From there things were much easier, only Eldrian found that half an hour was not a short time. He had thought it would be easy to hold out so long, especially once he managed to tap into whatever his time dilation ability is.

  Instead, that was the thing that made everything extremely difficult. By the time he was surrounded by four holograms, his previous record, only twenty minutes had passed. Fighting through the grogginess and trying to clear his vision, Eldrian did his best. Ultimately dying just shy of thirty minutes, luckily this was good enough as the system counted it as a success.

  Waking up gasping for air on the chair, Eldrian felt like cursing even more. He just realized how truly shit this was going to be. By the thirty-minute mark, his mind became confused, his vision blurred and his focus spread thin and throughout. This made the killing blow all the more painful and unexpected.

  There was no blunting what happened, as all his energy was spent on other things. It took Eldrian several minutes to recover, only to give Joren the stink eye as he rubbed his chest. Still not convinced that there wasn't a hole there.

  Yet, even so, this wasn't enough. He had to do this again. He had to do this four more times. Four more times……

  Knowing this, Eldrian became even less inclined to lie back down. But after a while, a good while, he did. Mostly because he had confirmed there was no hole in his chest. That what he was experiencing wasn't truly real. Even though it more certainly felt as real as anything can be.

  With a massive sigh, Eldrian lied back down. Quickly pushed back by the first hologram that charged at him. Again he had to start from the beginning. Somehow find the essence which allowed him to actually survive.

  He slowly became better at fighting, and while the holograms were still miles ahead of him in skill. Eldrian started learning from them, especially when his time dilation ability kicked in. This allowed him to actually hold out a few minutes against most of the holograms before ending up wounded.

  The system resetting the fight just before he would die and be kicked out to reality. This was done to keep him in the deepest recess, growing his anger and pain. And most importantly his instinct for wanting to survive, for not wishing to experience pain.

  By the third successful attempt, Eldrian had come to learn what led to his special ability. It was something that only came out in desperation, and the easiest desperation in the darkroom was despair.

  Eldrian had to dive deeper and deeper into his pleasant memories and his hopes and dreams, using them as a guideline and anchor to keep himself sane.

  With each waking, he would take a rest, drink some water. Then curse Joren and the system for the torture he was going through.

  On his fourth attempt, he found it even easier to enter that special state. Getting more and more used to how it feels, and more importantly, becoming capable of manipulating his emotional state.

  Instead of needing to be pushed over the edge by the holograms, Eldrian could not at least throw a leg off the ledge himself. This made the entire procedure much easier, though he still had no way to actually keep it from eating at his mind.

  His longest survival was still just shy of half an hour, but the system kept saying it was good enough so Eldrian already believed that thirty minutes was not even close to the minimum requirement. Causing his anger at the system to grow even more.

  As night arrived, Eldrian woke for the last time. His body soaked in sweat and his mind in a confusing state. Somehow he had gotten used to dying by the fifth time. He had come to know his limit, and instead of trying to push further he just accepted it. Which made everything so much easier.

  "I hope I never have to go through that again," Eldrian said as he remembered how disgusted he had felt when the system chipperly announced a successful data collection. He truly hoped to get back at it. Back at it for being so inhumane, let it know just how unpleasant this had been.

  As he sat and the chair and watched Joren leave, Eldrian hoped that it had been worth it. That there was an actual reason for him to have gone through all that. But first, he had to clean himself. While his body had done basically no exercise. Each time he woke his mind would be reeling and adrenaline flushing through him.

  The rest of the night Eldrian just tried to clear his mind. In the battles, he had found himself falling back onto thoughts of Vivian more and more. Mostly using it as an anchor to keep him from losing himself. Yet in doing this he grew more and more confused about what she meant for him.

  Even so, he knew when the game came up tomorrow, it would not be the right time to figure that out. He needed to get stronger, and not just for the tournament. Far from it, in fact. He needed to become stronger for what is actually happening in ANW……

  Leaning back he let the chair do its thing, and soon he found himself in ANW, in the afternoon.

  For a while his mind did not even cope with what was going on. Having half expected to be in the darkroom again. Then he soon found everything just felt right. He felt more alive, more energetic than he had in weeks. Everything just felt so much more comfortable.

  Enjoying this sensation Eldrian just sat on his bed and took it in. Soon realized that what he was feeling was mana, but it felt different than before. Everything somehow felt more real than before, which confused him a little.? It was always so real, how can it now feel even more real?? He wondered as he stretched out his hand, turning it into a fist as determination quickly overcame him.

  Right, I shouldn't waste time. He told himself, quickly remembering how pressing everything always was. While the last week before the game had been turned off he hadn't been allowed to actually progress. That didn't mean he didn't make progress.

  He had already fully learned the spell module for Anthisma, the next level of the nature rejuvenation spell. Along with a bunch of other spells, but Eldrian decided to start with this one since he was most comfortable with nature magic. And a failed cast, or losing control of the spell, would do no damage.

  Focusing on the leave-like spell module, Eldrian quickly started envisioning it. Going by his tried and true method of using static magic to learn the spell first. While he had an extra step of needing to figure out the mana elemental concentration, that was not too hard.

  Especially with a spell, he knew so well, he largely knew how the mana needed to be constructed to successfully cast. While he didn't quite know what was needed for the Tier 2 spell, using his knowledge from using Anthizo he managed far quicker than blindly adding random amounts of mana.

  In just a few hours of practice and refining the mana, Eldrian succeeded in casting Anthisma. The system quickly ringing in his ears that he reached Tier 2 in magic, Eldrian's mood quickly dropping when he saw the system notification.

  [Player has reached Tier 2 in the magic class]

  Before this would have been a joyous thing to see, but now it just reminded Eldrian of the torture he had to go through. He was not yet ready to forgive and forget, so after quickly glancing at it he ignored it and continued training.

  The next thing he wanted to learn was Magic Inspection, a spell he had heard many mentioned before. However just as he started envisioning the complex circles within circles that was the spell module, he stopped.

  Shit, right I normally meet Vivian right about now.? That thought completely shook his focus as Eldrian wondered just what he was going to do. While for her no time other than the time between their last dinner had passed, Eldrian had gone through two weeks and quite a bit of torture.

  The latter being the thing that made him most confused and scarred. It had brought up and to the front his feelings, causing Eldrian to wonder if he would even be able to act normally around her.

  Rushing to get up he quickly headed down and out to the inn where they had had all their dinners. It wasn't anything fancy, but it was on the far side of the fort town, and hence had few people there.

  Rushing to get there and not be too late, Eldrian's mind was in a mess as he thought of what to say. Trying to play it all out in his mind, only for it all to disappear as he saw her.

  Her red hair gently being carried in the air as she came from the opposite side. Simply seeing her in person again took his breath away and almost even caused him to stumble. While she was by no means dressed well, being in her military rags, Eldrian felt like nothing else could bring her essence out so perfectly.

  Fuck!? Eldrian quickly pinched himself to get himself to not just focus on that and keep moving. Quickly finding a table and ordering the usual, avoiding looking and talking with Vivian as he tried to figure out how to be normal.