Chapter 1047 - One Final Lesson

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It became clear rather swiftly that they still had time for the First Sage to give Jake a final opportunity, as he was only unconscious for about half a minute before his eyes opened once more. He raised his head slowly and met the eyes of the First Sage.

“Willingly knocking yourself out and remaining knocked out to better accommodate the influx of knowledge and Records is quite the novel strategy,” the First Sage spoke in his usual calm tone as his gaze hinted he was at least somewhat impressed.

“Yeah... seemed to be the best response,” Jake said with a nod, still not entirely clear-headed. He’d wanted to get as much knowledge out of the drop of blood as humanly possible, to the level of nearly harming his own soul. It had been pushed right to the limit before Jake had – as the First Sage said – allowed himself to be knocked out.

Once knocked out, the Records and knowledge he’d absorbed would have time to settle in his unconscious mind without Jake having to suffer through the experience. Jake had, for all intents and purposes, deterred absorbing some of the knowledge after absorbing it, getting him a more than satisfactory result as he’d just gained his very first mythical rarity Legacy skill from the Viper.

This upgrade did feel very weird, though. Normally, when Jake upgraded his Legacy skills, he had a plan for how he wanted to upgrade it, but this time around, he really didn’t. Sure, he had some thoughts before entering this vision about how he could potentially upgrade the skill in the future, and the connection it had to the First Sage had also strafed his mind, but nothing had been concrete.

That’s also why the influx of knowledge was so damn extreme this time around. The First Sage had simply unlocked the Records and knowledge already sealed within the drop of blood in Jake’s Soulspace and allowed him to freely bathe in it while absorbing as much as he could.

The result of this was a skill upgrade Jake would take quite a while to digest. Sagacity was innately a skill related to knowledge, so for Jake to get full benefits, he would have to spend way too long sitting and trying to find every little new thing he now suddenly knew...

... or more realistically, never do that and instead only realize how wise he now was when he used Identify and randomly got information he hadn’t expected to get.

Anyhow, Jake could still check out the updated description to see some of the actually tangible gains. The first thing he noticed was that despite becoming mythical, the skill still only gave 9 stats per level. Jake would lie if he said he hadn’t hoped for more, but then again, he knew there had to be some kind of limit to how many extra stats he could get.

Despite the First Sage sitting across from him seemingly proving the opposite, the system did tend to have a sense of wanting to maintain balance. Yeah, Jake should just be happy he got nine extra stats, as that was already quite overpowered.

The second benefit from the upgraded Sagacity Jake instantly saw was that he would now gain stat effectiveness bonuses even when crafting stuff he didn’t have a specific skill for. A pleasant surprise for sure, and one that would no doubt benefit Jake in ways he hadn’t even quite yet realized. It also meant that he was now more incentivized to broaden his scope of crafting a bit more.

Third was a benefit Jake hadn’t even thought about, but should really have considered: the ability to manipulate displayed Records of crafted items. Jake knew that Villy was able to change descriptions to fool people – such as the time he made a party of adventurers drink poison they thought were health potions – but he hadn’t known if that was related to his Legacy.

In retrospect, this really shouldn’t have come as a surprise. In the arts of poisoneering, being able to change descriptions and hide something’s toxic nature was pretty standard. Many were even offered skills to hide the poison as far back as F-grade, even if Jake had never seen a skill or an upgrade to a skill allowing him to do it.

This was likely because Jake wasn’t keen on hiding his poison. He instead focused on just making the most potent concoction possible for maximum damage, and rather than fool an opponent into drinking spiked tea, he would rather just throw the poisoned tea cup in someone’s face to get the fight started. In the simplest terms... hiding his poison was toxic just wasn’t really a part of Jake’s Path.

The upgraded Sagacity was far more than just hiding information on poisons, though. It allowed him to change the display information on all things he crafted, be they potions, poisons, or anything else. However, while the skill clearly stated Jake could freely modify and change the displayed information, he instinctively knew there were some limitations.

Not to say it was a lie; Jake could freely change the descriptions, just that the more he changed something, the easier it became to see through by others. If Jake wanted to change a health potion to display that it was actually a “potion of instant-godhood,” even an F-grade who’d just gotten the Identify skill would be able to see through his bullshit.

