• 3^rd Person POV

Evan wake up in the morning as per his alarm suggested. The poor phone needed to rang five times before it managed to woke up the sleepy head. Scrounging for his phone, he taps it and silence the remaining alarms as he smiles at his accomplishment, Evan decided to reward himself by making pancakes.

Using an already pre-mixed batter, he just added egg and milk as he made two slices of them. Then drizzle maple syrup plus a small butter. The pancake is still hot as such the butter glisten & melts due to the heat.

“Yum~.” Evan smiles happily as he ate them in one sitting for his breakfast and ended it by having a banana. While washing the dishes, his mind wanders again as usual. Mainly on his progress on his character in ‘Eidolon’

“Today, I’ll convert 1200 GC to dollars. After that, I’ll try using [Heart of Mana] since my [Mana Control] skill has reached Level 10. AH!!” Evan slap himself on the forehead realizing something amiss.

“I forgot to harvest the Crystal Aster Flowers!! Sigh… I was too tired at the time” He thought as he finishes washing the dishes and starts preparing to enter the console.

Arriving in the world of ‘Eidolon’, Evan is greeted with the scent of salty sea, the cries of seagulls perching on hulls, in addition to the occasional annoyed cusses of players and NPC alike whenever they succeeded in stealing their food.

Music from guitars or drums can be heard in some places as passengers uses the network of small boats to travel though the canals between the city sections. Evan decided to move towards the alleyway away from prying sight as he begun to weave the mana surrounding him.

In an instant, his figure flickers & vanish then reappears in a small glade. Below him is a magic circle drawn on a dry soil. This is the teleportation circle that Evan have drawn.

“4 more days left before the event starts.” Evan thought as he had an urge to rearrange his rune stone that warded against projectile and illusion barrier that mislead living beings.

“Summon Umbra!” Appearing behind his shadow, a large wolf-dog with dark blue fur lining & white underbelly. His eyes are intimidating but when it looks at Evan it is soft & bubbly akin to excited puppy as he move his snout closer and give licking kisses to Evan.

“Hehehehe… sorry, sorry, for worrying you! You’re doing great that time! Here’s some reward” Using his bag of perpetual treats. Evan condenses the treat into a large bone then give it to Umbra as he leisurely savour it.

Evan opened his traveling garden and harvested two [Crystal Aster Flower] to his inventory resetting its cooldown to 7 hours again. As he converts 1200 GC to dollars leaving him with only 500 GC left.

“At least I do not need to worry for this week.” Evan thought as his nerve eases. He’s able to fully focus on his character now. As Evan sat down and take an item from his inventory. On his hand is the item [Heart of Mana] as a prompt appeared before his face.

You have fulfilled the requirement to use this item. Upon usage, this item will modify your character do you agree? (Y/N)

 

Evan presses (Y) as the bead glow in bright blue glow then shoot at an incredible speed towards his chest. His body began to glow in return as several prompts & notification appears before his face.

Evan closes his eyes since the visual effect is a bit overwhelming, but he feel a comfortable fresh breeze running through his hair as the modification is happening.

After a while, the visual effects subsides as Evan check the very first thing in his panel. His own ‘Status Panel’

 

 

“Whoa… there’s a lot of new skills I got! [Mana Shield] [Mana Gathering] [Mana Mastery LV1] and what is this? [Summon Mana Core] Agh!! There’s even new title too <Mana Controller>” Evan ruminates a little bit while scratching his head as he grew curious and choose one that is the most interesting first, [Summon Mana Core]. He activated it.

“RUFF!” Umbra is surprised as the large bone treat, he’s eating fell to the ground. He looks at something questioningly, approaching and sniffs it before his demeanour turn lax. Evan look around and see a hovering object right on his eye level.

It is a spinning crystalline octahedron. It slowly rotates like earth and it has beautiful sky-blue colour. Upon summoning it though, another panel appeared before him.

The panel shows him the imagery of himself and Umbra who have returned to nibble & lick his large bone treat. As Evan mind made the connection. “Are you a CCTV?” his eyes dawned on what he found as he can see there are arrows to the left, right, up, and down as he presses it. The imagery changes to see the forest and sky.

Evan also zooms in as the panel also move like that allowing him to  see much the blue sky in closer look. Before long, he rotate the display to see him & Umbra. He zooms in as well particularly on Umbra. He can see the wolf-dog serrated teeth and pink tongue eating the bone treat.

He also faintly hears the gnashing when Umbra nibbles on it. “Huh? I can hear this too… amazing…” Evan lips curved upward while playing around the display panel of ‘Mana Core’. Until he hit a snag on the zooming feature. It appears the zoom can’t go further similar to how phones work.

“I guess that’s already incredibly handy! It also doesn’t blur the image too when I zoom.” Evan look closely at the thing as detail appears

 

“Ohohohoho! That’s incredibly handy… I can cast the spell as if I’m there. That means I can just play the long-range game.” Evan look at his other changes as well until he learn them all. After closing the status panel. Something appeared once again in front of him.

