by Okina Baba
All right! I finally maxed out the Vision Enhancement skill.
So the reward was a new skill, huh?
May as well Appraise it right away to see what it does.
Okay, so pretty much what the name says, then?
Hmm. Not sure if I get it.
The five sense-enhancement skills are pretty basic improvements, but the derived skills seem pretty plain, too.
Well, I guess I’ll try it out.
Okay, body brain, activate Telescopic Sight!
Request received. Telescopic Sight activated!
Oh? Ooh? Ooooh?!
Whoa, this is amazing. I’m sorry for calling it plain before.
My field of vision now displays a magnified telescopic image as well as my original range of vision at the same time.
I was expecting my entire field of vision to be enlarged, like looking through a telescope, but it seems like I can activate it in just one eye.
Normally, it’d be pretty confusing to get two completely different views at once, but who do you think you’re talking to? I’m basically a two-in-one package deal already.
If I split the work between the two units, it’s not confusing at all.
Since it’s still only level 1, the range and extent of magnification is pretty low, but it could be pretty useful once it levels up some.
For example, I could use Detection to figure out where an enemy is hiding, then use Telescopic Sight to zoom in on that location while still keeping my other eyes on what’s in front of me.
Yep, yep. And this seems to be another passive skill, ’cause it’s not consuming MP or anything.
I’ll keep it active all the time to level it up, then, since it may have a lot of potential in the future.
Hey, information brain, sorry to interrupt while you’re on a roll, but…
What is it, body brain?
Spotted some prey in the Telescopic Sight view.
Would you look at that! The newbie’s already earning its keep.
Wanna take it down?
Doesn’t that go without saying?
Aye, aye, sir!
I sneak up on the enemy right away.
Since I can’t use one of my sickles after the suicidal Rot Attack, I’ll just drench it in Deadly Spider Poison using Poison Synthesis.
The monster’s HP drains in an instant. As usual, my poison is terrifyingly strong.
Oh, perfect, I leveled up.
Which means I get to molt, so now my scythe is back to normal!
Plus, one of my stat-increasing skills finally evolved.
Do your thing, Appraisal.
Just as I figured, it’s in the same category as Herculean Strength.
So if the rest of my stat skills evolve, their growth rates increase, too?
That really makes me want to level them up right away, but it’ll just have to wait until I get through the Middle Stratum.
I definitely want to get somewhere secure as soon as possible.
And hey, wait a minute!
Leveling up means I have 100 skill points now! Yay!
Since I evolved, the number of skill points I gain per level increased to 50.
It was only 20 before, so that’s a big upgrade.
That means that after evolving just twice, I already have 100 points.
Now then, I wonder if those Evil Eye skills I’ve heard so much about have been added to the list?
Whoa. I really can get them now.
These skills definitely weren’t on the list before.
There are a bunch of different kinds, too. How am I supposed to choose just one? This is gonna be tough.
Hey, information brain.
What is it, body brain?
Wouldn’t it be better to get more than one?
Huh? What do you mean?
I mean, you know I have eight eyes, right?
What about it?
Well, doesn’t that mean we can use Evil Eye in up to eight eyes at once?
?! What are you, some kinda genius?!
Heh-heh-heh. Yep, I’m a genius all right.
Oh man. So I am a genius! That means I can get away with just about anything!
That’s right. Wouldn’t it be amazing to use eight different Evil Eyes at the same time?
Yooo. This is crazy. It’s like a whole new world of possibilities.
Although, one eye is using Telescopic Sight, so that only leaves seven.
We should probably make sure we still have normal vision, too, so wouldn’t it be six?
I guess so. So we’ll pick one for now, then get five more as we get more skill points?
Sounds good. Then, body brain, which Evil Eye should we get first?
I’d say we should go for one of the attributes we don’t have, so either Curse or Petrification. The Heretic kinds seem more like they’re meant for use on people than for fighting monsters.
That’s a good point. I think I’d go with Curse, then. Petrification seems to take a while, judging by our experiences with that stupid lizard in the Upper Stratum.
It’s that much more powerful for the time it takes, though. But you’re probably right. Curse would be safer.
Good ol’ me. I really know what I’m talking about.
I’ll take the Cursed Evil Eye, then.
Cursed Evil Eye level 1, get! Sweet.
Obviously, I have to find a monster to test it out on tout suite!
Maybe the info from Mr. Detection can help me here.
Hmm. Hmm, hmm, hmm. Looks like there’s something over there.
