Chapter 217: The forum, what other players are doing

"Evules..." Kydone said softly, seemingly quite shy. She did not take his hand and instead bowed in greeting.

"Still scared of me?" Evules asked slightly teasing, causing Kydone to quickly straighten up in an attempt to look bigger.

"N-n-no! I just don't like touching people!" She replied in a high pitched panicked voice.

"What about Evale?" Evules pressed, Evale moving to give her brother a jab in the ribs. Causing his human half to double over from the pain.

Despite this Kydone still replied, not much more than a whisper. "Evale is different."

Seeing that the antics of the three were almost done Eldrian stepped forward, "Hi, I am Haru." Instead of offering his hand he simply raised his hand and waved.

Kydone looked at him strangely, following his actions a slight smile grew on her face. "Nice to meet you Haru." She liked this way of greeting, it didn't make her feel small like bowing did. It also allowed her to not touch the person, as such she felt quite good about Eldrian for teaching her something so simple. That a way of saying goodbye could also be used to say hi.

So their groups increased by one, though Kydone wouldn't talk much. She mostly stayed next to Evale and listened to the others talk. Eldrian found it strange that he wasn't the quietest in the group, but only at the start. Quickly forgetting about this fact as their conversation went back to noble etiquette. The topic they had been on when Kydone had entered the room, and Evale had caused all the furniture to be uprooted.

No one seemed to be coming to clean it up, this didn't really matter as there was no furniture that the centaurs could sit on. Thus Eldrian had also not taken a chair, feeling it would be bad manner if he did. After around an hour more of talking Eldrian felt that he needed to get back to training, excusing himself he quickly headed back to the basement.

As soon as he entered the hidden room he quickly got back into his routine. Using simple Tier 0 spells to enter the magic abyss and trying to add more pathways to different spells. Noting down each effect into a very useful interface he had found in the system. While he knew he could take photos, he had not known he could edit them or even envision one. He could also open blank pages and fill in simply through thinking.

This allowed him to note down what he found, what he learned, much quicker than if he tried to use actual paper. He could even envision the spell module changes and save it as a photo, this in itself was simply too strong. Eldrian realized quickly just how much faster people would be able to work if they could make this readily available. He quickly felt he should pitch this to Joren. Certain that many people would be interested.

Slowly he made progress, building up his knowledge with each success. He found that adding a second extra pathway was harder than the first. The spell module seemingly resisting its addition, probably due to it not being designed to have them.

Eldrian did not even try to add nodes as he realized the simple addition caused the spell to become unstable. This did not happen with pathways since they were dormant until he connected nodes to them. Nodes themselves instead directly have mana and as such cause a great deal of trouble when added.

As Eldrian was trying to overcome this Myropsis appeared in the room, drained of energy and her clothes clinging tightly to her. "Long day?" Eldrian asked as soon as he saw her.

"I just don't get how you managed it. Even now I am unable to connect to mageia any more than I already have. I keep falling back into my habits and it stops me from moving forward." Myropsis complained as she saw Eldrian. She no longer felt the jealousy she had before, now she simply felt awe when looking at Eldrian.

"Are you still trying the same approach?"

"Yes, I am trying to use the pull of the Magic Crystal to allow me to gain better control. I fear I will master the pull before anything else though."

"That isn't too bad," Eldrian replied as he heard this. It was actually an amazing thing in itself.

"I don't want to become a Tier 7 before mastering this! You said it would just become harder, isn't it hard enough already." Myropsis quickly countered, leaving Eldrian slightly shocked as this was the first time he actually heard how strong she was.

"Um... I actually thought of something that might help. I mostly forgot about it as I no longer needed to focus on it after mastering my control over mana, but it was a step I had used, and now am using again."

"What is it?" Myropsis asked with great urgency, hungering for anything that would help her.

"You know of the mana flow in spells, right?" To which Myropsis nodded, "How does controlling it work for you?" Eldrian asked.

"Simple, I learn a couple of different modules. Each with a different flow, but the same base. Focusing on a different one allows me to control it, and hence my spell."

"Well that isn't really control then, is it? Try and change the flow itself. First before casting the spell, but do not rely on a different spell module. Focus only on changing this flow. Later try and change it as the spell is cast." Eldrian then quickly continued to explain that this was what he actually was doing now again. He also explained how this had helped him when he had still had no idea what to do.

