n

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"Alright,

" Eldrian said as he started preparing to cast the spell. He first visualized the spell module, trying to keep it concrete in his head as he said the word of power,

"Floga.

"

nAs soon as Eldrian said the Floga, he felt a powerful force pull at his image. The pull felt like a universal force, tugging at it from all angles and directions. Eldrian tried his best to keep it intact, unfortunately, he was unable to keep it visualized for more than a second.

nWhat had followed the loss of the mental image, was a quick drain of all of Eldrian's strength. He fell onto the ground as his strength left him, leaving his legs useless first and his arms soon after. He was soon unable to even move a muscle.

nSoon after being left immobile, he started feeling like he was heating up. Eldrian naturally wanted this to stop, but his wish was not granted. A few seconds later he started gasping for air as he felt his body burning. His lungs felt as if they were on fire, while at the same time being torn apart, cell by cell.

nThis feeling then spread to the rest of Eldrian's body.

nTrying to stay conscious Eldrian searched for something to focus on. His eyes, the only part he could still move, darted around the room. Searching for a distraction from his pain, but even this action was excruciating. As his eyes moved it felt like they would burst into pieces due to the tearing pain, or melt into a fluid due to the burning pain.

nAs Eldrian searched his sight landed on one of the walls. The entire wall had lit up resembling flowing plasma, now that the runes were active. The runes on the wall seemed to move. But in truth, the level of brightness was only shifting around the runes in the array.

nEldrian lost consciousness as he gazed at the wall, his mind leaving his tortured body.

n...

n

"Ah seems like you are awake,

" Dave said as Eldrian slowly opened his eyes.

nWhen Eldrian saw the wall he was facing he instinctually flinched and tried to turn around. As he struggled he soon found his body would not move. Eldrian thus closed his eyes to allow himself to not have to stare at the fire array.

nEldrian took a few minutes before he could successfully roll onto his other side, where he saw Dave calmly standing and watching him.

n'Damn bastard why didn't he say the pain wouldn't be regulated.' Eldrian complained to himself. He knew deep down that Dave had warned him many times, but he had been convinced that the game would limit the pain he felt.

nEldrian had believed this would be the case since this type of pain can easily lead to trauma. He even quickly connected it to how he couldn't stand looking at the wall with the fire array.

nDave naturally saw all of this. Eldrian's fear of the fire array engraved on the wall and Eldrian's anger at him. But he wasn't too bothered as he believed Eldrian would move past this soon. Eldrian just needed time to digest what had happened.

nStill, Dave felt he had to comment as he saw Eldrian struggling to stand up.

n

"Don't push yourself. You have lost all your mana and stamina, and some of your health.

" Dave said after Eldrian had failed in his struggle.

n'Dammit!' Eldrian mentally screamed as he lost his balance and landed on his belly.

nAfter calming down Eldrian called up his avatar panel to see what Dave just talked about. He found that his HP was at 60, his stamina and mana both at 0. They were also not regenerating like normal, or at least his stamina would normally regen at all times.

nHe also saw that he had gained fatigue and a lot of it. His fatigue level was now at 6, leaving him with 30 points as his max stamina.

nHe also had a new condition called Magic fatigue, which was at level 5. Which resulted in his max mana being only 53 mana points, or MP.

n'Holy crap, this isn't something I can do often then. Wait! I don't want to go through that again!' Eldrian thought, realizing that he had thought of the wrong thing first.

n

"Seems like you are better now,

" Dave said, when Eldrian had managed to stand up. Eldrian just looked at Dave not wanting to talk to him just yet. He was still pissed about what he had gone through. By now almost an hour had passed since the start of the event and Eldrian had been awake for around half of that time.

n

"Seems like you are still mad at me. In my defense, I had warned you multiple times.

" Dave responded to Eldrian's stare.

n

"But you didn't say it would hurt this badly.

" Eldrian countered.

n

"I did say it will hurt, and that I had no idea how much it would. Now we have an idea on the amount.

