A New World, An Immersive Game Experience

Sighing Eldrian prepared himself for the awkwardness he believed was to come. Luckily it was not too much, Pelaros was actually a very nice host. Other than being overly enthusiastic; giving Eldrian random flowers, trying to feed him cake along with the tea, and offering a room in his house for Eldrian to stay rent-free, he did not go overboard.

In contrast, he gave Myropsis the cold shoulder. Seemingly holding a grudge that she had not told him that Eldrian was an elf. After enduring the strange looks and over-the-top actions for around an hour, Pelaros finally stopped and turned back to the true reason Eldrian had come.

Setting down the tea he slowly stood up, "Thank you for accompanying me, it was really nice. Now I am certain you actually want to go to the Magic Crystal. Follow me."

They did, quickly entering the manor and then heading down to the basement. Once there they then waited in the middle of a hidden room, after which they were teleported into the room where the Magic Crystal was located.

"This is my personal Magic Crystal, or rather the city ruler's personal crystal. You can stay here as long as you wish, I am certain you want the time. Just don't actually touch it, it is extremely valuable." Pelaros explained once they were in the final room, whispering to Myropsis just before leaving, "And cousin, please don't hide any important details from me again."

This room was slightly different from the one in Aggostead. It was in the form of a nonagon, nine walls all decorated in complex patterns slightly glowing. Giving the room a soft neutral color after all the different glows mixed, it was certainly a romantic atmosphere.

Both Myropsis and Eldrian did not give a hoot about that. Eldrian looked at the patterns with extreme interests while Myropsis readied herself for the experiment.

"Are these patterns also Arrays? They feel similar to those decorating the houses we passed." Eldrian asked as he walked close to each wall, quickly connecting the colors to the type of mana. Nature, fire, earth, water, wind, light, darkness, this and this is not a pure element. It reminds me of Frost Needle, so this light blue must be Ice magic. What is this white-purple one?

"Yes they are, and the one you are looking at so intensely is a lightning array."

"What are arrays exactly? I mean I know they are basically fixed spells that can be activated by some source of magic, but what more are they?" Eldrian asked as he moved to the nature array, and then to the ice.

"I don't know what you want me to explain. They are just that, a way of confining magic into a fixed place. They are similar to runes, except that they can do much more since they cover much larger areas. They are also more limited due to this."

"Don't they look similar to spell modules? I assume these are the nodes, here, here, here..." Eldrian said this not entirely sure if something so complex could be considered nodes. When looking closely the nodes themselves look like separate arrays or spell modules of their own.

"Oh, yeah they are similar," Myropsis replied without minding it much. Having given up trying to cast spells, for now, focusing first on settling Eldrian's curiosity.

"No, I mean this looked just like a spell module."

"Don't be silly, the concept is completely different. These convergent points aren't just nodes, they are much more than that. And look, these lines aren't just lines." Myropsis replied.

Looking close Eldrian was left simply wordless as he found that the lines were actually made out of an insane amount of incredibly small symbols. "Are these runes?"

"No, they are called rilpai."

Suppressing his curiosity Eldrian turned around and looked at the Magic Crystal, "In any case we came to practice. Sorry for losing track of that."

"It's fine, I also find these arrays fascinating. They must have been made by a true master, the complexity and detail is simply astonishing."

Eldrian had to agree that these were far more amazing than the ones in Aggostead, though back then he had not looked so closely at them. Finally closing this distraction Eldrian stared deeply into the Magic Crystal and focused on his mana. Finding that it stirred slightly, not much, but the slight stirring was an interesting interaction.

Alright, let's try casting some spells. He told himself, Myropsis doing the same thing now that Eldrian seemed to stop asking questions. She started with Tier 0 spells that she could control with no problem. This did not do anything for her though as she did not even feel so much as a sliver of a pull.

Eldrian also started with Tier 0 spells, quickly confirming that his mastery over it had become too great. While there was a pull, it was too easy for him to resist this without even trying. So he quickly moved on to a Tier 1 spell, breeze being perfect for this as even if he lost control it would not do any damage.

