A New World, An Immersive Game Experience



While confusion stayed the default for the viewers, the announcers didn't get too stuck up on it. They quickly explained that Eldrian had infiltrated the magic barriers and destroyed them from within, and then tried to find something exciting about the match to talk about. 

Of course, there wasn't much to talk about outside of Eldrian's feat of bringing the barriers down. The battle after that had been so quick it had been a massive letdown. 

It was not even close to what the tournament organizers had expected. They had hoped for an extremely flashy battle. One where thousands of spells were crashed against the barriers until they finally gave. 

Instead, Eldrian had 'hacked' the barriers and brought them down without any flashiness. 

Naturally, the announcers wanted to somehow recover the hype that they had made for the match. They tried to distract the viewers by talking about the next upcoming match—in three hours. But that didn't work. 

And so, the viewers kept pestering Miracle for an explanation of how what Eldrian had done was possible. And how they could do it themselves. After all, those barriers had basically guaranteed Soaring Heights' victory throughout the preliminaries. Knowing that there was a way to combat them lit a fire under all those who had lost to the guild. 

—

After that, the tournament continued smoothly. With two matches a day, it took just under a week for the semi-finals to start, which required the participating teams to come to Miracle HQ. 

For the guild category, this was probably the only year this would be done this way. A hundred players were by no count a small amount. And there were already talks that that number would be increased in the next tournament. 

Most of Phoenix spent their free time watching these matches and analyzing their would-be opponents, or practicing. Eldrian, on the other hand, was busy attempting to figure out how the folding of space worked. 

Ziraili's explanation of his power kept spinning in his head, and currently, Eldrian's focus was on voidstones. 

Sure, Mov Crystals were used to create dimensional storages. But voidstones were used to construct the control rooms of magic towers. 

They weren't simply installed underground, but almost in a separate 'space'. Eldrian had experienced this phenomenon when he had lost Crystoi—and then retrieved it after Skepsi had modified his voidstone. 

That voidstone had now gone into Willo, but not all of it. Some small pieces had been set aside for Eldrian on his request. And they still held traces of the modification which Skepsi had done to the larger stone. 

Sadly, Eldrian wasn't able to learn anything from these fragments. He had already tried, he had even asked Ziraili, and Ceph's parents. The latter had been unable to explain the science behind the stones—only how they used the stones. And the former refused to explain the science until Eldrian mastered the mathematics he had always ignored. 

As a result, Eldrian now often found himself taking out Crystoi and staring at it intently. He understood the hidden ability of his spear was connected to a void because of the voidstone fragment Solvi had used when forging it. 

Sadly, that knowledge didn't allow Eldrian to call upon the hidden ability. Unlike normal abilities, this one hadn't been made on purpose. Solvi had no idea what it was nor what it was supposed to do. They only knew that Crystoi had once avoided being destroyed by jumping into its own pocket dimension. 

With that knowledge, Eldrian thought that perhaps Crystoi could act as a new type of dimensional storage. One capable of allowing living things inside. 

Sadly, no matter what he tried, he hadn't been able to replicate what had happened at that time. Perhaps, Eldrian had thought, that time had been due to the modified voidstone and not Crystoi. 

Perhaps Crystoi had simply been floating in a void, and the voidstone had solidified the 'space' near the spear and made a room that Eldrian could enter. 

This seemed quite plausible, considering the modification had come from the goddess of magic. Eldrian understood well that the AI could play with space quite easily. 

'But is that truly true?' Eldrian wondered. He knew it was, to a degree. The amount of mana they could command was unfathomable. This meant they could simulate Mov Crystals... and even Magic Crystals. 

Eldrian was less sure about voidstones. And, upon further questioning, he came to a strange conclusion. 

'Is it somehow connected to the Mageia Avyssos? The magic abyss?' That, Eldrian reasoned, was also a void of sorts. A void that connected the souls of all non-chaotic creatures. In other words, the souls of humans, elves, dwarves, and others. But not of devils and demons. 

And, through the magic abyss, these races could cast magic with far more ease. Most mages considered it the ultimate place of enlightenment. Where, upon reaching, they could modify spells with relative ease. 

This was something Eldrian had been caught up in a long, long time ago. These days, he understood a little more about the magic abyss. It was, in fact, Skepsi's divine realm. 

Yet, it was irrefutable that it was a space that souls, and only souls, could enter. It was also the bridge connecting ANW with Earth. At least, this was what Eldrian had been told. 

Ziraili's recent forthcomings had made it clear it wasn't the only one. But it was true that the magic abyss was the connection for players to the world of ANW. The medium used to ensure both their safety and allow them to use magic. 

'Mmm, I've gotten a bit off track.' Regathering his thoughts, Eldrian tried to envision what a voidstone truly was. 

It wasn't a collection of mana like a Mov Crystal. Thus, it wasn't using mana to bend the rules of reality. It was thus using one of the aspects of lifeforce, or UE. The aspect of space, to be specific. 

'But what does that mean?' Eldrian asked himself. He understood that the aspects were supposed to allow one to tap into the 'power' related to said aspect. Time, for example, should allow one to alter the flow of time. 

'Yet… that isn't right. Perhaps it is true, but that isn't how things happen. It isn't that easy.' Eldrian concluded. 'Besides, what do the other aspects even mean?' 

Space and time were relatively easy to conclude. But what of divinity? From Vivian's abilities, it seemed to be related to souls. Which meant it was a power allowing one to tap into the flow of lifeforce. 

But Order? Chaos?

And did space include matter, or was it only space?

Eldrian's past few weeks had been spent trying to figure this out. And he had come to the following conclusion:

Time: Rate of things happening. 

Space: The 'space' in which things exist.

Divinity: Related to life, all life, in existence.

Order: One half of matter, tending to order. 

Chaos: The other half, tending to chaos. 

For example, time was set based on the universal constant of a dimension/universe, which would then be modified by relative velocity (faster people experience time slower) and gravity. Then there was also the possibility to attempt to modify the constant of time. Be this through adding artificial banks to the so-called river of time or whatever. Or attempting to modify time itself—which Eldrian now understood was the more dangerous approach. 

Space was the confines of things, of dimensions, universes, and worlds. Honestly, Eldrian still wasn't too sure about all its rules. 

Divinity was related to whether things could be considered alive or not. He had once pondered whether mana was or wasn't a living thing. He now knew it wasn't, and he also now knew that the definition of life wasn't physiological, but psychological. Relating to will, and thus the soul. 

Order and Chaos thus had to make up what was left. He had no idea how to define them. Each time he tried, he found himself contradicting himself. Thus, Eldrian just considered them a package relating to the 'rest of everything'.