Oh.. oh dear...
I am sure just these pictograms already explain a lot about Noah and his magic class... even with some horrible implications.

Hi, on tablet!

Noah's class didn't learn all those o_O

Dang, yeah, blood pacts, I remember that now! That one we could have known. :(

Well then. I kinda wonder why Green knows so much random stuff.

I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that Burk is a practitioner of that last forbidden art, which I am perceiving as "Spirit Seal," which completely locks away one's spirit from outside influences.

The first Forbidden Art appears to be some flavor of binding pact thing involving Pandemonium Spirits.

In the 4th category I seem to see a floating sword and shield which reminds me a lot of a certain bleeder's abilities.

Special #1: an aura and a heart. Spirit healing? Spirit health protection? The latter could explain how the demonstration fights were done...

Special #2: sword, shield, and brain. Gaston's special trick maybe?

Special #3: brain, heart, and chains.

Secret #1: horned shadow. This is obviously the Jojo spirit technique to summon a Stand, and I will accept no contradiction on this. :p Or it may explain Ciel.

Secret #2: now that one is interesting. instead of a little figure like all the others, it's a big ol' all-seeing eye.

Secret #3: chains and a key. Kiithnaras' idea of spirit seal is an interesting interpretation. The lower left chain link appears to be broken, significant or just some art error?

This infodump disguised as a "quiz" is boring AF and a very lazy way to convey worldbuilding. Sorry.

Completely agree Fuz, it's a lazy and bad way to add info the your world, doenst seem natural at all.

If there was a chapter to drop all at once this was it

@Fuz

You're not wrong, but it's been TWO THOUSAND PAGES of following around characters who are all completely oblivious in their own special way. I'm willing to accept the lazy at this point since it was going to have to be forced SOMEHOW.

I'm with Fuz on this one. It's an obvious trope but it's applied relatively well. Better than watching Noah stumbling through a whole chapter to reveal a fraction of this information.

I - for one - welcome our infodumping overlords. Not saqtisfied with the comic that updates more regularly than 99% of any other webcomics, intertwining 3 different storylines, being funny and intriguing at the same time?

Who cares?

Blurting out a comment of dissatisfaction without any meaningful advice is just a very lazy way of conveying emotions and social interaction, and is boring AF, sorry.

Notice that for categories 2 and 3 there are multiple levels of mastery.
Maybe Felix used a Super Surge(tm) and almost got killed because of it.

I think Burk is an esper, personally. They don't have magic, right?

This is is clearly an infodump. But it's information that was already partially known and presenting this information from the Noah side to the Tobi side more naturally would have been worse imo. This quiz game feels like a class for tobi about the world.

The question it's still why Green knows so much and how he is not afraid to show that he knows so much.

I have a sneaking suspicion that these three "secret" spirit arts can be connected to Noah, Tobi, and Burk, in that order.

Noah: The ability to perceive, interact with, and upgrade his Spirit of Pandemonium, potentially able to have her physically act in combat in the future.

Tobi: Supreme scan-sight that can comprehend just about anything.

Burk: The "spirit lock" ability others above have theorized about, making him immune to certain kinds of abilities.

Of course, none of these are necessarily actual spirit abilities, but their secret nature has confounded researchers from confirming whether these arts are spiritual in origin, to begin with.

Whatever Burk is, i think his "ability" is more a general inability to interact with spirit. So spirit attacks don't hurt him because as far as they are concerned, he isn't actually there.

Interesting that Green has such concise information on the topic, though.

Sounds like the correct answer. Green know a lot of stuff :O

Occasional infodumps are just part of the style of this comic, and have been all along. Not sure why people have read this far are complaining! I love the comic and have been a fan for years.

Personally I don't mind the info dump at all. After following this comic for so many years, I find the world really interesting, and learning a bunch about it all at once is pretty cool.

Honestly I thought the quiz show format was actually a good way to infodump. There aren’t really a lot of good ways to implement that trope elegantly. This one has the advantage because just giving us this information is also reveals which characters know what. I wasn’t expecting Levin to get this far for example.

I also liked it because it gives us, the readers, a chance to play the game as well, as much of this information was revealed previously elsewhere. For me at least, a large part of what made these storylines interesting was the mystery behind it. Also, paying attention to the subject of Smile’s questions gives one the impression that the quiz has a second purpose - as all of these questions highlight shady things regarding the world powers or relate to magic. It may not be as actioned packed as some of Burk’s fights, but I wouldn’t really say it’s boring.

