The idea of letting players feel mana wasn't a new one in games but it wasnt thought to be posssible. Having your brain experience things in VR that you could already normally feel was realitively simple but feeling mana was giving your brain a whole new function to along with manipulate this brand new feeling was alot harder to program when Zel had made the game as Quinton it was something he struggled to do but wasn't overally hard to create so he thought most games would have had atleast some sembalance of this feature like you could feel it but wouldnt be able to use it. In New Orbis not being able to use mana would make you almost useless you couldnt create skills and if you couldnt manipulate the energies of the world it would make being a mage impossible while other classes it would be like fighting while missing an arm not impossible but way harder than it needed to be. Every class needed too be able to manipulate the energies in the world at somepoint while the difference in classes just signified what energy youd have to manipulate. An example would be where mages would manipulate the worlds mana to cast spells while a warrior would manipulate there bodies mana to create a technique almost every skill would have to be created and picking up skill books would just teach you the process the full control of the skill would be up to the player so for mages it would be even harder because they'd have to learn the language of spells plus be able to create magic circles then imagine how the spell looks and move the mana while the system would help with moving the mana when it recognized the skill/spell you were using offcially the intail creation would all have to be handle by the player. Plus any amining, excution, and image would have to be done manually even with the systems limited support. The main thing here was skills weren't class restricted if you were a swordman you could learn a fireball spell you just wouldnt get any class or eqipment buffs for its excution. While this made it extremely hard to be a mage at first the damage they could output on a large scale was montrous later on if they could do it well.
All this made Zel have a unique advantage against other players he had tested the energy manipulation feature so many times to get it right it had almost driven him mad. Zel already anticapated an advantage in this area but thought it would only be a slight learning curve for players instead of a whole new area of study people would have to devote alot of time to.
"Zel?" his Grandfather said as Zel was zoning out thinking about possible ways he could abuse this to his advatage.
"ah yah" finally snapping out of his thought spiral.
"Ok here's what were going to do. For the first part of your training just try to survive" his grandfather said standing with two swords hanging doward in his hand as he gave off the apearance of a old experienced sword master but in the next second his grandfather closed the gap between them almost instantly while in the next second a sword split Zel in half a slight tingling pain flooded Zel's body as his screen went black then about five seconds later he reappered in a daze his grandfather finally took the time to explain.
"I'm level 5 right now but because my basic attribute were higher at level one im almost equivalent to most level 8 creature in the games that are out now your objective is just to dodge, block, or attack for five minutes straight if you die we start over this will go on for the next hour then Felix and Kai will step in and they'll train you in something else. Ready good" and a repeat of Zel dying with out reacting happened again. This happened thousands of times within the next hour almost driving Zel to maddness while games almost had the same effect as dying in a dream dying over and over while not being able to do anything was alot for one person to handle and after a short break his grandfather logged off with a smile on his face as Felix logged in laughing as he looked at the mentally exhausted Zel.
"Hey Zel the old man looks like he had alot of fun what happened"
Zel shivered at this not wanting to relive the past hour of torture finally steeling his mind he asked Felix what their training was going to be
"Ok well real men prove thier worth by never backing down so your gonna attack me land an attack within 5 mins then we will up the difficulty sounds good now come on."
Zel thought this was way easier then his grandfathers training so he began to get cocky as he stood there with his one handed sword in a stance as he ran foward lacking any techique he swung his sword off balance and with out setting his feet toward Felix. Who was holding two hand axes at his side looking like an savage berserker prepared for battle.
As soon as Zel started his ugly off balance attack a flash off light made its way across his body followed by Zel feeling the brief tingling pain of death before his screen went black and he was loaded back into the game.
As Zel stood there dazed Felix started to talk "Oh I forgot to mention if your footwork is bad and your attack is out of control I'll attack instead of defend so make sure you focus" he said while laughing
As he said this Felix could only think of how bad he felt for Zel "if the old man hadn't said I couldnt hold back I probably would have made this easier" mentally shaking his head rembering the threat he was under if he went easy on Zel. Felix ready himself to abuse this kid for the next hour only mentally offering his condolences at Zel's unfortante fate. And thats what repeated to happen Zel would try to attack then imeadiatly die never completing his first attack and a repeat of him dying thousands of times happened for the next hour leaving Zel boiling in rage at the end of this training session as Felix logged off happily.
As Kai logged in Zel stuggled to calm his mental state as Kai began to talk in his emotionless voice while taking stance with his dual curved daggers
"I'm going to attack you once within the next ten second dogde or defend this will go on for the next five minutes" as he said this the air around Kai vibrated and he disappeared leaving Zel standing there by himself not knowning what to do. Two seconds went by then Zel felt the now familiar feeling of being split in half as Kai appeared at he same time now standing behind him. This repeated over and over but some times within one second and sometimes at 10 seconds fear began to overwhelm Zels body as the aniticipation of attack you knew was coming but seemed to never come where or when you expected it to continued to kill Zel over and over as he struggled to look for signs that an attack was coming after the hour was done Zel was so anxious he stepped out of the pod constantly looking around thinking he could die at anytime he was sure he'd have nightmare about that experience for years to come..