Loran turned toward the village as Maya ran off to show off the spell in her hands to a group of training players.

‘So, how long was I in there for?’

It had been a little before noon when he sat down in the field, maybe 11:20 or so. Looking up now the sun was… in roughly the same spot?

‘That can’t be right, I was… oh, wrong direction.’

The reason the sun looked to be in the same position is that it was actually coming down from the zenith. He had been in the void for over an hour.

“...I’ll need to be careful with that,” he muttered with slight shock. “If an hour can feel like just a few minutes, I don’t want to imagine what would happen if I really lose track of time in there.”

Loran stopped by the Kitchen to grab a bowl and a few strips of jerky for a snack before making his way to the river, hoping the water would help his headache. He practically fell to the ground once he reached the water’s edge, and began drinking quickly.

‘I probably shouldn’t practice in the void anymore,’ he decided. ‘Even if it makes magic easier it just isn’t worth it. It’s not like I can fight without my senses anyway.’

Setting down the bowl, Loran lay in the grass to rest after what he now realized was over an hour of intense, uninterrupted focus. On top of that, all of his senses felt sharper after having gone completely unused for such an extended period. As much as he wanted to continue experimenting with his magic, he desperately needed to unwind the tension he hadn’t realized was building.

Letting his overworked mind relax, Loran just took in his surrounding. The sounds of the river and players walking past. The scent of the mud and wet stones mixing with the smell of food drifting over from the Kitchen. The warm sun beating down, shining through his shut eyes. To his underused senses and overworked mind, these gentle sensations were on the verge of painful, but as he relaxed he slowly returned to a more normal state.

After a few minutes, Loran felt collected enough to look through his menu. He wasn’t sure yet, but he wanted to check the notification log to see if he had managed to create anything.

Sure enough, the system had recognized his efforts.

[ACTIVITY {Mana Manipulation} PERFORMED]

[RELEVANT VALUE(S) {INT: 5 SPT: 5} SUFFICIENT]

[WOULD YOU LIKE TO GENERATE A NEW SKILL?]

[YES] / [NO]

“Okay, that’s kind of boring.”

In terms of actual gameplay, magic spells and Skills used by non-magic players were essentially the same thing, but seeing the game literally treating magic as just another Skill was a little disappointing.

“I guess I shouldn’t expect too much from an AI,” he sighed as he confirmed the Skill generation. It only took a moment for the next message to pop up, but what it displayed was far from what Loran had been expecting.

[PIONEER SYSTEM ACTIVATED]

[...]

[A NEW SKILL HAS BEEN GENERATED]

[ _ _ _ ] Lv.1

(Passive) Allows the user to detect and manipulate their internal mana stores.

[IT WILL COST {1} ABILITY POINT TO LEARN THIS SKILL]

[LEARN AND NAME SKILL?]

[YES] / [NO]

‘A passive Skill?’ he thought in confusion. ‘How was anything I did back there passive? Shouldn’t I be getting something like making a ball of mana?’

Loran stared curiously at the message, and the more he thought about the situation the more connections he started to make. Before he could manipulate mana he needed to sense it, so it made sense that the Pioneer System would recognize that as a Skill before anything else. It was actually a very similar situation to when he learned the [DANGER SENSE] Skill.

Back then it wasn’t enough to simply sense the things happening around him, he also needed to accurately predict and act based on what he was sensing. This was why no one else had triggered the Skill despite also being able to detect mana before he did; no one else had managed to actually do anything with it.

He was also surprised to see that the Skill was still unnamed.

‘It’s been at least ten minutes since I told everyone about using the sensory void. Are they struggling that much, or is the game still giving me naming rights since I did it first?’

Loran then realized that he didn’t know how much time he needed to trigger the Skill and decided he had no room to judge.

He could ask them later, for now, it was time to learn a new Skill. Confirming that he wanted to learn the Skill, Loran chose to name it [MANA SENSE] and braced himself for the unpleasant sensation of the Pioneer System.

But the sensation didn’t come.

Loran was astonished. For a moment he was worried that the system had bugged out and didn’t teach him the Skill, but sure enough, it was right there when he opened the Skill page.

‘Was it the update?’

What else could it have been? The update had been nothing but an extreme version of the sensation produced by the Pioneer System, perhaps being exposed to that intensity had made it harder to feel the normal effects.

“I’m definitely not complaining,” he sighed, feeling both frustrated and relieved, “though I do wish this damn game could give an explanation for once.”

Oh how he wished the game had given them the tutorial feature. He still thinks the magic system would be better for increasing their strength, but some clear instructions would do a lot for his mental health at the moment.

Calming down, Loran started paying attention to his surroundings to check the effects of the Skill. Sure enough, the mana that he previously needed to concentrate on to find felt constantly present, as the Skill did most of the work for him. It still felt a little foggy, but after raising the [MANA MANIPULTION] to Lv.10 the presence of mana was now perfectly clear.

Forming a bead barely took a thought now, although he quickly realized that he still needed to concentrate slightly to stop it from dissipating. He heard a few shocked voices behind him, but Loran ignored them and focused on his testing.

Ready to try attacking, Loran scanned the river for a target before sending the bead flying forward once he found a fish. The spell made a splash when it hit the water, slowing down slightly from the resistance as the fish dodged the attack.

*DING*

It took only a second for the system to recognize his actions again, although it did make Loran wonder just how many spells he was going to learn if controlling even a single point of MP counted.

