MONSTER MMORPG: Mayhem Online

[Eyes of Arcana

Type: Skill

Rating:  Normal (Growth)

A mysterious and ancient eye that defies logic. The eyes choose its owner themselves, and nothing affects that. It is unknown when and how these eyes took birth, and there is no information available related to them.

Passive: I see all

Increases user's perception and vision. The eyes of Arcana can see through all. No matter how low your level is, you can see any enemy's level and combat power. You can appraise all objects items unconditionally. If the level of the eyes reaches high enough, you can see through any object's and living thing's past.

Looking into your eyes will make enemies restless and induce a fear state into opponents with lower combat power than yours.

Active: Insight Island

Resource Consumption: 300 Mana per second.

Cooldown: 60 seconds.

Upon activation, the bearer of the eyes of Arcana can see through all attacks and capture the opponent's attack pattern. During the activated time, the user's stats will be multiplied by 1.5 times, and the attack speed will increase by +15%. After deactivation, the user will enter a stunned state for 3 seconds.]

[This is a growth-type skill, and its abilities will grow every time its rating goes up.]

"..."

After claiming the skill, I could finally see its information. I knew my hunch was right. There was no way a growth-type eye power could be shitty. Even at normal ratings, it was still so good.

Actually, calling it good will be an understatement. It was absolutely nuts. An eye power that makes you see everyone's level no matter how high they were, I am afraid to even the Night Alchemist's Appraisal wasn't so overpowered.

[An existing eye power has been detected.]

[Eyes of Arcana is greater than the Night Alchemist's Appraisal.]

[Demolishing the skill Night Alchemist's Appraisal and absorbing its rating into the Eyes of Arcana.]

[Night Alchemist's Appraisal (Skill) has been demolished.]

[Eyes of Arcana (Normal) → (Uncommon)]

[Eyes of Arcana (Uncommon) → (Rare)]

[Eyes of Arcana (Rare) → (Epic)]

[Eyes of Arcana (Epic) → (Epic II)]

[The eyes of Arcana will now be installed in your body.]

[Pain calibrators have temporarily been raised to 100%.]

"Huh?"

What was it saying? What install? Why did they suddenly raise the pain calibrators?

"Is everything alright, Earl Shura?"

Tobias asked with concern.

I suddenly started getting a bad feeling. The last time my pain calibrators went up to a hundred percent, the system knew I had no choice but to feel that pain, either through stabbing myself in the heart or getting killed by Prytiz, the wyvern.

"I-I…I am fin—-ARGHHHH!"

Just when I was trying to reassure Tobias, both my eyes felt like someone was taking them out of their sockets.

An unimaginable pain that I had never experienced took over my whole body.

ARGHHH!!

I clenched both my eyes, burning and aching at the same time as if they were getting scorched in hellfire. Unable to stand the pain, I fell to the ground while shouting and crying in agony.

"Earl Shura? What is going on?? Are you fine?"

Tobias said as he tried to get near me.

"Stay bac—AAAGHHH! AAHHHHHHH!"

I shouted but couldn't finish my sentence as my vision finally turned blank with pain. I could see nothing even though my eyes were open.

AAAAARRHHHHHHHH!

UGHHHHH!!

I winced and struggled, but this agonising pain didn't seem to want to leave me.

"Hey, are you alright? How much are the pain calibrators?"

Being the player that she was, Elexis immediately understood something must be happening. So she asked me directly how much the pain calibrators were.

"I-IT'S A FUCKING HUNDRED! A HUNDRED PERCENT!"

I shouted at her as if she was the reason behind my current pain. But just then, the pain suddenly disappeared, and what was left behind was a pleasant and cool feeling in my eyes. Slowly, my vision reappeared as if it had never gone.

'Man, now I know the pain of being blind. I couldn't even handle it for a second.'

I thought as I slowly got up, touching my eyes unconsciously as both the king and Elexis looked at me with their mouths agape.

To be precise, they were looking at my eyes.

"What is it?"

"Your eyes….."

"!!!"

Elexis muttered and pointed at my eyes, and Tobias became even more speechless after getting another look at my eyes.

'What could have changed?'

I knew these people weren't hobos that would react so sensitively to anything, so there must be some huge difference, at least in my eye colour.

'Don't tell me they've turned black! Kekw!'