Hiding that a potion was actually a poison... now that was a lot simpler as both were liquids interacting with the health pool. Of course, Jake would have to do a lot more experimentation to truly grasp the full effects of changing Identify descriptions. He did have quite a few ideas, though... including how to maybe hide that any Grimoire he made was a bit too much on the heretical side.

Anyhow, the final change to the skill outside of everything just getting better was the “Knowledge further increases Records infused when crafting” sections. At first, this didn’t really read like much, but Jake instantly knew that out of everything... this was perhaps the most important aspect of the upgrade and what truly made it worthy of being considered a mythical rarity skill.

If Jake understood this aspect of the skill correctly, it was effectively an amplifier to every single thing Jake crafted. One that scaled with how familiar he became with a crafting process and a product – something that naturally already resulted in a better outcome. It would mean that Jake double-dipped in getting better at crafting stuff by getting an extra little bonus from Sagacity when doing everything. Now, the actual bonus could be utterly dogshit, but it was still the kind of effect that was just a pure passive bonus, and if Jake knew one thing, it was that passive bonuses tended to be pretty damn overpowered when stacked enough.

Having mentally gone over the most important aspects of the skill upgrade, Jake also felt his head be a lot clearer. He knew he still had a lot to explore, but for now, he didn’t want to waste the time he had remaining with the First Sage by experimenting. There would be plenty of time for that when not in a vision of Records from the past.

The First Sage also noticed that Jake seemed more clear-headed as he continued speaking.

“Integrating too much knowledge at once can also prove harmful, especially if you cannot digest it all properly,” the man spoke as he tapped a finger on the table. “Your soul got quite strained during that process... disappointingly so.”

Jake was about to say something as he stopped himself. “What do you mean?”

“That it’s weaker than I would have expected,” the First Sage shook his head. “More fragile than it should be... not to mention the fact a wound from a broken skill remains. While it isn’t actively harming you right now, the injury will become part of your soul for good if you don’t manage to fix it quick enough, leaving a permanent scar.”

Without thinking, Jake reached up and touched the small scar he still had on his neck from the fight with the Sword Saint during the Treasure Hunt, something the old man obviously noticed.

“Such a scar isn’t a problem. It’s more a reminder of your Path and an entirely self-imposed one. I don’t feel that it’s a scar left from regret, so it shouldn’t become anything that haunts and hurts your Records,” the First Sage shook his head.

Jake slowly nodded his head, already kind of aware but still happy for the confirmation. “What do you mean when you say my soul is weaker and more fragile than you expected? I know it’s wounded, but as you said, that shouldn’t be actively weakening it.”

If there was one thing that Jake tended to be pretty damn confident in, it was the power of his soul, which was why he found the First Sage’s words so confusing. Because of his soul, he had managed to tame Eternal Hunger and sealed a cursed creature more than capable of wiping out the entire solar system with ease within his Soulspace. Not to mention all the other stuff he had done.

Shit, even the drop of blood he’d just used to get his skill upgrade was proof of his soul’s power. He had defeated his own scaly version when he absorbed it and avoided getting overwhelmed by the Records of the Viper. Jake had even gone as far as to enter the Soulspace of someone else to help the Demon Prince. There, he had been so much more powerful than even a pinnacle genius similar to his own level... so how the hell was Jake’s soul weak when it was evidently far more powerful than even other peak figures of his own level?

“I can see that you’re skeptical about what I said,” the First Sage smiled. “Don’t get me wrong, your soul is incredibly powerful. It’s on another qualitative level compared to other C-grades your level, no doubt as a consequence of your Bloodline. I can even detect that you integrated some aspects of a cloned soul of yourself... a simulacrum created by the system, I expect. Not even going to ask about that one. My point is that you have a massive innate advantage, which is why I find it so disappointing.”

“Still not sure why that would be disappointing,” Jake said with pure confusion. “Sure, you can argue it isn’t earned, but not like I can do anything about it. I just used the advantages I had.”

“But that’s all you did,” the First Sage said, shaking his head as he leaned back. “Originally, I wanted to end this exchange of Records here. However, after seeing what I just did, I have decided to give you an opportunity. Rather than explaining, I will show you my disappointment and make you understand.”

