Eversmile departed soon after, even more perplexed than when he arrived. This left Vilastromoz alone back on the terrace with his own thoughts as a deep frown marred his face. A lot of things weren’t making any sense right now. For something to be Forbidden Knowledge was… not normal.

To clarify, for the system to hide information wasn’t anything new at all. Restricted Knowledge was a relatively simple term, as it just referred to knowledge restricted by the system, as the name very obviously implied. It wasn’t any big secret either, and everyone encountered it throughout their Paths. Hell, it was what restricted people from sharing information about the Nevermore Floors or Challenge Dungeons to those who had yet to do the World Wonder.

This Nevermore example also nicely showcased another aspect of Restricted Knowledge: it varied widely to whom knowledge was restricted. For Nevermore, people like Jake could now talk openly about the World Wonder with anyone else who had either done it or wasn’t capable of doing it. In other words, anyone who had done Nevermore, or anyone at B-grade or above, could openly talk and hear about the C-grade version of Nevermore.

Forbidden Knowledge was a step above Restricted Knowledge. It was knowledge one was incapable of sharing at all with anyone but others who also already knew… with it many times even being a truth only you knew. In many instances, it also restricted people from ever learning these truths, to begin with, and simply being told Forbidden Knowledge was impossible.

Impossible for anyone but the Malefic Viper, that is. Because the concept of Forbidden Knowledge did not exist to him. He possessed the Bloodline of the Immortal Mind, a Bloodline that did nothing but give him perfect memory… which meant that he never forgot even that which was forbidden. Vilastromoz was likely the only one in the multiverse who could simply be told something that was considered Forbidden Knowledge and remember it.

This led to him being called the Keeper of Forbidden Knowledge by certain beings. Especially the Void Gods referred to him as such. Unsurprisingly, considering that they knew more Forbidden Knowledge than even the Primordials, and Oras had gleamed many secrets, he could now only share with the Malefic Viper. This led to the Viper safekeeping a lot of knowledge that many would consider useless… but could be highly valuable for someone seeking to use the system cleverly.

However, the thing that still made no sense about the First Sage was… he had not been Forbidden Knowledge before.

It wasn’t as if no one knew about the First Sage before Jake became the Viper’s Chosen. He had mentioned him to several people throughout the ages… yet this kind of response had never happened before. He had spoken for hours with his wife, and he even remembered referring to the First Sage a few times when he taught Sanguine back in the day, as the would-be creator of the vampire race sought to create a Transcendent skill, and the First Sage was naturally an expert at that.

Back then, there hadn’t ever been a problem, and while people were certainly alarmed whenever the Viper spoke of this C-grade master of his, they could definitely remember their conversations. What had changed besides Jake making contact?

He had to get to the bottom of this as he had to confirm something and remembered a certain someone. Vilastromoz had not shared anything about the First Sage with many… but his right-hand hydra had known about his existence for sure. Without delay, he had one of his avatars seek out Snappy within the hydra’s own realm.

“Master! To what do I owe the-“

“Skip the pleasantries,” the Malefic Viper interrupted the hydra, Snappy instantly realizing the Viper was being serious.

“What’s the issue?” the Lord Protector of the Order of the Malefic Viper asked.

“Do you remember someone called the First Sage?” the Viper asked, closely studying the hydra.

For a few seconds, there was no reaction before the hydra questioned him. “Did you just attempt to share Forbidden Knowledge?”

“Apparently, I did,” Vilastromoz frowned even more than before as he clenched his fists. For Snappy to have forgotten… this was a lot more than something simply getting a new designation as Forbidden Knowledge.

The Malefic Viper knew only of one precedent where this could happen. Removing existing memories that were already ingrained in the Records of a Truesoul was something the system never did. To take away long-term memories could be damaging in far too many ways, as the risk of it hurting someone’s Path was simply too high.

However, it could happen, just not by the system causing it. The only time he had ever encountered this was as an aftereffect of one of the most feared and powerful Transcendent Skills in the entire multiverse: Karmic Annihilation. Eversmile’s Transcendence.

The ability to remove someone from existence. To kill them completely, erasing even the Records and all memories anyone would have ever had of them. Complete and utter death, in every sense of the word. It was such a powerful technique that even Eversmile would find himself affected, unaware of who he had used it on. He would know he had used it, but all memories of why and who would be gone, and that was naturally far from the only backlash he would suffer.

To summarize… he could delete someone and turn anything related to their existence into Forbidden Knowledge.

Only the Malefic Viper would remember.

This wasn’t caused by Eversmile, though. The Viper would have felt if it was… but it was likely caused by something similar. A Transcendent Skill cast by someone else, and it wasn’t hard to figure out who. The First Sage was the one behind this. He had made his own existence into Forbidden Knowledge, and the Viper had no idea why.

