Cause First, Effect Later
Merlin gently pushed up his monocle.
A Deep Blue ring appeared in front of the glasses, followed by Auxiliary Array Disk radiating light and shimmering runes, making it look like a virtual panel.
He stared intently at the grimoire in Iver's hand, and after a while, he suddenly frowned slightly, revealing a somewhat puzzled expression.
... What is the Great Sin Grimoire? As an apostle of the Path of Wisdom, Merlin naturally possesses the ability to appraise extraordinary items. In fact, during the Round Table Era, Merlin was Avalon's best appraiser.
He can see the effects of this thing.
However, he did not know what "Phantom Demon Card" and "Great Sin Card" were.
Is this the legacy brought about by the Sacred Entity?
"Iver," Merlin asked cautiously, "Did you...see anything unusual just now?"
"... Something special?"
"It's what I called the ' Sacred Entity ' before. It could be a snake, a ring, a cloud of smoke, or a demon. It's the will residing in the remains of that Dream Demon."
Merlin offered a slightly more precise answer, "Do you remember?"
Although Merlin maintained a mysterious and all-knowing demeanor in front of Iver, he actually knew very little, and even Merlin himself was surprised by this call of fate.
His initial motivation for coming to "Beheading Valley" was simply to investigate the Shadow of Avalon Ritual. This was information he obtained after meeting Iver in a dream.
Upon inspection, he discovered that Jacob had not only altered the rituals he had left behind, but had also left something else entirely.
Merlin even saw Vivian nearby... She wasn't an apostle who ran off to play like himself, but rather someone who had directly abandoned the power of the Path of Love and been reborn as a mortal.
This unusual behavior surprised Merlin —because the woman was by no means the type to put herself in a passive position; although her actions seemed crazy and extreme, she always maintained her rationality.
Vivian is the type who is very clear about her own goals and is ruthless to others as well as to herself. Although she did many crazy things, they were not driven by emotions but by self-interest... Her madness is mainly reflected in the speed at which she "abandons" others.
People generally have a certain attachment to what they already have. If they encounter a problem, they will usually try to solve it within their capabilities. Even if they don't need something for the time being, they won't throw it away directly, but will keep it to see if they can still use it later.
But Vivian is not.
She fell deeply in love with Merlin, pouring her heart and soul into it. But after achieving her goals with Merlin, she coldly severed that connection, sealing Merlin away within the tree.
She cared for Lancelot like a mother, and through this great achievement, she rose to the rank of Apostle. After accomplishing her goal, she decisively severed her mother-son relationship and never saw Lancelot again.
She's always pursuing more, exchanging less for more. And she always manages to find even more.
But now, she has unhesitatingly abandoned her identity and power as an apostle, fleeing directly into the Material Realm —a move that can only be described as escape, since her reincarnation was certainly not permitted by the Shadow Angel. In other words, she has even abandoned everything she has had until now, becoming a mortal again.
This made Merlin extremely uneasy.
Following this lead, he found the remains of the Dream Demon left behind during the Iver Promotion Ritual, discovered the Book of Law and seal left by Jacob, and found the knowledge of the Ouroboros Ring Ritual from it.
In the end, it was thanks to the information provided by Ye Zhi's fickle and disloyal werewolf that Merlin finally learned the whole story before Iver —to be precise, he was only about ten minutes ahead of Iver.
But that's all he knew.
When Merlin asked him a question, Iver's heart stirred.
He suddenly realized that this seemed like a good opportunity...? The secrets that Iver knew before, whether it was the way the Great Sin Scholar changed jobs or anything else, Iver couldn't tell anyone.
Because he didn't have a legitimate source of information—he didn't know any superhumans before, and the only knowledge he had about the superhuman world came from his adoptive father James's study.
But Iver pulled out a ritual to reincarnate Meg and gave Sherlock a new profession he'd never even heard of.
Both Meg and Sherlock certainly had their doubts about Iver. But Meg was more pragmatic; if she couldn't figure it out, she wouldn't dwell on it. Sherlock, on the other hand, had already decided not to take Iver too seriously... but things couldn't always stay that way.
And now is a perfect opportunity!
"I did see something."
Iver's expression turned serious as he thought about this, "I saw the past, I saw my grandfather talking to a mysterious being. And that being granted my grandfather some special knowledge—including some rituals I had never seen before... In addition, he also showed me some information about the future."
"Future?"
Merlin wasn't interested in the ritual, but after hearing about the future, he repeated it, then tilted his head and nodded, "Oh, that makes sense—do you remember what He said?"
"He didn't say much, and what he said were mostly riddles. Like the prophecies of a prophet... But after that, a lot of knowledge suddenly flowed through my mind. It flashed by and then almost all of it disappeared, leaving only a few vague impressions."
Iver said seriously, "But I feel that as long as I meet a certain condition, I will be able to recall it!"
Every word he said was the truth.
Even if Merlin were to use a lie detector, he could only get the "truth" answer.
But with Iver's clever change of word order, it was as if what he saw was not ritual knowledge, but fragments of the future.
He began, "For example, that divine being once said... 'The apostles and priests chosen as the Pillars are the Great Beast's Sacrificer.' I think the meaning of that statement is..."
Iver paused suddenly at this point.
Merlin looked over curiously, but Iver's expression suddenly changed and he looked up at the sky.
—Originally, he just picked a line that looked familiar to him, hoping to fool Merlin.
But Iver himself only got halfway through his sentence when he suddenly understood the meaning of those words!
Because in that instant, Iver realized something.
In the game, the original "Iver" was the discoverer of the Great Sin Scholar class. Similarly, he was also the first Great Beast Master...
When Jacob and that "Sacred Entity" left those words, Iver wasn't even born yet. In other words, even if Iver had transmigrated from birth but just hadn't awakened his memories yet... he wouldn't have changed the world from over a decade ago before he transmigrated.
In other words, even according to the original timeline, Jacob must have left this book here!
So when did Iver obtain the advanced profession of Great Sin Scholar? Since Iver didn't know that part of the story, he could only deduce what happened back then from the subsequent settings.
At that time, Avalon was gone, and his adoptive father, James, had also disappeared. Even when the Fallen Angel arrived, "Iver," unwilling to use humans as ritual materials, was still just a level 30 rookie Demon Scholar. He followed the players around, but couldn't acquire anything of value.
Furthermore, the Fallen Angel were still alive at that time. In other words, "Iver" could only change to this class after the player and Isabel defeated the Fallen Angel.
By then, Avalon had already become Shadow Land. Judging from the fact that Hai Na had already transformed into a "hyena" at that time, Eagle Cape Village probably no longer existed.
In other words, the original "Iver" suddenly changed his class to Great Sin Scholar after the events of Theocracy and Star Antimony ended and he returned to Avalon with the player.
It's highly likely that Iver obtained the "Book of Law" at that time, which allowed him to conjure up the path to advancement from Great Sin Scholar to the Great Beast Master! [You must know that those chosen as apostles and priests of the Pillars are the Great Beast's Sacrificer.]
[Words that Bind Great Sin!]
The words of that divine being echoed in Iver's heart.
—A great beast, a great sin.
... No wonder the magic book I obtained is actually the exclusive weapon of the Great Sin Scholar, which doesn't even exist in the current version.
Iver hadn't thought much about it when he received it, but now he finally realized what was going on—
The cause-and-effect relationship is reversed! Cause first, effect—
It was after Iver obtained this book that he acquired these two professions!