His head throbbed viciously as Kael surfaced into consciousness like a drowning man breaching water. The ornate canopy above him swam into focus - dark mahogany beams supporting midnight-blue drapes that rippled in some unfelt breeze. He lay sprawled across a four-poster bed large enough to quarter troops, his fingers digging into silk sheets that whispered of unimaginable wealth.

The chamber reeked of power. Not ostentation, but the quiet authority of aged wood and perfectly joined stone. A scholar's desk bore fresh parchment alongside inkwells of crushed lapis lazuli. Tapestries depicting celestial battles drank the sunlight filtering through leaded glass. Every surface gleamed with monastic fastidiousness.

Then his gaze froze.

"Holy hell." The words escaped in a reverent whisper. Propped carelessly in the corner like an afterthought stood a staff that defied reality. Seven feet of translucent crystal thrummed with inner light, its spiraling shaft crowned by a sapphire the size of his fist - not gemstone, but solidified magic radiating waves of power that made his teeth ache.

Memory fragments collided. The game...that damn grimoire with its shifting pages...the system message blinking "Congratulations! You've obtained [The Book of Immortality]!" Then white-hot agony as reality unraveled.

His bare feet hit icy marble. The staff's call pulsed through his veins, drowning rational thought. Three steps. Five. His trembling hand hovered-

The crystal erupted.

Azure radiance flooded the chamber, painting dancing water patterns across vaulted ceilings. Kael's scream died unborn as power surged through him - not pain but terrifying ecstasy, ancient knowledge whispering through his neurons like a tsunami through a keyhole.

"WHO DARES TOUCH MY TIDE-STAFF?!" The door exploded inward, revealing a tornado in human form. White hair stood in electrified tufts around a face like crumpled parchment, yet the eyes... Those ice-blue eyes held millennia of storms.

The old man froze mid-curse, staff-light reflecting in his widened pupils. "Impossible," he breathed. The word carried more weight than all his previous shouting.

Kael collapsed against the desk, fingers smoking faintly. "What...what was that?"

Instead of answering, the stranger gripped his wrist with surprising strength. Kael gasped as foreign energy probed his veins - cold fire racing up his arm. "No mana channels... No core cultivation... But the resonance..." The mage's muttering crescendoed into a shout. "BOY! WHAT SORCERY IS THIS?"

"Me?!" Kael jerked free. "I just woke up here! Where the hell is 'here' anyway?"

The old man's beard quivered with indignation. "The Azure Spire! Crown jewel of Yánhuá Academy! Sanctum sanctorum of-" He caught himself, squinting suspiciously. "You claim ignorance? Yet you activated the Tide-Staff's dormant matrix with raw affinity alone?"

Kael's blank stare seemed to confirm the impossible. The mage began pacing frenetically, muttering in what sounded like three languages simultaneously. "...spontaneous attunement...celestial alignment...or perhaps dimensional translocation..."

A silver platter materialized mid-air, bearing steaming dumplings and fragrant tea. "Sit. Eat." The command brooked no refusal. "You'll need strength for what comes next."

As Kael mechanically obeyed, the old man's gaze turned uncomfortably hungry. "They call me Stormrider Ethan," he said abruptly. "Last living master of the Seventh Circle. And you, boy, whether by design or cosmic accident, have just become the most fascinating specimen in three millennia."

Ethan leaned forward, eyes blazing with arcane fire. "How would you like to learn real magic?"