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"I\'d rather not."

"Okay, seriously, what\'s up?" Therdul asked. There was clearly something going on with Eldrian. He felt far more distant than before.

"I\'m fine. I just have a lot on my mind."

Sighing in exasperation, the dwarf stayed a while longer before leaving. Saddened that Eldrian had decided not to open up. "You can talk to me when you\'re ready," he said before leaving.

Eldrian returned to his training, interrupted now and then as others came to ask what\'s up. Soon, the sun set completely. Finally, bringing an end to those still arguing about the mission.

\'I get that having distribution be by kill can open some problems, but it is certainly the simplest.\' Simplest, however, was not what they were trying to achieve.

The weak guilds wanted to ensure they would still get rewards for their efforts, while the stronger guilds did not want to be used.

Only Phoenix, Starfire, and Artis had left the meeting after noticing that nothing much would come of it.

In the end, the simplest solution was indeed chosen. With additional clauses ensuring that participants in a kill would also be awarded, according to their contribution—which had sparked another debate. Ultimately, things would be determined on a per case basis.

With the meeting finally over, the leaders called the players who were curious about Eldrian\'s announcement during the tournament. As well as all those who had questions for him.

They moved to a smaller hall where Eldrian was thrust upon a stage. The simplest way to have him address everyone, and of course, it was being streamed by nearly every player in attendance.

"Is everyone here?" Eldrian asked Elizabeth, who nodded. Turning to his audience of over five hundred players -in person, and who knew how many more online- Eldrian smiled and paused.

Enhancing his voice with magic so everyone could hear, he started, "I suck at speeches, so I\'ll simply say what I tried to say back then before being interrupted."

"Magic exists. It isn\'t something limited just to ANW. Things are more complicated than that, but I can cast some spells on Earth, though it is hard to gather the mana for them."

Eldrian decided that for now he would not bring up the fact that special powers, such as auras and bloodlines, basically allowed one to skip the need for mana.

Unlike what Eldrian expected, his words only elicited a slight stir among the crowd. He assumed they didn\'t believe him, and that was fine. He simply wanted to get the idea out. He didn\'t want to fight people\'s realities.

"Alright, then, are there questions you guys have for me? The guild leaders organized this meeting so I can answer as many as possible. Since I don\'t have the time to talk with everyone individually."

"I have one." The first to speak up was Moon. Eldrian already felt he knew what she was going to ask. Signaling for her to go ahead, she indeed asked what he expected. "How come your map differs from ours? Why could you track the movement of our enemies?"

"I can\'t really explain it without you guys believing me about magic being real." Eldrian said, noticing that the reaction from the crowd didn\'t feel like denial. Perhaps curious doubt was a better fit. Why they didn\'t jump to ask about it, he couldn\'t figure out.

Continuing on, Eldrian said, "But in summary, I have an interface not administered by Ziraili—that\'s the AI responsible for players\' interface, connection to ANW, and magic. Rather, mine is being provided by GAIA and I can modify it through sacrificing XP."

Seeing the players stir this time around, Eldrian continued before they got the wrong idea. "It also comes with its own problems." He paused, waiting to ensure that they would not miss his next words.

"I can no longer get normal quests, and XP rewards from guild missions do not apply to me. The only source of XP is through killing monsters. At the moment, my upkeep is around ten thousand XP a day."

Eldrian paused again and added with a sigh, "And I still receive the standard death penalty." He didn\'t explain that there were some circumstances around this.

That he could skip the penalty as long as he was resurrected in his avatar and didn\'t need a new one, likely because of his control over his soul. He wasn\'t certain, but that was his best guess.

The players first thought that wasn\'t much of a drawback. After all, with their levels, they had billions of XP at hand. It would take forever to have the cost become a problem. Murmurs quickly spread, and as they spread, people realized the true drawback.

Not being able to gain levels through quests meant there was no easy way to recover if you died. You would need to be terribly strong to kill enough to gain the XP required for a level up, thousands upon thousands of monsters. All without dying.

While some felt they might be capable of that, it was still an extreme hindrance. The growth from levels wasn\'t much. However, everyone knew that the penalty for falling below your spent attributes was extreme. It could easily result in your character being scrapped.

"Also, just so you guys understand how it works. It isn\'t perfect. I can\'t sort by a tag like \'enemy\' or \'aggressive\'. The only way the map filters people, monsters, and animals is by race and nationality. Thus, I have to choose the settings, and for the meeting, I had it as foreign entities and clusters of over a thousand."

"This means, if a group less than a thousand is moving about, I have no way of noticing them." Eldrian wanted to add that his map could be fooled too, but he felt he had already shared a lot of information. People would need some time to digest what he had said.

And indeed, hearing this, the players finally understood why Phoenix had pushed to have scouts in the surrounding villages. Needing to choose from limited settings and manually tune the map was a massive restriction.

After all, an elite group of just a few hundred could do a lot of damage. And Eldrian\'s settings would completely miss such a group, or even multiple groups, moving.

"Alright, next question."

"How did you get the option to switch from the standard interface?"

"That is a long story..." Eldrian paused. He suddenly felt something strange. He couldn\'t put his finger on it, but the surrounding atmosphere suddenly felt constrictive, heavy. \'No, it isn\'t the atmosphere, it\'s the mana.\'

The players wanted to push Eldrian to continue, but he thrust out his hand to silence them. He immediately switched to city mode, observing a significant number of red dots appearing throughout the city.

\'Shit, when did they—\' Eldrian\'s thoughts were interrupted as the sounds of battle filled the city.

Screams of panic and death spread through the air as a nearby block exploded. The mansion\'s windows shattered and the glow of the aftermath illuminated the hall in an eerie glow.

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