When an impeccable woman, with an air of ambiguity, throws herself onto one, most gentlemen, even if they can resist the temptation, can't help but hesitate at first. It is a very normal physiological response.
—Masculine humans are just so.
However, this normal response does not apply to Yang Siming at this moment.
It happened too fast!
Before hormones or dopamine could take effect, unbelievable changes started to unfold before him.
A moment ago, the whispers had yet to fade.
The 'girl's' tender body, in the twinkling of an eye, lost its original form.
Colorless as air yet dazzling, soft as a colloid yet indestructible, cool as ice yet blazing like fire.
A paradoxical mix of elements combined perfectly and orderly, an 'existence' ineffable by words, took the place of Vilarnika before him.
It could meet the bizarre design requirements of a party 'a myriad of colors in black'!
"Is this my 'Innate Divine Ability' coming to me?"
Since confirming his transmigration, he had mentally prepared himself for many things, but such a bizarre sight directly in his face still prevented him from making a quick judgment.
Was Vilarnika's transformation because he had passed some kind of test?
So was it time to receive the reward?
Or did it mean that things were moving into a new stage?
There was no thunder accompanying this time!
Meanwhile, no matter how calmly Yang Siming considered, the encounter that defied all common sense continued.
"Accept this offering."
The maid's last whisper resounded in his mind, and Yang Siming instantly lost his vision.
Including sight, the body's sense of touch, the nose's sense of smell, the ears' hearing...
All sensory feedback was stripped from consciousness.
Only the brain's thinking continued normally.
This feeling was as if he had been struck by a Virgo Saint Seiya fighter.
It was the buzzing sound roaming around, as if a motor had been installed in his skull, pushing his thoughts to accelerate.
Soon after, some kind of 'indescribable information' started to invade the inside of his brain.
This particular sensation, like soft silk being stuffed into the right ear and then pulled out of the left, influenced his consciousness to evolve gradually.
Finally, a string of lead-gray characters filled with ancient aura emerged in his brain.
Yang Siming could assure himself, he had never learned these characters before.
Yet their meaning was somehow comprehended by him.
This was all he could analyze and understand from the information.
After an indeterminate amount of time, the language-indescribable wonderful changes entwined in his mind like one entity, and the mysterious yet eerie knowledge completed the transformation of his thought processes.
Yang Siming sat in the chair.
The things in his mind gradually submerged, and his perception of the world began to recover.
Something with a rough texture, cool as if it were a clump of mud, appeared in his hands.
"It seems my instincts have been quite accurate."
"Is this my 'clearance reward'?"
He looked down as he had felt.
It was a soil-brown stone tablet lying between his palms and chest, about the size of a 4A paper and as thick as a pack of gum, its pattern of straight lines and arcs nearly filling up the entire space on the tablet.
"Indeed, it's cuneiform script."
This time, Yang Siming was more certain of his prior conjecture.
The characters on the tablet belonged to an extremely early form of pictographic script.
For work, he had done some basic learning about it.
In Sumerian culture, it would take about another 400 years for this pictographic script to simplify its strokes to become the cuneiform recognized in the Hammurabi Code.
In terms of time, the tablet matched the era of Iskur worship.
Even such details were perfectly aligned, what was there to doubt?
Subconsciously, as if reading other texts, Yang Siming placed his fingers on this tablet that might be called an 'artifact'.
Upon closer inspection, Yang Siming raised his eyebrows again.
He could reassure himself again, he had not deeply studied cuneiform in his past journey, at most doing research within his professional scope, and being able to determine the period when this script was used was already the limit of his capability.
But the problem was, he could actually understand the characters on the tablet!
Not to mention these early pictographic scripts, even with the later mature cuneiform scripts, he could only recognize 'star' and 'god' like ordinary people.
What did understanding it directly mean?
Could it be that he is the reincarnation of the King of Uma from Uruk!
The tumult in his heart did not affect Yang Siming's reading, and as he did so silently, he comprehended the content on the tablet.
The sky had cleaved at noon,
The earth had parted from its edge,
The name of man's offspring had yet to be decided;
Ereshkigal had fallen to Kur;
Before His voyage had commenced,
Before the father god had sailed,
After His voyage had set out,
After the mother god had sailed;
The cloud-borne king, the mightiest of gods!
He shook the earth, casting light upon the mortal realm,
Gale turned fierce, the wilderness shuddered, the earth blazed,
The god of death hid in the desert, howling, as the dragon's keel grinded on;
A ferocious light! A divine light!
A swift light! A destructive light!
The utmost thunder at noon!
The despot of the parched sky!
That grand figure battled the atmosphere,
Like a lion rending its foe,
That blinding brilliance eclipsed the sun,
Like a hyena greedily devouring its prey;
There wasn't much content on the modest-sized stone tablet, and Yang Siming took only a few minutes to finish reading it thoroughly.
Obviously, this was an ancient Sumerian poem written in praise of deities.
It might also be a liturgical text used in ceremonies.
But in any case, what it praised was undoubtedly the Sumerian Thunder God, Iskur.
"Is this what is called a gift?"
"The reward for the trial?"
For a moment, Yang Siming found himself somewhat bewildered.
He had thought that, following the usual pattern, he would receive a golden finger or some Innate Divine Ability that would help him survive in another world.
But in the end, what he received was an 'antiquity'.
Could an artifact from Earth be valuable in another world?
Or could it be that his transmigration was actually to an ancient Western Middle Ages scenario, and henceforth he would make a living as an antiquities dealer?
With complex emotions, Yang Siming exhaled and then cast aside his distant thoughts to start pondering the handling of the stone tablet.
The tablet's value was undoubtedly significant, and he had to take good care of it.
Although its size and weight were not exaggerated,
carrying around such a tablet was definitely a big problem in terms of attracting attention and hindering movement.
This had to be resolved first...
Sudden change occurred!
As soon as the idea had formed, the stone tablet in Yang Siming's hands seemed to sense his thoughts and, without any external force, instantly dissipated into the air.
Accompanying this phenomenon, a lightning-shaped mark on Yang Siming's wrist flashed and was gone.
In his hands, there was no longer any trace of the stone tablet!
Not even a speck of its dust remained.
After hesitating for a couple of breaths, Yang Siming tentatively whispered:
The stone tablet reappeared, fitting snugly in his hand.
The stone tablet disappeared, and the mark on the wrist flashed and hid once more.
"This is quite convenient."
Quickly accepting this convenient fact, Yang Siming then prepared to rise from the chair...
Why am I trying to stand up?
Yang Siming remembered clearly.
Before losing the ability to perceive, he had been standing at the door of the room, interacting 'cordially' with Vilarnika!
The candle on the desk was still burning.
was exactly the same as when Yang Siming first awoke!