“How?” Jake asked, slightly unable to hide his excitement and not really at all offended anymore. In truth, getting a skill upgraded to Mythical already made it worth spending five charges of Path of the Heretic-Chosen... but Jake wasn’t going to say no to more.

“You have such confidence in the power of your soul. In your Soulspace. So that is where this lesson shall be taught. I will give you the opportunity to absorb some of my Records. You have experienced having a manifested soul image with your Soulspace before, correct?”

“Yeah, a few times, and I kind of have one in there right now,” Jake nodded as the shadowy version of himself representing Eternal Hunger was in there. “But... not gonna lie, not sure I’m keen in trying to absorb some of your Records directly. Not after seeing what happened to that Void Dweller.”

“That apprehension is part of the problem,” the First Sage sighed loudly, shaking his head. “No matter. Explaining will only waste whatever precious time we have left. So, tell me, do you wish to take this risk?”

“What exactly are the risks?” Jake asked, not entirely sure what the First Sage was going to do. Absorbing Records could risk one losing themselves and turning into something else than they were before, such as what had nearly happened to the Demon Prince, but Jake felt that wasn’t what the First Sage was getting at when he spoke of risks.

“Yes or no,” the First Sage simply said, looking Jake in the eyes.

Jake understood then that the “test” had already begun. He considered for a while before ultimately concluding that the First Sage shouldn’t want to harm Jake, at least not purposefully.

While he was filled with questions, there were a few things Jake was confident about. One of them was that the First Sage cared about Villy, and with that assumption, he shouldn’t want to hurt Villy’s friend, right?

It was evident Jake could still end up worse off... but ultimately, nothing ventured nothing gained. The First Sage was dangerous as fuck, no two ways about it, but that also made any benefits Jake could get from him all the more valuable.

“Yes,” Jake just said, having resolved himself.

“Very well,” the First Sage said as he held out a hand. One of the books flew out from a shelf and landed in his hand, and for a moment, it glowed with energy as the First Sage set it down on the table.

“This book shall be the vessel in which I infuse my Records. You will have a final choice to absorb it, or not once I’m done, but know that should you not, everything will end shortly. There also won’t be much time to absorb it, as when I’m done infusing it, the world created by my Records in this vision will begin to crumble,” the First Sage explained.

Jake nodded, the First Sage placing his palm on the book which didn’t even have a cover or a title. “Then let us not waste time no longer. Prepare yourself.”

With his palm on top of the book, the First Sage spoke some words Jake couldn’t hear as his entire body started to glow. He looked at Jake a final time before he began to slump over...

Dead.

Jake didn’t have time to process much. The instant the First Sage died, the entire world began to crumble around them, and Jake felt that the vision was indeed soon coming to an end.

Without any hesitation, he reached out and grabbed the book, furiously absorbing all the energy from it. A process that proved effortless, as the moment Jake took the book in his hands and actively willed to absorb it, the book began to glow as it blew up into glowing pages that spun around Jake and entered his body. Everything happened in mere moments, and from within his Soulspace, Jake felt something appear as he closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, he found himself standing on the gray ground of his Soulspace, a sky of arcane energy far above. Directly in front of him, spinning glowing pages had appeared. They whirled around before gathering in a single spot and forming the outline of a humanoid figure.

A second and a flash of light later, the First Sage stood in front of Jake within his Soulspace. The moment he did, Jake saw the shadowy version of himself wake up and look toward the two of them, with even the drop of blood from Villy having a reaction.

Jake looked at the man with wide eyes as a faint tinge of doubt entered his mind as he asked himself if he had perhaps fucked up allowing such an entity into his Soulspace.

“Let us begin the final lesson,” the First Sage spoke in his usual casual tone as he lifted a foot slightly off the ground. “First task...”

He slammed his foot into the ground within Jake’s Soulspace, and the moment he did, Jake felt as if the entire world had been compressed. The sky above drew closer as Jake’s field of vision narrowed, and he felt he was getting crushed within his own soul as the voice of the First Sage echoed from everywhere, yet nowhere.

“Survive.”