A New World, an immersive game experience

Chapter 479 - Some IRL Updates

"The plan is to embed them in the blades' hilts, so the wood would grow over it and that should be the strongest fit I can possibly get. Before finishing the forge at least." Solvi explained, carving small indentations on the hilts of the blades in intricate patterns.

Of course, Eldrian wanted to ask what the patterns were going to do. However, he had learned that Solvi would share what she was willing to share and no amount of asking was going to increase what she would share.

Around 2 hours later, she felt happy with the mana crystal patterns. Starting with the back adamant blade, she pushed it against the wood. As she did, the wood slowly morphed. Taking in the hilt and growing root-like veins that wrapped around the hilt.

She repeated this at the top, giving the spear a strange appearance. As if someone had used a rope in the form and color of the wood to tighten the blades' connections.

With that set, she then started treating the shaft and adding runes to it. Finally, when this was more or less finished the spear looked quite amazing.

There was now a winged blade around the length of Eldrian's arm at the front, tied together with glowing golden Exousia 'ropes'. The wing had three rune conversions where the crystals Solvi had bought were going to be inserted.

From there, all the runes she had added to the shaft also glowed in soft golden light, and at the back blade, which was tied in a similar manner to the front, there was the slot for the voidstone.

A much more intricate pattern surrounded this slot, and the adamantine blade would release a purple glow from time to time. Seemingly slowly adapting to the Exousia wood.

"Alright, we have the basic form done now. Next, is the crystals." Solvi said, placing the spear down and moving to a small table in the room. There, she took out a pen-like tool with very small intricate patterns inscribed on it.

She used this to slowly add inscriptions to the crystals. Eldrian continued to watch, the method of adding inscriptions similar to a brush, but with mana being the ink. It would also often require multiple strokes to get the line/pattern to take on the crystals.

By the end of the day, Solvi sighed and stood up from her work. She had finished all but the voidstone, which she was afraid to even touch. Having no idea if she would be able to add inscriptions to it or not.

It was for this reason that she planned to have a very simple inscription added to it.

...

"Eldrian! I made some friends!" Ceph shouted as soon as Eldrian returned home.

Smiling, Eldrian replied that that was great. To which Cephaphyr enthusiastically nodded. Eldrian patiently listened to some of Ceph's stories of playing with the other kids, after which he logged out and dived onto the forums.

Over the past two months since the tournament's end and conclusion, millions of players had joined the game. Most of them, however, decided that they wanted to spawn in the empires.

This was only natural, it was the only way that guaranteed they would be trained by the best. Giving them the best chance at making something of themselves in-game.

A few players however didn't want to follow the route of optimization. Instead, they wanted to play a game, and play it for fun. These players either joined random kingdoms, or kingdoms where an alliance they liked was.

Eldrian was actually responsible for Phallos getting over a hundred new players. Most of them were sorely disappointed when they learned how hard it was to get to Taurus.

Luckily for them, it seemed like Phallos was going to send a second wave of troops to support Taurus soon. This of course wasn't an act of selflessness from the kingdom, but rather one of selfishness. Taurus was nearly twice as large as Phallos.

As long as it stood, then Phallos would not need to fight directly. Of course, that was only true if the other two neighbors didn't fall, but the Tier 2 kingdoms behind the now new border kingdoms were doing their best to reinforce them.

As such, things were looking good for Phallos as long as Taurus didn't fall. Which seemed more and more likely each passing day as the Tier 4 kingdoms succumb one by one. Which would leave Taurus alone, surrounded by enemy lands.

On another note, it seemed? like the developers had figured out the kinks of the PVP system, up until now, they had to disable that function after the tournament. The details weren't too great, but basically, the developers said that the former structure wasn't ideal for unrestrained PVP'ing.

'Mmm, that will be fun.'? Eldrian couldn't help but smile as he thought of reaching the top ranking. He doubted anyone would be able to stop him, especially not after Solvi finished his spear.

With these thoughts, he stumbled on the trailer of the movie Miracle had been making in the game.

'Right, it is said to be released by the end of the year. Seven more months.' Eldrian looked at the trailer curiously. It was interesting, especially the fact that some of the spells were real, and others were CGI.

Of course, an amazing thing about doing it in the game was that this could be real, as well as the death scenes. Some of the actors even massively reduced the pain reduction of the game, giving them new insights on reflecting severe injuries.

'I wonder just how much more this game will expand and grow.'? With that thought, Eldrian headed out for his training. Having continued to do his best to not let his real body lag behind.

He was slowly coming to understand what he was capable of, and it was truly scary. While he hadn't tried to reach out to the mana he could now quite easily sense, his body was constantly growing stronger.

At this point, Eldrian felt confident his agility was around 150 to 200, if he were to try and compare it to the game's stats. If he were to sprint at max speed to the park again, Eldrian felt confident his time would be closer to 12 or even 10 minutes now (8km, 5mi distance).

He didn't want to test it, since doing so would increase the likelihood of Miracle discovering his body's abnormalities.

Eldrian was sure Gengxin would mean him no harm, but Gengxin didn't have much say in Miracle. True, he was a department head. But that meant little.? He was just a department head inside the ANW department. Not even the head of the ANW department.

'My strength... That is harder to guess, but I should be able to bench 200 kilograms (440lb) relatively easily. And that is with me never even trying it. Pushups have become nothing.'

At this point, his training was becoming just a warm-up. Yet, he couldn't do more since then Miracle would discover something was going on.

The increase in physique wasn't too insane though. At least regarding strength he knew that people who trained and held world records would still be far stronger than him. However, his speed was another thing. And how easily it came was another altogether.

'I wonder, what is the limit going to be?'

AN: A big thanks to everyone who continues to support this on WN.