Eisen woke back up in the arena, just a few moments after he initially seemed to have fallen asleep. Through all this, Eisen had gained all the knowledge that he needed during these two dozen instances of duels he had seen between himself and Brody throughout the ages.
Toward the end, Brody actually beat Eisen more often than not, so it seemed like it was confirmed that the rumor that Brody couldn't beat Eisen until ten thousand years ago was really just that, a rumor. Either way, the old man pushed himself off the ground and got rid of the dust on him, while Brody walked up to him with a laugh. It seemed like he didn't even make it all the way to Eisen before he woke up again.
The demon-orc placed his hand onto the old man's shoulder, "Seems like it worked, eh? You remember some of that stuff no-"
But before Brody could finish his sentence, something else happened that he didn't particularly expect to happen. Eisen lifted his arm up and grabbed the arm that Brody placed onto his shoulder before twisting it around rapidly, and with a swift motion started to slide his foot over the ground. Brody quickly reacted, of course and slightly jumped so that Eisen's foot would slide underhim, but that was exactly what Eisen wanted. He stopped his foot under Brody's and then pushed up, kicking Brody's body further up while still holding onto his arm.
Quickly while Brody was in the air, Eisen twisted his arm into the other direction to before and slid right behind the Demon Orc's body, still holding onto his arm.
Due to the twisting, Eisen was able to swiftly move Brody's arm behind his body while Eisen pressed his free hand onto Brody's back, and then proceeded to push him down rapidly before Brody even touched the ground again.
And thus, for the first time today, Eisen had beaten Brody in a fight, completely overwhelming him at that, "Yeah, you could say I remember 'some of that stuff'. I remember numerous fights we had over the years, so you could say that I have the same level of experience of fighting against you as the former Eisen. Unless you remember these fights as well, it seems like you'll be stuck losing against me from now on." The old man grinned broadly, while the Demon Orc just lightly twisted his head toward him.
"You've gotta be joking..." Brody groaned loudly, but Eisen just shook his head immediately, "Well, of course not. Why would I joke about something like that?"
With a laugh, Eisen let go of Brody and stood up while he helped the Demon Orc up, "But don't worry, I'm not a better fighter than you. My body just kind of reacts on its own when I'm fighting you."
"This's fucking duuumb... Holy shit, why can't I remember stuff like this already?" Brody complained, all the whilst Sky slowly got rid of the Inkheart arena that they were fighting in, before everyone approached the two of them. They had spoken some throughout the day already, inbetween the different fights, but toward the end even they got a fair bit bored. But now, they were rather excited after seeing Eisen's sudden moves just now. After all, it seemed like he managed to take Brody down pretty easily with this last bit.
"What just happened? How did you do that?" Jyuuk asked excitedly, and Eisen slightly smirked in response, "Well, it's simple. By remembering numerous fights I had with Brody. I don't think I'll lose against him anytime soon." Eisen pointed out bluntly, and the Monkey Beastperson raised his brows surprised, "Oh, so it actually worked? You recovered that memory?" Jyuuk asked, and Eisen just nodded his head, "Yes I have. Following what this book is saying seems to be a good idea." The old man pointed out as he opened his item storage, grabbing the book with the 'memory notes' again. He flipped it open to the page that he read the information on how to remember the fights with Brody, but it simply disappeared.
Really, the text was just gone, although Eisen could definitely remember that it was supposed to be here. He flipped through the book some more, soon founding two more pages that were completely empty. As far as Eisen could judge from the pages around those, it seemed like these referred to the other two memories that Eisen remembered. It seemed like the more memories he recovered, the more pages would disappear form this book.
Although just as Eisen was thinking that, Bree pointed out something else, "Ah! Something changed on the book!" She exclaimed, and Eisen slowly nodded his head.
"Yeah, I know... some pages are just completely missing. It's pretty weird, but-"
"No, not that!" The fey-kin girl explained as she stepped into the space created by Eisen's item storage skill, and then grabbed Eisen's hand to take it away from the book so that she could close it, "Here!" She exclaimed, pointing at the front cover of the book.
Eisen looked at it with a light frown. It seemed just like before. It was intricately carved, and there were exactly 100 small beads placed into it. Most of them were pitch-black and there were two golden ones before. But now, there were three.
