A New World, an immersive game experience

Keeping some of his focus on maintaining the spell module, Eldrian started looking at the module which was floating before him.

'Now, how do I modify it.' Eldrian asked himself.

Taking a moment, he finally decided to try and modify it the same way he had pulled the piece towards the spell module last time. As such he concentrated on the stem part of the spell, trying to elongate it. Yet no matter how much he 'thought' it, nothing happened.

While still trying Eldrian soon found himself back in his body.

'Well, that didn't work.' He murmured. Frowning, he tried to come up with a different method. He also decided to ask Dave, yet that also didn't help. Dave had simply told him that he always uses mana to modify spells in the magical abyss.

After resting Eldrian again cast the spell and entered the magical abyss. He could feel a clear difference in the pulling strength, on the spell module, with each time he entered this place. It was growing weaker and weaker, Eldrian felt this was a good thing. Yet for some reason he also hoped it wouldn't completely disappear.

This time, instead of just trying to force it to elongate, Eldrian instead tried to study the spell module. Yet he quickly lost his ability to focus, the more he tried to study the spell module, the blurrier it became.

Soon he couldn't even make out the light-green lines which was the spell module.

Back in his body Eldrian thought a bit, before trying to recall the spell module as Dave had given it to him. Trying to remember exactly how it was constructed.

"That's it!" Eldrian exclaimed excitedly after a few minutes of thinking. He finally found what was different. There were no nodes inside the magical abyss, at least he hadn't seen them.

After realizing this Eldrian felt astonished that he hadn't realized it quicker. Shaking his head to dispel these thoughts he told himself it was normal, he couldn't expect himself to pick up on it immediately.

"What is, it? Dave asked.

"I think I know what I was missing." Eldrian replied quickly, casting the spell again before Dave could ask more.

Finding himself in the magical abyss again, Eldrian observed the spell module again. Indeed, he saw none of the nodes.

'So only the lines are present here.' He commented to himself, trying to focus on the areas where he knew there should be nodes. All too quickly he found himself back inside his body.

'Can't it last longer!' Eldrian complained internally, finding the 1-2 minutes far too short for him to actually do something useful.

Eldrian continued doing this, casting the spell and then searching for the spell's nodes. Yet each time he couldn't find the nodes and if he tried to focus too hard the everything would become blurry.

After around an hour, having cast the spell just over ten times, Eldrian decided to stop and try and gain some perspective.

"Dave, did anything happen with my mana?"

"No, it has been normal the entire time." Dave replied, he had been observing Eldrian constantly. He was extremely curious about what exactly Eldrian was trying to do, yet Eldrian had been too excited to stop for long enough to explain it to him.

"Dave, do you know why I can't find any nodes in my spell module?"

"That's impossible, without nodes it wouldn't cast."

"But that is what is happening. The module is only, what do you call the lines again."

"Pathways, so you are saying it is only this?" Dave asked, drawing a simple shape of a leaf on one of the pages of his book. Eldrian had no idea where the pen came from and he worried that Dave was ruining a valuable book.

Ignoring these worries, Eldrian looked at the leaf Dave had drawn. It was a simple leaf sketch, consisting of only lines. One stem line, from back to tip, and then two more lines giving the drawing a leaf shape.

"That is what it looks like, yes." Eldrian replied.

"Interesting. The spell won't work if you don't have nodes though. You said you tried to look for them."

To which Eldrian nodded.

"Where did you look?" Dave asked next.

Eldrian simply pointed at the stem end, the place where the leaf started and the leaf's point.

"That is where the nodes should be." Dave pondered, wondering why Eldrian wouldn't be able to find these nodes.

After a few minutes of quietness, Dave asked, "Maybe the nodes are too small for you to see."

Eyes opening wide in surprise, Eldrian quickly got into his position against the wall and recast the spell. A minute later he came back and Dave saw that Eldrian hadn't managed anything.

"How do I enlarge the module?" Eldrian asked, feeling embarrassed that he had again just jumped into it, without first talking to Dave. He simply couldn't help it, he was so excited about making progress.

While waiting for Dave to reply Eldrian looked at his stats, disappointed to find that he had gained Magic Fatigue to level 2.

'I won't be able to do this much longer.' Eldrian realized that his time inside the magical abyss was likely to become shorter as this fatigue increased. Luckily level 2's effect was still low, Eldrian having only lost 10 mana from it.

"I don't know how you can enlarge the spell module." Dave finally answered after a while. After saying this he also tried to enter the magical abyss. Yet unlike Eldrian, he struggled to enter this space.

Tier 5 was the lowest at which one could enter it, normally only Tier 7 or over would be able to enter it at free will.

"I am going to try and enter the magical abyss too. You keep trying to." Dave said after having failed at his first attempt.

Eldrian nodded, yet wondered why Dave had said try. Not minding it too much he cast Anthos again.

Not doing much, other than letting a little bit of his focus keep the module intact, Eldrian simply floated and looked at the leaf module.

'I wonder if I can zoom in.' Eldrian murmured and tried to think it. After coming back to his body and gaining nothing, Eldrian added it to his failure pile.

Next he entered again, this time trying to make the entire module bigger like before, except that he just vaguely thought it this time. Yet nothing happened.

Next he tried to shrink his point of view, again nothing happened.

Frustrated at the constant failures, Eldrian decided to let a piece of the module break off again.

Even while expecting the sharp pain, Eldrian still flinched when it came. Like cold would spread through you when a friend dropped ice onto your back, Eldrian felt the pain quickly spread.

Shaking his consciousness, Eldrian focused back on his task. Trying to connect to the piece which had broken of.

Soon Eldrian again felt the connection and grasped onto it. Instead of pulling the piece to the module, he first tried to analyze the connection he had. Eldrian lost himself in the weird feeling that this connection was. Unable to make sense of it.

Back in his body Eldrian felt the piercing pain transferred to his body. Flinching and clenching his back he waited for the pain to disappear.

'Okay, don't keep the module broken when exiting the magical abyss.' Eldrian noted through clenched teeth. The pain had stayed until Eldrian's mana had regenerated. Which had taken much longer, around 10 minutes this time.

'Definitely don't do that again.' Eldrian thought after the pain finally disappeared. He spent a few minutes relaxing and looking at Dave who was concentrating deeply. He could see Dave's eyelids twitch every few seconds.

'Is he struggling?' Eldrian asked himself, soon dispelling these thoughts. Certain that he wouldn't be able to help Dave.

Looking at his stats he saw that he had gained another level of magical fatigue.

'That sucks.' He knew that it was related to his failed attempt. Now he had lost 21 mana, instead of just 10.

Determined to not give up yet, Eldrian cast the spell again. After having rested enough, naturally.

'That did something last time, let's do it again.' Eldrian murmured, letting his focus slip on the spell module, just long enough for a piece to split. After getting over the pain Eldrain focused on the piece and felt that he could control the size of this piece breaking off, with more practice. After thinking this he wanted to laugh, as this was something he didn't think held much importance.

Like before Eldrian next focused on connecting to this piece, soon feeling the connection again. While moving the piece back to the module, he tried to analyze this connection. Yet the time limitation pressured him, he certainly did not want the piece to be disconnected when he left the magical abyss.

Back in his body Eldrian felt happy and sad at the same time. He certainly felt like he was making progress, but at the same time he felt it was going to take some time for him to manage more.