Chapter 279: Gnostic Eye Evolution?
Now, one didn’t even need to be so close to him to tell that there was something weird about his left eye. Any decently perceptive ascender within seven feet of him would be able to tell that one eye had a deep purple pupil, while the other was black just like everyone else’s.
Uhtred scoffed. "It doesn’t matter anyway... Lots of people have already seen it and said nothing about it."
He had thought at first that he would have to either come up with some lame excuse or end up wearing something like a contact lens to hide the change in his left eye.
However, right from the moment he returned from Floor 2, back in the waiting room with the rest of the human champion team, none of them had made any mention of it, even though he was sure every single one of them had seen the deep purple in his left eye.
At its current stage, no one really cared enough to call him out on it and ask about it. They could see it for sure, but it wasn’t yet significant enough for them to make the move of questioning him about it — save for Zara, of course... But then, even that was a one-time thing. Ever since the interview, she hadn’t asked about it again.
Now, though, Uhtred wasn’t so sure. But in any case, he still couldn’t be bothered.
He activated the Gnostic Eye to see what had improved. Just like its default state, the purple glow had grown brighter, and even the spiraling concentric circles were more enthralling. However, the looks were the least of the changes.
"Holy shit..." Uhtred grinned like a crazy man as he swept a gaze across the expanse of his manor.
Nothing had really changed compared to before — the immense influx of information was the same, the interwoven threads of essence spreading out from every living flora and fauna also remained the same — however, there was one key difference now...
The levels and information above everything that had cosmic essence had totally changed!
Uhtred blinked repeatedly, turning off his Gnostic Eye and then activating his normal Inspect skill just to make sure this was really his Gnostic Eye at work and not just his Inspect skill leaking into his ocular ability.
Suddenly, the grin on Uhtred’s face widened as he saw the result. "Fuck yeah! It’s not my Inspect skill! It’s not my Inspect skill at all!"
His Inspect skill remained entirely the same, without even the slightest change, which simply meant everything that he was seeing was purely as a result of the evolution of his Gnostic Eye!
Everywhere he looked, he could now see information in the exact same way he could with his Inspect skill, except, unlike his Inspect skill, which could only show the Level and name of the thing he was looking at, his Gnostic Eye could show even more.
In a clean movement, Uhtred leapt from the balcony where he was overlooking his manor and sped off the property entirely. He dashed toward a particular direction of Capitol of The Elite — a well-fortified facility at the fringe edges of the city.
He moved with Slipstream Stride, cutting through the air and leaving thunderous explosions in his wake, shocking everyone on the streets.
He didn’t know it, but his excited dash had caused a ruckus, making the Capitol of The Elite ascenders begin to think they were under attack.
Squads were being deployed to investigate the disturbance, and the whole city went on high alert. However, Uhtred was totally oblivious to all of this. He flashed toward his destination, reaching the facility in question in only a few seconds.
He bypassed all the checkpoints and security, causing further chaos and leaving the guards chasing after his phantom figure, confused and shocked as to what exactly had just passed by them.
Even the layer of barrier shielding the facility was no match for him. In a fluid move, he waved his hand and slashed a vertical tear — a literal void in the fabric of space. It opened up a path right through the barrier, allowing him to bypass it entirely.
He sped into the facility itself, charging all the way down to the lowest floors, where the exact thing he was after was being kept.
Finally, he came to a sudden, abrupt stop, the shockwaves of such a high-intensity movement art ripping through the underground facility where he arrived.
"W—What is that?!"
"Are we under attack?!"
"Ready the Essence Cannons immediately!!"
Shocked, frantic voices shouted over one another as the researchers in the underground facility were literally rocked off their feet from the shockwaves of Uhtred’s arrival.
It took quite a bit more time before the Head Researcher finally realized who had arrived and quickly ordered the other researchers to calm down.
"Turn it off! Turn the damn Essence Cannon off—"
The Head Researcher had barely called out his order when a terrifying, hair-raising surge of Cosmic Essence spread through the entire underground facility.
In an instant, a beam of concentrated, weaponized Cosmic Essence sped straight at Uhtred’s figure in a heartbeat, much to the wide-eyed dismay of the Head Researcher and every other researcher present.
They could all only watch as Uhtred was about to be vaporized into non-existence...
But the thing that they expected never happened.
None of them saw what exactly occurred, as their eyes couldn’t even track the speed of the beam. The first thing every single person noticed, however, was that the terrifying explosion that should have rocked the facility never followed, and neither did Uhtred’s figure disappear like they had expected.
Instead, he stood there with one arm outstretched. He hadn’t even moved a single inch.
"Damn... that thing packs a punch," Uhtred winced slightly, withdrawing his outstretched arm and clenching and unclenching it repeatedly.
Even with his superior cultivation base, he hadn’t been able to tank the attack entirely. He had used a bit of the Basic Space Magic he had just begun to learn from Zara, along with a trace of his Unified Elemental Spell technique, creating a trace of Elemental chaos that negated the beam of concentrated essence.
However, his hand had still suffered some damage. Burn marks could be seen all over, though it wasn’t anything too crazy.
"L—Lord Uhtred! Are you okay?!"
"Lord Uhtred!!"
The panicked voices and hurried feet of the researchers could be heard rushing toward him, but Uhtred wasn’t even focused on them. He didn’t mind that they had attacked him. In fact, he was happy they had. It simply meant that even if someone at his level had done the same as he had, breaching the facility and reaching all the way here, there were still measures to try and put such a person down.
The researchers had been quick to react, and that was something commendable. He couldn’t fault them for doing their job, so his attention was not on them at all. Rather, his attention was on what he had come here for...
Uhtred’s Gnostic Eye ran at full throttle, and he stared straight ahead, using his new, deeper insight ability to look at the hollowed-out center of the facility, where the thing that the researchers were studying — the thing that this entire facility had been built to house — lay dormant...