It’s still too far away to get detailed intel, but whatever it is, it seems to be on land.
Perfect. I’ve found my lab rat.
Oh, it’s an evolved frog.
Boy, that brings back memories. This guy looks like the upgraded form of those frogs I used to eat.
Doesn’t seem like it’s that much stronger than they were, but I think it probably evolved to
adapt to the Middle Stratum. It even has Heat Nullification.
Between that and the fact that it has Night Vision despite the constant glow from the magma, I have to assume it came from the Upper Stratum.
It’s pitch-dark in the Upper and Lower Stratum, after all.
Maybe it got lost and couldn’t find its way back, so it evolved out of necessity.
I hope there aren’t any Lower Stratum monsters that wandered in here like that.
If one of those things evolved to adapt to the Middle Stratum environment… Yeaaaah, no.
Also, now that I can see the frog’s skills, it looks like those “spit attacks” were actually Poison Synthesis, the same mine.
Apparently, it uses the Expel skill to shoot the poison through the air. Ooh… I’d like to get my hands on that myself.
Then I could fire globs of poison that would put the frog’s wimpy attacks to shame.
I wonder if I can get proficiency for it by shooting threads out of my butt or something?
Hey, information brain. Since you seemed busy with some stupid thoughts, I went ahead and synthesized paralysis poison and immobilized the frog.
Ooh, good one, body brain.
Now we can try out the Cursed Evil Eye.
All right, Evil Eye activate!
Yep. It seems to be working just fine.
So how’s this thing work? Oh… Ooh!
The frog’s HP, MP, and SP are slowly decreasing.
Since it’s still only level 1, it makes sense that it’d be slow, I suppose.
Both its yellow and red SP are going down, but the yellow bar recovers faster than the damage can reduce it, so no effect there.
Maybe once the skill levels up, the damage will outmatch the recovery?
Then I can keep my opponents in a constant state of hyperventilation? Ooh, creepy.
But I guess it’d run out of HP and die before then.
HP and SP are usually around the same amount, after all.
Oh, its stats are going down, too.
There’s a little box next to the numerical values that says “decreasing.”
It displays the normal max value of each stat in parentheses next to their current numbers, too.
Oh-ho-ho. So this is what it looks like when you hit something with a stat-lowering attack.
Sure makes it easy to tell the curse is working.
Good old Appraisal always has my back.
Anyway, it looks like Evil Eye isn’t a passive skill, which I guess would’ve been too much to hope for. My MP is decreasing.
But it’s not particularly fast. About 1 point every ten seconds.
And the frog seems to take 1 damage every five seconds or so, so I suppose it’s fairly efficient?
With my current MP, I could keep it active for about fifty minutes, so that seems cost-effective to me.
Plus, once it advances, I’m sure it’ll deal damage more quickly.
Oh, looks like the paralysis is wearing off.
…No, wait, body brain’s already on it with another round of Poison Synthesis. Great job, me. Always quick on the draw.
Hmm. Its HP and stuff are still going down nicely, but the rate has slowed.
The stats were all decreasing at the same pace as its HP and so on until they hit the halfway point, but now they won’t go much lower.
Is there a limit on how much stats can be reduced, then?
Well, guess that makes sense, now that I think about it.
If it kept going, you could end up with 0 defense or something.
Talk about paper-thin. Actually, that’d be so weak that paper would seem strong in comparison.
Still, just bringing its stats down by half is a pretty big deal in itself.
It’s not that big of a difference on small-fry like this frog, but if I could cut the stats of strong monsters like that eel in half…
Monsters sometimes depend on stats even more than skills in battle, so weakening their stats means a significant drop in their combat abilities.
If the eel’s stats were cut in half, for instance, it wouldn’t be much stronger than a catfish.
This could be a real trump card against powerful monsters.
I’ll have to make raising its level my top priority.
Hmm? Huh? The frog died?!
What the hell? I thought it still had some HP left…
The rest of its HP drained in a flash. But why?
Ahh, it ran out of red SP before it ran out of HP.
So that’s why. Guess when you run out of red SP, your HP starts decreasing really quickly.
WHAAAT?!
Yikes. I’ve had some pretty close calls after evolving and stuff, then.
Good thing I had food at the time.
Thanks to Overeating, my red SP hardly ever goes down, but I’ll have to be extra-careful from now on.
At any rate, Cursed Evil Eye seems pretty useful.
Maybe when I have MP to spare, I’ll activate it to earn more proficiency.