Taking a deep breath Eldrian cast this in the most basic form he could. This was by only envisioning the spell module and saying the word of power. He did not attempt to control his mana at all, trying to emulate how he had practiced when he had first learned magic.

Doing so he could feel his mana fighting his actions, seemingly refusing to do something so unoptimized. Simply envisioning the spell seemed to open the floodgates for his mana. This only seemed to happen with spells he had already mastered as this had not happened before.

Like a raging beast his mana wanted to rush into the spell and actually let it come to fruition. This caused him to not just fight the pull of the Magic Crystal, but his own mana too. He had hoped to not control it, but if he actually did this then it would simply rush out and finish his cast through a sort of instinct.

Eldrian had no idea why his mana fought to complete the spell so much, the only thing he could think of was that it acted like water atop a hill. The spell creating a hole in whatever had kept it at the top. Gravity would then pull water down, what was pulling his mana was unknown to Eldrian.

It might actually be the Magic Crystal... It might be pulling at both the spell module and my mana. If the first cave the spell failed, if the latter caved then the spell casts... I should try casting a spell like this outside later. Eldrian thought, trying to make sense of this strange interaction.

This interesting duo caused Eldrian great trouble, the longer he tried to hold out the more his mana raged. All the time the Magic Crystal ate at his focus trying to destroy his envisioned spell module. Soon he started shaking from the pressure, his mana fiercer and fiercer the longer he tried to suppress it.

Eldrian quickly realized that knowing how to cast was going to make entering the Magic Abyss much harder. On the flip side, this was an amazing way to train, in just minutes he felt close to his limit. Finally, he could not hold out longer and gave up, doing so was easy as he simply needed to let his mana do what it had been pressuring him to allow. He could also try to cancel the cast, but Eldrian feared doing so might cause a backlash.

Please no pain! He asked after letting the spell finally cast. He feared that this training might still be too much for him and result in a mental assault. Minutes passed and no pain came, relieving Eldrian of this fear.

Thank goodness. But let's not do this too often. Eldrian decided, not wishing to tempt fate. After resting he moved on to his next plan of casting the Tier 2 spell, or rather just envisioning the spell module and saying the word of power.

Myropsis had yet to give him any new Tier 2 spells so he still only had the two from before. A rejuvenation spell, as she knew his specialty was nature spells. The other was an ice spell, his next favorite spell type.

The rejuvenation was the next version of Anthizo, names Anthisma. Already being familiar with Anthizo's spell module Eldrian chose this one to try out. Instead of having just 9 nodes and 8 pathways, Anthisma had 14 nodes and 23 pathways; making it far harder to correctly envision.

After a few tries, Eldrian felt comfortable enough to also say the word of power. Upon doing so he felt the clear pull of the Magic Crystal. His mana not knowing how to fill the spell seemed to cause it to not fight to go free, allowing him to only focus on the pull.

Doing so while also keeping his spell module intact, Eldrian quickly found himself in the magic abyss after just a few seconds of struggling.

Keeping his focus on the spell module and fighting the pull, he only slightly took in the change in his perspective. Dangit, I don't have enough focus to spare. Eldrian felt like cursing when realizing that the addition of extra nodes and pathways did not just make the module harder to keep in his mind. It also added weak points that the pull from the Magic Crystal could attack.

If he lost focus of an area, the pull seemingly having a mind of its own would quickly converge at that point. When he shifted his focus to combat this, to stop the module from being torn apart, the pull will quickly target another area.

Eldrian did not hold out long before he was kicked out, a sharp headache assaulting him. Luckily his mana did not cause much trouble to him, he could feel though that it had been built up. Agitated at being incited but not freed. To relieve this he quickly cast a few Tier 0 spells.

Interesting, so the Magic Crystal can't force my mana out of me anymore. Though I can't keep my mana 'cooled' enough to just ignore its effect. It acts more as a secondary force now. Not bad, this will just cause my breaks to be slightly longer. Eldrian commented as he worked through what had just happened.