Chapter 251 - Eye (Patreon)

I keep looking at the tube and just wait for the word that will surely soon follow.

It's inevitable.

(Food?)

“No, it's not food,” I say my prepared answer and send a bit more mana towards the eye.

It's as I thought, the eye is different in a way that's hard for me to detect properly. Pathways feel normal, yet it's not a normal eye. Maybe it's an eye changed by the trait the owner of the eye had. Maybe it's because it belonged to a high-level being.

I take the tube and look at it up close. I wonder, do we have the leisure to deal with it right now with the attack of the Colony coming anytime? Is it even something useful?

“Nat, do you think if you replace your eye with this, you will gain some cool power?” Min-Jae also steps close, clearly excited by this option.

“I don't know, to be honest. Even if this eye has some skill, trait, or whatever, could you gain it as well? How does the system work in such a case?” I think about it.

Such modifications are not something we've met with.

“What if you could just get some trait that affects your eye and then pull the eye, give it to someone to get that trait, and have a healer restore your eye? Does it mean you could repeat it dozens, hundreds of times and give people the same trait you have?” I ask.

“Logically probably yes,” Sophie joins in, “But the eye you transfer could reject the host regardless of using it or there are more requirements for the trait to reactivate.”

“Would the system even allow that?” Hadwin asks.

“It could be a weaker version of the original, or it could be possible if the original owner is dead, and it would transfer to a host capable of using it!” Min-Jae takes the tube from my hand and I let him.

Min-Jae continues to stare at it, “Even now I feel something like a connection to my skill, Nat! At first, I thought it was [Gravity Well], but now it feels like a weird combination of [Gravity Well] and [Telekinesis]!”

Tess takes the tube from him, “It's not as simple, Kim. I know where you are going with it, but we know nothing about that. We don't know if it's possible, we don't know if Lily can transfer it, and we don't know if it won't hurt you.” She glances at the tube once before putting it back into the chest.

“Why would you store it if not for something like that?” Min-Jae's eyes do not leave the tube.

I mean, there is some logic in it, and I grab it again, sending my mana inside. There is no reaction at all, nor do I feel the connection Min-Jae mentions, so I look at him. He isn't lying just in hopes of getting the eye for himself, right?

“I'm not lying, I really sense something!” he complains immediately, as if knowing what I'm thinking.

“Are you guys really thinking of taking your eye out and replacing it with this thing we just found? I mean, what the fuck.” Maya says something a normal person would think.

“Maya, wanna bet it's a super super strong eye that will give you an amazing ability?” Aaron pokes at her.

“Maybe it will allow you to see into the future,” Dennis nods.

Maya only shakes her head, “Or it will give you some ancient infection even Lily won't be able to heal.

“There is risk, of course, but it's something hidden in the chest that we were unable to damage at all and got from the Champion´s manor, so it has to be good for something,” I say.

Is this some sort of hidden reward? An eye with some ability? If yes, is it only for some people? People like Min-Jae, as he is the only one sensing something from it?

I grab the tube. “Everyone, try to send a bit of your mana inside and see if you sense something.”

The tube slowly passes from person to person, and everyone just shakes their head. Izzy even quickly passes it while calling it “ew.” When the tube comes into Min-Jae's hands, he sends some mana inside, and the eye noticeably reacts. The yellow iris glows a bit.

“Oh great, it was a flashlight in the end,” Dennis giggles.

Min-Jae continues to send more and more mana to it, but the eye just glows a bit, a hint of circuits visible on the surface ever so slightly.

The way the boy looks at me makes his intention clear.

Once again, I take the tube from him and examine it even more carefully, sending bits of my energies inside and even resonating my mana and changing the frequencies.

The eye doesn't react to me in the way it reacts to Min-Jae.

After all these months and this excitement, the goddamn thing I have hoped to be of similar strength to Peacemaker or Sword of Aeons is a flashlight-like thing. Should I still try to use it? Maybe I could do it and slowly find out how to control or use whatever it contains.

My eyes meet those of Min-Jae, and he seems to know what I'm thinking. Yet he still smiles, “You did most of the work, and it's probably safest for you to use it, Nat. Sorry, I didn't want to make it sound like… I'm too shameless…” he sighs.

Feeling someone's gaze on me, I look up and meet Tess's eyes. The tall blonde asshole of a manipulator is smiling, clearly knowing what goes through my head. Even Izzy tries to connect to my feelings, but I don't allow her to do so.

Damn it. Damn it!

Once again, I try to send my mana inside the eye, and it doesn't react at all.

Whatever, I didn't want it anyway.

I throw the tube at Kim. I have my black mana thingy that I'm slowly getting the hang of; I don't need some creepy eye of some long-dead asshole.

“Nat… I…” Min-Jae starts.

“Shut up, you twerp,” I interrupt him and find Lily and gesture for her to come closer, “We will do it right away as we don't know when the Colony will attack.”

I sit on the floor, Lily next to me, and Kim lies on the floor in front of us, his head closer. As he's surprised at how quickly things go, he is already shaking a bit.

Heh, you didn't expect this happen so soon, you greedy little jerk, right?

Replacing his eye should be easy with Lily´s new skill that she got from a combination of [Rejuvenation] and [Reshaping]. The skill is called [Reconstruction], and it's something she got when we went to save our group members. It improved her healing by a lot, even though it reduced her skill level.