I joked and chuckled to myself as I moved towards the pillar, which was made out of a mirror on the outside.

As soon as my eyes met my own eyes, a feeling of dread so unimaginably clear settled down in my heart.

'It's fucking black???'

The sclera of my eyes was as black as anything could be. And the iris was like a fucking colour scheme picker, from red to green and blue, and any imaginable colour was inside my irises, rotating slowly yet steadily in my eyes. The centre of my eyes, my pupils, were again the same pitch black colour as my sclera.

'Good job, I have been promoted from a demonic-looking player to a walking rainbow-eyed…demon?'

[300 mana has been consumed.]

[300 mana has been consumed.]

[300 mana has been consumed.]

When I suddenly noticed the continuous mana consumption, I realised that the eyes of Arcana were activated. I immediately turned them off, feeling slightly giddy inside.

'So they will only be black when they're activated, right? It should be like that! Nobody would want to stand out so much with these rainbow eyes!'

I looked at myself in the mirror again and my smile that had formed, expecting a reversal in my eye colour, suddenly started twitching, unable to control the burning rage inside of me.

"THESE MOTHERFUCKING DEVELOPERS!"

I shouted at the top of my lungs, and the company behind me looked at me like I was a madman.

***

After calming down, I sat with the Emperor and Elexis again.

"Are you okay now, Earl Shura?"

Tobias asked for the umpteenth time. I growled but still replied, seeing as he was genuinely concerned.

"I am fine! Don't worry."

"What just happened?"

Obviously, there was no way to avoid this question. My eyes had just changed in front of them, and it wasn't even a subtle change. Not to mention, my screams were anything but subtle.

"It's…I don't know."

I replied with the only logical lie that I could think of. Of course, I wasn't going to tell him that I had just gained an overpowered eye power.

'Also, the rating increased just to Epic II even after consuming a special grade skill.'

It was both disappointing and reassuring. Disappointing that the rank of the skill was low, but reassuring because it was low even after consuming such a high-grade skill. It meant that it was at least as strong as the Night Alchemist's Appraisal or higher. And from the look of things, I doubted it was not higher than it.

"Forgive my boldness, your majesty. But there are some things that shouldn't be asked. I think this is one such thing."

Elexis said flatly to Tobias, who was trying to probe information out of me.

He dumbfoundedly looked at Elexis, who had spoken and then laughed.

"I don't know if it's the reassurance that you are a resurrector or just pure braveness that you dared to speak to me like that. I would take it as the latter. Don't worry, I may be an emperor, but I am not unreasonable. Let's drop the matter here."

He chuckled as he looked at Elexis, who bravely made her point.

'That's a top ranker for you.'

"Then, if you don't mind, let us proceed to make a strategy."

I nodded my head, and the emperor started laying out a strategy to take over the Drisica Kingdom.

After talking for a while, I suddenly had a question.

"After the king dies, the people will still need a substitute. There is no way anyone from his family should be allowed to rule anymore."

"I am glad you asked that. Although the timing is a little off, I think it's time for my own kids to start getting serious in their life. I'll offer every one of them to go and assist you in this mission, and whoever has the most merits will become the king of Drisica Kingdom."

"And becoming the king of one of the nations under the empire means getting a step closer to the emperor's throne?"

I asked after hearing Tobias's reply, and his smile answered the question for me before he even opened his mouth.

"Yes. My kids and I know that I am not giving up on the throne anytime soon. My lifespan is long, much longer than any emperor that had ever ruled this empire. And I have ambitions that far surpass my will to give up on the throne. So the best way for the prince and princesses to get any real power is to rule their own lands. What better option than becoming the king of a dying country?"

I understood what he meant, but I still felt it was a bit unfair to the other kingdoms. Wasn't this basically slowly taking away any power that they had?

'Well, this is nepotism at its peak.'

But talking about Nepotism in an imperialistic empire was nothing short of funny. At least Tobias was sensible enough to test out their potential before giving them a piece of land.

It was a good idea to create some rivalry between princes and princesses who had no choice but to wait till Tobias' reign was over. Which, according to him, wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

After the talk with the king, both me and Elexis got out of the king's study to prepare for the departure to the Drisica Kingdom.

We even had to take along the princes and princesses who wanted to come, so it'd take some time.