"So, then what does the Mageia Avyssos actually do?" Joren asked, it was possible for him to call up all the logs they had on it. Naturally, he did not know everything that went on in the game. Asking Eldrian was just faster and would also convey Eldrian's perspective. He would confirm it after.

"That I am still not too sure about. I know it is why I can enter my soul so much easier. The natives wouldn't be able to use entering the magic abyss as a shortcut."

"Besides that, it is supposed to be..." Eldrian paused and pondered what it was like, "It is kind of like using a calculator."

"Calculator?" The two department heads asked, confused.

Nodding Eldrain started explaining, "Normally, to cast a spell you would have to be able to fully control your mana like High Elves and other races who dynamic cast. This however is not easy and in fact, as far as I know, almost none of the races with reasonable lifetimes can accomplish this."

Reasonable in the sense of natives of Gaia being less than a thousand years.

"So the Mageia Avyssos helps lift the need of control over mana. How it does I have no idea. In my comparison, it is like needing to manually determine a difficult calculation versus having the calculator do it for you. For example, 43256 times 123542."

"Sure, you can do it manually, but it will take you more time and many people would need a piece of paper. However, if you aren't allowed a piece of paper suddenly many people won't be confident in being able to get to the answer. So, in that way, the Mageia Avyssos is similar to a calculator."

Eldrian realized that his example wasn't the best, but it was what made the most sense for him. It also did enable the heads to better understand what he was getting at. That while you might know how to do it, putting it into practice was not all that easy.

"Now back to my question, why is my soul in the Mageia Avyssos and I assume it is the same for the other players."

"Honestly, we have no idea. Much like the AI MO, they decided to keep this information from us. Do you think this is something that can lead to problems?"

Eldrian paused and thought about it for a moment, realizing that this was also likely why players could cast magic with ease. He shared this with Joren who was absolutely astounded.

"It makes perfect sense! Which means even if we want to change it we can't."

Agreeing, Eldrian failed to see an alternative. Not without suddenly forcing everyone to be unable of using magic and thus having their progress basically reset to day one.

'How does stats work then?' Eldrian pondered and felt it had something to do with soul essence. 'I should really try to get some information on it. But... Yeah, I have too many things to do.'

After discussing a bit more with Joren and asking about their progress on the cabin, since the immersion chair was just an emergency stopgap, Eldrian left the room and started to return to his own quite satisfied.

'They are going to advertise it at the end of the tourney, and the sem's and finals are actually going to be held here.' Curious he took a detour and found the open-air stadium they had constructed. The estate that was Miracle's headquarters was quite massive.

Eldrian had not explored nearly a tenth of it, with most of the places behind gates and requiring higher permissions.

The stadium was also in such a place, and at this point, Eldrian could just see the edges of it over the walls. Yet that was enough to leave him simply astonished.

They were going to open that part just for the three days that the tournament was going to be. The first would be semi's, the second would be marketing, and the third would be the finals. Eldrian was quite excited to see what was going to happen.

He was slightly disappointed that the cabin was only going to be done after. However, he was happy to hear that he should be getting one in a week or two. He knew that he was the true prototype stress tester due to how he always pushed the gear to their max.

Still, when he heard the price he had no complaints about the added bit of danger from a prototype. Especially since the game testers would be doing their own stress tests (which were much less stressful than Eldrian's naturally).

As for the price, the cabins would be advertised at 500 thousand dollars, while the immersion chairs would be sold at 100 thousand. Marketed as the budget cabin for those still unsure of such a massive investment.

Eldrian had been flabbergasted by the number and realized that while he had quite a bit of money, he was still poor compared to many.

Finally returning to his room, Eldrian climbed on his immersion chair and logged in.

...

Standing up in the pit from the explosion, Eldrian looked around as the sun was already relatively high in the air. 'Right, guess that is one thing I didn't think of.' Eldrian sighed slightly as he realized he had dematerialized when he had logged out. Having forgotten to change the setting from when he had gone into the forest.

'I hope they hadn't rushed things.' Eldrian mumbled as he climbed out of the pit and first headed to where he and Vivian had stayed. He found her practicing in the morning sun. Her hair following behind her fluid movements. It was quite the sight and taking his sister's advice, Eldrian took a moment to enjoy it.

After a few minutes, he also took the time to again go through the messages from the system and this time managing to take in how good they were. Still, a part of him felt bad when he became excited about the slight powerup.

Taking a look at his stats, Eldrian was satisfied as he fought down the suffocating feeling of how he had gained the boost.

[Haru's Statistics:]

[Level: 32]

[Hidden Class: Protector Tier 3]

[Normal Class: Magic Tier 3 ; Melee Tier 3]

[Avatar Affinity: 100%]

[Attributes:]

(Author Note: The 'Was' indicated in [] refers to chapter 360 where I believe I last showed the stats in whole, when Eldrian reached Tier 2 with melee. Thus the new stats reflect both the melee Tier 3 bonus stats and that from the absorbed soul.)

[Constitution: 206] [Was 186]

[Strength: 198] [Was 176]

[Agility: 284] [Was 271]

[Spirit: 202] [Was 192]

[Intelligence: 225] [No change]

[20 free attributes]

[Stats:]

[HP: 415] [was 279]

[Mana: 686] [was 651]

[Stamina: 453] [was 349]

[Attack (With Aoidos): 71] [was 63]

'Quite well rounded, should I spend the free attributes?' Eldrian pondered for a second and decided to wait on it as usual.

He really liked learning and mastering skills and improving his close combat strength, however, he also knew that his strongest area was magic. He also loved mastering new spells and expanding his knowledge.

Thus, he again leaned towards agility, a stat that would allow him to fight better and survive longer to counter or escape. As always, he did not feel his damage was lacking. However, he also knew that stats had hidden effects that should not be ignored and made him feel like he should spend the stats.