Chapter 3: The Book of Knowledge

Chapter 3: The Book of Knowledge

Which young person hasn’t fantasized about a miraculous encounter? Especially when the object in question might very well have once been a genuine supernatural artifact.

At this moment, Chen Shouyi didn’t notice that a thin trickle of blood was slowly seeping out from the edges of the band-aid covering his previously stopped wound on his finger. It flowed as if drawn by some unseen force, converging toward the wooden board.

The moment the blood made contact— The board emitted a faint glow, then vanished without a trace, as if it couldn’t wait to disappear.

At the same time, Chen Shouyi’s mind was struck as if by a deafening bell. His body shuddered before he collapsed limply to the ground, unconscious.

……

He had no idea how much time had passed. It felt as though he had endured an eternity of darkness before a dim light gradually returned to his vision.

Slowly regaining consciousness, he opened his eyes—only to immediately widen them in shock, his mouth falling open.

Before him stretched a circular space roughly 30 meters in diameter, about the size of two school basketball courts combined. Countless twisting tendrils of gray mist writhed along the edges of the space, shifting into various shapes. Even beneath his feet, he stood upon the same mist.

The discovery startled him, but he soon realized there was no danger. An invisible force seemed to support his body, allowing him to move across this space as if walking on solid ground. After testing it a few times, he relaxed slightly.

Everything here carried an illusory quality—not just the mist, but himself as well. His body appeared translucent, and his clothes resembled dissipating wisps of fog.

Yet this space wasn’t entirely empty. The most striking feature was a translucent sapling, just over a meter tall, standing at the center. Aside from himself, it was the only thing that could be called "alive."

For some reason, the moment Chen Shouyi laid eyes on the tree, he felt an inexplicable connection—as if the tree were him, and he were the tree.

The sapling was lush with branches and leaves, and through the sparse mist beneath his feet, Chen Shouyi could vaguely make out countless slender, twisting roots extending endlessly into the distance.

Then he noticed something else: every single leaf on the tree shimmered with flowing images.

The moment he focused on one, a flood of information surged into his mind. He realized it was a memory from a single day thirteen years ago.

Staring at the thousands of leaves, each flickering with phantom light, he murmured in awe, "Do these leaves… represent every memory I’ve had since birth?"

For an instant, an instinctive fear rose within him—the primal wariness and reverence humans feel when their innermost memories are laid bare.

But the fear passed quickly, replaced by overwhelming curiosity.

He soon discerned a pattern: the lower the leaf, the older the memory. Many were so distant he had long forgotten them, yet here they were, displayed in meticulous detail—every second of his past experiences, crystal clear.

At the very bottom, he even glimpsed dark, blurry yet warm and comforting memories from before his birth.

His face couldn’t hide his astonishment. What lay before him had already far surpassed anything he could have imagined or comprehended.

Among the leaves, there seemed to be fruits of varying sizes—some small, some large, some still green, others slightly red. Each time he focused on them, information automatically surfaced in his mind.

These were all the knowledge he had acquired since birth.

The largest among them was "Chinese Language," marked as "Proficient" and roughly the size of an apple. As his native tongue, it had already taken on a faint red hue, standing out prominently among the other fruits.

The rest, however, were several times smaller and mostly unripe, still tinged with green. Subjects like Physics, Chemistry, and Biology were no larger than glass marbles, while Mathematics and English were even smaller.

Chen Shouyi felt a slight flush of embarrassment.

With a glimmer of hope, he strained to search for a long while before finally spotting his knowledge of Martial Arts on an insignificant, tiny branch.

"Thirty-Six Body Refining Techniques" was only the size of a sesame seed, labeled as "Beginner."

"Meditative Self-Refinement" was even smaller—no larger than the tip of a needle—and marked as "Not Yet Initiated." Without careful inspection, it would have been impossible to find. The rest, like the messy sword techniques he had learned in his summer Martial Arts cram school, were all labeled as "Not Yet Initiated."

Fortunately, Chen Shouyi’s thick skin made him indifferent to these shortcomings by now.

"If the leaves and fruits represent memories and knowledge, then what does the trunk signify?"

He turned his gaze to the trunk. This time, the information took longer to surface. Just as he was about to look away, a flood of complex knowledge violently surged into his mind.

It took him a long while to sort through the information, and when he did, his eyes gleamed with wonder.

As it turned out, this tree was originally called the "Book of Knowledge," forged from the heartwood of the primordial World Tree by the mighty God of Knowledge from the Otherworld. During the first invasion war after the fusion of the Otherworld and Earth, this deity attempted to enter this world in its true form but perished in the process.

Its divine artifact, the Book of Knowledge, was thus lost on Earth.

In its struggle against the crushing rules of this world, the Book of Knowledge’s power disintegrated, its divine energy scattering.

Under normal circumstances, its power should have long dissipated, reducing it to an ordinary object.

Yet, given its inherently powerful nature and unique abilities—particularly its extraordinary analytical and computational functions—it managed to seize a rare moment of respite during its battle against the world’s rules. Driven by instinctive self-preservation, whether forced or willing, it rapidly adapted and aligned itself with the rules of this world.

Name: Chen Shouyi

Attributes:

Strength: 10.4 (10)

Agility: 10.4 (10)

Constitution: 10.3 (10)

Intelligence: 10.3 (10)

Perception: 10.3 (10)

Willpower: 10.0 (10)

Knowledge:

Chinese Language (Proficient 5); Physics (Skilled 12); Chemistry (Skilled 11); Biology (Skilled 10); Mathematics (Skilled 8); English (Skilled 5); Computer Science (Beginner 6); Cooking (Beginner 5); Thirty-Six Body Refining Techniques (Beginner 5); Meditative Self-Refinement (Not Yet Initiated); Swordplay (Not Yet Initiated); Archery (Not Yet Initiated)

Energy Accumulation: 1.2

Chen Shouyi felt that these few hundred words seemed to encapsulate his entire mediocre life over the past seventeen years.

But now, things were different!

The information he had just received allowed him to fully grasp the usage of this "new Book of Knowledge," which now retained only one function: the optimization of knowledge.

He glanced at all the knowledge he had mastered, hesitated for a moment, then tentatively chose to optimize the Thirty-Six Body Refining Techniques.

"Optimize!"

Before the words even faded, 1 point of his 1.2 energy vanished, leaving only 0.2 remaining.

In the next instant, his mind wavered as if he had entered a dream. Surrounded by a gray mist, he found himself practicing the Thirty-Six Body Refining Techniques over and over again. What began as awkward and stiff movements gradually became fluid. As time passed, his motions slowly altered—some useless techniques were outright discarded, while others underwent subtle adjustments and refinements.

It seemed to fit his body even better now.

He couldn’t tell how much time had passed—perhaps a few hours, or maybe even several days. But at a certain moment, he finally awoke from the dreamlike state.

Chen Shouyi hurriedly tried to recall the experience and was astonished to find that his memory of the Thirty-Six Body Refining Techniques was now crystal clear, vivid as if he had truly practiced them countless times.

Just as he couldn’t resist the urge to test them out in this space, the surroundings suddenly trembled. Faint, indistinct voices seemed to drift in from a great distance, ethereal and hollow.

…………