Yeah. I’ll make sure I keep at least half of my MP in case of emergencies, then use the rest to work on Evil Eye.
That should be easy, since I can keep it active while I’m walking.
Okay, but this Evil Eye is totally magic, isn’t it?
I mean, it drains MP, and it’s clearly some kind of supernatural phenomenon that ignores the laws of physics.
Although, that seems true of a lot of other skills, too…
So what’s the difference between magic and those other skills?
I don’t know. Appearance, maybe?
Guess Evil Eye is pretty subtle in that you can’t see its effects unless you use the all-knowing Appraisal.
When you think of magic, you think of something a little louder and flashier, right?
Yep. It’s important to have some flair. I really wanna learn magic.
Sure, Cursed Evil Eye is technically a long-range attack, but it isn’t the immediate impact I’d originally expected.
What I really want is a straightforward, easy-to-understand, ready-aim-fire-boom, long-range attack.
Cursed Evil Eye is useful in its own way, but can you imagine how strong it’d be combined with magic missiles or something?
Damn, wouldn’t that be nice.
Hmm. My quest to learn magic continues, I suppose.
I am a body brain.
As yet, I have no name.
Listen, I gotta vent about the information brain for a moment, okay?
What an idiot.
Take a little while ago, for instance. She wanted to learn some shooting skill or other, so she was all, “Shoot thread out of my butt!” So I tried, but it shot out with more force than I expected, and— Splat! Went right into the magma.
It caught fire immediately, of course.
If I hadn’t severed the thread in time, we’d have gone up in flames by now.
So basically, she’s always making these stupid suggestions, and I’m the one who has to deal with the consequences.
I don’t think a single one of her ideas has worked out yet.
Although, I guess I’m also the one who goes along with them every time…
Still, I wish she’d come up with some better ideas.
Couldn’t you think these things through a little?
Why is the one who’s supposedly the brains of this operation so damn clueless?
Are you stupid or what?
Yeah, I think she must be.
That’s why I, the body brain, have to keep things together.
My actions mean life or death for both of us, after all.
Body brain, body brain!
What is it, information brain?
Do you think we can combine Evil Eye with Telescopic Sight?
?! What are you, some kinda genius?!
Heh-heh-heh. Yep, I’m a genius all right.
Oh man. So I am a genius! That means I can get away with just about anything!
That’s right. Would using Evil Eye from a long distance be wicked or
what?
Yooo. This is crazy. It’s like a whole new world of possibilities.
Okay, then let’s find some prey!
Whoo-hoo!
I am an information brain.
As yet, I have no name.
So using Telescopic Sight and Evil Eye together didn’t work. Hrmph.
I guess it really was too good to be true, huh?
At least keeping Telescopic Sight active all the time has raised it to level 5.
The distance and amount of magnification it can do has risen quite a lot compared with level 1.
If I could just apply Evil Eye to this, I could attack from a pretty fair distance, but seems like that isn’t actually an option.
Oh well. Evil Eye is still pretty useful.
Since I’ve been using it whenever I have the MP to spare, it’s level 3 now.
It seems to level up pretty slowly.
But I haven’t been using my MP much in the Middle Stratum anyway, so that’s fine.
At some point, I noticed using Evil Eye doesn’t affect my vision.
I couldn’t combine it with Telescopic Sight, but it seems to be perfectly compatible with Vision Enhancement and such.
If I can see just fine while using it, there’s no reason to make sure I keep one eye free for it.
Now I’m one step closer to my dream of having eight different evil eyes at once.
Also, it seems like you can’t use any of the attribute-adding skills on Evil Eye.
I tried it with Poison Attack, but it didn’t work. So be it.
Just like combining it with Telescopic Sight, that probably would’ve been too overpowered anyway.
If I could combine my deadly poison with Evil Eye, I’d be like some anime character who can kill with a glance.
Just being able to weaken things and inflict damage simply by looking at an enemy seems broken enough as it is, so it’d be greedy to ask for even more.
I thought maybe I wouldn’t be able to activate these skills in all eight eyes at the same time, but it looks like that actually works.
However, it doesn’t change the effect.
Since I’m using it in eight eyes simultaneously, I’d hoped it would multiply the effects eightfold, but no such luck.
However, the several-eyes-at-once thing turned out to be pretty useful for Telescopic Sight.
Depending on how I use it, I can monitor several locations concurrently and zoom in as needed.
Anyway, on a different note, can we talk about the body brain for a second?