A New World, An Immersive Game Experience

"Eldrian what's up?" Flavia asked as soon as she saw Eldrian entering the cafeteria. She had been on monitoring duty the night before and had seen what had happened. Or rather, she had seen Eldrian becoming overwhelmed with something and then later jump before someone and falling unconscious. Only to log out without explanation when he woke. Shocking quite a few NPCs.

Not feeling like he knew her well enough, Eldrian simply nodded and ignored her question as he took a seat alone.

'Something happened, but if he doesn't want to talk I won't force him.' So she returned to her own conversation with her friends.

After finishing his meal Eldrian returned to his room, however they didn't have a match today so he ended up not knowing what to do with himself. In the end, Eldrian meditated instead of logging in.

Time passed quickly as he managed to work through more of what had happened and what he had done. He still felt bad, but he had come to accept that it was what needed to be done. What he didn't like was that he was the executioner.

'If, if Ziraili had rather killed him, it would have still been because of me.' Even though this statement was a hundred percent true, Eldrian realized he would have felt far better if that had been the route he had chosen.

When night arrived and another day started in the game, Eldrian finally felt up to logging back in. However, he didn't look forward to it.

Climbing onto the immersion chair, just as he was about to fall asleep a knock stopped him.

"Eldrian, I hope we can talk about what happened," Genxin asked from behind the door, a few seconds later the door opened and the old man stepped inside.

"Do I need to ask?" Gengxin asked after entering and Eldrian just looking at him.

"I would prefer you do," Eldrian said, taking a seat and sighing.

"Alright then, we have no idea what happened but your mental state had been all over the place the last minute or two of when you last were in the game. So, what happened?"

"I killed someone," Eldrian replied after taking a few seconds to prepare mentally.

"Excuse me?"

"I killed someone."

"But you didn't do anything."

"Right... You can't see inside the Mageia Avyssos." Eldrian quickly recounted what happened, keeping the system out of it as well as how he killed the soul and what he did after. Eldrian had no idea if they had access to the upgrade he had gained, if they did he would just say he didn't quite know why that happened.

"Why did you do it?"

"What else was I supposed to do?" Eldrian replied but it still ate at him. "He had tried to take someone else's body, I had stopped him but now he was in my soul. And if I were to leave him he would have likely been capable of killing me."

"What would have happened if he did?" Eldrian asked before Gengxin could even take in his reply. The question completely threw him.

"I have no idea. Would you mind coming with me and explaining this to Joren too?"

Nodding Eldrian followed Gengxin, not to the developers' department. Rather, they headed to where Eldrian had first met Constantin. A fat short building compared to some of the other skyscrapers on site.

Like last time they also headed to floor 4, however, the room they headed to was naturally a different one.

Upon entering the room Eldrian again marveled at the class and style. The room was spacious and filled with modern-style furniture. Joren was in the open kitchen making three coffees.

"Welcome to my place," Joren said as the two entered, asking how many sugars they each wanted.

"It's nice." Eldrian said, taking another look around. To him, it looked like a 5-star hotel suite, yet only Joren seemed to be staying here. In absolute luxury.

"Sure is, but I'm not here a lot. Mostly in the department."

Nodding Eldrian knew this to be true, it was quite a shame to not make use of such a nice place. 'Wonder- No that is just dumb. I am already ruffling feathers and hiding things, can't go asking for a place like this too.'

After getting settled in and being reminded of why they came, Eldrian explained what had happened and asked his question. "Do you know what would have happened if he had killed my soul and taken over my body?"

Shock plastered Joren's face as a bit of coffee escaped his lips. After embarrassedly cleaning up, he took a few more seconds and two sips before replying. "We had no idea that was possible. It would not have been good."

"What do you mean? Why?"

"First of, he would have taken control of your avatar. Not your body. But that is besides the point. You should be aware more than even us what the soul is for your avatar."

Eldrian nodded, it was not easy to explain but he understood the question. "Right, so what would have likely happened is that you would have at the minimum been knocked unconscious and the system would have started emergency protocols to disconnect you from the game. Failing that, the system would attempt to disconnect you from your avatar and keep you in the game."

"However, we have no data on what this would do to the mind. Especially if you should wake during that process. Naturally, the system would try its best to either get you back to your own body and out of the game or into a new avatar, however, things are uncertain. It is not like anyone would volunteer to test our emergency plans."

Eldrian nodded, naturally no one would volunteer. It was like asking someone to actually drive a car for a crash test. No one would agree to put themselves in such risk. While you could substitute a body, the same could not be done with the human mind.

"It is good you shared this. We have never detected that this was even a possibility, though it would for the most part be similar to a soul attack. There are a few things I can attempt to change to minimize the danger."

"Naturally, as you know, we lack ethereal data. Be it magic or soul-related. Please, if you find something share it with us so we can maximize the safety of everyone in the game."

For a moment Eldrian truly thought of sharing more, especially with the scare for his friends from the guild. However, he realized he didn't know how to explain what he knew even if he wanted. It was like trying to explain AP Maths to a toddler. One had to at least have some experience in the topic first to be able to understand what was being said.

"One thing," Eldrian found something he could ask, "Why are our souls in the Mageia Avyssos, the magic abyss?"

Eldrian had taken to calling it its true name ever since he had learned that it was the domain of the goddess of magic and knowledge.

He still had no idea what it being a domain meant, however, he had a new respect for it ever since he had no longer thought of entering his soul as entering his soul. It was precisely this change that had allowed him to skip his initial method of entering it through a spell and then finding his soul.

Having realized that there was no need and that it was only a matter of placement, Eldrian had, after a few attempts, managed to simply enter where his soul was.

"Why are our souls in one of the AI's divine domains? What are those even?" Eldrian added after a sip.

"Sorry, what?" Joren looked at Eldrian in utter confusion.

"Come on, there is no way you can't know this." Eldrian countered, yet the true shock Joren showed made him accept that it likely was the case.

"Please explain your question, I have no idea what divine domains are outside of what the natives belief."

"You know the magic abyss right?"

Joren nodded, "Yes it is the ultimate method of refining spells and testing changes to them. You have talked about it before and we have heard plenty about it."

"Well, it is actually not as limited as you might think." Wondering how to explain things without revealing how he had learned about it. Especially since he was constantly observed in-game, Eldrian did his best to come up with a believable story.

"At first I also thought that the magic abyss was just a place to modify and test spells, however, I used it as a bridge to get to my soul."

Nodding, Joren recalled Eldrian having also explained this before when explaining how he had first entered his soul.

"However, with time I realized that the places were actually one place. That the abyss was near infinite and that if I could fix my soul's location then I could skip the step of using spells to enter the magic abyss."

Joren nodded, "Then why did you say it was one of the AI's domains?"

"It is from something I had read. It might not be true, but seeing how most of your information is from the natives in any case, it might be worth considering. The text specifically referred to the Mageia Avyssos, and at first, I had forgotten that it was the proper name for the magic abyss. However, when I recalled that Dave had called it that, it all clicked."

"The god called Skepsi, the goddess of magic, according to the text, made the Mageia Avyssos as a way for those on Gaia to connect with magic with more ease. The requirement, they need to be able to form concrete thoughts filled with willpower, what I called mageia. It was not on purpose."

Eldrian quickly explained how he had simply needed something to call thoughts to differentiate so he had fiddled with magic and came up with mageia.