How very “fantasy-like.” It also sounds quite complex.
There’s the immortal phoenix, Stellura’s undead, and the unaging sorcieres. They all have different origins and abilities.
Socieres don’t age, but that’s the limit of their power. The rituals they conduct and their own magical energy simply freeze time for their bodies alone. You could also look at this as a form of infinite regeneration with magical energy being its power source.
The bodies of undead have ceased functioning as living beings. It’s Stellura’s powers that influence their souls more so than their physical bodies. These bodies are then placed in the realm of the living. That said, it’s still uncommon to find zombies and skeletons about, and those that you do find are hostile. The same goes for hostile malevolent ghosts. Of the undead living in the Nether, the population is mostly made up of skeletons and liches.
Phoenixes are devoted to Sigrdrifa, but they do hold some connection to Stellura. The immortal birds possess only the powers of life and regeneration. That means they do actually die—it’s their regeneration power that instantly thrusts them into the process of reincarnation. That, of course, is how Stellura plays a part.
“To put it in the most simple terms, those who serve Sigrdrifa, the youngest of the siblings, receive the approval of her older sister. The phoenix becomes Stellura’s domain the moment the flesh is killed, so she created these powerful phoenixes to serve her little sister for all of eternity,” he explains.
“And sorcieres and undead don’t respawn because they don’t possess this power of life, yes?”
“Exactly. Sorcieres have merely brought time to a standstill. Undead have strong powers of death, or to phrase it another way, they are able to reincarnate without issue.”
The gods are impressed with sorcieres, who’ve managed to escape the flow of time with mortal bodies, if only temporarily. Stellura grants immortality as a way of thanking her worshippers after their deaths.
“The terms ‘unaging and immortal’ get thrown around quite often, but the only beings they truly apply to are those of us who worship the goddess Stellura.”
“Sorcieres are only unaging, and they still die. Undead are already dead. Phoenixes are merely going through the reincarnation cycle at a rapid speed. Do I have that right?” I confirm.
“Indeed. But I can only speak to the literal definitions, not however they’re widely used.”
I also learn that vampires get a huge boost to all their stats and their regenerative powers by drinking blood. They steal the nutrients and magical energy in the blood to temporarily enhance their own bodies.
The best way to kill them is to drive a stake through their hearts. That does the trick on most of them.
“To sum it all up, you are particularly tenacious even among all of our kind. Your attacks aren’t as strong as they could be yet, but that will change the more you train.”
“Are my roles and avatars the remaining things that play a factor?” I ask.
“Your role as arbitrator affects your aspects of contracts and punishments. But we cannot speak on your aspect of fate.”
In other words, evolving has added a space-time aspect to my race. Well, this sort of thing is all really just like flavor text, so I’ll make use of it for role-playing, but that’s about it. More importantly, there’s something else I want to learn about.
“Do you know if She Who Reigns debuffs my stealth abilities?”
“It does. It is a skill intended to show yourself to the world, after all.”
“I thought so. All right, then do you know what distant evil eye, gaze of fear, gaze of standstill, gaze of lethargy, and gaze of death do?”
“Indeed. Gaze of fear affects targets the same way other forms of fear do.”
Fear is a status ailment that reduces the amount of damage a target can inflict.
I’ll ask him to explain the others too.
Distant evil eye
Set coordinate-based spells anywhere your eyes can see.
Gaze of standstill
A space-time elemental version of petrification and freezing.
Gaze of lethargy
The gaze version of Slow acquired through Space-time Magic.
Gaze of death
Bring about your target’s death. This works differently than other wicked eyes. Staring with gaze of death starts a countdown that, upon completing, inflicts death.
Distant evil eye looks like it will be the most powerful. I’ll be able to cast explosions, walls, mines, pillars, gradius, and flak anywhere within my range of vision. Those are the only spells it affects, but I’ll be able to send them further out than even arrow or lance spells.
I’ve been able to place spells behind my back thanks to my form of vision, though each spell comes with its own limited range of use. But now I can ignore that and place them wherever I please within the range of Space-time Recognition Expansion.
Wait, hang on a minute. That means Night Sky Circle from Secret Art of Necromancy, the spell that buffs my servants, will fall within my range of vision too now! How wonderful!
“Looking at a target with multiple eyes using the same effect will break through the enemy’s resistance, letting you inflict a status ailment,” Cyäegha continues.
“Really? Using the same effect disrupts resistance?”
“These eyes seem to move independently from each other, so they shouldn’t be hard to use.”
I have six spheres that act as eyes. It almost feels a bit extreme to use them all at once.
All right, now that Cyäegha is satisfied, I’ll head to the Nether’s training facility. I have some dummies to beat up and some eyes to test out. Now that I know their effects, I only need to see how this skill functions. Dummies don’t move, so they won’t cause me any trouble.
I make my spheres have staring contests with the dummies.
Each dummy gains a special icon that grows a brighter color the longer the countdown is active. It seems to last one hundred and eighty seconds. I guess, after all, the spheres aren’t doing anything but looking.
Now that I think of it, the dummies aren’t in combat mode yet. Gazing at enemies before the fight breaks out could be a bit useful for me, but three whole minutes? That’s quite long when you compare it to making instant ramen. It basically won’t work on bosses at all, so it’s better to go in swinging like usual.
After one hundred and eighty seconds, the status ailment reaches level 1. It takes one hundred and fifty more seconds to reach level 2, one hundred and twenty more to reach level 3, ninety more to reach level 4, sixty more to reach level 5, and thirty more to reach level 6.
Getting to level 6 seems pretty, well… I’ll think of it as a unique trait of my race, and the higher I increase those status ailment levels, the less time it will start to take.
I don’t even need to look at the target, only have them in my field of vision. But as soon as they’re outside that range, the countdown for whatever level they were at starts over. The counter resets if you close your eyes, but blinking at least is allowed, so no one needs to worry about getting dry eyes.
The counter also resets when I put up a wall between me and the dummy, so if I run into an enemy who can use eyes like this, I know I can block them with a wall spell.
It’s surprisingly easy to control the spheres. I test it out by slowly putting my body in between the spheres and the dummy. They remain effective as long as any part of the target’s body is exposed, so I’ll have to make sure to hide behind my walls completely when facing this skill in the wild. I wonder if elemental attributes matter at all. A wind wall doesn’t seem like it would block the enemy’s vision, but I can’t test it out since I don’t have that spell.
I also need to test Slow and gaze of lethargy. I see, the two don’t seem to count as one combined spell. That will help break the enemy’s resistance, but it still doesn’t seem very practical.
The gaze of death countdown starts at three hundred seconds, and once it hits zero, the dummy is destroyed. Of course, if the enemy exits your range of vision for even a moment, that counter resets. As strong as it seems, the majority of enemies will be able to resist this one. Instant death moves simply aren’t that effective. It might work on a lower-level enemy, but unless I can reduce the countdown time somehow, it’s still faster to attack the old-fashioned way.
Distant evil eye seems to be a passive skill. It’s still active even when the little eyes are closed, so it must be linked to my own perception of my surroundings. In other words, Cutesy Eyes will have to put in work when I want to inflict status ailments using the wicked eyes.