The First Sage was dead. He died in the first era.

No ifs. No buts. He was dead.

Vilastromoz had refused to believe a being like him would simply have died, and he had done all he could to confirm the death of his master until he finally got it confirmed by the system itself. Even now, the Viper did not doubt this fact.

He was dead… yet now he was sending echoes through time. For what purpose, the Viper truly couldn’t comprehend, but… it had to have something to do with Jake, right?

Jake had no idea about anything the Viper was doing, as he was busy being in quite the situation himself. Standing within an arena, Carmen stood opposite him, wearing her leather armor with a big grin on her face. The stands around them were absolutely filled to the brim with members of Valhal who wouldn’t miss out on a fight between the Chosen of the Malefic Viper and the Runemaiden of Valdemar to save their lives.

By now, Jake was kind of regretting agreeing to this, but Carmen had insisted, and he did want to have a spar with her. He could do without the audience, though. Before they began, they also had to set some ground rules because there was no way they would fight at full power.

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“What do you say to no active or boosting skills?” Carmen asked. “No limited items either.”

“No bow also seems like a good restriction,” Jake generously added a further handicap to himself.

“Dude, we’re in a small arena; I would be impressed if using a bow was even feasible without any active skills to create distance,” Carmen said in a deadpan tone.

“You underestimate my bowmanship,” Jake smiled.

“Fine, no bow either, then,” Carmen ended up agreeing. Jake wasn’t entirely bullshitting, either. Even if the arena was only about a hundred meters in diameter, Jake was still confident he could have used his bow quite nicely.

The two of them looked at each other for a moment as the crowd cheered loudly. Even Olaf had shown back up, acting as the judge and the one to make sure they didn’t accidentally end up killing each other. Not that Jake thought that was an actual risk, but better safe than sorry.

“Are both combatants ready?” Olaf asked. “Remember, no active skills, boosting skills, limited items, and the Chosen is not allowed to use his bow.”

“Ready,” Carmen nodded as she bent her knees.

“Read-“ Jake tried to say as Carmen shot forward, straight for him.

Fast.

Jake swayed to the side as the fist flew by him, the air vibrating from the blow. Carmen quickly pivoted and did a follow-up, but Jake backed away as he dodged five more quick hits while he retreated further and further back. The crowd cheered as his back was pushed up against the back wall of the arena.

Trying to take advantage, Carmen struck right for his stomach as Jake simply looked down as the blow struck him. He felt all the air being pushed out of his body as he was smashed into the hard stone wall, a solid imprint of a fist on his stomach.

Carmen looked confused and took a step back as Jake got back up and smiled as he wiped the blood from his lips. “You’ve gotten stronger for sure.”

“Why didn’t you dodge?” she asked, perplexed.

“Felt like you needed to at least get one hit in,” Jake said in a calm tone as he spread his hands apart and a katar appeared in each. “Remember our last duel?”

“Yeah? I think I do?” Carmen asked, confused.

“Let’s just say I expect a better performance out of myself this time around.”

Jake still remembered their fight a long time ago. Back then, Jake – to put it nicely – had no idea how to fight in melee properly. He was pure instinct, which did serve him well, but in front of a skilled fighter, he would be in trouble on the offensive front.

However, all that was before Jake got lessons from his other self, who had spent years creating a proper melee fighting method. It was before Sim-Jake… and now Jake was more than eager to see the difference as he decided it was his turn to go on the offensive.

Stabbing forward, Carmen avoided the katar as she tried to counter – something that had worked well for her before Jake’s improvements – but Jake had expected it as he countered her counter. Her fist was deflected slightly to the side as Eternal Hunger struck Carmen in the shoulder… and Jake felt like he had just struck solid metal.

Carmen stumbled back as Jake’s hand hurt from the impact. Even so, he didn’t stop as he attacked again, this time trying to use his Blackpoint Nanoblade and its slightly higher penetrative effect compared to Eternal Hunger.

However, Carmen was ready, as she dodged to the side, throwing a punch as Jake also dodged. The two of them attacked half a dozen times each, both dodging all the blows of the other before Jake finally found an opening. The Blackpoint Nanoblade was slammed down into Carmen’s thigh… only for it to once more fail to penetrate as it slid down the side of her leg, nearly throwing Jake off-balance as he barely managed to jump away.

“Damn, you’re tough,” Jake said as he landed. “It’s like trying to attack Sandy.”

“Did you just compare me to a giant space worm?” Carmen asked, sounding offended.

“A giant Cosmic Genesis Worm,” Jake corrected her. “A very important distinction.”

