The only thing that didn't make the room look like a prison cell for one of the world's most dangerous prisoners was a single chair, and a pedestal upon which a single book was propped up. It was about three times as big as a textbook back on Earth, and glowed with a gentle blue aura.
Tang Ze could feel the Qi emanating from the book even from here.
"Remember, not a second over six hours," the elder said, and lit an incense stick to measure the passing time. Strangely enough it didn't seem to give off any smoke, which was a relief given the near claustrophobic setting that the book was in. "If you need to use the restroom, let me know. The person who came before you hadn't wanted to waste any time and simply pissed on the floor instead." The elder frowned. "The grimoire is a very useful tool, but I request that you not stoop to such levels to simply eke out a few extra minutes with it." He clearly was not happy with that kind of behavior, and this served as a warning for Tang Ze to not do the same.
"Uh, right, I'll keep that in mind," Tang Ze said. He had made it a point to use the restroom before coming here, and had not taken a sip of water since then, preferring to go thirsty for six or seven hours rather than risking interrupting his time with the grimoire.
Truly, that was how valuable each second with it was! Tang Ze had even gotten up early willingly just so that he wouldn't risk being late by even a second! Though he had to admit, peeing on yourself to save a few minutes really was taking it a bit too far… no wonder the elder was quite upset.
Tang Ze did not waste any time as he walked over to the book the moment the elder left, the air of QI that it emanated getting stronger as he approached, to the point that he felt that the Qi was four times as thick near the book as elsewhere on the mountain.
That meant that even if you disregarded what was actually written in the book, and only considered it as a source of Qi to cultivate in close proximity to, it still had its uses as it would make cultivating four times faster!
So how good was it going to be when he actually got to read it?
His heart was already pounding as he turned the cover and began reading the first page.
The secrets of the earth are difficult to decipher, though with patience one can elucidate them as one originates from the earth and it is easily accessible. The secrets of heaven are more mysterious still, as the entity that crowns over us and rules over us with an iron fist. But above both in terms of difficulty to understand are the secrets of man, for man is the true spirit and offspring of the union of heaven and earth. This volume shall delve unto the second layer of mysteries, the mysteries of heaven.
Tang Ze figured this paragraph was one of the allusions to the Grimoire of Earth and the Grimoire of Man within the book, both of which were currently lost.
Before he could go about reading further, white light washed over him.
For a moment his heart nearly jumped out of his chest, but he calmed down as he remembered that this was something he had been told could happen.
The Grimoire of Heaven was no ordinary book, and the way it often helped one understand the secrets of heaven was through array formations or other such functions. It was more like working on a supercomputer that could simulate various scenarios and tap into the secrets of cultivation rather than reading a simple book.
After the flash of light, Tang Ze was no longer sitting in that room which looked like a vault. He was sitting atop a rocky crevice under a cloudy sky.
There was nothing else in front of him as he glanced around, only to find a chameleon sitting right across from him the moment he glanced there later.
He found that after that, he couldn't turn his head to the side, and was fixated on the chameleon.
Clearly, the grimoire wanted to show him something here.
The chameleon turned red, then green, then blue, then orange - and then began changing into a mishmash of colors with a spot of blue here and a spot of green there, etc.
Tang Ze watched the lizard shift colors over and over like this, with the color variation becoming even more erratic with each iteration, until finally, it disappeared completely.
Above him, the clouds finally burst, drenching the landscape in rain.
'This feels so real-' Tang Ze thought, as the gentle rain drops assaulted him. Of course, none of this was happening in real life, it was like being in a very detailed dream while awake, but the powers of the grimoire were already making quite an impression on Tang Ze's mind.
The scene shifted, and he found himself dressed up in armor. Not real armor, mind you - some kind of replica, with a cape billowing behind him. He took a look down at his gauntlets and felt the helmet that now adorned his crown.
It took him a moment to realize who he was dressed up as; it was only when he saw the crudely drawn monitor on his left arm that it really sunk in.
Space Emperor Cygrixous!
He was the main antagonist of a video game that Tang Ze had played - and there was very little depth to his character. He was a Saturday morning cartoon villain if there ever was one, but his power set was actually quite neat.
In the canon of the video game, he was said to have been so strong that he had once wiped out an entire moon full of rebellion soldiers on his own. He was defeated by what amounted to a gang of four teenagers in-game, but that didn't diminish the fact that he was still very strong.
