Hell Difficulty Tutorial

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

It's inevitable.

(Food?)

“No, it's not food,” I answer and only then scan the eye with my mana.

As I thought, the eye is different in a way that's difficult to properly detect. The pathways feel normal, and yet it's not a normal eye. Maybe the eye has been changed by a trait the original owner had. Maybe it's because it belonged to a high-level being.

I take the tube and look at it up close. I wonder, if we have the leisure of dealing with it right now, what with an attack from the Colony due anytime? Will it even be useful?

“Nat, do you think you could gain a cool new power if you replaced your eye with this?” Min-Jae steps closer, clearly excited by the idea.

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

These modifications aren’t anything we've seen before.

“What if you could just acquire a trait that modifies your eye, then transfer the trait by removing the eye, and implanting it in someone else, then 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 one’s ability to use it or there could be other 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 was dead, and you had 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 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 that simple, Kim. I know where you’re going with this, but we know nothing about it. We don't know if it's possible, we don't know if Lily can transfer it, and we don't know if it will hurt you.” She glances at the tube once more 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, probing with my mana. There is no reaction at all, nor do I feel the connection Min-Jae mentioned, so I look at him. He isn't lying in hopes of getting the eye for himself, right?

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

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

“Maya, wanna bet it's a super super strong eye that could 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 might give you some ancient infection even Lily won't be able to heal."

“There is risk, of course, but it was hidden in a chest that we couldn’t damage at all, that itself came 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 kind of ability? If so, is it for specific people? People like Min-Jae? He is the only one sensing anything from it.

I grab the tube. “Everyone, try to probe it with a bit of your mana and see if you sense anything.”

The tube slowly passes from person to person, and everyone just shakes their head. Izzy even quickly passes it while saying “Ew.” When the tube comes into Min-Jae's hands, he passes some mana through, and the eye noticeably reacts. The yellow iris glowing slightly.

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

Min-Jae continues to channel more and more mana through it, but the eye just glows a bit, a hint of circuitry ever so slightly visible on the surface. 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, channeling different kinds of energy through it, I even try resonating my mana and changing the frequencies.

The eye doesn't react to me the way it does for Min-Jae.

After all these months and all this excitement, the goddamn thing I’d hoped would be equivalent to Peacemaker or the Sword of Aeons is a glorified flashlight. Should I still try to use it? Maybe I could slowly learn how to control and 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, she clearly knows what’s going through my head. Even Izzy tries to connect to my feelings, but I don't allow her to.

Damn it. Damn it!

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

Whatever, I didn't want it anyway.

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

“Nat… I…” Min-Jae starts.

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

Lily and I sit on the floor, as Kim lies down next to us, his head between us. He's surprised at how quickly things proceed, and he’s shaking already.

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

Replacing his eye should be easy with the new skill Lily received when she combined [Rejuvenation] and [Reshaping]. The new skill is called [Reconstruction], she acquired it when we went to save the others. It’s 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 channel my mana through 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 pulls some kind of bullshit.”

I have plenty of experience with [Infusion] now, so this should be simple if he allows it, which he is capable of.

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

It's a simple plan, but things like that tend to 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 quite a bad experience, but it’s workable if something does happen.

“Now, before we start, I will examine it once more,” I say as I open the tube, which is surprisingly easy. I put my finger into the thing and touch the eye directly, focusing the full power of my [Perception] on it.

There is no sense in asking anyone else in the city for help. After all the weeks I’ve spent here, I’ve come to realize that the amount of mana I have and my skill combinations make me one of the best in Virelia when it comes to this, probably the best now that good ol' Elydor is dead. May we meet again one day.

Examining the eye, I find more pathways I can 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, memories, 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 some of them 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.

“Pass some of your mana through,” I say to Min-Jae, and he quickly nods, touching it, and doing as I say.

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

Well, let's do it.

“Ready?” I ask Lily.

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

“I will try not to make it hurt,” she tells 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 restrain his movement while infusing him with my mana as he lowers his defenses. It’s a lot of mana, and he shudders in pain, as much as he can under the effect of my skill, and I gesture to Lily.

With a short blast of gray mana, his eye disappears, and immediately her mana rushes in, staunching the bleeding and healing it. Noting a lack of space, she uses [Disintegration] again, and more of his flesh disappears.

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

Lily quickly ignores the terrified expression in his remaining eye and the pain he must be feeling then pulls the yellow eye from the tube. After inserting it into the socket, she maneuvers it slightly, and I help by creating a thin thread of mana and moving the optical nerve into place.

She uses more of her mana, and the wound quickly heals, regrowing skin, part of an eyebrow, and his eyelid. It immediately covers up the wound, and then she focuses on the inside, letting her skill and experience lead her. She works on the connections very carefully, connecting all the nerves and muscles, giving herself enough time to do it properly.

Meanwhile, I continue observing the entire process and have my mana ready to activate 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. the light brown original and the new yellow one. They both look the same and move the same, the only difference is the yellow color.

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

Then Min-Jae actively cycles his mana through the eye, just a little bit, a whiff, and the circular circuits on the iris glow slightly.

“I feel fine,” he says and cycles more mana through it, the circuits activating more fully.

The eye produces an effect that I identify as something like a combination of Tess’s [Farsight] and my [Perception].

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

Then he channels 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 ball barely bigger than a golf ball.

It takes a huge chunk of Min-Jae's mana to create that effect, about 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’s then squeezed, and compressed.

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

Like me, he knows this is only the start of what the eye will allow him to do 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 high-level Champion candidate.