n

n

nAfter a while, Vivian calmed down and recovered to her normal self, at which time Eldrian apologized again and told her he needed to check what was going on with him before they could talk. She nodded and gave him some space, Eldrian quickly focusing into himself to check what was going on.

nThe first thing he found was that his heart was beating really fast, even doubting this and taking his pulse to confirm. It was truly beating too fast, as if he had just finished running. Is this good or bad? Eldrian wondered, knowing that IRL such a heartbeat would be deadly as the heart was just a muscle. It working so hard continuously would lead to early failure, but High Elves were near-immortal, so he did not know if their hearts could have the same problems.

nWith this, he also discovered that both his mana and blood were circulating inside of him much faster than before. One ethereal and the other material, yet they seemed to work in conjunction. He realized that changing the way his mana flowed must have caused this change, causing him some worry.

nHe had thought the etherealness of mana would mean it wouldn't affect his body. This was seemingly incorrect, causing him to quickly wonder just how this worked. He had thought that the mana must be used actively to cause such a change.

nSighing again Eldrian wished he had a proper mentor to teach or at least confirm or deny his speculations. Next, he tried to pick up the feeling of the mana flowing inside of him, failing to find anything other than just the mistlike texture of neutral mana.

nSo it worked? What does this mean? Eldrian wondered, curious if this would indeed be better than leaving his mana to do its own thing. Not managing to find anything else, he turned to the system looking for some information, left astonished instead at the messages he had completely missed.

nPlayer has gone out of bounds of the system, trying to follow the changes happening to player. 6 hours ago

nPlayer is advised to stop action, there is no information on what will happen if you do not. 5 hours ago

nPlayer has changed the fundamental structure of his mana, the system can only analyze and not influence. 2 hours ago

nPlayer has reached Tier 2, the system has analyzed the changes and tried to make sense of them.

nDue to the method the player is advancing, the Player has reached the limit of system protection, all senses will no longer be limited. Warning, please stop playing and contact Miracle Corporation for advisement, a message has already been sent to the developers.

nProtector Tier 2 reached:

nTotal attribute growth; all attributes 15 bonus

nTotal stat growth; 12.5% in all stats

nGain a bonus of 25% for Tier 2 magic, and 50% for Tier 1 magic, and 150% for Tier 0 magic. Tier 2 bonus

nCasting cost increases with bonus, using the boost is an active choice of player.

n??? - Unkown bonus, outside of the scope of the system. Please contact Miracle Corporation.

nWhat the hell? Was all Eldrian could think of after seeing all these messages. He didn't think what he had been doing was all that strange. He couldn't understand why the system was saying it couldn't help him anymore.

nHe also really didn't like the fact that pain was no longer going to be moderated. While he often did get to a stage where he would feel pain full out, that was in the heat of battle in most cases. Where his adrenaline could at least blunt most of the pain.

nShit, this is bad. Eldrian thought, not understanding why this happened. His mind quickly started imagining the earful Gengxin is certain to give him later.

n

"What's wrong?

" Vivian asked, Eldrian having suddenly turned slightly pale.

n

"I-I'm not too sure,

" Eldrian said, quickly adding that he needed to leave and sort things out at home. Vivian naturally was not happy with this, but seeing how worried Eldrian was she let it go. Soon he disappeared in front of her, causing her to frown with worry.

n...

nWaking up IRL Eldrian could immediately tell that something was wrong. While last time something had been wrong he had felt like his body and mind were disconnected, now he felt like his body lacked something.

nHe felt extremely tired and his mind felt cloudy, lying on his bed and taking the helmet off, Eldrian tried to figure out what was going on. He could not, all that he found was that something felt missing.

nSighing he tried to forget about this, to move beyond it and just stand up. This was harder than he had thought, but he did manage after putting in some effort. What the hell is going on? Eldrian wondered as he just tried to get used to this feeling, to hopefully find what was missing.

nLuckily after almost ten minutes of just sitting this strangeness started leaving him. Finding himself now back to normal Eldrian was even more confused at what was going on. A bit later on, around 8AM, Gengxin came and asked Eldrian how he felt.

nEldrian shared what he had experienced upon logging out, as well as the system prompts. This caused Gengxin's normally kind face to turn into one of clear worry. Not explaining anything to Eldrian, he rushed out of the room to get the others.

n...

n

"We need to push him into the prototype of semi-immersion,

" Gengxin said as soon as he found both Joren and Constantine, the two having met after receiving the message from the system.

n

"So he told you?

" Joren asked as he tried to figure out what was going on. If only the system could tell them what was wrong, it would be so much easier. Alas, it only told them that the player Eldrian has gone past its authority and scope.

n

"Yes, but what worries me is what happened when he logged out today. He couldn't quite explain it, but from what he said it sounds like he is starting to get used to mana flowing and empowering his body.

"

n

"How'd you get to that?

" Constantin asked, often also talking to Eldrian and never having heard the latter even think of mana being in the real world.

n

"Because he couldn't explain what was wrong. He simply said it felt like something was missing, which caused him to feel extremely tired and clouding his thoughts along with this too.

"

n

"That might be fixed simply if he doesn't enter the game for a few days.

" Joren said, not quite accepting Gengxin's proposal,

"He might just be getting more and more used and integrated to his avatar. Similar to last time with his delayed response symptom, this might just be the stage before it becomes so severe.

"

n

"Which still means he needs to stop fully immersing. Constantine, how did you feel when using the semi-immersion settings?

"

n

"My body hurt like hell when waking, but other than that it was fine.

"

n

"What, why didn't you report that?

" Gengxin asked, flabbergasted at such a bad response.

n

"No, it wasn't like that. It felt like I exercised really hard, and now all my muscles were sore and recovering. I felt it was the proper feeling I should feel, seeing as the semi-immersion locked my muscles only partly. Causing them to twitch and react to what I do, and hence actually tire.

"

n

"Right, that is the aim. Do you think we can let Eldrian use that setting?

" Gengxin pressed.

n

"As long as we make sure what will keep him immersed. I am pretty sure his and my settings are going to be completely different. That is why we need to finish the cabin, with it we don't need to run tests and find the fine point for each person.

"

n

"But for that, we need a free AI, and the proper technology still needs to be developed.

" Joren cut in,

"The AI is mostly done, but the technology to ensure the person is safe in such a state is still mostly theoretical.

"

n

"So we are agreed to pull Eldrian into the tests?

" Gengxin asked, not hearing a denial but only problems they could tackle.

n

"If you think it will help, I'll get onto fine-tuning it to as near as I can without his active participation needed. The problem is, if he does something extreme, the fine-tuning we did will not handle it.

"

n

"Which means?

" Gengxin asked.

n

"He will likely start moving, constraining him will not be good either, as then he can damage himself. So we must make a fallback, like sending him back into full immersion.

" No one argued with this as it was the safest option they currently had.

nSo the three of them quickly called others to help them in setting everything up, Constantin sharing his experience and in particular, what he felt was different in this method of entering the simulation.

nJoren pulled all the data they had on Eldrian, focusing on when he had breakthroughs or extreme fights. Gengxin instead trying to use what he was provided with to create the program for Eldrian with the help of those they had called.

n