"Ah... does this... refer to how many memories I have remembered?" Eisen thought curiously, "Although, what does this mean then... Can I only remember 100 things in total?" The old man whispered, and Sky looked at the book with a light frown.
"I mean, probably not... Something might happen once you reach 100 memories? I mean, it's not like the book is what's making you remember things, so there's no way that it could restrict you like that." The Fey-Kin boy suggested. Eisen turned toward him and slowly nodded his head.
"Yeah, let's hope so. Well, then I guess I'll have to do my best to keep remembering to see what will happen when I reach this point." The old man laughed lightly, and Brody slowly crossed his arms, "But really, I haven't noticed anything at all. Nothing, no slight 'vibe', no tingling or anything at all. What's with that?"
"Well... I remembered my first memory when approaching the island of Craftsmanship while I was thinking about what the being creating the ego-items could potentially be like. Maybe you all will remember things when we reach your own specialties' islands? Maybe your own books are hidden there as well." The old man suggested. It seemed like it would make sense at least. Up until now, whenever they were looking for something that was 'hidden' by the old originals, it was always quite straightforwardly hidden.
Sure, it was all part of a weirdly complex system that was made the puzzle box, but that most likely had its reasons. It was somewhat like the puzzle box was guiding everyone into the right direction by giving them things they had to do, after all.
Either way, it seemed like this might be something pretty straightforward as well, although Xenia had a slight question, "Well, then it would make sense to try and reach the island of combat for Brody, the island of magic for me, and the island of art for Evalia, but... What about Jyuuk? Would his stuff be on the island of life? Or the island of death?"
"Well, both, actually." Eisen pointed out and turned toward Sky, "You sketched down the map of the islands that Girland showed you in an extra book, right?" The old man asked, and Sky slowly nodded his head.
"Yup. Here." Sky said as he slowly stretched his hand out and a book appeared out of thin air that he then handed to Eisen. The old man flipped through the book and used his Visualization ability to turn these drawn maps into three-dimensional represenations. He couldn't save things like maps with that skill sadly, but at least this made sure that Sky's abilities would come in handy.
In particular, Eisen created five different islands, one of them being the island that they were just on before, the island of craftsmanship. Then, there were also the islands of combat, magic, and art. And then at last, an island with a rather particular shape.
It was split into two by a large river. Or rather, it seemed like these were two islands to begin with. However, each of these islands had a large mountain on them. They were leaning toward each other, and it seemed like the peaks were intertwined with each other, although technically they apparently didn't actually touch each other.
"These are the islands of Life and Death. As one can't exist without the other, it seems like they're rather close to each other. If you ask me, it seems rather obvious that this is the place we would need to go for Jyuuk. But we'll have to see, it might have just been a coincidence for me." Eisen explained swiftly, and the others were still curiously looking at the uniquely structured islands in front of them.
"I guess we'll need to figure all of that out over the next while, don't we?" Eisen pointed out, "There's so much we need to do. We'll need to finish taking over all these islands one after another, we'll need to individually go to our birth countries and speak to people there, and we'll need to finish the tasks on the notes."
The old man turned around toward the others, but they were simply lightly smiling in excitement while thinking of what the islands of their own specializations would be like. With a bit of a laugh, Eisen just sat down on a nearby chair.
"Well, we should head off pretty soon. Or at least me, I need to let this body rest a bit." Eisen explained, and he was already in the midst of making himself fall asleep, although before he could do that, Brody seemed to have gotten an idea and stopped the old man.
"Yo, wait! This is actually perfect, isn't it? After taking over the island of war, we'll have incredible numbers of people or monsters to fight for us... And now that we've taken over the island of craftsmanship as well, none of those people or monsters will be lacking in equipment. Ain't it just gonna be super easy to take over the other islands with such large numbers?" Brody asked, and Eisen raised his brows before starting to laugh with a quick nod.
"Actually, you're right. Yeah, that's a good idea. Maybe we can just relax a little more and concentrate on other things if they're out there taking the islands over. As long as there are people we can trust leading them, I guess there shouldn't be an issue." Eisen smiled, quickly agreeing with Brody's idea.