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  "How is it possible that he simply disappeared?" General Axel questioned, unable to accept that this was actually the best of the best.

  After the first few days, no more traces of Eldrian was found. It was like he had disappeared into thin air.

  "Well, he is capable of using magic-"

  "And how far are we with that?"

  "We haven't made any further progress." The new ANW department head, Qiren, replied. When the offer had come she had wanted to refuse, unfortunately, that had not been an option.

  "I thought you had a breakthrough?"

  "We had, but…… We aren't able to do anything with it. We now know with certainty that mana is present on Earth, we also know that playing the game somehow improves our physical attributes."

  "However, we don't understand quite how this works and we have never been able to use magic without the System's assistance. I'm afraid the knowledge of mana existing does not help us any more than when we just hoped that it did."

  The general cursed, "What if we still had the subject?"

  "No way to know now," Qiren replied while keeping her objections to herself. Miracle had changed, utterly and completely……

  A few months passed and the search continues. Little success has been made and little progress was made in the area of magic. More and more players reached Tier 4, but no one managed to break through to Tier 5.

  Getting a feel for mana was hard, even with the advice that Eldrian had shared nearly no one succeeded. If someone might succeed in feeling mana, then they weren't able to memorize and envision the Tier 5 spell correctly. And they most certainly weren't able to connect the two.

  Connecting those two parts was no longer something that players considered possible. The latter took so much concentration that it left no room for them to think, or feel in this case. Especially not something as fake as mana, something non-physical.

  Naturally, the players had complained about the absurdity of reaching Tier 5. Saying it was impossible and that the difficulty had to be decreased. Of course, this was not something that Miracle themselves had control over.

  They would never admit this, so they spun an excuse while monitoring everyone who reached Tier 4 and especially those who were trying to reach Tier 5. Hoping for another Eldrian.

  Erik had made sure to make himself as uninteresting as he could once he heard about Eldrian. Like Jen, he did not believe that Eldrian would kill himself, and knowing a bit more than the public, he quickly felt that something shady was going on.

  He had deactivated all types of streaming and monitoring actions that a player could activate. He knew that this would do little if Miracle really wanted to look into him. Thus, he had also stopped trying to master his hidden class.

  Instead, once Akarui was given the all-clear by Zamia, the two had decided to go visit and stay in Taurtania. Zamia had been more than willing to give them a ride, she had used that opportunity to also go visit Cephaphyr and see how he was doing.

  Ceph was beating himself up, blaming himself. It had broken Zamia's heart, but she had also managed to confirm that their link was still active, and thus that Eldrian was still alive. A relief to both mother and son.

  Taurtania was one of the three duchies of Taurus. Situated in the center of the kingdom, along with the other two, the three duchies surrounded the capital of Taurus, Taur. Massive walls stretched between the duchies, acting as a massive scale castle stretching over more than 500 kilometers.

  The city of Taurtania was massive, heavily fortified, and had a moderate -Gaia scale- population of over five million people. The two quickly disappeared in the city and made an honest living through Erik's apothecary. Buying a house for themselves after just a month in the city and starting their own garden.

  ANW had also officially reached a billion players, a massive milestone for the company. And due to the realism of ANW, not many other games managed to pop up in the immersion-VR area.

  There was a number that tried and managed to get a good number of players, but those games were considered for casuals. A game to play and relax. And of course, those games didn't have the neat feature of being able to play through your sleep.

  It quickly became a trend that people would dive into these games after a number of days of frustration in ANW. Yet, these players would always come back to ANW. The realism and challenge, something that couldn't be found anywhere else.

  Especially regarding the NPCs, it was near impossible to go back to blank standard NPCs after playing ANW. It always pulled the players out of their immersion.

  "So, they haven't made any progress. That's good." Eldrian mumbled after reading through what was publicly available on the internet and forums.

  Over these past months, he had focused on staying in the shadows, constantly improving his magic along with Two. Though they hadn't been able to do much actual magic, they had managed to go through all their theories and knowledge and condense what they knew and had discovered.

  Thanks to Two and their enhanced physical and mental attributes, the two were able to recall almost everything with perfect clarity when working together.

  Magic on Earth was different from inside ANW and they had quickly learned that elemental mana was almost impossible to use. The planet's elements seemed to be out of balance.

  Trying to cast simple spells like Aeraki was possible, but trying to cast Volida would result in the spell either imploding or dissipating. Even after all this time, Eldrian and Two were unable to improve on this.

  What they had managed to improve on was their understanding of auras. After the escape, they had talked long and hard about how they had managed to escape.

  They had come to realize two things, they had used their auras and spirit magic. The latter was what they had decided to call magic that relied on emotions but wasn't an aura per se.

  Auras, they are things that overwhelm and overtake a person's mind. But it does not stop there, they alter the very fabric of mana. Turning it into the purest form represented of the aura type.

  Wrath created flames of unimaginable heat, consuming and converting all the mana near it. Aimed at burning and destroying everything it comes into contact with. Even inert and inactive mana would be consumed and converted.

  Tranquility, Tranquility did the same but instead froze everything. Trying instead of consuming and destroying everything, to turn it into a state of ever stillness. To bring balance, and hence no change, no life, no movement. It was absolute zero, in all forms.

  This was why auras are so strong and also why there was no personal mana requirement. It consumed, converted, and altered all that it touched. To control it, Eldrian and Two had no idea how that could ever be possible.

  The best they could come up with was to make use of it, and then stop before it consumed them. For it did not stop with mana, it altered the person too, in all regards. Wrath was the clearest example, but Tranquility was just as, if not more, dangerous.

  What was required for an aura was a spark, and thereafter it was a struggle of not losing yourself to them. To somehow, someway keep your sense of self and suppress the aura.

  Auras burn bright, but not long.

  AN: A big thank you to everyone who continues to read and support the story on WN.

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