A New World, An Immersive Game Experience

When Eldrian finished things, Evale had been helping Pelaros keep the monsters at bay for an entire day. Night was about to fall. By now, the number of corpses couldn't quite make a mountain, but it had reached the triple digits. It could certainly make a hill.

Naturally, not all of these monsters were on the level of drakes and wyverns. Some were simple bloodline creatures. There were even a number of evolved monsters, chased out of their homes to this location (and slaughter) because of a stronger monster entering their territory.

"This is quite the haul!" Evale exclaimed joyously. Sure, about 90% of the monsters wouldn't make the best materials, but the 10% that would, they would help the city quite a bit. Getting better armor and weapons for the soldiers was now the top priority for those in charge.

While there were plans to recover the old forsaken cavern for a while now, it had been continuously pushed. Despite the metals it would bring in, being dearly needed. These monster materials would help fill in the void until they could finally venture into the forsaken cavern for mining.

Some Chosen were exploring its upper levels. According to them, the place also counted as a dungeon (which to enter, they had to pay a small mana crystal).

Quite a number had flocked to it to see what dungeons were like as a result. Not all could afford to use a mana crystal so precariously. After all, even a small mana crystal went for anywhere between 20 and 30 gold. Even at the low end, that was worth 500 dollars if converted to cash.

Heck, to most average player, getting equipment was an uphill battle. Very few had double digits of gold lying around. Eldrian and Phoenix were unique in that perspective. Though others were sure to reach the same financial situation with the dungeon addition.

These  poor players chose to explore the cave in preparations instead. As a bonus, they could complete the quest the city had registered for that precise action while they prepared for the dungeon.

"It seems everything went relatively well this time. How do you feel, Eldrian?" Pelaros was more focused on Eldrian than the monster corpses. Of course, he still kept his eye on the wyvern child.

It had still not left, and at this point, Pelaros was thinking of trying to tame it. A wyvern would come in very handy, especially for transport. However, they were difficult to tame. Encountering one as young as this was rare, extremely so. They rarely left the nest before adulthood.

'I'm sure the other side of the kingdom can tame plenty of monsters now, considering the wave rushing into the kingdom from the southwest.' Certainly, they had to hold against the monsters. But the potential upside still existed. Even if it was near impossible to make use of it.

"I think so." Eldrian replied, pausing to check his physical condition. This time there hadn't been any unexpected developments.

Eldrian felt this wasn't just because of his preparations, but also because Tier 6 was a considered a minor upgrade. The next big one was Tier 7, and then Tier 10. When he next tried to tier up, he had to make sure he was ready for unexpected developments.

'Seems the mana network survived the mana inflow. The vortices are revolving faster, and they feel much denser. The pathways...' Eldrian felt pleased by how they flowed.

They felt like mighty rivers carrying mana from one vortex (node) to another. With vortices at each key location in his body, he was brimming with mana. Sure, things were a bit too much for now. The mana rushing like raging rapids. But they should calm down with some time, and then he could really test out what he was now capable of.

'All I did was make the solar system more real. I had it move about my soul to bring a type of day and night cycle. Also added rotations and one moon to each world.' Eldrian was certainly happy that it had been enough.

Curious, he turned to his interface to figure out the finer details, already certain of his success given his new overflowing amount of mana. At least three times his original amount.

'Yeah, this is impressive,' Eldrian thought, a smile sneaking across his face as he looked at how much stronger he had become. It had most certainly been worth it to find the time to do this. Especially since he had been sure he could.

It had taken a while to get used to the Tier 5 spell requirement, but once he had it down comfortably, Tier 6 wasn't much different. It just needed slightly better visualization and finer mana control.

Naturally, Eldrian had needed time to focus on tiering up. This time, he had needed two days. Tier 7 was sure to require even more. According to Ziraili, the shift between Tier 5/6 and Tier 7 was the amount of detail.

The spell modules were kicked up another notch in complexity and different compositions to reflect this. He would first need to be able to cast Tier 6 spells as easily as any other before being able to attempt it.

Still, Eldrian was satisfied with his growth. He had already had more mana than Myropsis, a Tier 6 mage, when he was Tier 5. Now, he had five times more.

[Eldrian Avgi (Count)] (At this point Eldrian had only attuned Crystoi and the Avyssos Ring, the latter not yet giving any stat bonuses. Because of the limit of soulbound items, Eldrian had been holding off on this decision for the time being.)

[Level: 46]

[Hidden Class: Protector (Tier 6)]

[Normal Class: Magic (Tier 6) | Melee (Tier 5) | Range (Tier 4)]

[Soulbound items: Crystoi, Avyssos Ring]

[Avatar Affinity: 100%]

[Attributes — Constitution: 1108 (was 788) | Strength: 1012 (was 758) | Agility: 1201 (was 862) | Spirit: 1202 (was 714) | Intelligence: 1036 (was 620)]

(AN: was indicates to before Tier 6 attempt, stats where never shown when Eldrian reached Tier 4 in range. See AN at chapter end for before range T4.)

[56 free attributes]

[Stats — HP: 8.9k (was 5k) | Mana: 10.2k (was 3.1k) | Stamina: 12.6k (was 7.5k)]

'Mmm, Ceph still has me beat. Even though he  is  Tier 5. But I do have more attributes than him in his elven form. Mythical creatures really are something...' Ceph's attributes in his normal, alicorn form, hovered around 1.5k. The jump from Tier 4 to 5 for Ceph had been as big as Eldrian's jump to Tier 6. Bigger even.

That was natural though, Mythical creatures were the pinnacle of existence on Gaia. But this also came at a cost. They are unable to attune with magical items, and thus cannot grow stronger from secondary sources. They could still use the items just fine, they simply couldn't get a stat boost from them.

"Eldrian?" Pelaros probbed.

"Ah, sorry. Just checking the results." Eldrian answered, deciding to put the rest of his investigation off for later. There was plenty they had to do here first. Still, Eldrian had to check on the Avyssos Ring. It had the ability to match his Tier, and he was curious how it had grown.

'Ah, this sucks.' Eldrian nodded. It appeared the ring would take a week to match his Tier. He could apparently feed it mana to speed things up.