A New World, an immersive game experience

After all that, Eldrian realized how late it was already. Quickly saying goodbye to Vivian and logging out, Eldrian rushed to get ready. Luckily he didn't need to even go to where he was staying, his avatar just disappeared upon logging out. 

As soon as he woke, Eldrian got dressed into new clothes and then headed down to eat. After which he rushed up and logged back in, this time not choosing the game, but rather the virtual homes. 

In the end, Eldrian arrived just shy of ten minutes late, everyone surprised by his arrival. Not because they hadn't expected him; they were all waiting for him. Rather what surprised them was his new hairstyle. 

"How did you change your hair?" Nikki asked, unable to keep this question to herself. It even overtook the need to question him about the world announcement. None of them had managed to find an option to change their avatar after the character creation. 

"Huh?" Eldrian looked at her in confusion and combed through his hair. Shocked to find that this was actually translated to the virtual homes too. "I just had it cut, it's part of why I am late," Eldrian explained, causing everyone to receive another piece of information of the game. 

One they had so far been missing, that they actually had to take care of their avatar's appearance in the game. They had yet to play long enough to realize this, but as soon as Eldrian explained, they realized what was going on. 

Though this caused them more questions, unlike other games their avatars weren't static. Changes weren't done through an interface, though it might be possible and they had just not found the option.

Clearly, changes could be done in the game and it seemed to be permanent. This caused them to even wonder if with time they would become scarred. Or if scars disappear when resurrecting. Upon thinking of this most turned to look at Judith, however, they weren't sure which scars she added herself and which were due to fighting. 

Quickly everyone started asking Judith about each scar, and if she had added it in the character creation. Until Therdul interrupted their questioning session, relieving Judith of being bombarded by them. 

"While this is interesting, what on earth did you do to get a worldwide announcement?" Therdul asked, combing through his beard and wondering if it too would become longer with time. 

Hearing the question Eldrian quickly started explaining, first mentioning his aim in finding a wind spell to counter arrows. Then how he wanted to figure out how it worked, so he then dived into Magic Inspection to see if he could modify it to help him with spells. 

"When I managed to actually succeed, that was when the system made the announcement." Eldrian ended off, his explanation not mattering much to Judith, Therdul, and Zyviss.

All of whom had only learned Tier 0 spells before feeling even more underwhelmed by the spells than the same Tier skills.  Hence they had focused on their class and ignored magic when it wasn't necessary.

The others all had some understanding of magic, and were struggling to progress further in it. Hearing Eldrian talking about memorizing a Tier 2 spell like it was nothing left them slightly speechless. 

This was only aggravated when Eldrian mentioned how if not for the limit of High Elves, he would be able to learn far more spells.

Ilmadia was by the most shocked. Though she hadn't replied to Eldrian's message, she had taken his advice. Having realized that needing to time the Tier 3 spells would be too hard, and other than the gust spell, she didn't know what to go for. 

Even so, it had taken her three hours to finally be able to envision the spell module for Fresko Anemos. It was the only spell she managed to find after going to the mages' association in the city, Traxia, where she and the others were. Her source of spells limited due to her low rank in the association. 

Yet here Ilmadia listened to how Eldrian learned the more advanced spell, Ischyros Anemos, in under two hours. It left her slightly disheartened, especially since she was Tier 3. Whereas Eldrian was still Tier 2.

Adding even more onto it, even giving her a feeling of inadequacy, Eldrian then altered a spell. She had no idea how to even go about attempting that, yet it took him but a couple of hours. She couldn't help but wonder what caused the massive gap between them, especially since she even had the help of the system. 

Having come to learn about this from both the forum, where most High Elf players had quit due to the added difficulty of their race, and Eldrian explaining the difference in how he needed to cast spells. This made her inadequacy grow even more.

She was certain if she and Eldrian fought she would stand no chance at this point. This was extremely disheartening, considering that on paper she should be stronger. Naturally she did not know of Eldrian's hidden class, nor all the difficulties he had gone through. 

"Wait! You just mentioned the magic abyss. What is that?" Ilmadia asked after overcoming the shock and the growing feeling of ineptitude. 

"Ah, it's a special... State... Where you can modify a spell while it is active, allowing you to figure out what your modification does. This helps tremendously since if it makes the spell unstable, then you would never have been able to cast it."

"Eldrian, I also remember you mentioning ranks to me long ago," Erik said, jumping into the discussion. He had not spent the last two days doing nothing in the game. While he was still trying his best to gather money, he left himself some time to learn other spells. 

In fact, he let Akarui take over the making of Tier 1 salves, she could even almost make the healing potions too. 

During his freed time he had reflected on the spells he already knew, and to his surprise, he had found that he had Thera as a Rank 1 spell. He had never really bothered to look much at the system interface and even its notifications. 

While it helped in confirming kills, it did nothing in informing him if his patient was improving or not. He had probably ranked it up while he was treating someone, as such he had completely missed the system message. 

"What about it Erik?" Eldrian asked after finding Erik not continuing for a while. 

"What does it actually mean?" 

This question was in fact one Eldrian himself did not. However, he was certainly more informed than Erik. He normally gained the rank when he managed to get better control of the spell. He assumed it was the same for Erik, only Erik didn't aim for gaining control. 

Mentioning just this Eldrian tried to explain how Frost Needle, which he could fully control, was at Rank 3. Trying to showcase what this meant through this. "When I was still getting used to it, Rank 1 allowed me to slightly alter the flight path. Not anything close to letting it turn 90 degrees, but I could make it curve."

"Rank 2 allowed me to do no more than 90 degree turns, and only really once."

"Then what does Rank 1 mean for Thera?" Erik asked.

"You should likely be able to concentrate the effect of the spell now. Similar to when you place your hand over the wound to focus it there, only more effective and without the need to use your hand. However, I do not know how you will do this." Eldrian had to admit that he had no idea how spells actually felt to the others.

Explaining how he controlled his spells wouldn't help at all. It would be akin to explaining to somehow how to walk when they needed to know how to swim.

Instead, he just said that Erik needed to test it out, to try and see what happens if he focused on an area much like one had to focus to envision a spell module. 

Eldrian didn't bring up how he thought of this focusing as mageia, not normal thoughts. For now, it would just complicate things, explaining what he meant was easier than explaining what mageia was. 

"Now then..." Elizabeth took control of the conversation before anyone else could ask any questions. "Shall we queue up so long?"

Hearing this everyone did just that, however, they couldn't continue their chat as they were directly thrown into a battlefield. A shout reaching them from the distance. "Finally, took long enough!" 

Turning to the shout they found their opponents were again their 'guild leader'. The latter cursing as soon as he recognized them.

"Are you going to let us win this time? Elizabeth?" Kenwyn asked, everyone behind him quickly getting ready as they remembered what happened last time. 

"Of course not, this is a fight. So we should fight." Elizabeth replied.

Kenwyn and his teammates thought that this fight would go far better, seeing as they were on guard right from the start. However they were sorely mistaken, Judith absolutely wrecked their frontline. Eldrian killing their backline with ease.

There was no need for them to make the battle last, as such it ended in under ten seconds. Kenwyn and his teammates cursing them as they were killed, the former even declaring them rogue.