After eating the Translation Konjac, Ethan Blake didn't feel anything unusual. There was no surge of information in his mind, no strange sensation spreading through his body, and no sudden enlightenment like he had half expected. Everything felt completely normal, which immediately made him suspicious.
Could the thing have deteriorated from sitting in storage for too long? The thought crossed his mind briefly. Still, that didn't seem very likely. Time didn't flow inside his golden storage space, so items stored there shouldn't age or degrade at all.
Yet the moment Ethan looked back at the Life Tablet, he froze in place.
Those ghostlike symbols carved across the blue stone suddenly made perfect sense to him.
Strangely enough, the characters themselves still felt unfamiliar. There was no clear concept of them in his memory, and if someone asked him to reproduce the writing, he probably couldn't. But somehow he could understand exactly what every symbol meant as soon as his eyes touched it.
The realization left him momentarily speechless.
Then he shrugged inwardly. Considering he had once stared at a mysterious box for years just to gain teleportation and telekinesis, there really wasn't anything impossible about a magical gadget from Doraemon's world. Compared to that bizarre experience, a universal translator snack was practically tame.
All Ethan could conclude was that the technology of Doraemon's twenty-second century was ridiculously powerful.
Standing beside him, Thor watched Ethan suddenly pull out what looked like a piece of bread and eat it in a few quick bites. The sight made the Asgardian prince blink in confusion.
Was the prophet hungry?
Thor quietly made a mental note to ensure Ethan was well fed at the banquet later.
Ethan, of course, had no idea what Thor was thinking, and even if he did, he wouldn't have cared. His entire focus was now locked onto the tablet.
As he studied the text more carefully, he quickly realized something important. What was written on the tablet didn't match Thor's explanation at all.
The inscriptions weren't merely describing some "life evolution equation."
The tablet itself was the life evolution equation.
The strange text engraved across its surface simply explained how to integrate that equation into a living body.
The process was surprisingly simple.
Once someone read the inscription aloud, the sound of the words would resonate with the tablet itself. The resonance would trigger the artifact's recognition process, allowing it to bond with the reader and merge directly into their body.
Ethan didn't hesitate for even a second.
The Translation Konjac's effect might not last forever. If he waited until returning to Earth before trying to activate the tablet, there was no guarantee he would still be able to understand the language. Without the translator effect, the characters would return to being meaningless symbols.
He immediately began reading the text aloud.
The inscription was long and complicated, and the pronunciation of each symbol felt strange in his mouth. Even with the translator effect guiding him, it took Ethan nearly six or seven minutes to finish reading the entire sequence.
Thor stood quietly beside him the whole time, choosing not to interrupt.
As he watched Ethan reciting the strange language, Thor couldn't help but speculate. Perhaps the prophet truly could understand the writing. After all, the artifact had supposedly originated from Midgard, and Ethan was a prophet from Midgard. If anyone could decipher it, it would probably be him.
Finally, Ethan spoke the last syllable of the final word.
The moment the sound left his lips, the blue stone tablet suddenly trembled.
Then, in the blink of an eye, the tablet transformed into a streak of bright blue light and shot straight toward Ethan's chest before dissolving into his body.
At that very moment, inside the royal palace, Odin had been observing everything happening in the vault.
When he saw Thor casually hand over the Tesseract to Ethan earlier, the corner of the All-Father's mouth twitched slightly. Even for Odin, watching an Infinity Stone being treated like a borrowed tool was somewhat painful.
Originally, Odin had expected Ethan to choose the Infinity Gauntlet. After all, Odin knew that Ethan already possessed three Infinity Stones.
But instead, the young man had stopped in front of the Life Tablet.
Then, right before Odin's eyes, the artifact transformed into blue light and fused into Ethan's body.
The shock Odin felt in that moment was far greater than anyone could imagine.
After all, no one in the Nine Realms understood the tablet's origin better than he did.
The story about Atlantis was nothing more than a convenient lie he had once told Thor and Loki when they were children. It was an easy way to satisfy their curiosity without revealing the truth.
