A New World, An Immersive Game Experience

A week passed quickly. By which point, Crystoi was repaired and the greaves and gauntlets Eldrian had ordered were completed. Sadly, the breastplate would take a few more days. But Eldrian couldn't delay any longer. A week was already a long time.

The greaves and gauntlets were simple in design. As Eldrian had asked. Made of Mithril and Brightsteel, it was extremely sturdy with an armor rating reaching the 70's.

This came at a cost of having only the standard attunement ability as well as one active. Still, this gave Eldrian four more abilities and with such a high armor rating, they should be able to withstand attacks from anything or anyone at Tier 6 or below. For now, Eldrian had avoided attuning any of his new equipment.

Eldrian had also confirmed as much as he could during the past week. He knew now how to prevent the drain from the undead lands.

It required one to constantly remain vigilant, causing a great deal of strain on one's mind. But it allowed Eldrian to recover his mana and move forward. Where that mana came from, since everything was grey to mana sense, Eldrian couldn't say.

Because Eldrian could log out and have his body disappear, when the mental strain became too much, he did just that. Taking his time to recover before continuing his journey.

Sadly, even with his experiments, Eldrian's mana recovery was cut in half. Luckily, he had the Mov Crystal, and it was filled once again. With it, Eldrian was unlikely to run out of mana.

Pelaros also gave him a large, medium, and three small mana crystals. Half as payment for all Eldrian had done, and as insurance. Eldrian could use them for mana batteries or Novas.

And so, Eldrian set forth alone. While Vivian's power had seemed great for travelling through the lands of the dead, Eldrian couldn't bring her with him. He couldn't bring himself to bring anyone.

—

Three days passed quickly and now Eldrian stood before the city. Its black walls towered before him, the undead moving about without regarding him much. To trick them was truly easy. Eldrian had noticed it when he infiltrated a few towns along the way.

He had avoided cities, afraid he might be caught and the kingdom would hunt him down. But in a town, with Eldrian's map, he could confirm their strongest. He could annihilate an entire town should it come to it.

While that in itself would be strange, Eldrian assumed things like that happened recently often, considering all the ruins he had passed.

And so, through his investigations, he had learned that the undead ignored the lower undead and most humans. As long as you didn't stand out, they wouldn't notice you.

To help himself remain unnoticed, Eldrian had covered his hair with mud, bringing it to a dull brown color. He also wore a cape over his cloak, hiding his ears, and always kept his head down. This was enough for him to pass by most guards.

'But what to do now?' Eldrian pondered. Quickly deciding to wait for the night so he could sneak past the walls. While waiting, he continued his experiments with the modified voidstone in a nearby cave.

After three attempts, wherein Eldrian had been drained of all physical mana. Needing to wait over an hour to recover the spent mana. Eldrian finally succeeded. Not to teleport himself into the stone, but to peer into it.

He had been practicing this ever since he thought to hide the others inside. The best possible solution to avoid a repeat of Avgi. And, even after so much training, the best he could reach was a thirty percent success rate.

Naturally, Eldrian hadn't tried to put someone into the stone. He would only rely on it should they be discovered, and those chasing them were too powerful. Should this happen, Eldrian would then summon Ceph and escape as fast as possible.

As long as the one chasing them wasn't at Pelaros' level, they should be able to flee. And even then, if the person couldn't fly, escape would be easy.

—

With the cover of night, Eldrian activated Cloak, causing the air surrounding him to distort. And, with himself covered in mud, he used  Soar and flew over the walls. Landing quietly in a nearby farmland.

From here, he would have to search for those he had to rescue. Sadly, Skepsi wasn't kind enough to give him their exact location, only the fact that they were inside the city.

Finding them proved more difficult than reaching the city. Four days passed and Eldrian followed the sounds of a commotion. What he saw were several ghouls tearing down one of the human farms.

The first time he had realized what these farms were, Eldrian had been nearly unable to stop himself from destroying as much of the city as he could.

It had taken a great deal of time for him to calm down and accept that he couldn't change things. That he was too weak to help everyone.

Still, he had decided that he would attempt to contact those he could. When day arrived and night gave way to light, he would hide within one house or another. Often finding the residence terrified. Offering them some food quickly won them over, though. Their malnourished state spoke to their terrible living conditions.

He would then experiment with the slave collars around their necks. Following the flow of mana, analyzing the runes, and conversing with Two. He quickly learned how to unlock them safely. Which was exactly what he did.

After the third day, Eldrian had even made a tool to accomplish the task. Which he had given to the secret leader of one such farm. One who was planning a rebellion.

"This is a godsend." The leader had said, failing to keep his voice to a whisper. He then quietly informed Eldrian of the resistance they had been building. But that, because of the annual census, their time was drawing near.

Five people had reached Tier 5 this year, and they had planned to fight. It would have been cut short because of the collars, but with this they could rebel.

Incidentally, it was on the way to meet one of these five that the commotion occurred. One of the sentient undead had wanted some new playthings. It was, of course, a ghoul. It being sentient made it far more dangerous than normal ghouls.

Seeing the destruction, Vassil (the secret leader) clenched his fists. Ready to turn a blind eye and return home. Such destruction was commonplace. Eldrian stopped him. He was by now ninety percent certain that those Tier 5's had some or other link to those he was looking for.

"Can you rebel today?" Eldrian asked, already weaving dozen of spells throughout the air.

Vassil turned to Eldrian, his eyes wide in shock. Naturally, he failed to notice the mana around him stirring to action. The runic pattern Eldrian was drawing, however, was clear for all to see.

"You cannot be thinking of taking on the ghouls on your own!" As soon as he shouted, he clasped his hands over his mouth and turned to the ghouls in horror.

However, no one turned to them. "I erected a sound proof barrier around us. Now, can you do it?"

Realizing that Eldrian was serious, Vassil slowly nodded. "We can. But..."

"I'll make it a grand event. Use it to save as many as you can." Eldrian replied to Vassil's unspoken concern. Dashing forward, Crystoi piercing the sentient ghoul's chest, flames surrounding the spear.

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