After this Eldrian continued to practice while Myropsis headed to her room in the manor to wash and clean herself. The advice Eldrian gave her was something she could do anywhere, the Magic Crystal had allowed her to sense mageia much clearer. She just wasn't able to do anything without relying on her old tricks.

Eldrian logged out after a few more hours when he started to feel mentally fatigued. In reality, he quickly focused on his mind and if he needed to sleep. Taking a quick one-hour nap to repower, this seemingly enough. He took quick note of this and added it onto his chart, where he had started keeping track of any strange things that were happening to him.

After that, he changed, got breakfast, and then visited the forums for the first time in a while. Informing Constantin that he wanted to study up on some things and to have training later today, instead of from the morning.

Eldrian was quite curious about what the players were up to; now that most of them had joined the Empires. Curiously almost three of the top ten posts directly complained about the training, many players had decided that they would not stick to the stict regiment.

While they had accepted the quest, the empire couldn't force them to train. So these players simply enjoyed their time there, as long as they fulfilled their daily tasks then they were in the right. Doing so allowed them more free time, allowing them to actually do what they want. A good deal of these people just surfed the internet during this time.

The players had not been taken to the capital of the empires, nor to normal cities. Instead, they had all been taken to a military city. The reason for this was quite simple when one considered the fact that nearly a hundred thousand players went to each empire. They would naturally either be kept grouped to be monitored, or they would be split to keep them from working together. Seeing as they went with the idea to join and help, they were grouped.

As he read on Eldrian found that more than half the player base didn't even bother to do the minimum to not get their quest failed. Some even took pride in their action, declaring that they bought the headsets for the extra time, not to be slaves to the NPCs. As such only around a thousand to five thousand players actually took the training serious, in each empire.

Naturally, there would be repercussions from the NPCs due to the players' lack of morals. What this was going to be was still left to be seen. For now the NPCs pestered the players, but did not do much more. Getting them here had cost them nearly a hundred gold coins per player. They didn't want to estrange themselves and lose all that money for nothing. Hence their soft approach.

On a more positive note, thanks to the support from other players, those trying to make guns have made great strides. After collecting some data they had found kingdoms in each empire where they could group up. The kingdoms chosen were ones in the middle of most players current kingdoms, and a good distance from the borders

This allowed them to teleport at a moderate cost, being a few dozens of gold for each player. Due to the cost, many still could not teleport over. The leaders had all done so, however, with the aim to start making connections with blacksmiths, runesmiths, inscribers, alchemists, and so forth. Each leader joined under a certain craft to learn and see if it could be used for gun making.

Runesmithing was the most prominent one, after blacksmithing. Blacksmithing an essential one to actually make guns out of any magic metal. Something the players really wanted to do. Runesmithing was next as it could be used to exchange the gun itself.

Inscribing was important for the bullets, while one could technically engrave runes on them, doing so required great skill and magic materials. Inscribing was much simpler, cheaper, and far quicker. It also didn't require great skill in runesmithing, most average inscribers could manage to inscribe musket ball-sized objects.

They made quite some great progress. I really want to learn blacksmithing again... Eldrian really wanted to not be left behind, but he knew that he did not have the time to learn anything more than magic at this moment.

His training with Vivian had quickly become just drills as he found himself stuck at Tier 1. Having already learned over ten skills, now needing to simply train until they became as normal to use as simple attacks. Needing to stop and compose himself for a second or even half a second wasn't really a good idea. He found it really strange that spells were easier to just quickly cast, skills really needed forethought to be used in the moment.

Eldrian really felt he needed to figure out how to Tier up, on his way to Constantin Eldrian thought of this the entire time. "Eldrian, you seem distracted," Constantin said as Eldrina messed up his routine for the third time.

"I am. I am so frustrated at not knowing what to do!" Eldrian shouted as he threw a wild punch in the air.

"Calm down and explain."

So Eldrian did, taking the time to tell Constantin where he was lost. "Isn't it simple though? You keep focusing on mageia, on elemental mana, on spells... Have you focused on pure mana?"

"No, not really."

"Then go do that! Stop trying to improve in the other areas until you do. Normally High Elves need to focus on purity, why is that a thing? Don't seek the answer for the question, but rather to understand yourself, your avatar, better."

With this Eldrian quickly felt better as he had some direction to pursue. Wishing to do this as soon as possible he focused on his training and quickly finished and left, logging in a few hours early.