Congratulations! For upgrading the [Mana] Tree Skill Line to this level. We are here to give you advancement class quest!!

 

 

“Uh…?… okay...? I guess I have another goal beside getting money then.” Evan looks a bit confused, he doesn’t faze at all upon seeing his race going to be change to aberration.

Since he already knew players are able to change race in ‘Eidolon’. Although, he’s a bit worried if he does change into that there are players that would try to PK him just for the reason of ‘different’ race than hyuman.

“Sigh… really? In a game no less?” He cannot believe when he read that news in the forum. About a guy ranting of his experience being killed by other players just because he have a different race.

The other that is more surprising to him is the class, he never heard of that class. Evan continues to ruminate and stare at the ‘Mana Core’ rotating octahedron until he sees his own reflection.

“Huh?” In there, he sees something on his forehead and cheek. Some kind of sheen similar to a crystal. Getting more curious as time passes, Evan weave mana to create a thin sheet of ice floating above him that function as a mirror. “Hey, its easier to weave them now” Evan noticed as his eyes look at his reflection.

*GASP* What Evan sees in front of the reflection of the ice sheet. Is his face, the normal features are there but there’s something weird going on. On his forehead is a line of bluish crystal seamlessly integrated to his character skin, his antique circlet seems unaffected by the changes one thing that he’s grateful about.

“Eh Eh EH??” Evan touches it, he can feel the pressure and slightly ticklish feel from it. He also looks at his cheek where some parts of it are crystallized. He cannot pull them as it is his skin.

“I guess that’s why my race is ‘Variant Hyuman’. Makes me wonder what more changes would happen after I finished the advancement quest.” Evan sets up his alchemy kit as he had his original goals in mind.

He’s planning to make some potions so he can sell them on ‘Player’s Market’ especially the Mana Potions since he doesn’t need them anymore after learning the effects of [Mana Gathering] skill.

As he stays longer in that skill, his MP Regen will have exponential growth reaching to high peaks but also give him extreme weakness to any physical damage. Making him essentially a sitting duck. But in this case, he can use it for crafting since he knows it is a ‘safe zone’ in his terms.

“La… la… la…~” Evan uses magic to produce water as it boils then he mixed the necessary ingredients while infusing them with mana as usual. So far, he created around 15 [Health Potion] and 4 [Mana Potion] + 11 [Mana Potion]

“Hmmm? Why did they are separated? Maybe it’s because I use different ingredients? I did add the Crystal Aster Flower as an ingredient combined with Blue Flower & Elves Ear.” He assumed as he opens his inventory to see.

 

 

Evan is happy as he made them all. He stores the health potions to his inventory and register the mana potions(s) to the ‘Player’s Market’ including the unique versions.

“Let’s see here… probably I would have around… 1000 GC for the unique mana potions. And 550 GC for the normal mana potions although I would say it’s a different type too since it has no cooldown. Reaching that conclusion, Evan opens his inventory panel and sees his health potion get separated as it doesn’t contain the stacking duration effect.

“I guess… that’s my improvement on potion making? AH!!! Time to enchant this armour too. I have something on my mind urging to be done for this robe” Evan quickly take off his robe and put it on the ground.

He noticed that some parts of the robe is ruined from the fires and arcing lightning when he had a battle against the goblin witch including a large hole on the upper torso. Where he can presume, he got impaled by the sharp ends of the living tar limbs.

Weaving the mana, the fabric begun to regenerate itself as the robe have been mended to its original look. Evan took the chance to begun pouring down as much flow of mana to the clothing.

He activated the skill [Mana Gathering] again as he feels his breathing goes easier making it comfortable. He noticed that the flow of mana begun to accumulate faster. It felt like he’s pouring a waterfall to a large lake. Rather than using a bucketful of water each time, reminiscing his time in enchanting the travelling garden.

Around 4 to 5 hours have passed after he did that, he stops the flow of mana into the robe and take a quick rest by logging out to have his lunch. He made a quick spam musubi with an apple for desserts.

“The combination of infusion and [Mana Gathering] is amazing, I can feel that I’m already halfway in infusing that also works in alchemy too. Another 4 hours of infusing, the robe is completed! Quicker than when I’m enchanting that chest” Evan smiles while munching on the spam musubi.

Finishing his lunch, he washed his hands not wanting to dirty the console. He then logged in to ‘Eidolon’, back to the very same glade.

“Oh yeah… the mana core got dispelled same as Umbra. Oh! The skill isn’t on cooldown. I see, it does say the core needs to be destroyed before my skill become on cooldown”

Evan chooses not to summon the ‘Mana Core’ as he continue in his attempt to fully infuse his robe. But he summoned Umbra to accompany him. After another 3 to 4 hours in infusing, Evan can feel he’s completed the robe as he can sigh and lay on the ground for a bit taking a nice rest.

