The Second Special Quest

How much time had passed?

Yuseong’s closed eyes slowly opened.

No blazing light emanated from them, nor had his aura changed.

Looking at just his appearance, nothing seemed different at all.

Even Yuseong himself thought so.

‘Did I doze off?’

His memories after looking at the Forbidden Knowledge skill were cut off.

As if that part of his memory had been cleanly sliced away, no matter how much he tried to recall, nothing came up.

“Status Window”

Though growth had noticeably slowed after breaking past the thousands, his stats still steadily increased by 1–2 points whenever he observed the Forbidden Knowledge skill.

If he had really dozed off, there would be no changes to his abilities.

Name: Han Yuseong

Class: User

Level: 4^@&

Title: One Who Makes the Impossible Possible

Strength: 3361

Agility: 378

Wisdom: 2961

Mental: 2934

Constitution: 685

Magic Power: 701

Internal Energy: 703

Spirit Power: 702

Skills: Forbidden Knowledge skill(??), Infinite Origin Force(S), Eye of Truth(A+), Shooting Star(A-), Cloud Mist(B+), Divine Balance(B), Mana Control(B-)…

After checking the status window, Yuseong first rubbed his eyes.

He thought he must have seen wrong.

But no matter how much he rubbed his eyes, the content on the status window didn’t change.

“What in the world…”

He could understand some stats rising above the levels purchased from the karma shop.

Stats could be increased through effort.

Strength and agility had risen while fighting monsters in America, and internal energy, magic power, and spirit power had clearly increased while repeatedly unifying and separating them through Infinite Origin Force.

What he couldn’t understand were wisdom and mental.

The last time he checked they were around the early thousands, but they had suddenly more than doubled.

The level was strange too.

Though it was a category he didn’t pay attention to since increasing it didn’t give bonus stats or change anything, having the content broken like this was definitely not something he could just ignore.

‘This kind of broken text only happened with the Forbidden Knowledge skill before?’

When his thoughts reached there, Yuseong closed his eyes again and entered between consciousness and unconsciousness.

Something was there as always, emitting all sorts of negative waves.

An appearance that seemed no different than usual.

However, something had clearly changed.

Until now, he had ignored all the malice and negative waves produced by the Forbidden Knowledge skill using his unique empathy ability.

But that didn’t mean he was completely unaffected, as he still felt instinctive revulsion like seeing a rotting corpse or disgusting insects every time.

But now he felt nothing while looking at the Forbidden Knowledge skill.

No, in some sense he even felt a strange familiarity.

When his mind became crystal clear as if he’d taken stimulants and unknown shapes and images started appearing, Yuseong quickly awakened his consciousness and returned to reality.

“…What happened?”

Yuseong massaged his throbbing temples.

Nothing is more frightening than fear of the unknown.

Forbidden Knowledge skill, missing memories, exponentially increased abilities, errors in the status window, unidentified information.

Just one would be enough to give him a headache, but facing five unknowns at once made him feel dizzy.

After much contemplation, his conclusion was to put it on hold for now.

Though Yuseong had a negative mindset and near-paranoid personality, he wasn’t so severe as to obsess over problems without answers.

“Pondering over problems without answers is just a waste of time. Let’s organize what we know for certain first.”

First.

The halo and horns Lucifer dropped were related to divinity.

Though no real divinity remained, not even a speck, clear traces remained of where divinity had once resided, like traces of an ancient river that dried up long ago.

Second.

The Forbidden Knowledge skill was also related to divinity.

What the unknown being he encountered in the [Unidentified Organism. Highly Hostile to Humans] quest – probably some cosmic entity from the Cthulhu Mythos – left in his memories wasn’t just a mass of thoughts or collection of information, but something related to divinity.

Just as one knows the sun rises in the east and sets in the west or that objects fall downward without being taught, he could instinctively know that the Forbidden Knowledge skill was related to divinity.

‘The Forbidden Knowledge skill might be far more dangerous than I thought.’

The missing memories.

He couldn’t even guess what had happened during that time.

Common sense said it would be better not to get further entangled with such unknown entities.

His past self would certainly have done so.

However, his current self was different.

Though reason said it was dangerous, his emotions said it was fine to use the Forbidden Knowledge skill.

“A little should be fine.”

He needed to learn the exact capabilities of the Elemental Bow and Infinite Origin Force he’d obtained this time, and he had to prepare for Alice and Sophia to operate on Earth, so he had to stay on Earth for a while anyway.

If he had spare time anyway, wouldn’t it be better to use it efficiently?

“Come to think of it, I drank the growth acceleration potion too. Even so, I can’t postpone quests for a month, but ten days… no, fifteen days should be fine, right?”

After convincing himself by listing reasons why he shouldn’t abandon the Forbidden Knowledge skill, Yuseong closed his eyes again.

Yuseong felt nothing strange about process.

* * *

Quests are the fastest and easiest way for users to become stronger.

It’s much easier to pay karma and raise strength and constitution than to train the body by pushing muscles and stamina to their limits.

