A New World, an immersive game experience

"Then let's queue and see what happens!" Therdul shouted with excitement, the randomness of the previous fights having really bothered all of them. With his shout everyone did just that, the waiting taking just a few minutes. Before being transported to the arena they were told that their enemy's Tier score was 20.

Thereafter they found themselves in a woody area, the trees not dense and for the most part visibility quite good. Around sixty meters from them stood their opponents, six warriors, and two mages. 

"Alright, like normal," Elizabeth said as soon as they arrived, nodding everyone started moving forward. Judith splitting from the rest of them and Therdul taking the front. 

Countering their actions their opponents all rushed forward, the mages staying behind the shields of the warriors. As soon as they were close enough they started casting their spells, Zyviss letting loose and Ilmadia doing the same with her spells. 

Eldrian waited for a bit and counted how long it took them to cast each spell. Their opponents favoring earth spells, sending football-sized rocks at them. Even if one were to hide behind a shield, one would take considerable damage from the sheer weight behind the spell. 

As such Therdul was forced to dodge, as was Judith. The opponents instead blocking the spells and arrows from Zyviss and Ilmadia with ease. Linking their shields to form a type of shieldwall. 

"Are we going to charge?" Therdul asked as he had to jump out of the way of another massive rock. While it took the mages a couple of seconds to summon the rock from the ground and send it at him, if their aim wasn't bad he had to dance. 

"Alright, let's go." Elizabeth agreed upon seeing that Judith was closing in. The time between spells doing little to slow her flank. As she reached within striking distance, one of the warriors had to split off to stop her advance. As he turned both Ilmadia and Zyviss aimed for him, causing another warrior to break from the formation to stop the spike and arrow from killing his friend. 

With that Eldrian charged forward and cast Frost Needle himself, seeing it above the warriors and letting it drop from there. The shout of pain shocking them all as they failed to understand what had happened. Had their opponent not lost control during casting, they asked themselves in confusion. 

This gave Eldrian, Therdul, and Nikki the chance they needed to strike at the two warriors who had broken from the shieldwall. Judith having circled behind them to go for the mage. 

"Dammit, split up!" One of their opponents said upon realizing that their approach was not working. Only for them to be the target of Ilmadia and Zyviss as soon as they opened up and no longer hid behind their shields. 

Ah man, I really need to learn some attack spells.  Erik complained as he simply watched the fight unfold. He felt quite useless, as generally he couldn't do much more than throwing buffs and heals at his team. While it did help, it didn't do much. He felt more like a spectator than a participant. 

"They had an interesting tactic," Elizabeth commented as they finished the last warrior. 

"Yeah, might have worked if they had another mage or two. They just didn't have enough firepower, and splitting that had made it even less effective." Therdul said, slightly embarrassed that he had not dared take one of their spells head-on. Luckily both mages hadn't aimed for him or he would likely have lost a good deal of his health. 

"In any case, the points reward was really nice. We got ten from this match, they must be furious at their loss." Nikki added, everyone soon leaving the arena and returning to Elizabeth's virtual home. 

"We now have a target, so let's continue trying to reach it for the rest of the morning," Elizabeth said as soon as everyone returned. 

Everyone quickly agreed and so the few days passed similar to the previous week. Only this time they would almost always gain two digits with a win. Quickly their points grew, until they started facing teams who were really hard to crack. One such team was the Pure Warriors.

They gained plenty of points with each win, most other teams did not have this advantage. While they would lose more and more as their rank increased, the losses generally only resulted in six points loss at max.

After three days they had reached the 300 points mark. Entering the Grandmaster rank along with thirty other teams.

All these teams had a Tier score over 22, hence naturally they had a much harder time gaining points. While in the master rank there were still a few teams with a score below 20, they were far and few between. 

Finding themselves in a grassland, everyone looked at the familiar team they had lost to last time. Their fatal flaw having been unable to damage this team through all their armor. 

"Shit, any idea how we don't lose?" Nikki asked as soon as she saw the comp of three knights, three warriors, and two fighters. 

"No idea, last time they simply charged us and we failed to get through their armor," Eldrian replied as he through back to that fight. He had felt quite helpless as Forst Needle would simply shatter upon making contact with their armor. While he had fared well against one of the knights, his team had not done the same. 

"Let's just give it our all," Elizabeth said, already considering this a loss. They simply had no way to deal with these people in their full plate armor. She could simply not understand how they had the coin to equip six members with such good quality armor. 

While it wasn't magic armor, the knights had Tier 6 normal armor. The warriors instead having a mix of Tier 5 and 6. Which meant each piece had an armor rating of around 16 points, which also meant anything with less raw damage than that would simply be a force hitting them. Not something deadly like a blade. 

Unlike them, their opponents had started moving forwards as soon as they orientated themselves with their new location. 

"Erik, focus on keeping me and Judith alive and buffed. We'll try and aim for the knights. Therdul try to stall the warriors while the rest deal with the fighters." Eldrian said, hoping that he would be able to actually hold his own against two knights. 

"Wait, what!? How come... A shit!" Therdul had to end his question and just rush forward to stop their opponents from reaching the others. Zyviss quickly splitting and trying to aim for the fighters who wore lighter armor and had plenty of exposed skin. Thanks to that he could also notice that one of them was a girl. 

Eldrian instead rushed forward with Judith, both swinging at a respective knight. The one facing Eldrian blocking his swing and quickly trying to counterattack. Judith's opponent, instead having opted to dodge her slash, which was certainly a smart choice. 

Clicking her tongue in annoyance she kept pressing her opponent, leaving the other two to Eldrian as he had expected would happen. 

Eldrian was quickly forced onto the back foot as he failed to find a weak point in his opponents' armor. That is until he cast Mifotia and sent the ball of fire into the visor of one of the knights. The man shouting as his face was burned and giving Eldrian the alone time he needed with one of them.

Striking with all his strength at this knight, Eldrian aimed for his blade. Until he no longer did. Having expected another blow aimed for his sword, instead, Eldrian used double strike and thrust at his chest. The change in pace catching the knight of guard and piercing through his armor. 

This was not enough to kill him though, and the one Eldrian had blinded was quickly recovering as he used healing on himself. Desperate Eldrain thrust at his opponent's head, while at the same time casting Prastio. A poison spell he had learned long ago and mostly forgotten off.

The downside of this poison was that it was slow working and formed a massive amount. Knowing this Eldrian instead used it as he would use Nidia. Sending all that he summoned onto the knight and fully drenching him in the poison. 

Yet at that time Eldrian felt a blade cut through his back, sending him off his feet. Turning his fall into a roll, he dodged the follow-up strike. In his roll he saw the situation of the others. While Judith was on the verge of killing her opponent. Therdul was facing one warrior and on his last legs. 

Nikki was facing another, each attack sent her blade flying and her reeling to recover. Elizabeth and Erik were working together to hold off the other, though they were both near death. The only good thing was that the fighters were dead and Ilmadia free to help out, along with Zyviss. 

Continuing to roll Eldrian used Aoidos's ability to recover the HP he had lost, that attack having claimed just under thirty HP. With that, he also stored Aoidos onto his inventory and pulled a random shortsword. Using it to block the next attack, unable to stand and forced to fight on his knees as the knight pressed on.

Unfortunately, he was not facing just one person, and after the other pulled his helmet off and cleaned his eyes, he had rushed at Eldrian with a burning hatred. The poison having burned terribly once it had entered his eyes. It felt like soap had gotten into his eyes, and even now his vision was still blurry.