A New World, an immersive game experience

Eldrian, oblivious to the conference of magic and science that Miracle was holding, sat next to the river flowing through the village. Calming himself as he considered the best method for approaching his tier up.

He already knew the requirements, and he was confident he could meet them. He had his friends waiting nearby should things go awry, but far enough to avoid endangering them, and he had plenty of mana crystals should he require more mana.

"Right. Unlike previous times, I have a plan this time." Eldrian mumbled, getting to it. The first step, as always, was to channel a spell.

Tier 6 spells were naturally more complicated than Tier 5 spells. No matter which method of casting you used, this truth remained. Eldrian had even confirmed with Ziraili exactly what the requirements were.

While called requirements, these were more goal posts that one had to achieve. Once you did, then the world would acknowledge your growth. Eldrian was a little unsure how that part works. Apparently, the AI weren\'t the ones to dish out new stats or titles to NPCs. For players, they certainly do.

In any case, the reason Ziraili had mentioned this was because this acknowledgement of the world was similar in some ways to Skepsi\'s goal in asking Eldrian to risk his life. To defy the heavens.

There were certainly differences, defying the heavens—or more commonly known as breaking through mortal limits —was aimed to unlock a direct line to the flow of lifeforce and the powers it gave. While world acknowledgement simply gathered mana around a person.

Still, this gathering of mana could cause problems like it had when Eldrian had reached Tier 5. Strong magical attuned creatures, mostly those of Ancient or Mythical bloodlines, would be attracted by this flow of mana. Hence, having Pelaros and Myropsis nearby.

Back to spell casting. Eldrian was using his old trick of envisioning a Tier 6 spell module to formulate the construction of his spell. Going slow to ensure he did not miss anything, he spent a few hours getting used to how it felt. His spell, ultimately, always failing.

Those failures thought him what he needed to know, Eldrian confirmed the feel for it. Confirming how his mana should compose for the spell. Once he accomplished this, the next step was including visualization of the spell.

As Eldrian was most comfortable with ice magic, that was just what he used. The spell itself was simple, and an advanced version of Ice Rain called Frozen Spears. For now, Eldrian did not add runic magic to the equation as he had with Ice Rain in the past.

Visualizing the effects of the spell—which he had asked Myropsis to demonstrate—Eldrian\'s mana flowed naturally to full fill the image in his mind. However, in this step, he was no longer relying on spell modules. He had only used them to learn how his mana should feel for the spell. He did not want to rely on them to actually cast it.

Instead, Eldrian composed the details in his mind. While for Tier 5 spells, it was enough to simply keep in mind the molecular structure, Tier 6 required a visualized molecular lattice. Naturally, if one was talented enough and understood how the mana should flow, one can skip some of the visualization requirements. Sadly for Eldrian, Tier 5 was where his talent ran out. He could no longer bank on it to fix the things he ignored.

\'Hexagonal water molecules, stacked infinitely,\' Eldrian chanted in his head like a mantra, while also keeping the picture of spears of ice forming in the sky. Each was about a meter long and as thick as a branch.

Keeping the images clear was certainly a challenge. Eldrian failed several times, his mana running rampant when he did. Luckily, he had prepared for this and could rely on Erik\'s potions to solve his headache and mana poisoning, and his mana crystals for when he was short. After all, each failure cost him anywhere between 500 and a 1000 mana.

Finally, on the next day, Eldrian managed to complete the spell. He now had to do it two more times to officially be recognized. Yet, this was only the first step for him. For normal people, this would be enough, but Eldrian had his mana network, physical throughout his body and ethereal in his soul. Both had to be updated.

​ Thus, after another few hours of spell casting, with many failures, Eldrian got confirmation that he had learned the spell—officially. As a test, he cast it again and indeed it now manifested far easier. Though, he still only managed a 30% success rate.

\'Yup, not tier up.\' While the chance was small, non-existent really, Eldrian had hoped Ziraili\'s words would be wrong. Recalling past events, Eldrian did not look forward to this part.

"Right, let\'s just get it over with." He grumbled, pulling out a diagram of the human body... and another of the elven body. The human one he had colored in according to what he saw with mana sense about people\'s normal mana flow. The elven one... was lacking. His only true reference for an elf was Ceph, who was actually an Alicorn.

Ceph\'s mana flow, however, had been fascinating to study. Why Eldrian hadn\'t done it before had baffled him. What Eldrian had considered an excellent system turned out to be nothing but a mess. But that was the way of life. You do your best, and then a year later it looks like child\'s play. Or a child\'s work, in this case.

"Let\'s start then." Eldrian said, taking a mana crystal in each hand. He had plenty available, and he was going to need them. To overwrite and update his mana system, he needed an abnormal amount of mana. Luckily, last time, he had given it some forethought. He did not need to start from scratch.

Using the previous system\'s skeleton, Eldrian recreated the rest. He kept the main nodes (Vortexes) and the pathways between them, but broke and remade any that did not provide said function.

Naturally, this wasn\'t a pleasant experience. Guiding a torrent of mana through one\'s body to alter the natural flow of mana was not something that should normally be done. Generally, such techniques are passed down for generations, not created on the spot.

Six hours later, a drenched Eldrian collapsed into his seat. Sadly, he did not have much time to recover, as he now had to work on the ethereal part. Jumping into his soul, he saw the solar system starting to act weird.

"Glad I left you for last." Eldrian mumbled, getting to work. This, he believed, should be simpler than the former, and indeed it was. In his soul, he was god. However, even gods could be taken down by their own hubris of by surprise.

Had Eldrian started here, the contained mana would have spilled into his body like last time. Doing it this way proved far more stable, albeit it took much longer. All in all, Eldrian had spent nearly two entire days.

"Let\'s see if it worked." He mumbled, returning to reality to find a collection of animals slain in his surroundings. Chills ran down his spine as he realized he would have been killed had it not been for his friends guarding him.

\'I even made sure that the area was clear!\' Eldrian complained in his heart, seeing multiple creatures that appeared distinctly dragon-like.