" Dave countered back. To which Eldrian just stared at him, clearly frustrated and irritated. But not so angry anymore since he could only blame himself for not taking a warning as well a warning.

n

"Well, are you ready to try again?

" Dave asked after Eldrian's gaze seemed to have diminished.

n

"Are you insane!

"

n

"What? Why do you ask that?

"

n

"Do you think I want to feel like that again?

"

n

"How did it feel?

"

n

"How did it feel! Like something was tearing me apart at a cellular level. Like every fiber of my being was being ripped from the rest and then set on fire.

"

n

"It **ing hurt like hell!

" As Eldrian screamed this he started shaking as he remembered pieces of what he had just gone through.

n

"We can try a different element, it might change the feeling.

"

n

"What! No, god, dam, way! Can you guarantee that I won't feel like I am being torn apart at the cellular level?

"

n

"Well no, and what is this cellular level you keep bringing up?

" Dave answered and asked. He was becoming curious about what cellular was as he had never heard of it before.

nEldrian hearing the denial of certainty was left frustrated, while he was also reminded that he was talking to an NPC when he heard the question. He thus decided to aptly change the subject as he didn't feel like talking about his home. Since he wasn't sure about the rule about talking about it.

n

"In any case, I am not going to try this again, at least not today. I will see how I feel tomorrow

"

n

"I also don't think I would survive another attempt today,

" Eldrian said.

n

"You are probably right. But then again it doesn't matter if you die or not, so we can try even if that would be the case.

" Dave said, trying to make a joke. But only receiving an angry stare in return, instead of a laugh.

n

"Okay, I see that you are still upset. I would recommend we return to this tomorrow.

" Dave said as he activated the return spell bringing them back to the first floor of the magic tower.

n'The hell? Is this teleportation?' Eldrian asked himself as he looked around, seeing that they were back on the first floor.

n

"You can take any of the bedrooms and stay here. I won't ask rent or anything, since well, no one uses the rooms in any case.

"

nDave said as he walked to the stairs. Eldrian followed as he did want a place to sleep and it was becoming late.

nWhile this place was far from the training fields, he should be able to train in the first room. He just felt he needed to ask for permission. He told himself to remember to ask later.

nArriving at the first floor above the ground floor Dave walked into the circular lobby. There he opened a cabinet and took out a key.

n

"Here, I believe you wouldn't want a room higher up,

" Dave said as he handed a key to Eldrian.

n

"Thank. And yes I would not want one higher up.

" Eldrian responded as he did not want to climb so many stairs every time he wanted to go to his room. He felt he was going to stay here for longer than he had at Old Swords.

n

"Good. So what are your plans then?

" Dave asked.

nHearing the question Eldrian looked at the time. It was about time he logged of, not quite night, but late enough. Thus he told Dave that he wanted to call it an early night.

n

"Alright then,

" Dave said and started leaving.

n

"Wait. Can you give me a few more spell modules? I would like to practice them and try casting or moving my mana when I have time.

"

n

"Sure, I will give you a spell for each array. That way they will all be useful if you do decide to try it again. Which I feel you will.

" Eldrian wasn't too sure about the ending part, but he was glad that he was going to get more spell modules.

nEldrian was then surprised as Dave took a page of the paper and wrote all five onto it. Seeing this Eldrian really wanted to ask, why on earth he hadn't done that previously. He felt Dave had wasted so much paper when he wrote only one module or even a single node onto an entire page.

nStill, he decided to not talk about it, as he felt today had been long enough. Dave pointed to the room the key was for just before he started walking up the stairs again.

nEldrian thus unlocked the door Dave had pointed at and then he promptly fell onto the bed, seeking relief from a long hard day.

n'That was not fun. Magic is supposed to be fun!' Eldrian complained to himself as he turned onto his back and took in the room.

nIt was a small room, much like a single-room apartment. There was a single window in the middle of the circular wall. Under this window, there was a table with writing utensils on it. There was naturally a chair at the table and some blank pages next to the table. Other than this the room just had a single bed and couch.

n'This seems like a nice room.' Eldrian thought as he logged off.

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