A New World, an immersive game experience

The weapon, in its compact mace form, had a handle around the length of Eldrian\'s forearm with a bladed head around the size of a fist.

The handle could be expanded, and the head could grow a bit larger (to wield with two hands) and it also had a sword, spear, and staff form.

[Willo — Tier 10 (unevolved, unbonded) Morphing Weapon (Current form: One-handed mace | Other forms: Two-handed mace, Sword, Spear, Staff)]

[Damage (mace): 220 (2226) blunt (4/6 c/d)]

[Magical Damage (mace: Holy): 110 (1140)]

\'Yeah, has to be the 3k damage... has to be.\' Eldrian thought, realizing that his new weapon might be a little overkill. If he used it against the Death Knight, the fight would be anticlimactic. No question about it.

Eldrian couldn\'t recall the exact details of the Death Knight, but he recalled vaguely that its stats had been around 50k.

At the time, that had been an unimaginable pool of HP and mana to Eldrian. But now, his own HP was sitting just under 10k and his mana over 10k. If he included the mana in his mana soul (which had grown over the past few months) he could match the Death Knight easily.

Then... Eldrian had his auras and.... \'Yeah, it will be overkill.\'

\'And that is without using any abilities. Should I put it away for now?\' Eldrian had come to test his growth in the dungeon. After all, Ziraili forbade him from using magic in the Core.

If he used Willo, however, he wouldn\'t be able to test anything other than the weapon\'s destructiveness. Which, granted, was a good thing to test. But not why he had joined.

"Wow..." The nearby players had all stopped to stare at the crater.

"Is that It? The weapon Boran forged?" Therdul asked, having lagged behind the others due to his heavy armor and massive tower shield slung across his shoulder. It was as wide and tall as the dwarf.

"Yeah... Was just thinking it would be overkill."

The irony wasn\'t lost on Therdul. The guild couldn\'t run this difficulty without Eldrian, yet Eldrian thought using his new weapon would be too much. He really was on an entirely different level.

But hey, considering how much he had been pushing himself, Therdul couldn\'t say Eldrian shouldn\'t be as strong as he was.

"Can you use it? Like, fully?" Therdul asked. A natural question to ask. It was a Tier 10 weapon—and unevolved. Which, apparently, meant it could grow stronger once it bonded with someone.

"Ah, yeah. They designed it so I can access two abilities without equipping it." Eldrian replied. Equipping was the action of bonding an item to you to get all the passive benefits. Which Eldrian couldn\'t do since he didn\'t meet the stat requirements.

The two abilities he had access to were:

[Morphing Weapon: Allows the weapon to change shape, however, limited to predesigned weapon designs. Each form has a unique magic damage bonus on attacks. (Currently: Holy)]

[Cage: By having the edges of the mace head (hilt decoration of the sword, back of the spear, or decorations of the staff) separate from the weapon, the user can form a cage or directly attack with the needle-like blades.]

[Mana can then be channeled between the blades to form an area spell spanning between the blades.]

[Cage of Lighting: Using the blades as lightning rods, form a deadly trap for any within the cage. Each active bolt consumed costs 250MP to summon. Deals 275 (3k) damage on contact and consumes 250MP per jump.]

It was by no means cheap, but since Eldrian could control the cage formation, it could be optimized easily. Though he still needed to experiment to master how to use the ability.

[Cage of Benediction: Forming a cage of holy light...

[Cage of Inferno: Forming a cage of fire...

[Cage of Amplification: Forming a cage of ricocheting wind...

[...]

Okay, saying only two abilities was a bit misleading. Considering the second had multiple forms it could take, allowing for optimal use in almost all situations.

Eldrian didn\'t even need to stick to cage format, he could send the blades into any formation, and even into enemies to focus the damage onto them.

"Why don\'t we check how well I can control it?" Eldrian asked with a sly smile.

The lower undead (with a fair number of unwilling and some higher) assaulting the fort were not of importance to Eldrian. They were fodder who would only slow things down. He didn\'t mind going overkill on them.

Though he was a bit worried about the mana cost associated with clearing the entire horde. Still, he thought it would be acceptable if he started with a large cage that shrunk as he killed the undead.

"Ah... sure?" Not sure what Eldrian was on about, Therdul jogged to keep up with everyone else\'s walking pace.

Making it up to the walls, Eldrian watched the horde of undead rushing the fort. Nostalgia filled him as he recalled all the times this sight had chilled him to the bones.

"It really is nice to become strong," Eldrian commented, activating Cage.

\'Oh, this feels similar to ether-guidedweapons.\' Happy that they had managed to even match this, eliminating the need to learn how to control the focal blades, Eldrian sent the six needle-like blades out into the horde.

As they flew, a few undead were sliced and pierced, but that didn\'t kill them. Though it would have certainly halted a normal living being right then and there.

After setting up the cage, and having the two extra needles go where the undead was densest—Eldrian activated Cage of Benediction.

He had considered using the inferno one, but holy would be far more effective against the undead.

—

Watching Eldrian\'s actions, Therdul wondered just what he was doing. His new weapon was, supposedly, something matching legendary items (if they even existed). Of course, they did, Therdul didn\'t doubt that, but no player had ever seen such an item.

The fact that Eldrian owned one was just... it was simply insane.

\'Yikes, those things are deadly. Is he going to dice up the undead with them?\' Therdul wondered, watching as the small needle-like blades flew from the mace and into the horde.

\'No, doesn\'t seem like they do enough damage, but...\' Therdul got chills. Such small items would be devastating against the living. Hard to see, super fast, and small enough to fit between the gaps in armor.

Even if he had on his full turtle armor, he still had openings for his eyes. A mesh of type, but those needles would pass right through said openings.

What happened next as Eldrian said the ability activation key "Cage of Benediction" chilled Therdul to his core.

What he could only describe as the light of the gods fell from the sky onto the tiny blades—that had long since lost from his sight, too small to see from the walls. How Eldrian kept track of them was a mystery.

And those lights... They annihilated all the undead that came into contact with them.

And these lights jumped. From one point to the other, they moved at increasing speeds. Killing all the undead they came across as they flew. The cage grows smaller with each bounce.

Worse yet, more and more lights were joining the cage.

In just a few minutes, the entire horde was nothing more than ash. Mostly.

—

"Oh, that worked quite well. And it doesn\'t drain mana for each undead hit, only once per path." Eldrian commented nonchalantly. Turning to find everyone staring at him with slack-jawed amazement. Even the dungeon NPCs!

They weren\'t supposed to have such life-like reactions in Dungeons.

To save on computation power—or perhaps because they were actual AI and not living beings like the normal NPCs—they were supposed to be closer to normal NPCs in other games.

Yet, here they were staring at Eldrian in disbelief. Like their code couldn\'t keep up with the developments.

Perhaps that was just what was happening.