n

n

nEldrian ended up unable to recover from the onslaught of the two knights. Waiting in Elizabeth's virtual home he was soon joined by the others. Having lost only one point from that match.

n

"That was disappointing,

" Erik said as he felt he contributed nothing. Though most of the others also felt frustrated. The fact that armor was the determining factor, and not skills, did not sit right with them. It felt like it was pay to win.

n

"Yeah, we will have to find a way to actually win against them or we will certainly not be able to claim the first prize,

" Nikki agreed fully, while that team also had quite some skill, she felt frustrated that they had not managed to kill more than the fighters.

n

"But what can we change? Each of them is stronger than us, they must be trained in real life too. Else their coordination and understanding of each other won't be so good.

" Elizabeth sighed as she said this, Eldrian finding this point interesting.

nHe had not really experienced much coordination from the team. Though that was because he was basically in a world of his own, much like Judith. Everyone felt down after this, and no one saw a way for them to change the outcome.

n

"Shall we call it a day?

" Ilmadia asked, frustrated that she could do basically nothing due to their armor too. While fire spells seemed to be effective, they didn't work fast enough. When she had tried using large rocks such as one of their opponents they had easily read her aim. The casting time having truly stabbed her in the back.

nHearing her question, no one said they should try, they all felt like ending it for the day. Most of the fights they joined were really grueling at this point. And while it was good for practice and training, they didn't want to lose the points they had.

nWhile the loss was small, and most others would be. They preferred to wait a bit, especially on announcements of how the tournament was actually going to be held.

nCurrently, they just knew that people reaching the legend rank would be able to participate, but as it stood now it was unlikely that many teams would make it to 350 points before the end of the week.

nEspecially with higher-ranked teams gaining fewer points from winning against those below them, basically stopping them from 'farming' points. They also could only face each team once a day, further limiting their farming. Teams like Pure Warriors were only gaining one or two points max for each match.

nWith that everyone decided to call it a day and log out or go do their individual matches. Eldrian having only reached the expert ranking with a 200 point requirement, though he wasn't in a rush to push further. Since the highest-ranking spear fighter was only at 260 points.

nPulling the headset off, Eldrian was stunned to find himself not alone in his room. Instead, a crew of people was busy at the opposite side busy installing something.

n

"What the...

" He started asking, stopping as he recognized Gengxin and Joren supervising the crew.

"What's going on?

" He asked instead, turning his question calmer and without profanity.

n

"Ah, sorry if we disturbed you. You remember what we talked about with the cabin?

" Joren replied.

n

"Yeah, though last time we talked I understood that you were still a distance off from making it.

"

n

"Right, which is why we pressed to have you stop playing the game. While the tournament fights are still technically the game, it is much less stressful. I am sure you have also started feeling the difference.

" Gengxin replied as he had been following up every other day with Eldrian on how he felt when exiting the game.

n

"Yeah, the sense of loss has grown almost nonexistent; though if I think of it, it quickly returns.

"

n

"In any case, this here is our solution. The previous semi-immersion was a crude method of trying to keep you from losing even more connection between your mind and body.

" Gengxin continued,

"With that method, we had basically tried to scale down the signals your brain sends to your muscles.

"

n

"Normally, with full immersion, all these signals would be blocked. This led to your mind starting to feel like your real body was foreign. The semi-immersion allowed us to temporarily stop that from worsening, but if you entered a serious fight, or something stimulated you greatly. The signals from your brain might have become too strong.

"

n

"Meaning?

" Eldrian asked, though he already felt he knew the answer.

n

"You would have trashed around while in the simulation,

" Joren replied, confirming Eldrian's speculations.

"This machine, while not a full cabin, aims to allow your brain to send all the signals it wants to your body.

"

nUpon saying this the crew finally finished and started leaving the room. Allowing Eldrian to see the reclined chair now installed there. Jet black leather with a string of LED's flashing throughout the chair.

n

"We won't go into the details on how it works. But it should enable you to play fully, without fear of your body trashing around.

"

n

"And the disconnect?

" Eldrian asked, causing the two in front of him to pause for a while.

n

"As we said, this is not a true cabin. It is more a halfway point. We have tested it and it does allow much better integration into the game, but...

" Gengxin paused,

"We do not know its limits. We believe a large part of your disconnect is also due to magic, and no one but you can test when this will no longer help in that area.

"

n

"How would it even help?

" Eldrian asked, not understanding how if the thing he was missing was mana, this would help.

n

"It's hard to explain, right you'll just have to give it a go.

"

n

"Can you try to explain though?

" Eldrian asked, curious about how this was supposed to help. Hearing this Gengxin turned to Joren to try and simplify the science behind it.

n

"Alright... In simplest terms, the headsets would completely cut off your connection with your physical body upon connecting. Semi-immersion instead tried to filter the strength of the connection remaining. But it is unreliable as we have stated previously.'

n

"This 'immersion chair' for a lack of a better term, instead allows your mind to fully send signals to your body. It interferes with your motor neurons receiving the signal instead. Stopping your body from actually working, but tricking your mind into the fact that you are moving. It is similar to the headset, but the approach is different and we hope it will work.

"

n

"Why did it take so long to do then?

" Eldrian asked, it sounded simple enough to him. His question caused both men to sigh in exasperation.

n

"There is a lot of things to consider, and we only managed to ensure this is safe. If it will work in extreme cases, we are not too sure. You have to understand, you are testing the prototype for us. You are limit testing it.

" Joren replied after trying to figure out how to explain this more.

n

"Alright, but still... Why did it take so long? Isn't it simple enough to employ what you mentioned?

" Eldrian pressed, failing to understand what Miracle was capable of and whatnot. This sounded to him simple enough and like something they should be able to easily do.

n

"Not at all. The simplest explanation would be comparing it to a hose filled with hundreds of small holes. The simplest way to stop it from leaking is to simply close the tap. Though doing this fully stops the flow. That was our approach with the headset.'

n

"This immersion chair instead finds a way to block the holes individually. Keeping the flow intact and not simply covering everything in a layer of, say, ducktape. Getting it to not use a simple approach as ducktape is what took so long.

"

n

"Then, can I try to learn Tier 2 spells and even try reaching Tier 3?

" Eldrian asked with hope, while he wasn't too bothers with that at this time. When the game started again he truly didn't want to be forced to hold back.

n

"Yes, oh and we can probably tell him,

" Joren replied, turning to Gengxin.

n

"Alright, I am sure you were curious why there was no announcement on where or when the tournament would be held,

" Gengxin said, to which Eldrian nodded.

n

"That was because we wanted to wait before declaring it. We had stopped the time in the game for two reasons. One was to stop you from experiencing any strong stimuli until we managed something, which we now have. The other was to force all the players to at least try fighting in PvP matches.

"

n

"Why?

" Eldrian asked but received no reply.

n

"That doesn't matter, for now, we just wanted to let you know that the game was going to start again in two days. The true tournament though won't be held for another month. An announcement will be made by tomorrow about this, as well as the fact that the PvP arenas are going to stay open.

"

n

"This will give players time to increase their strength and improve where they had found themselves lacking. As I am sure many hope they would be able to.

"

n