Carmen didn’t seem to care much about vermeology as she responded by attacking again, Jake gladly meeting her offense. The two of them rapidly moved through the arena, Jake dodging every attack of Carmen, while the vast majority of his own blows also missed. Those he did hit barely seemed to do anything either, as their battle saw little progress.

One thing became clear after a good while. Jake was faster than Carmen, but Carmen had more raw Strength. Durability-wise, Carmen also had a massive edge, and she likely also had more Endurance due to her stamina-only Path. However… in every other category, Jake had her handily beat. He simply had far more raw stats than her, and while hers being focused on only a few stats did allow her to keep up, the disparity was clear.

Without skills, though, Jake couldn’t really show off many of his stats, allowing their fight to look relatively equal. Then again, even if Jake could use skills, he probably wouldn’t want to because one other thing was also pretty clear… this was a lot of fun.

Jake smiled as he and Carmen traded blows, the woman also enjoying the bout even if she failed to land any blows. Several minutes passed, and despite little changing, the crowd and the combatants were fully engrossed in the fight as the two fighters got more and more accustomed to how the other one fought.

“Would you mind if I changed things up a bit?” Jake asked as they clashed for what felt like the hundredth time.

“Still no active skills,” Carmen reminded him as she deflected a katar and tried to punch him in the chin.

“It won’t be,” Jake smiled as he dodged another attack and landed a solid kick, making Carmen slide backward.

Before she could fully stabilize, the area lit up as the ground below her exploded with destructive arcane energy. Jake didn’t hesitate to continue his attack as Carmen lost her footing, slamming a katar into her stomach. As a follow-up, more than thirty bolts of destructive arcane mana popped into existence around him, which he promptly sent forward.

“No active skills,” Olaf reminded him with a frown.

“It’s not,” Jake smiled, leaping forward to strike alongside his arcane bolts.

Even if his melee hits did little to nothing, Jake still believed his arcane energy should have some effect. At the very least, it should lower her durability somewhat and allow Jake to do some actual damage… at least, that’s what he hoped would happen.

It wasn’t.

Attacking in tandem with all the exploding bolts, Jake expected them to create an opening but instead just found Carmen grinning as she charged straight through them. A large explosion erupted as all the bolts went off, and through the explosion, Jake saw Carmen’s form. Runes lit up wherever bare skin could be seen, as the arcane energy did nothing… no, it did do something. Just not anything good from Jake’s point of view.

With runes glowing intensely, Carmen suddenly sped up, as she flew through the explosion and appeared before Jake sooner than he had expected. He dodged her first blow, but she managed to barely grab onto his clothes as she pulled him in and punched him in the chest, sending him flying back.

Jake stabilized in mid-air as he did a somersault and landed on the ground safely. “I thought no active skills.”

“All passive,” Carmen grinned as the runes on her body faded.

“A pretty damn overpowered one at that,” Jake muttered.

“You find it strange the runes of a Runemaiden are powerful?” Carmen threw smirked. “Also… I think this makes it two hits.”

“Aight, you got me,” Jake also smiled. Though in his defense, he had not seen that coming at all. He kind of expected Carmen to have high magic resistance, but what he had just seen was far above that. Those runes hadn’t simply negated the mana; they had absorbed it and temporarily turned it into a burst of power.

It was like she had a Palate of the Malefic Viper skill… just against magic. This also explained why her aura felt so off and muted. She was absorbing energy at all times, making it look like there was less in her immediate vicinity.

“Let’s see how you respond to this, though,” Jake said as another dozen arcane bolts appeared around him, making Carmen scoff.

“Pretty sure you already saw the result once.”

“Nah, I feel like this time will be different,” Jake said as he charged once more, seemingly repeating his move from before.

Carmen likely suspected something was off but still charged in kind. Right as they clashed, the arcane bolts hit Carmen… and didn’t explode. Instead, they struck her like hard crystals, throwing her slightly off-balance and allowing Jake to put proper power into his blow as he stabbed her in the stomach.

The Runemaiden was blasted back from the impact, smashing into the back wall making a nice human imprint. However, more than that… a small trickle of blood ran down her stomach, where his Blackpoint Nanoblade had barely managed to penetrate.

“So you can bleed,” Jake said as Carmen pushed herself loose. He saw her wound was already healing, but he felt satisfied managing to at least do some damage. She really was ridiculously resilient, though Jake knew this resilience came with other drawbacks.

“What the hell were those bolts?” Carmen muttered.

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” Jake said as more appeared around him.

“Damn straight, I will,” Carmen gritted her teeth as she kicked off the wall behind her, making a section of it collapse as she launched herself toward Jake.