A New World, An Immersive Game Experience

As Eldrian was trying to overcome his shock and reaffirm which reality was the true reality, Joren interrupted his thoughts.

"Alright, I'll add a function to your system interface. You will simply need to call up privacy and then you will get the option to turn off monitoring. However this will only be for the camera, the others will stay on. And after an hour it will automatically reset."

Hearing this Eldrian felt it was fair, he wasn't bothered with people knowing what his brainwaves did. They couldn't tell much from it in any case, as far as he knew at least. If they could then they should have certainly made much more progress in understanding magic.

"With that sorted explain to me the message the system sent you."

Eldrian did just that, naturally paraphrasing terribly as he just said what he felt after reading the messages. He simply stated that it sounded like the evil races were going to send elite people to kill him, Eldrian making it clear he did not even understand what the hell that meant. Along with the fact that he felt like he might be in real danger.

"Relax, you aren't in danger," Joren said, however, he paused as he wondered a bit about something. "Yes, you should be fine."

"You clearly don't seem convinced." Eldrian quickly picked up on the pause and doubt in Joren's voice. Sighing, Joren took few seconds to collect himself.

"You see, we do not know if souls exist. I mean they certainly do in the simulation, or rather in the game. But we have no evidence of them on earth. The way we connect you to the simulation isn't by connecting to your soul, we just slip your consciousness into it."

Seeing Eldrian's confusion Joren tried to explain it better, "Think of it like this, we stop your brain from talking to your body. Letting it instead talk to your avatar. You are still you, but your body isn't."

"And my soul in-game?" Eldrian asked, causing Joren to look at him weirdly.

"That is where it becomes complicated. I'll need hours to properly explain it."

"Then go ahead, I only need to log in by five," Eldrian said, leaning back and preparing to listen. And he did.

To explain it Joren had to first go back to how the headset worked, especially the first one with the first game testers. Those who experienced hell in a world aflame with war. Joren didn't want to admit it to Eldrian and tried his best to skid around it, which he managed.

However, the sad history would always remain with the more elderly members of the organization. Back then Joren had been but a lowly developer, mostly responsible to try and find anomalies.

He did, but it had been too late. More than half of those game testers back then had died. The other half becoming paralyzed, and the last half traumatized.

Naturally, everyone had known the risks when going in, however, they hadn't understood the risks until after. That was when they realized they needed a way to soften the blow, to block the pain. Something to take the burden of their minds, something artificial.

So the system was born. An AI dedicated to bridging the world they had created and the one they lived in.

The soul of an avatar was different from those of natives. Not very different, but certainly different. The biggest difference was that unlike native souls, which were not directly connected to a god, or rather an AI.  An avatar's soul was always connected to the system.

While natives could connect their soul to a god through belief, and even change this connection later in their life. There was no inherent connection. Naturally, Miracle had tried to use this to try and figure out if there was an afterlife.

However, their current methods of viewing their simulation were limited to the physical. Which was clear considering they failed to see and understand magic.

Joren tried to stay brief on how the souls differed, since it also differed from person to person, and even avatar to avatar. If a person created a new avatar, its soul wouldn't be the same as that from their previous avatar.

It was a complicated and convoluted subject which the developers themselves weren't entirely clear on. The system managed it for them, and thanks to that no more problems had arisen. Until Eldrian that is.

The way in which logging in worked was strange, the system used the soul of an avatar as a bridge. Not connecting the soul of the person and avatar, but rather the mind of the person and the soul of the avatar.

Joren admitted that he didn't quite get how it was possible, nor even how it worked. Just that it did.

They believed that a person entering the simulation would have their brainwaves, and more specifically the signals sent to their body, highjacked. These signals would be sent to the avatar, however, they did not know how accurate this speculation was.

"So what I think the system is saying is your mind might be affected, which is actually quite bad. However, we do have safety measures in place to ensure that soul attacks do not manage to break the bridge. Or traverse it."

Hearing this Eldrian realized a key problem, and likely why the system warned him, his soul was different. Much more so than others, it was already on the edge of being destroyed. Even worse he was actively using it, and he knew the effect that had on him. Even though those activities were never meant to hurt himself.

He didn't know if what was in the game was entirely artificial, part of the explanation made him think that a lot of things were actually real. Not that he thought anything in the game wasn't real, however, he realized that thoughts would be the same. Be they in the game or in the real world.

Hence when he was in the magic abyss, when he was in his soul state, even just when he was using mageia. All of those actions should be possible here, IRL, the environment might just not be suited to allow him to actually accomplish them. Or his body might be incapable.

Seeing as there were some natives who even couldn't connect with mana. Who could never form concrete thoughts; mageia. Then it was certainly likely that this might be the problem, only he could in the game.  Which made the questions slightly more convoluted.

While he was extremely curious about this, it was not important at this moment. He was more worried about what would happen if he was attacked by some type of soul magic.

"Does your safety measures account for me?" Eldrian asked after sorting out his thoughts.

Explaining further when Joren showed confusion. To explain this Eldrian had to recount how he used his soul to reach Tier 2. While Joren was roughly aware of this, he hadn't quite known how bad Haru's soul was injured. (AN: Using Haru instead of saying Eldrian's avatar)

"I don't recall you bringing this up before," Joren said with a deep frown.

"Because I thought you guys knew. I didn't realize how limited your monitoring was, it seems that the system interface isn't the only thing you can't monitor. Though I don't get how you can't just call up that data." Eldrian mumbled the last part more as an afterthought, continuing on soon after.

"You also can't see the magic abyss, nor when I am inside my soul," For now he decided not to bring up his other speculations about the implications of those states.

"Yet even so the problem remains; am I safe?" Eldrian repeated after giving Joren some time to digest what he had said.

"Honestly, if you were a normal player then I would be 85% sure you are safe..." Joren paused, thinking of the demon and devil emperors. He shuddered at the thought. and decided to keep the fact that if one of them attacked a player, then they had only a 30% chance of not being hurt.

"Let me rather show you something, follow me." By now it was around four in the afternoon, and Joren decided it was best to take Eldrian to the true department.

"Where are we going?"

"The observation hall," Joren replied, leading him to the nearest elevator and then to one of the top floors.

In this building, both the basement and any building over floor ten were classified. They were heading to floor 15. This didn't sound impressive, but the building only had twenty floors in total, along with five underground.

Upon stepping out Eldrian was impressed by what he saw. The entire floor looked far more high-tech than those he was usually on. Granted that was just floor one and two. One for the cafeteria and to exit the building, and two where he stayed. Two to five were all in fact living spaces, with the offices only starting from six.

They did not explore this floor much, with Joren entering the first room he found. Inside was a man and woman busy discussing something while pointing at a screen with a bunch of lines. Hearing their door open they turned and looked at Joren, then Eldrian, then quickly left the room after turning off their monitors.

"What's going on?" Eldrian asked after seeing this.

"You technically aren't allowed on this floor, so I can't just go to my office. They realized this and gave me their room." Joren replied, taking out his tablet from his jacket, which had somehow fit in there without making it look bulky. He plugged it into one of the screens and then quickly called up some pictures.

"What I am going to show you can be considered a spoiler from a game perspective, but you need to know that if you encounter these creatures you must log out. No ifs or buts, you get the hell out of the simulation."

Eldrian naturally didn't like where this was going, he would hardly be able to do that if he was with NPCs. There was no way he would be able to live with himself knowing he abandoned someone.

Maybe if he didn't know them, maybe. However, if it was someone he had spent some time with. Eldrian was certain he wouldn't be able to leave them behind.