No supernatural phenomena were ever confirmed to be genuine. In fact, they were always disproved with careful observation and experiments. It was no more than a misjudgment of ignorant people that didn't know what they were looking at.

But this book was completely different. It was more like a school textbook. It contained a detailed introduction to a substance called Ether that was able to absorb and store a form of energy called Mana. This Mana would then be used to control other forms of reality. Depending on what type of Mana was in this Ether, one could control different natural Elements.

The book was divided into four sections for the four Elements: Earth, Water, Air, and Fire. The instructions were not hard to understand. They were made of simple and crude descriptions of interactions between molecules and atoms and forces that work on them.

Apparently, as long as one understood it and had a good grasp on the form and purpose of the spell as well as the correct form of Mana and just by saying the spell's name, one should have no problem in executing it.

Erik was more impressed by the description of matter than the spells themselves. If the book was actually a thousand years old, then whoever wrote it must have been a genius of his time. But it was more likely that this was a really well-made joke and it was all fake.

But, even if that was the case he would still at least attempt it out of curiosity. For a spell, he chose a Fireball. The most iconic spell in any fantasy game or story. He had an absolutely clear picture of it in his mind as well as the intricate interactions between the gas molecules and heat. For safety reasons, he went outside to test it out. He took a deep breath, calmed his mind, extended his hand, and shouted.

"Fireball!"

Silence.

Absolutely nothing happened. Not even a puff of smoke, not even a bit of warmth. In fact, it was extremely cold outside. In a rush, he completely forgot it was winter. The snow was up to his ankles and he was only wearing light clothing.

"Achoo! Damn it's freezing out here." He hugged himself, teeth clattering. "Sure enough, spells don't work, no surprise there," he mumbled to himself. But despite knowing this was the most likely outcome, he couldn't help but feel at least a bit of disappointment.

He quickly went inside and threw away his wet slippers and instead put on his sneakers. After warming up, he went to reexamine the Elemental Codex. There had to be something he missed when examining the age of the book.

From his estimations, a paper that thick, even if it was hundreds of years old, should be in even better condition than the one before him. It didn't look like it was damaged by water or any insects. However, it was completely yellow, and on the outside, it was even becoming brown and crumbly.

Suddenly, a small bump on the backside caught his attention. Before, when he was tired, it must've slipped his inspections. There was something hidden inside one of the back covers. It was made of two layers of leather sewn together.

He quickly took one of his knives and cut the seam apart. Inside was a small pouch made of really thin fabric, similar to silk. It was, just like the book itself, a deep red color. Inside was a beautiful, completely black crystal the size of his thumb.

As soon as he touched the stone, he felt a weird sensation coming from it. It was similar to electricity yet wasn't painful. Instead, it gave a feeling of warmth and comfort to his whole body.

Erik nearly got lost in this pleasant feeling when he noticed the two pieces had even more symbols on them and one had something that looked like a spell formation he saw in some games. In fact, after translating it, he discovered it was just that. One of them was supposedly a long-distance transport formation.

He had no idea to what or where it led, so he ignored it for time being and focused on the other page. It was much simpler. Apart from a golden spell formation, it only had a few instructions for making use of it. The page was made of paper, but due to its age, a part of it was smudged and impossible to read.

It said something about the black crystal, but after scratching his head in confusion for a while, he came to a realization that he was never going to know what was originally there. It was too far gone. It was a shame, but such was life. Not everything was ideal, no matter how hard you wanted it to be.

And as he stretched over to grab a drink he, by accident, caught the piece of paper between his body and the desk and tore off a piece of the smudged part. The paper was so incredibly fragile, he immediately cursed his own clumsiness and tried to fix it back together. Unfortunately, all that did was completely sever the ancient piece of paper.

What happened next was straight out of a fantasy book. The page flashed with blinding light, illuminating his room, as it disintegrated into dust. An instant later, all that light enveloped him and tried to make its way inside his body.

A flood of sounds, words, and symbols forced themselves into his brain. His head began aching, feeling like it was going to explode. In agony, he fell to the ground and held his head, sweating and grunting profusely. The pain was so excruciating he felt like he was going to die at any moment. This went on for a few minutes, but for him, it felt more like years of torture.

Then he fainted.

Erik woke up a few hours later completely drenched in sweat. Just remembering what happened made his entire body shiver. He changed his shirt and pants and went to examine the book again. He took it and started reading what was written inside.

Suddenly, a realization hit him. He was able to understand the words perfectly, without the need for a computer. That triggered another shock and he nearly fell backward. When he calmed down somewhat he tried reading the words out loud. He was saying exactly what he read but the sound was definitely not of his native language or any other that he knew of.

As it turned out that he actually gained a perfect ability for speaking and understanding foreign languages. He went on the internet and quickly tried to speak even those previously unknown to him. And it worked. He was able to perfectly understand the meaning of those words and even read them out loud.

Such an amazing ability would definitely be priceless if it was in the past! Of course, now the universal translator made it obsolete.

What shocked him the most was that his mistake led to all of this! The old page was somehow triggered and disintegrated, resulting in this impossible situation becoming a reality.

No matter how or why it happened, the fact remained that it did. That meant that there was definitely something unusual going on here. Erik quickly figured out that there was nothing wrong with his spells before.

The only thing he was missing was apparently the source of energy. And he was able to tell that this crystal was definitely an Ether Crystal that contained Mana. However, he could also feel that whatever just happened drained quite a bit of that energy from it. The feeling it gave off was much weaker than before, by at least a third.

Because of that, he became more interested in the other spell that was apparently connected to some unknown place. If he could actually go there he could probably find many more crystals and maybe even find a way to recharge them. So he went and studied the formation and writing on the leather page.

It turned out this spell was somewhat different and it required a part of this crystal to be crushed and mixed with the caster's blood as a catalyst. He first hesitated for a bit but then decided to try it out anyway.

Using a hammer he broke off a big piece of the stone and threw it in the blender. Granted, blending rocks was not the best idea and the machine almost broke, but the crystal was not all that hard and the blender still managed to grind it down to sand-sized particles. Next was blood. He used a knife that he made himself and cut through the skin on his hand.

He made sure to avoid any important veins, and so, after a few minutes of dripping, he got a shot small glass worth of blood. Mixing the two together he merged them into a thick, black liquid. The black sand dissolved in the blood in just a few minutes and the blood started giving off a bit of heat.

Erik went to his room and drew the formation on the floor, with blood, according to the instructions from the manual. After finishing, he stepped in the middle. He was holding the remaining piece of black Ether Crystal in his left, and the book in his right hand.

"Now... Let's see how this works. Gate!"

He said the word 'Gate' in the language of the symbols, and as soon as he said that, the formation on the ground started to lightly shine and the air around him started to wiggle.

"Haha! Very nice. Let's see if this really works!"

With a thought, he poured more Mana from the crystal into the spell formation. Immediately the light shone stronger and the whole room started shaking. Erik felt a strong pulling force coming from the formation, but as he tried to step back, to his surprise, he realized that he could not move in the slightest.

Slight panic took over his body and he desperately tried to retreat even more. But he could not move a single muscle, as if he was stuck in concrete. The light became brighter and brighter until it was so blinding he could not look anymore. He closed his eyes and gave up on struggling and let destiny take its course.