A New World, An Immersive Game Experience

"What did the bugger do this time?" Amnur grumbled as he felt something change. He was no longer actively observing Eldrian nor were the Abyssal Guards protecting him from the shadows.

For now, the danger of assassination had passed. Hrothgar and his squad were on reconnaissance to try and find out why this invasion was so much more hasty and crazy than any before.

The root cause might be known, but how everything had been happening was strange. It was not how the previous invasions had gone. The gods for one were all far more active. Not even to mention what the Chosen really were and all they could do and change.

The question then might be how could Amnur still feel that Eldrian had done something from such a distance. That was thanks to the shockwave, it had not stopped moving after passing by the orcs and flattening most of the village.

No, it was moving constantly and changing everything as it passed.

What changed was not clear but it was clear that things were no longer the same and even Amnur -a legend- was stumped on what had changed and how something could affect even him without him being able to even find a single clue on what was affecting him.

'It almost feels like mana itself has changed. But, that is impossible...'

***

Much, much further away, a few hours later, a High Elf and a dragon felt the same change. Looking at one another, the two frowned as they too were confused about what had changed and how anything could change.

"Do you think this will change anything?" Athtar asked his old friend.

Sirius thought on this for a moment. While he could tell something had changed, when he tried to narrow down what it was he came out empty-handed. Much like all the other beings at their level.

"If neither of us can feel anything, then maybe we are wrong?" The dragon answered, but it was an answer of hope, not of fact.

"Yet we both knew something has changed... Why are the gods quiet?" Athtar questioned.

Suddenly, the two found themselves in a different room. The room of the council, a void inside the mountain. An artificially created space separate from everything the council wants it to be separate from.

"This changed everything." An old wisened voice filled the void and stated this fact.

"But it changed nothing." A female voice countered.

"It changed something, we are just unaware what." Another added.

"How can we be unaware of what has changed?" The first and second questioned, "And who brought these two?"

In the center of the void, Athtar and Sirius looked at the massive figures defying explanation who filled the void. While Athtar was dwarfed by Sirius, the two were not even a scale of these creatures.

"I did," A much younger voice than the others replied, its origin was the blue gargantuan Ryu. Dragons with the appearance of the East, long serpentine bodies twirling around entire mountains as their seats.

"Why?" The other three questioned.

"Because there is only one possible source of this change. The Candidate Chosen."

***

"What on Earth is this?" Micaela questioned.

"It's Eldrian's data, and this here is that of a normal human." Gengxin replied, out of ideas he had to turn to those above him for guidance and help.

"'Normal human'?" Micaela questioned.

"I'm afraid so, calling him human at this point no longer identifies him properly."

"How-?"

"We have no idea, it happened in seconds." Gengxin sighed, it defied logic, but it had happened.

"Seconds?" Micaela frowned, "Can it happen to others?"

"Something has indeed changed," Gengxin nodded, "But, we do not know what nor if it can happen to others."

"How do you know-?"

"Because of light." Qiren replied.

"Did you finally make a breakthrough?" Micaela asked, shocked that any development had finally been made. After years of no progress, you kind of just stop expecting any. The only reason her department wasn't shut down was due to the hope that they would one day make a breakthrough.

"Yes, during my talk with Eldrian I realized that we were ignoring what mana really is."

"What do you mean?"

"We thought it was a substance similar to gas. It is more like light but also not light."

"I'm not following."

"It's non-physical, like light it is both wave and particle. But, it's more than that. It isn't that it is both, it is that it can be either, and neither. It's something entirely new and can be things we don't even know of."

"Is that even possible?" Micaela questioned, it didn't sound plausible. She knew for a fact that in the simulation it was possible to observe mana with a simple spell. Wouldn't that mean it was physical?

"It shouldn't be, but, it seems that mana can be different forms of itself depending on its properties and what is being acted on it. And, for some unknown reason, the way of acting onto mana is thoughts and a person's will."

Micaela sighed as she started losing the thread. "What's the point?"

"Right, simply put we have started to realize that mana cannot be inspected without magic. But, the effects of magic can be viewed." Gengxin replied, "And these effects we believe will happen to all players, but mostly it can be seen on Eldrian as an extreme case."

Micaela frowned, "Are we poisoning them?"

While Miracle would go to extremes, they did have a limit. Poisoning tens of millions of people was one of those limits.

"No, most do not have a strong enough connection to Gaia. But, it seems that all the game testers have had similar levels of mana infiltration."

"Indeed," Qiren nodded, "It was never to a level we would notice, but we had run a quick few tests recently and all the game testers have average strength and speed of a national athlete."

"That includes me, I never noticed the change since it was gradually over a decade. Eldrian's case is unique and he must have been hiding it from us, or never realized it. But I doubt he could have missed it with his progress far surpassing ours, yet less than a year has passed."

Gengxin nodded, sad that Eldrian had decided to keep them in the dark. "Indeed, and the latest change..."

***

"Young man, how do you feel?" The spectral grandmother of creation asked.

"How-how do I feel?" Eldrian echoed, it certainly was not the question he had expected.

The grandmother changed into the old man and asked again, "Indeed, how do you feel?"

"How should I feel?" Eldrian countered, not at all understanding what they were asking. Sure, he just died. But that was normal for players.

"Ah, We see. You are not aware." The old man and woman replied in a mixed voice and appearance. 'Ziraili, I will be taking care of this young man, it is no longer within your abilities.'

'But...'

'You need no longer avoid him, if you want you can be his friend.'

"Young man, child..." The mixture of an old man and old woman paused, giving Eldrian to prepare for the news they were about to share. "You just changed the entire world."

"Wh-what? What are you saying?"

"You changed everything, in your clarity, you summoned a new kind of power. The kind normally blocked from all."

"Can you please explain what you mean?" Eldrian questioned, unable to follow anything that the mixture of two people was saying.

"The world, it was never in balance. No world ever is. In fact, nothing is ever in balance. If anything was in balance then there would never be any change and its entropy would never change. Mostly things are inactive until they are active."

AN: A big thank you to everyone who continues to read and support the story on WN.