Abilities]: Enhancement I
[Magic]: > * "Yog-Sothoth"
* Can be activated by maintaining active consciousness while falling asleep.
* Chanting "Yog-Sothoth" allows the user to project their soul into the Multiverse, using dreams as a springboard to personally absorb knowledge from other worlds.
* Upon successful projection, a fake physical identity is generated in the target world.
* Warning: Everything experienced during the projection reflects back onto the user's original body. This includes physical injuries, death, mental madness, and psychological collapse.
* Cancellation: To end a projection early, the user must sacrifice the life of a being from the target world and chant "Yog-Sothoth." If the user is killed during a projection, the physical anchor (the Grimoire's written record) will be permanently destroyed, making it impossible to ever return to that specific world.
[Skills]: >
"Truth Seeker" >
* Can appraise objects upon contact; the closer the contact, the stronger the effect.
* While repairing equipment, gain insights from the user's combat experience.
* When crafting items, chance to raise the finished product by one rank.
"Spell-Weaver" >
* Can directly manipulate raw mana.
* Can directly manipulate magic elements.
* Can directly manipulate souls (New Effect: Produced by Skill Sublimation).
"Denier" >
* Nullifies one instance of lethal damage while removing all abnormal status effects. Can only activate once every 24 hours. (Cooldown: 14 hours remaining).
The time it took his brain to process this massive wall of text was merely an instant.
Yet, Noah sat completely frozen on his bed for a very long time.
While he was incredibly shocked and pleased that Spell-Weaver had successfully leveled up and gained a new, overpowered effect, his new magic spell was absolutely insane.
Because he now understood the true rules of his magic, he realized that everything he had experienced last night was not a dream at all.
He had unconsciously activated his magic while falling asleep, projecting his actual soul into another universe!
He had spent about twelve hours in that other world.
In the end, because he had assassinated that fat promoter who annoyed him, the cancellation requirement was accidentally met.
Because he had just taken a human life to serve as a sacrifice, chanting the spell immediately pulled his soul back to Orario.
Now he finally knew the truth.
What he thought was just a weird dream was actually a real, living world.
'Is that so? I see.'
'So that was why the red-haired princess could manipulate fire so easily without needing to chant a spell!'
'It was because she lived in a different universe with completely different rules from the Falna system created by the gods of Orario!'
Honestly, he was not particularly surprised by the fact that other universes existed.
After all, he originally came from Earth, not Orario.
Having discovered such an overpowered, reality-breaking magic, Noah honestly did not know whether to be happy or terrified.
Thanks to his memories of Earth, he had successfully recreated modern weapons—like his sniper rifle—in a fantasy world with a severely skewed technology tree.
He had combined the science of his old world with the magic of his new world to create some truly devastating weapons.
That was the ultimate benefit of connecting different worlds.
Two universes with completely different environments could evolve vastly different civilizations.
Two similar yet different worlds naturally had technologies that could benefit each other.
If magical energy suddenly appeared on 21st-century Earth, it would instantly change the entire planet.
The ability to travel to other worlds and steal their knowledge... just looking at that one fact alone, the value of Yog-Sothoth was immeasurable.
But the risks were equally terrifying.
The world he had entered this time did not seem to have a ridiculously high danger level—at least, it was not one of those terrible anime worlds where the planet gets destroyed by aliens every other week.
But there was no guarantee he would have such good luck next time.
Projection was totally random.
If he accidentally projected his soul into a dead world covered entirely in toxic radiation, he would die instantly.
Or, he might land in a peaceful world, but randomly be given the fake identity of a globally hunted terrorist.
The chances of that happening were not high, but they were definitely not zero!
Fortunately, he could now choose to specifically return to the Vermillion world he had visited last night.
The fire power that princess displayed seemed roughly equal to his own strength as a Level 2 adventurer.
In fact, based on the raw pressure of her aura, she might have actually been a little stronger than him.
Her natural talent was easily on par with the top genius adventurers in Orario.
"Manipulating souls..."
Noah studied his upgraded Spell-Weaver skill.
He felt somewhat unsure of how to use this brand-new effect.
Manipulating raw magic was as easy as breathing to him; it was like an innate instinct.
While manipulating elements like fire and ice had taken some practice at first, it had not been too difficult to learn.
However, the concept of manipulating a soul completely stumped him.
To manipulate a soul, he first needed to find a soul to practice on.
...
Dawn slowly broke over the city.
Noah watched the golden sunlight stream through his bedroom window.
Listening to the distant sound of a rooster outside, a strange light suddenly flashed in his eyes.
He casually snapped his fingers, casting a soundproof barrier over his bedroom door to prevent Haruhime from being woken up.
Then, he walked outside into the backyard and approached his chicken coop.
Seeing the human suddenly crouch in front of the wire fence with a terrifying, predatory look in his eyes, the rooster was so frightened it lost its voice.
It froze completely still, not daring to make a single sound.
Noah stared at the rooster. His pitch-black pupils began to glow, slowly turning a bright, glowing blue as he activated his new skill.
Through this special magical vision, the physical body of the rooster faded away into a dark, blurry shadow.
Inside that shadow, he could clearly see a glowing floating mass of energy emitting a ghostly blue light.
"This is... a soul."
Noah gazed in absolute amazement at the rooster's soul floating right in front of him.
Sensing what Noah was doing, the rooster suddenly panicked.
It let out a frantic, terrified squawk and began violently flapping its wings, crashing blindly into the walls of the coop.
The blue soul inside the bird trembled violently.
The rooster's pure primal terror was expressed much more clearly through the shaking of its soul than through its physical actions.
It was a tangible mass of spiritual substance.
Noah could feel it.
He knew with absolute certainty that if he reached out his hand right now, he could grab this rooster's soul and twist it, just as easily as he manipulated magic.
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