A New World, an immersive game experience

"What do you want my help with?" Zamia asked after trying to think of a safer approach for Eldrian. Even if he could and would resurrect, the mental pain from continued failed casts was not something trivial. Zamia knew of more than one mage who had turned senile due to it. 

This also was not just something static mages had to deal with. Even Alicorns faced this problem when tackling advanced spells and magics.

And in their cases, failure was far more severe as the energies would go completely haywire and likely kill them if they had attempted something too far ahead of their level. They were not working with a spell module after all.

The advantage of the spell module was, if it was completely wrong then their mental energies would be the only backlash; unless they were dumb enough to cast it before confirming it was stable, as Eldrian was doing. 

For the Alicorns, they had no choice but to start with active mana. Which meant what could happen from their testing would be far more destructive. Luckily, this was only something that came up when trying advanced spells.

Trivial things like healing or summoning fireballs or wind-blades needed just a single thought. 

"Right, I constructed a type of room to form my spells modules inside. This helped with the mental backlash, but it also lessens my feel for the module I am creating." Eldrian explained, it was like working with gloves. Overly large and thick gloves. 

"That is bound to happen if you isolate the modules from the rest of your mind. Still, it is the best practice."

"Do you know how I might be able to lessen the distant feeling?" Eldrian asked, hoping there was a trick she might be able to share. 

"No, at least no easy solutions. There are a few thoughts on how to modify and create spell modules. The safest remains the magic abyss-" Zamia nodded before Eldrian could ask, "Yes, we do not have a connection with it and have created other methods. What you are doing is one of them."

"Unfortunately, these methods require patience and practice. You don't circumvent the feeling of distance, you just become used to it. "

Eldrian nodded, he understood that with time he would be able to get used to it and work with it without even realizing it. That did not help him now, however. 

"I understand... I have another question," Eldrian said and as he did he waved his hand to summon a trail of flames.

Flames just remained the best element to work with since they had near no mass and also were easy to see. Thus, it was the easiest to control when randomly summoned, and also to showcase an idea with.

The only downside was it was not solid and couldn't stay for long unless you kept feeding it mana. And keeping an element active without form required far more mana.

"I understand how the mana dissipates into the environment and also why. But why if I repeat this for Ether does the same happen?" Eldrian asked and did just that, changing the mana type into Ether as he sent it out. 

Naturally, this was only visible with a sufficient type of Observation skill. Luckily, mana sense was that and Zamia naturally had her own. 

"Why wouldn't it? It will spread just like anything else, in fact, it will spread faster than anything else since there is no Ether  naturally." Zamia replied and Eldrian felt like slapping himself. 

How he had forgotten about diffusion he could not understand, once he was reminded it was so obvious. 'Of course, it is the same as how the natural elements pressure spells and hence you have to allocate for the pressure if you want to alter the form of the spell!'

'Since there is basically a vacuum for Ether, no wonder all my spells are just ripped to shreds and erupt chaotically. I need to isolate the Ether, but... How the hell do spells do this?'

Eldrian asked Zamia this exact question but she didn't have an answer for him, or she had but rather she just gave him a hint. "Maybe the spells don't isolate the Ether?"

'Don't isolate?' Eldrian pondered on this for a few minutes and when he managed to figure it out Zamia had long left to do whatever she normally did. 

'I see, so one way is by focusing more on it and pressuring it to stay whole. But this isn't ideal and is more the isolation method. Instead, what if I spread the Ether through the spell and distribute it equally, or rather as need between the other mana.'

'But, one, what would that stop the diffusion, and two, how am I going to spread it? I just barely managed to successfully form it along with the spell.'

As a result, Eldrian found that he did not have a solution and thus he must not have the right answer. After a few hours of more tests and failures, he decided it was time to discuss things with Two. 

"Still no answer from Ziraili?" Two asked as soon as Eldrian entered the bubble that was their -his- soul. 

"She's still MIA, but seeing as nothing bad has happened thus far I don't think what happened was entirely in her control."

Two nodded, feeling there was no need to mention -again- that she was still doing her job of allowing players to enter the simulation and play as always. There were no bug reports or anything, so she wasn't malfunctioning. Just ignoring them. 

"Alright then, onto the topic of Ether then." Two said, bothered by the Ziraili situation but quickly getting over it. "I think we are approaching it entirely wrong."

"You mean wanting to summon my mana as Ether or?"

"Kind off, yeah." Two nodded and quickly started drawing in the air, over the past few days they had found a few useful and interesting tricks they could do in their bubble of the Mageia Avyssos. 

One of those were holographs and sending images of what they were thinking onto it. Sure, the two were essentially one person; regardless, seeing something drawn, or even better virtualized would help you work through it. 

It worked in a similar way to how one would envision a spell module. Only, you envisioned the image you wanted to show instead.

"Remember way back when you discovered that some mana for a spell stays in the neutral state? Ready to turn into whatever the spell needed."

"Yeah, and it is something I have been unable to replicate." Eldrian nodded, each time he cast a spell all the mana he sent would be converted into the types he was thinking of immediately. 

"What if that is the trick, we also know that keeping spells active leads to mana drain as it slowly dissipated into the environment. Originally we thought he extra mana was to keep Frost Needle cold-"

"Brilliant!" Eldrian declared, deflating Two who had been working up to the big reveal.

"Can't you let me have my moment?" Two complained, but Eldrian was already leaving this space to again test things.

"Or at least keep me company a bit longer..." Two mumbled as he sighed and returned to just watching Eldrian do his thing. Sometimes he couldn't help but wish he wasn't so trapped. 

AN: A big thank you to everyone who continues to read and support the story on WN.