New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

"Does it even matter, mortal? I don't remember needing to confer with you about how I manage the worlds I created."

Her eyes widening, Paladina quickly tried to fix the misunderstanding.

"No! Your grace, that is not why I asked. Please, I apologize if it came off that way. I wanted to know so I can advertise it. This way I can get more people to join the game after the 'Update' goes live."

The squint on Gaius' face disappeared. A humming sound grounded against Paladina's eardrums.

"Hmm. I guess that wouldn't be so bad. I'm not adding anything. I am moving the timeline forward. When you reconnect the two worlds, time will have moved forward."

Frowning, Paladina went into thought.

'How can I advertise that without outright saying it? This is going to be a tough one for marketing.'

Gaius left her to her musings. Time wasn't an issue for him, but he still wanted to be done here quickly. Unfortunately, rushing the woman proved to be quite unfruitful to his endeavours.

After a few minutes of pondering, Paladina found a convenient way to make her advertising, without spoiling too much of the mystery. She had banked everything on the mystic of New Eden ever since it had come out.

Now was not the time to change that strategy.

"I think I know of a way, your grace. I will not take any more of your time. Did you need me to do anything before I leave?"

Gaius didn't even bother responding with words, only waving his hand dismissively at her. Paladina bowed at him, vanishing from the cloud-top.

Opening her eyes back inside her pod, Constantine smirked.

"Time for a marketing meeting. They will have to work overtime again," she muttered to herself.

For the next week, many of her marketing employees would cry about employee abuse, or ask for leaves of absence. But the threats of replacing them quelled their tempers relatively fast.

***

Back inside New Eden, Astaroth was still exploring the mountain cave he had found. After walking inside for a while, he noticed that the ground had started inclining upwards.

He also felt like the quasi-straight line he traversed should have curved after a while, since mountains weren't infinite at this height.

But that never came to be. He kept walking straight and up, for as long as many hours, never crossing paths with anything other than rocks and eerie glowing patches in the wall.

He had tried inspecting one of the said patches with the system, but nothing came up. Only when he tried looking at it with mana sense, his eyes could see condensed light mana emanating from the wall itself.

Astaroth even tried breaking the wall at one patch to see if the glow came from behind, but despite his incredible strength, he barely made a scratch on the stoney surface.

So he resolved to keep walking up the path. Only, he couldn't see an end to it, and that even when using Morpheus' echolocation.

The echo just never came back.

Since the whole situation felt weird, Astaroth stopped advancing. He activated his mana sense full throttle.

He could see the mana particles around him move slightly upward every time he walked forward. Almost like they were following him.

No matter how fast he went, the same mana particles always clung to his surroundings. This was weird, and he didn't understand how to go past it.

He had a feeling like this was the reason he still hadn't found the end of this tunnel.

'It's not an illusion. The mana is too pure for that. A spatial trap, maybe?'

But he wasn't sure about how to break free from a spatial trap. He had never encountered one yet.

Astaroth tried running as fast as he could, even activating Wind Walking. Nothing changed.

He then tried firing spells at the walls and further down the tunnel. Still nothing.

Astaroth was growing weary. What if he was stuck here until the patch hit?

Would it kick him out, or would he be stuck inside this trap for a decade, until he found a way of escaping?

Astaroth stopped in front of the patch of glowing wall again. He tried hitting it again, in hopes of destroying the wall and breaking free.

This time, he changed Ad Astra into a great axe, before coating the blade in mana with Enhance. He swung at the wall with all his might, using his Severing Strike skill.

When the blade impacted the wall, a loud clang echoed all around him, almost deafening him. A chip of the glowing surface exploded out, lodging itself behind him.

Astaroth smirked at the results. But just as he did, the chip suddenly started healing itself.

In mere moments, the glowing part of the wall was back to normal.

"Fuck! Me!! Seriously?!"

Kicking and cursing, Astaroth threw a fit at whoever created the trap, cursing their ancestor and descendants.

In his fury, Astaroth even punched at the patch of glowing rock, hoping whoever created this trap might feel some repercussions. He had an inkling of doubt that this was the center of the trap, and what was holding it in place.

But he had no idea how to break it. Brute force wasn't working.

He couldn't outrun its effects, either. He was out of ideas.

In his fit of anger, Astaroth kept cursing and hitting the wall until he stopped. He failed to notice at first, but his body had innately infused mana into his attacks.

When he last punched the wall, the rocky surface seemed to ripple slightly. Almost like it reacted to his mana.

Yet, when he hit it with the Ad Astra, infused with mana, it did nothing. Astaroth coated his fist in mana, consciously this time, and punched at the wall again.

The glowing surface rippled visibly under his fist.

A smirk made its way onto his lips.

'Now that is interesting.'