A New World, an immersive game experience

"Would you mind if I tried cultivating?" Eldrian asked after a moment's thought. He believed that after the last experience he was ready to attempt looking into himself again.

As he asked this he also sent a message to Gengxin and Constantin to inform them of his action, both cursing out loud as soon as they read the message. Wondering why Eldrian couldn't just hold off for a week or so longer so that the tournament can happen first. To give his body time to recover.

"Sure, I don't have much to do now that everyone has been healed already," Ayden replied, curious about what Eldrian mentioned and what was going to happen. After that, Ayden led Eldrian to his house, where the latter placed Kydone on one of the guest beds and sat on the floor himself. Both having felt that doing it under a random tree in the square would be highly irresponsible.

With that settled, Eldrian quieted his thoughts and focused them on a spell he was about to summon. Using the same old trick of encasing it with mageia to enter the magic abyss.

Looking at the teardrop shape of Nidia Eldrian confirmed again that in this place mageia was concrete, while mana was active. With Nidia, it was as if the nodes were water taps and the pathways garden hoses, mana then being the water flowing through them. Though to be more correct the water was flowing surrounding the hose, and not inside of it.

After looking at this for a while again, Eldrian shifted his focus onto trying to meditate and find himself in the magic abyss. Knowing that his consciousness was not what he was searching for at this moment.

Without much trouble, and only a few minutes later, he sensed the two auras he had felt and fought before. Using them as guides Eldrian managed to quickly arrive before his heart, with almost nothing else being there.

It was beating calmly in the middle of nowhere, the two auras spreading out with each beat. The tears and cuts had all healed, the emotions much calmer. The aura of intensity now just gave him the motivation to get up and work, while the aura of calmness cleared his mind to focus better. Neither of them assaulted him as had happened last time.

Relieved by this Eldrian also found himself not knowing what to do next. He had thought it would be a struggle to reach this point, which was exactly why he had been putting it off. He feared another mishap might happen, so finding that nothing went wrong, he didn't know what to do.

Out of curiosity, he started trying to search for his 'soul'. Wondering what else and how large his was. He discovered, to his disappointment, that the heart seemed to be all there was. While if he moved around he could vaguely sense other things, they were no where nearly as clear as in Kydone. Her's was fast and almost infinite, Eldrian found that his was small, minuscule in fact.

I don't get it, why is mine so small? Was it almost destroyed, and why only two emotions/auras? Eldrian mumbled as he returned to the heart. Not realizing that while Kydone had had multiple themes, they had been all focused on only one aura. His instead had two extremely powerful auras, but little else.

What now? He thought next, truly not knowing what he was supposed to do at this point. For a moment he became frustrated at not having any type of guide, not even to mention having a proper mentor.

Can I look out of my soul? Eldrian wondered, trying to do this for the next couple of minutes. Surprisingly he managed to actually do just that after an hour or so. Finding that a type of screen appeared in front of him, or rather where he felt he was. Here Eldrian saw the magic abyss and the Nidia spell still being inside it.

Only now everything was much clearer. While before the water flowed along the paths created by mageia, now it seemed to encase the entire spell. Forming a ball of water flowing in an endless downward loop. Encasing the entire spell module, with mageia flowing inside of the water to and from the nodes.

What does this mean? The mageia is flowing in the way the mana did previously, wait... Eldrian suddenly realized that this looked extremely similar to Nidia when cast. Only now the rotation was seen through the pathway, and not water rotating.

Can I see my own body like this? Eldrian wondered next, trying to accomplish this for the next few minutes. After a few he actually managed, at first he saw his body in a black room floating calmly in nothingness.

Soon his body started glowing as all the mana inside of him became visible. Constantly fluctuating between colors as his mana changed form between elements, the rarest color being soft white of neutral mana. Most often his mana would take the color of light green and light blue, along with a bright red slightly less often. Most of the other colors were weaker fluctuations and would also stay in a certain form much shorter.

That isn't very efficient. Eldrian thought, realizing that his mana taking on the form of an element meant it needed to refert to neutral pure mana before he could actually use it in the form he wished. Contrary to this if he stuck to those that were the most prevalent, then he could use it much quicker. But that would limit him, and Eldrian had no idea what these fluctuations really meant, nor what they were. He would rather try to take control than follow what he didn't know.

As such he spent the next couple of hours trying to stop his mana from fluctuating. To keep it stable in a neutral form which could be used right away. Ultimately this would only mean a difference of milliseconds in casting as mana could change form extremely fast, but Eldrian felt more it would lead to better mana usage and control.

Doing what he set out was much harder than he had thought it would be. His mana seemed to really like turning into an elemental form, as if neutral mana was not something normal.

Nearly six hours after starting to try this, he finally managed to make a compromise. By letting his mana fluctuate inside his heart; where it always gathered and flowed from. He allowed it free reign here, but in his body, he forced his mana to stay soft white like a mist. He had no idea if this would last once he left, and his focus was no longer placed on it, but Eldrian felt this was good enough for the day.

Due to this change, the mana's nature had slightly changed. The fluctuations inside his heart were extremely rapid due to how condensed it all was. Along with this all the rest of his mana sped much faster through his body, as if wishing to be allowed to change form. As Eldrian observed he could tell it was still speeding up.

Smiling Eldrian felt this should be something good. Though he needed to return into his body to really feel the effects. In the form he was now, he could clearly tell he was not really connected to his body. He could not feel anything, only observe.

Trying to exit from his soul-state, Eldrian found it actually quite hard. Similar to when he first entered, he had no guide to exit. It took him close to an hour before he finally managed to wake just as the sun started setting. Standing up slowly Eldrian rubbed his neck and shoulders as he immediately felt his body feeling lighter.

Before he could question and look into what was going on he was interrupted by Ayden, "Did it work?" He asked as he realized Eldrian was stirring.

"I think so, I did do something," Eldrian replied, slowly getting into a sitting position, at which time he realized Ayden was not alone. "V-Vivian!" Eldrian shouted, clearly seeing her displeased expression.

"You liar!" She shouted, causing Eldrian to flinch and Ayden to move to not end up between the two. But not too far so that he couldn't enjoy the show.

"I-I didn't really lie. I said I was going on a mission." Eldrian stuttered as he struggled in comprehending how she appeared here, what was going on in his body, and why she was so angry.

"Yeah right! You skipped the part about it being a suicide mission!" Vivian countered, wishing to pummel Eldrian into the ground. Only stopping herself as she had realized he had again done something strange and he was clearly not recovered from that yet. She could even vaguely feel that there was something going on inside of him at this moment.

"I didn't want you to worry, and I can't..."

"You can't what!? Remember how shit you felt when you died, are you sure you can't die!?" She shouted, causing Eldrian to shrink back as he indeed was not sure.

Seeing him remain quiet Vivian became even angrier, "You aren't sure, are you!? Else you would have refuted me just now..." As she said the last part, she started becoming calmer.

"Sorry... I..." Eldrian didn't know what to say, but he didn't need to say much. Vivian quickly moved to hug him, crying into his shoulder. At which point Ayden promptly stood up and moved to check up on Kydone. She had woken long ago, and while still weakened she had given him quite the scratch.

"Don't do that again, I was so worried when I arrived and couldn't find you," Vivian whispered, having tried since arriving to find him. Only doing her job when it was truly mandatory.