While he was powerful and had some useful abilities, Tang Ze had not tried to make such a costume because a lot of his gear, including his armor, would be difficult to try to make replicas of and was also time-consuming. Not to mention that while he was strong, there were stronger characters that Tang Ze knew he could draw inspiration from.
He also looked quite ridiculous- now, that was true of a lot of the characters that Tang Ze dressed up as, but Space Emperor Cygrixous was on a whole different level. It was clear that the character designers had had a lot of fun when it came to designing him - but the issue was that this design was quite difficult to try to faithfully replicate in real life.
Tang Ze had seen photos of other people dressing up as Space Emperor Cygrixous, and they just didn't look right. Some things just didn't look good at all when translated from animation to real life.
These thoughts were interrupted by a spear that was chucked his way.
Tang Ze instinctively activated his forcefield ability, the spear shredded to atoms before it could even reach him. Space Emeperor Cygrixous's forcefield was so strong as to repel missiles - what could a lone spear do? However, he was pretty sure that the 'armor' he was wearing would not be as strong as the Space Emperor's, so it was good that he had intercepted that spear in time. The fact that his clothes did not carry any special powers, making them especially vulnerable as a weak point, would apply here as well.
The perpetrator of the attack was one among over a hundred thousand soldiers who were now glaring at him. All of them were dressed up in the way of this world, carrying swords, axes, spears, bows, and other weapons that Tang Ze didn't even know the names of. Some of them were empty-handed, eager to fight with nothing more than their fists. Some of them were mounted atop horses, but they all seemed quite disorganized - there was no pattern or formation to how they were standing.
It was surreal to be fighting them as a man wearing space armor, even more so than dressing up as a leprechaun had felt earlier, but not difficult whatsoever.
Tang Ze went with the most obvious strategy - flying out of range of their weapons and then blasting everything with his palms, as he rained purple lasers over them that vaporized huge swathes of people wherever they landed. His lasers, if they were at full power, could break off huge chunks of the earth itself.
It was a cheap tactic - but one that worked, and the opposing 'army' if it could be called that was blasted to smithereens within what felt like an hour.
Then, his perspective suddenly shifted.
Tang Ze wasn't himself anymore - he was watching his own body from a third person perspective now. Nor was he in control of his body as he watched this other version of himself, after finishing off this army, fly near a village in the distance.
Where had that village come from?
Before, all Tang Ze had seen was an endless plain and an army that had spawned out of nowhere to try to attack him. That was why he had done the natural thing, which was to attack them. He had thought of them as nothing more than faceless enemies like you'd find in a video game - this was all just like a dream, after all? That was why he felt like he could go all out against them without any restraints or moral quandaries.
He didn't figure that his actions would matter in any shape or form - just that it was some sort of test from the grimoire.
Perhaps it was a test - but not in the way that he had expected. Maybe the test had not been about how to defeat the army before him, because that would have been easier than going on an afternoon stroll.
Tang Ze now had to watch as his body double completely nuked a nearby village, bathing the area in crimson flames. There were some screams of the people caught up in the fire, though most of them were slain instantly, not even having a breath to yell out as their existences were snuffed from this world.
Tang Ze frowned - he couldn't see what this 'other self' of his was thinking or feeling, but after this other version of himself was done with this village, he moved to another one.
And another one.
The scene shifted, to one of Xian Yue floating above the clouds. It was not her spectral form, but she was in a real body.
'Is this world flat?' - Tang Ze wondered, as at this altitude, they should've been able to make out the curvature of the earth if it was round. Instead, all he saw was a flat plane below them.
However, he only noticed this detail for an instant as his attention turned to Xian Yue; admiring her appearance.
Tang Ze had to admit, though he wasn't fond of the beauty standards of this world, Xian Yue somehow managed to really make them work.
Also, did Xian Yue really have brown hair? Did the Grimoire of Heaven really know what her hair used to look like? Or did it think that Xian Yue wanted her to be a brunette? He had thought that her hair was black, though in her spectral form, this was hard to really determine.
"Ah, will you marry me?" Tang Ze watched as his doppelganger said these words, and Xian Yue laughed softly before nodding.
It was then that he noticed how his doppelganger had reached the clouds in the first place - he wasn't flying, no, he was standing atop a huge pile.
A huge pile of bodies. Men, women, children, many of them not even human, but belonging to beastmen or other demihumans.
He had been told that no cultivator had ever ascended to heaven without standing atop a mountain of bodies, but it was usually not interpreted so literally. As he looked at the dead, many unanswered questions in their eyes - the foremost of them being 'Why did you do this to us?' the scene shifted.