[ACTIVITY {Attack With Mana} PERFORMED]

[RELEVANT VALUE(S) {INT: 5} SUFFICIENT]

[WOULD YOU LIKE TO GENERATE A NEW SPELL?]

[YES] / [NO]

“So the system does differentiate spells and Skills?”

He already decided that he wasn’t going to bother learning this spell since it was so simplistic, but he still let the system make it since he was curious about what the description would say about the spell.

But Loran once again found himself speechless as the game threw something unexpected at him yet again.

[ _ _ _ ]

(Cost 1 MP) The caster fires a dart of mana at a target dealing 1 Magic damage.

“...Why doesn’t it have a level?!”

Loran was on the verge of screaming. The last twenty-four hours had raised countless questions and had given him few, if any, answers.

“I just…I don’t…. haaa, whatever.” With a defeated sigh, Loran decided to learn the spell. He didn’t think it was a good idea, but he needed to know what made spells different, and it would be easier to figure that out with something as basic as this.

After quickly naming the spell Mana Dart Loran saw a new page appear in his menu. Spells would apparently be listed separately from Skills, and once again, Loran would be given no answers as to why.

‘Just test it out and move on,’ he told himself.

Looking out over the river, Loran found another fish and readied the spell. With a thought, he felt the mana pull away from his body and instantly fly out towards the water, splashing when it hit the water and missing the fish again.

So far, learning the spell hadn’t seemed to change it in any way. He did notice that he barely needed to do anything, just think of the target and let the system control the mana for him.

‘Alright, simple enough, but why can’t I level it up?’

Unable to come up with an immediate answer, Loran could only hope that he would discover something as he performed more experiments.

“Let’s try a bigger one.”

Loran drew out more MP and cast the spell, only for a separate bead of mana to be pulled from his body for the spell. Confused, Loran let the mana he was controlling dissipate, as he tried a different approach. This time, Loran cast the spell and tried to focus more mana into the spell as it formed. Unfortunately, this did nothing, as a single bead of mana flew into the river again.

“...So I can’t change the spell?” Loran asked, annoyed. “That… that can’t mean every possible variation is its own spell right?”

Almost scared to get an answer, Loran formed a ball of 5 MP and launched it at the fish in the river. The spell was harder to control, but the attack hit the water with a much louder splash than before and didn’t seem to lose as much speed when it did so. Loran watched as a dead fish floated to the surface.

*DING*

‘Seriously?!’

[ _ _ _ ]

(Cost 5 MP) The caster fires a bolt of mana at a target dealing 7 Magic damage.

The description was slightly different, and if nothing else there was a higher rate of damage, but Loran was astonished nonetheless.

Still hoping to prove himself wrong, Loran sent out another ball of mana, this time using 2 MP. This time there was no notification.

‘So it doesn’t treat everything as a different spell, it just doesn’t let you modify the base spell. Annoying but it could be worse. At least there's a tangible difference for each spell, even if it is minor.’

If nothing else it was more reason to not spend any Ability Points on spells. With tha much variation the cost of learning every spell, or even just a respectable amount would be astronomical.

‘It does make casting easier though,’ he reasoned. ‘The system takes care of it through the menu, so that has some advantages…I wonder…’

Taking a deep breath, Loran focused on the river and cast Mana Dart five times simultaneously. Without delay, five beads of mana formed and flew into the river.

'Being able to cast that rapidly is another advantage. Although... did that not qualify as a new spell?'

Loran attempted to repeat the spell manually, although it was significantly more difficult. After several minutes of practicing, he was just barely able to fire three darts with barely any aim.

*DING*

‘Okay, I guess that counts as a new spell then.’

Going through his menu, Loran let the Pioneer System create the new spell.

[ _ _ _ ]

(Cost 3 MP) The caster fires three darts of mana at up to three targets dealing 1 Magic damage each.

“Yeah, definitely not learning this one,” he decided.

There truly didn’t seem to be much reason to spend AP on learning spells. While it did make the spells easier to use since he didn’t have to concentrate on casting, that was something he could learn to do himself. Those points would be much more useful if they were spent on Skills or stats.

‘...Now that I think about it…’

Loran moved over to his stats page, staring intently at the over 120,000 EXP he had stocked up.

What he had managed so far had been decent, but how much better would he get if he started dumping points into those new stats?

‘Those will definitely be my main stats from now on, but how much should I invest right now?’

Loran wasn’t experimenting for fun right now. In every game he had ever played, if magic was an option he used it. Maintaining a tactical position at range, the high damage output, the endless utility and support, no matter what role a game made their spellcasters Loran always loved playing them. He had actually been disappointed when New Eden Online didn’t seem to have a magic system. Having been advertised as a ‘paradise of gaming’ Loran would have expected it to accommodate all playstyles.

‘I mean, I get that he was lying now, what with the whole death game thing, but was it really too much to let us have magic from the start?’

Even though he had been maintaining his low level to maximize his EXP gain, Loran was more than willing to blow through his entire stockpile if it meant being able to learn magic.

‘Well, not all of it,’ he reminded himself. ‘Too much and I won’t be able to earn any more EXP, but as long as I don’t go too far I can still get some EXP from the Drones, and hunting them will go faster if I can learn an AOE(1) spell.’

With his mind made up, Loran raised himself to level 30. Alexx and Zed were experiencing difficulties in the low thirties, so this seemed to be a decent stopping point. Even after jumping six levels, Loran’s EXP stockpile was still over 88,000.

“Alright, let’s see what these stats can do.”