It’s far more efficient to just find a client who’s reached a higher level and purchase skills than to swing weapons tens or hundreds of thousands of times and polish mental techniques aiming for enlightenment.

In the time it would take to research and memorize formulas for magic with difficulty rivaling academic papers to learn just one spell, doing quests would let you master several spells to a proficient level.

Looking at growth speed alone, there was no reason to train on Earth.

But looking at aspects other than growth speed, things were a bit different.

While skills and stats could be acquired and raised by paying karma, the ability to use them efficiently could only be gained through training.

The more skills one had and the higher their stats grew, the longer they needed to train to avoid being overwhelmed by that power.

In that sense, it was natural for Yuseong to train.

Woong!

Colorless transparent energy rippled around Yuseong’s fists.

Fist Energy created using the Infinite Origin Force.

Yuseong performed Shadow Moon Style 16 with Fist Energy wrapped around both fists, which was hard to notice without careful observation.

After making a mess of an imaginary opponent by hitting, stabbing, crushing, and twisting, Yuseong opened his clenched fists and held his palms forward.

Swoosh!

The Fist Energy made of internal energy instantly transformed into Thorny Vine made of magic power and spread in all directions.

The Thorny Vine that started about the size of a small child grew to the size of an adult man in the blink of an eye, and when he closed and opened his eyes again it became the size of a huge beast.

Finally reaching the size of a house, the thorny vines writhed like living creatures trying to turn the surroundings into wasteland.

But at that moment, an arrow trailing green light flew in.

Keeeeeng!

The moment the arrow hit, countless vacuum blades appeared and began slicing up the thorny vines.

Though a living creature couldn’t have endured it, the thorny vines could continue functioning as long as magic power remained no matter how badly mangled they became.

Of course, knowing this fact, Yuseong prepared the next arrow as soon as he fired the first.

Twang!

The brown arrow shook the ground, the blue arrow suppressed movement, and the red arrow burned everything.

And hit by the final golden arrow, the thorny vines vanished without leaving a trace.

Looking back and forth between where the thorny vines had been and the Elemental Bow, Yuseong muttered in a dejected voice.

“…I don’t need to train?”

He had finished checking the Elemental Bow in less than half a day, and it took less than a few days to get used to the Infinite Origin Force too.

Perhaps thanks to his wisdom reaching the late 2000s.

He could control energy as easily as moving his limbs and freely transform and unify their properties.

The Forbidden Knowledge skill was a bit different.

“Can I no longer raise stats through contemplation?”

His wisdom and mental that had grown to the late 2000s no longer increased.

Thinking maybe it needed more effort as the numbers rose, he tried meditating all day but couldn’t raise even 1 point, so he had to give up on raising stats through contemplation.

That didn’t mean the Forbidden Knowledge skill had become useless.

Though stats didn’t increase, instead images that seemed like symbols or shapes appeared.

Though he couldn’t understand what meaning these images held no matter how much he looked at them, all sorts of inspiration welled up while viewing them.

Such inspiration had occasionally come up before too, but the inspiration that came while looking at these images was much clearer and more concrete.

In just a few days using these images, Yuseong achieved various results like improving possession efficiency and enhancing thorny vine performance.

However, he was careful not to get too absorbed in these images.

‘This isn’t just anything but the Cthulhu Mythos. Nothing good can come from getting deeply entangled.’

Though it seemed too late to say that, anyway Yuseong thought he still hadn’t crossed the line yet.

As a result, the training he had planned for two weeks had to end in just one week.

There were no problems operating the Infinite Origin Force, energy control was perfect, and he had completely grasped the Elemental Bow.

With nothing left to do in reality, only one option remained.

“So in the end it comes down to quests.”

Letting out a small sigh, Yuseong headed to the warehouse.

This quest would be a bit different.

The reason was the subspace he received as a reward from the last quest.

‘They said items stored in subspace can be taken out even in other worlds.’

Until now, items that could be used in other worlds were limited to those owned right before starting a quest, so no matter how efficiently he packed, there were limits to the types and numbers of items he could bring.

However, now those limits were somewhat relaxed.

Though he still had to mind the clear rank, having more items he could bring meant wider quest selection options.

After putting weapons, fuel, ammunition, food, medicine, and various other items with plenty of space still remaining, Yuseong scratched his head as Alice’s image suddenly appeared in his mind.

“Seems like I could bring Alice on quests too… No, not ‘seems like’ – I definitely can bring her.”

He remembered Hae Cheongyeong, the client from [Heavenly Demon Sect. The Final Moment], mentioning attack satellites and android armies.

Imagining the absurd scene of a fantasy world witch possessing an ultra-scientific gynoid and sweeping through the martial arts world, Yuseong let out a chuckle and put on the goggles.

[Accessing multi-dimensional exploration system]

[Successfully observed quest]

The same messages as always.

And shortly after, one more message appeared.

[Successfully observed special quest]

Yuseong’s eyes narrowed.