It’s also rather rude to say things like that for a comic you read online for free. This isn’t something that pays exactly, and I’ve seen plenty of artists burn out from it. The least you could do is be polite.

I personally dont much mind the infodump, as I personally think it's all quite facinating.

Eh, personally I kinda like exposition as long as it's done well and this is done quite well.

Then again I'm also the type of person that likes shows like How It's Made.

lmao there's been lots of ways information about the setting has been conveyed to us and the characters over the course of the comic, the quiz is honestly pretty fun as a mix of "things you might have picked up on" and "there was no way for you to know this one before now"

Anyway y'all, think Noah's astral projection puppet is one of these cue cards? I'm not sure if it's one of the visible ones, but I'd guess at "shift"

I'm good with this style of info dump but I kind of wish it was all in the format of first half with multiple choice and who across from entire group got which questions correct.

So many people complaining about the free, daily webcomic with great pixel art and the richly built world.
Ah, the internet.

I like the infodump, gives insight on how rich the world is and may prepare the main characters to be able to cross path in the future.

This wat of infodumping in interesting as it doesnt tell info on the world, but also on the characters

It's also seems the questions for round 2 have been tailored to each contestant. It may seems giving them money for free, but it may also be a mean for Smile to check if each contestant is truly who one's claims to be. We know that Smile surmised one of them entered the claim with hidden agenda.

I'll also voice support for this arc: Infodumps are generally to be avoided when at all possible, but sometimes they are necessary to properly tell a story without meandering, and working complex and detailed technical or political information into conversations casually can be difficult.

I think this format works, especially for this story arc, and none of the contestants are going overboard with detail - enough to let the reader know what they need to know without boring with too much excess. Smile can be a little too wordy, but I feel it's established that's the case with Smile - detailed to the point of pedantry.

I suspect this is an in-universe infodump. The Smile foundation is likely using the quiz to make sure Tobi knows something important, that they will then use to manipulate/persuade her. Once we see what their motivation is, this will seem an extremely elegant,

Too bad Noah's not here to learn this.

Looks like @Kiithnaras was right on the money with the contract thing, excepting the part about the blood.

This comic has always been more infodump than anything else. I've kind of accepted it as part of the charm of the comic. This does feel a little less natural than usual, but whatever. I did prefer the multiple choice stuff, it was kind of fun trying to guess the answers ourselves.

There's nothing wrong with people "complaining" about something. Feedback is not meant to be only positive. On the other hand it's way more annoying when people whine about people who don't like something, like people aren't allowed to speak freely about things. Grow up. The author is probably taking these incredibly lenient "criticisms" better than you are. Something being free does not make the provider immune from negative feedback.

I'm here for it ! I love a well made and developed world. I found most of Tobi's games pretty boring and sometimes completely irrelevant to everything, but this is actually something interesting of the world and where the characters find themselves in general knowledge

@random - nicely done!

I think we've actually seen two of these secret arts already for sure. The 1st one is almost guaranteed to be related to manifesting a Pandemonium spirit, which Noel has warned Noah he's capable of and is 70% likely to be what drove Moe the Shifter insane.
I actually suspect the eyeball in the middle was Malhart's ability. He was able to see through his spirit paint, and Cilia has her snot-eyeball. If it's the ability to literally see through your spirit - not sensing but literally seeing - that could be wildly powerful.

@The_Squished_Elf Those are all Pandemonium powers though, aren't they? These are spirit techniques, so presumably they should be doable just by spirit users.

Personally my criticism of Tobi's arc is that it hasnt advanced Tobi's story much at all. Since this Smile thing has started, Tobi has done next to no progress in finding out what happened to her. It's been a painful grind

@Fuz. I disagree, I don't find it boring and it decidedly not "lazy", I wish people would understand what that means before they try to use it in a critique. Sorry.
@someone. While I agree that the comic being free doesn't entitle it to being immune to complaints or criticism, criticism is most effective when it doesn't come off as rude. It's not the people who responded that need to grow up.
I do agree with Nitrotetrazole that it feels like Tobi's story progress has stalled. Hopefully we'll get an answer or two soon.