“The plan is simple. Lily will use [Disintegration] to painlessly destroy your eye. I will get my mana inside you, Min-Jae, and you will let me; it might hurt a bit because I will need to use a lot of it. That mana will be there just in case the new eye will try some bullshit.”

I have plenty of experience with [Infusion] now, so doing that should be simple if he allows me to do so, which is something he is capable of.

“I will also surround the eye with my mana, so I can disrupt it if it tries something. Lily will also have [Disintegration] prepared. In the worst case, we will destroy it and later Lily will reconstruct your eye,” I say.

It's a simple plan, but things like that could work the best.

I also prepare more scenarios in my head. I can use [Tether] to place an anchor on the eye and try to teleport it away. I can create a barrier around Min-Jae's brain and blow off his face, which would be a quite bad experience, but fine in case something happens.

“Now, before we start, I will examine it more,” I say and open the tube, which is surprisingly easy.

I put my finger into the thing and directly touch the eye, sending the full power of my [Perception] at it.

There is no sense in asking anyone else in the city for help. After weeks I have spent here, I came to realize that my amount of mana and skill combination make me one of the best in Virelia when it comes to this, and probably the best now that good ol' Elydor is dead.

May we meet again one day.

Examining the eye, I find more pathways that I easily identify as channels for mana to activate the eye and its powers, whatever they are. I examine it extremely carefully over and over again, looking for memory constructs, traps, some creepy virus, memory, anything really.

And then again.

And again.

Multiple hours pass like that, and Lily pokes me multiple times while Min-Jae continues to shift nervously. In the back of my mind, I hear that some of them are talking, bored.

I consolidate my [Focus], activate [Mana Domain] around the eye, and constantly use [Resonance] to disrupt any mana that could be left.

[Perception - lvl 39 > Perception - lvl 40]

And I find nothing. After probably hundreds of years, nothing remains inside the eye.

“Send some of your mana inside,” I tell Min-Jae, and he quickly nods, putting his finger on it, doing it.

Then I start examining it again. There is some effect the eye is trying to produce, but it doesn’t seem to try to send that effect through the optical nerve that hangs from it. It’s more like in front of it and just shares information through the nerve.

Well, let's do it.

“Ready?” I ask Lily.

She quickly nods and then listens as I explain the steps to her one after another while Min-Jae nervously stares up.

“I will try to make it not hurt,” she says to him and puts her finger on his right eye.

“Left one!” he shouts quickly, and with a sigh, Lily does it.

I activate [Redistribution] and make him unable to move while infusing my mana inside him after he lowers his defenses.

It’s a lot of mana, so soon he shudders in pain as much as my skill allows him, and I gesture at Lily.

With a short blast of gray mana, his eye disappears, and immediately her mana rushes in, stopping the bleeding and healing it. Noticing that there is not enough space, she uses [Disintegration] again, and more of his flesh disappears.

The entire time I'm carefully observing it and moving my mana in his head, ready to shield his brain.

Lily quickly ignores Min-Jae's terrified expression on the one remaining eye and the pain he must be feeling and pulls the yellow eye from the tube.

After inserting it into the socket, she moves it slightly, and I help by creating a thin thread of mana and moving the optical nerve to the right place.

Lily uses more of her mana, and the wound quickly heals, creating skin, part of an eyebrow, eyelid. It immediately looks like there is no wound, and then she focuses on the inside, letting her skill lead her together with her experience.

She works on the connection very carefully, connecting all the nerves and muscles, giving herself enough time to do it properly.

Meanwhile, I continue to observe the entire process and have my mana ready as well as all the countermeasures.

Soon it’s done, and I release Min-Jae from my hold.

His eyelid moves, and he blinks a few times, both of his eyes moving as he looks around. His light brown original one and the new yellow one. They both look the same and move the same, only the yellow color being the difference.

I observe as his mana slowly moves and gradually starts circulating through the new eye the same way it does with the original one. Lily also is ready, her finger close to it as the mana reactivates it slowly.

Then Min-Jae actively sends his mana inside it, just a little bit, a whiff, and circular circuits on the iris show slightly.

“I feel fine,” he says and sends more mana into it, the circuits activating more.

The eye produces some effect that I identify as something similar to [Farsight] of Tess and my [Perception] combined.

“It's really weird, I can see these waves all around, and there is this weird feeling to it,” Min-Jae reaches out with his hand as if he is touching something invisible.

Then he sends some of his mana into the air, activating his skill. His eye activates a bit more, and he closes his hand into a fist.

At that moment, something in the room changes that is hard to identify, and a big chunk of the wall gets torn off and compressed into a small point, reducing all that stone into a smooth small ball barely bigger than a golf ball.

To create that effect, a huge chunk of Min-Jae's mana gets used, a good half of it.

“Huh?” he mutters and does it again.

Another big chunk of the wall gets torn off and with immense gravitational force pulled towards the center where it gets squeezed, and compressed.

The rest of his mana disappears, and Min-Jae wobbles, on the brink of passing out because of using too much too quickly, yet he is smiling, and both of his eyes shine with excitement.

The same as me, he knows this is only the start of what the eye will allow him and my suspicion is as good as confirmed. The eye must have belonged to someone very powerful to allow him to use his skills this way, even with his relatively low level. Maybe a Champion or at least a Champion candidate of high level.

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