A New World, an immersive game experience

Due to Ashliel's skewed collection, they had to still rely on the Duke's offer of using any of the materials available in the forge. Eldrian also thought on it a bit and decided to explain his second consciousness, Two, to the group.

"When we need to be active in both worlds Two will likely take control of my avatar in this world. But that isn't the most important thing. I need as many books as you guys can bring me, if I place them in my inventory Two will be able to read through them rapidly."

'Of course, we can't remember everything...' He mumbled to himself but decided to not share with the group. The problem with such rapid reading was that much of what they read would quickly be forgotten. They simply couldn't store all that information.

A sad flaw the two had discovered, but it was still an amazing ability.  Eldrian left figuring out how to remember the important stuff to Two. If they could find a good method then the knowledge could truly be made their own.

Weeks passed quickly as Eldrian did all he could to try and find a way to save not just ANW but also his homeworld. To save all his friends and families.

Ashliel it turned out wasn't as helpful as they had hoped, on some days she was a blessing. Able to guide Eldrian from a flash of inspiration to the next. On other days it took everything she had to stay sane, to contain all her memories.

Still, her presence was a massive help for those times when she could help Eldrian. Of course, during this time Eldrian basically ate the basic materials in the forge through all his experiments.

Currently, the duke wasn't too bothered by it since all that Eldrian was using was mostly celestial ores. But once Eldrian confirmed his theories he would start using better materials. Of course, through this, he also gained Tiers in blacksmithing, runesmithing, array forging, and even inscription.

Sadly the Tiers didn't come with bonus stats and were almost more like titles. From what Eldrian understood, they gave less growth than the three combat classes (magic, range, melee) and only presented themselves if they surpassed the highest combat class.

As for why they were using actual materials and didn't rely on temporary runes, that was because the designs were  simply too complex. Trying to maintain the temporary runes would require Two's help. But Two was busy going through a library's worth of books.

Two had quickly thought of a neat way to save important research. They had long since known they could alter their mental room to whatever they wanted it to be. But they had never bothered since it wouldn't be beneficial, but now they had found a very useful use for it. At first, it had started as a book, then a bookshelf. Now a small library was slowly growing inside their consciousness.

Sadly all the knowledge inside this library wasn't their own knowledge, but they could reference it in seconds. It was like compartmentalizing the information in a safe but different location than their general knowledge. Saving it on a secondary hard drive for when it was needed.

During this time Eldrian had also talked with Vivian to better understand what her breakthrough was about. As they talked he learned that for some reason she was more connected to souls than he was. Strangely though, it appeared her connection was limited to souls. She felt no connection to lifeforce, mageia, or XP. None of these forms came to her naturally. But for some reason, she could see the souls of people and even wandering souls.

Her ability was the opposite of Eldrian's mana sense, it took her active effort to stop seeing these souls. When it first started happing it had nearly driven her to insanity.

Through talking with her Eldrian slowly came to understand that souls were indeed weird, but it also made more sense as he learned more of them. Souls were like dimensional storages, a simple comparison and a seeming very useful one when talking about high-end magical theories.

The soul was still contained in a person and to her eyes it overlapped with the physical. In some extreme casing like Ashliel's, the soul and physical body phased between one another. Ashliel's soul appeared shattered, glued together but on the verge of falling apart.

They had no idea why everyone's soul appeared like the person to Vivian, the only explanation they thought of was that it mimicked the container it was in. For now, this explanation sufficed for the two and also explained why the internal and external appearances could be so vastly different.

On Earth, Eldrian was also constantly preparing for the coming difficulties. He continued to gather all the interesting stones that he could find in the mountain and each day he would spend a handful of hours attempting to modify them with mana.

At first, this had only resulted in him being covered in dust, but after a few weeks he started to learn how to artificially evolve the stones and crystals. After mastering this he was now looking to find the most plentiful stone or crystal in the area that could store a decent amount of mana.

It was imperative that he could store enough mana for his plans.

...

Halfway through the second month, the group stopped for a while after hearing the news of a pyrrhic victory. Eldrian had suspected the news to arrive soon, after all, he had seen the movement of the orcs and the soldiers.

Thanks to his constant sharing of information, the kingdom had been able to tighten the noose around the orcs. It was only natural that the orcs realized that their every move was being observed. Yet they had not retreated.

Why they were so stubborn no one knew, in the end, they were forced to gamble it all with one charge. Death or victory, no in-between.

Sadly, even with this the kingdom still suffered heavy losses. Hearing this story, Eldrian felt that he had to do something to help. He immediately thought of another memorial artifact.

"We don't have time for this!" Countered Ashliel vehemently, she could not understand how Eldrian could even think of doing something so counterproductive.

"I think we do, plus I haven't been able to make any progress recently. I think I need to make something simpler but still complex- Actually, do you have another Magic Crystal?"

Ashliel's mouth opened and closed but no sound made it out. After struggling for a bit she finally shouted, "Do you think Magic Crystals grow on trees?!"

"This is important, don't be snub."

"What are you thinking? Explain."

"I want to test my theory of realms within a higher realm."

"Do you think you have time to go on a tangent like this?!"

"This isn't a tangent!" Eldrian countered, "I need to understand what realms are and their limitations. It is one of the most important topics there is!"

"But it won't help when you need to-" She stopped as Eldrian thrust out his hand to indicate for her to stop talking.

"I know this isn't going to help directly, but I need to see if I can make another artifact..."

"And what if you can? Why do this now, why not wait until after?"

AN: A big thanks to everyone who continues to support the story by simply reading on Web, voting for the story, or sharing comments. It is all greatly appreciated.