“Enchanting takes only a day in real life. That’s something… I’m glad of this progress” Evan although exhausted he smiles happily.

He opens his travelling garden as he pick x2 [Crystal Aster Flower] then return it to his inventory panel. Standing up, he patted the dust away & wear the robe as he’s going to do herb picking.

Dismissing Umbra, Evan left the glade as he sees several group of players that’s fighting & grinding their levels. He overheard a conversation.

“Hey, did you know the rules of battle royale event? I need a refresher” A scout like player asked a female warrior

“I already forgot about it, hahaha…” The warrior scratch the back of her head as she replies.

“Sigh…” The scout player just accepted it as he opens a panel then finding them on the net.

Evan already left the area since he’s interested in harvesting some herbs, but that conversation sticks on his mind like glue. Unable to resist it, he thought “In the meantime, I’ll check the rules again for the battle royale” Evan then opens the net and find it.

The usual points and one for all type of battle rules are there but another rules have been revealed regarding items. ‘Players are allowed to bring; 1 Legendary Rarity, 2 Very Rare Rarity, 3 Rare Rarity, 4 Uncommon Rarity, and No limits on common rarity item.’

“Hmmm… I have [Egg of Time] for legendary, [Antique Circlet] for very rare, [Magie Magia’s Travelling Garden] for rare. [Branch of Good Berry] for Uncommon. I still have 1 slot for very rare, 2 slots for rare, and 3 slots for uncommon. I guess I’ll make more magic items for myself. I have some ideas in mind, Hehehe….” Evan smirks & giggling while picking some herbs. There are some players from afar seeing the green robe magic caster creepily picking on flowers.

“Ugh… he’s creepy, guys stay away. He’s probably a PKer” A player urges his teammates to go around the male.

Evan stands up earning jolts of surprise from the group of players. But he move to other direction towards the mountain. Trying to gather [Leven Berry] and [Elves Ear], taking several minutes of walking. He sees a cluster of them growing on the foot of the mountain.

Picking some of it, he now have 10x of [Red Flower] [Blue Flower] [Leven Berry] [Elves Ear]. “Now I’m thinking… can I get their seeds? Hmmm….” Evan look at the Leven Berry as he shakes his head thinking of something else.

“They are common ingredients, its better to have rare rarity or higher in my travelling garden” He decided as he take enough to satisfy him then leave the area.

He turn his head aside while tapping on the panel, it displays the time panel on the real-life around 17:00 PM. “I still have time then.” Evan nibble on his nails thinking on what to do.

“Okay, let’s see here… I’m going to enchant this robe then have a late dinner” He decided as his figure vanishes to thin air and reappears right at the centre of the magic circle.

Weaving the mana, his robe dismantle from himself as it is held aloft by invisible hands. Before long, he began inspecting the essence of mana inside the robe and begun moulding it to what he desires.

Spending an hour or two combined with [Mana Gathering] he’s able to reshape the essence of mana that he infused inside the robe.

“Fiuf…” Evan swept an imagery sweat from his forehead, although he can feel the roughness of the crystalline skin on his face, but he ignores it.

 

“Hehehe… This way I can wear this robe and just be other person. So I wouldn’t get chased around in Novitas!” Evan lips curved upward into a grin as he wear the robe.

“Although the spell does that its limits, I can’t be taller or in different form such as quadrupedal” Evan thought as a sheen of ice appeared out of nowhere. He used it to look at the reflection as his face change into a different one each time.

The robe also change its colours as he twirls around to see the change. “Magical Girl! Transform!! Hehehe…” Clearly, he’s having a fun out of this item as he keeps changing the colours of the robe until he deem satisfied.

Resting on the soft ground looking up to the night-sky of ‘Eidolon’ he summons Umbra to cuddle as his mind began to turn & think.

“About the leylines thing… I had a hunch on where to go for the first one. It would be Forest of Darkness. But it’s a tomorrow Evan’s to think.” He gazes at the blinking stars.

“First, I need to get an item crafted for me. Preferably a stamp that I’m able to customize on the spot. I’m planning to do something with that when I managed to infuse it with mana. Since this is Clamshore, where merchants come and go. There must be a stamp shop somewhere, they need it for formal contracts after all” Evan look up as he sees the night-sky before sighing. It seems waiting for the day to change takes longer when you wanted it to change.

He opens the ‘Player’s Market’ to check about the prices for weapon. Since his [Beginner’s Staff] would be quick to be overshine in the event after all. Looking at them, he had these eyes of disgust seeing the prices.

“I know the staffs here are dropped from boss, field bosses, or dungeons but why would the price always go over 10k gold? Even the rare or very rare variation.” Evan scrolls until he look at a legendary rarity staff. He almost hurled himself from the ridiculous sum of money.

“No… I’m too broke for that.” He decided to just wield his beginner staff. “Making weapons are expensive too… just be thankful that unenchanted robe is cheaper than other armours” Evan sighed as he waits for the day to come.