The tablet had indeed been discovered on Earth, and it did allow its user to evolve into a higher form of life. However, it had absolutely nothing to do with any mythical Atlantean civilization.
The artifact had been left behind by one of the most powerful races in the entire universe.
The Celestials.
The language engraved on the tablet was the written script of that race.
The Celestials were widely believed to be the most powerful beings in existence. Each of them stood thousands of feet tall and wore massive suits of armor that concealed their true forms. No one had ever seen what lay beneath those armored shells, and even their origins remained a mystery.
More than a thousand years ago, the Celestials had once visited Earth.
Odin himself had discovered their presence.
At that time, the young Odin had been filled with ambition and arrogance, convinced that he would one day conquer the entire universe. Driven by that pride, he had confronted the Celestials while wearing the armor of the Destroyer.
The battle had ended in humiliating defeat.
Odin had been crushed effortlessly by one of them.
Only after that encounter did Odin finally understand how absurd his dream of universal conquest had been.
After Hela was sealed away, Asgard rarely ventured beyond the Nine Realms again. The experience had permanently changed Odin's perspective.
The Life Tablet itself had been discovered on Earth long after the Celestials' departure. Odin had recovered it and brought it back to Asgard, recognizing that it was something extraordinary.
Unfortunately, he had never been able to decipher its language.
In fact, Odin had once attempted something drastic to unlock its secrets.
He had hung himself from the World Tree for nine days and nine nights, hoping to gain insight into the mysterious script. Even with that extreme sacrifice, he had learned nothing.
Eventually, Odin had given up and placed the artifact inside his treasury.
Meanwhile, Ethan felt no discomfort as the tablet merged into his body. The experience wasn't anything like Odin's earlier divine power baptism either. There was no surge of overwhelming energy or euphoric sensation.
Instead, the change was subtle.
Yet Ethan could clearly sense that every second, every moment, his body was improving.
His physical strength, mental power, soul resilience, magical capacity, telekinetic force—every aspect of his being was slowly becoming stronger.
The growth wasn't limited to a single area. It was a comprehensive evolution.
However, the rate of improvement was extremely slow.
At the current pace, Ethan estimated that his physical abilities alone would take at least three years to double.
The explanation for this sluggish progress had been mentioned in the tablet's instructions.
The Life Tablet functioned as a life evolution equation. Without a catalyst to accelerate the reaction, the transformation would naturally proceed very slowly.
Unfortunately, the tablet didn't clearly specify what the catalyst was. The text only mentioned that many different substances could potentially serve that role.
Ethan sighed inwardly.
It seemed he would have to research that problem later.
When Ethan finally came back to his senses, Thor immediately asked, "Prophet, are you sure you want to take the Life Tablet?"
Ethan nodded.
Originally, his plan had been to use the Translation Konjac to copy the evolution formula recorded on the tablet, effectively stealing the secret while still taking the Infinity Gauntlet as his chosen artifact.
But he hadn't expected the tablet itself to be the equation.
Now that it had already fused with his body, there was no way to remove it again.
That meant he had no choice but to reluctantly give up on the Infinity Gauntlet.
"Prophet, let's go," Thor said with a grin. "There's a banquet waiting, and you can eat as much as you like."
Ethan looked at Thor suspiciously, wondering why the prince sounded so oddly enthusiastic about feeding him.
What he didn't realize was that Thor had interpreted his earlier snack as the behavior of someone who was starving.
Among Asgardians, it was tradition to hold a massive feast after defeating an enemy. Victory was celebrated with food, drink, and storytelling that lasted deep into the night.
Everyone in the great hall was celebrating happily.
Even those who had lost brothers, friends, or family members during the battle did not show sorrow openly. In Asgardian culture, dying in battle was the highest honor a warrior could achieve.
Thor even loudly praised Ethan's achievements during the war, telling everyone how much the prophet had contributed to their victory.
One after another, Asgardians approached Ethan to offer their thanks.
At the same time, several enthusiastic Asgardian women invited him to watch the fireworks later that night.
Ethan was feeling rather pleased with himself and was already considering accepting an invitation from one of them when he finally agreed.
....
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