The arrival was, as always, a feeling of nonexistence and another of falling; it was like returning to the body after having drowned. Ikky was in a large round plaza at least 30 meters in diameter; fourteen streets went out in all directions, and the center of the plaza was presided over by a statue of what seemed to be a goddess.
The walls were high, pearl-colored and ended in a ribbed vault at least ten meters high, but the most striking thing in the entire room was undoubtedly the statue.
It was a colossal statue, more than 5 meters high, but the strangest thing was that no matter how much you moved, the statue always looked at you or that was Ikky's feeling. Willing to understand the trick or see if the pedestal rotated in some way, Ikky began to run around, however he did not detect any movement in the pedestal, somehow the statue was always facing him. It was as if the creator had made a magic effect so that no one could see the statue's back and bottom.
A silly detail, but given the rusticity of the previous cave this could be called refined. He had to remember to congratulate the creative who had designed the effect, as hard as he tried he could not undo the trick.
Just by looking at the statue, you could tell there was magic in it, but more than that, you could feel an aura of divinity and holiness emanating from it.
Ikky was not a believer, nor religious, but he felt before the statue as when he visited one of the many churches in Seville and looked at the virgins. He was in a way moved, in a way exalted, but above all he felt protected.
The figure itself was clearly anthropomorphic, you could even say that that face, those shapes, those proportions were human, only the level of perfection achieved was what could make you think that it was not a statue of a human virgin. She was wearing a robe with a nice vaporous effect, which did not hide her incipient suggestive breasts.
Ikky did not want to be disrespectful, but he was sure that some nipples were showing beneath the robe.
The player looked around again, it was easy to deduce that the fourteen streets must have some kind of connection with the fourteen types of energy that Data had mentioned.
Each of the streets leading out of the plaza had a small obelisk with a symbol: a flame, a snowflake, a wave, a mountain, a lightning bolt, an empty symbol, something that looked like a tree, a bone, an hourglass, a horizon, a sun, a dark spot, an eye, or a being pushing a stone. With the information he had, he could guess most of it, it didn't take much intelligence, although others were a complete mystery.
Data's voice echoed in his head, bringing him out of his initial daze due to the presence of the statue.
"Player, while you are in the sanctuary, you will not be hungry, thirsty, or sleepy. Explore the sanctuary until you ask to leave, or find the exit."
Hmmmm this was different from the cavern, he could leave the tutorial at any time, he didn't have to look for an exit. That made him think about what would have happened to the players who had died in the cavern or in the arena, would they have been able to continue playing with a penalty, or would they have become a ghost forcing them to look for the exit but without being able to interact with their surroundings? What penalties would death have in the rewards?
Before doing anything, Ikky took out the gem he had left and concentrated on it while meditating. His breathing became more rhythmic, and he began to feel the gem, not as it was on the outside but it was made inside at a microscopic, almost organic level, he noticed how the energy that had accumulated inside it was beating, it was not much, just a small flame. He concentrated on that sensation and let it invade him while he meditated. After a few minutes, he could no longer feel the energy inside the gem in a more palpable way and his percentage of affinity with the mana of the gems changed to 5/100.
However, in that relaxed state, he could feel another mana slowly flowing towards him from the statue. Ikky approached it curiously, sat down nearby, and continued meditating. That energy was warm, like sitting down to soak up some rays of sunshine on a winter morning. Time passed, and that flow of energy did not stop. When he lost track of how long he had been meditating, Data's voice announced:
"Congratulations on being the first player to complete a secondary mana core during the tutorial."
Spiritual mana core, level 1. 1/1000
Special meditation ability. 223/1000
The sensation was as if another heart was beating in his right kidney; it was strange. At the same time he could feel that without needing to meditate that energy continued to flow towards him, weaker but the link had not been broken, it remained there somehow.
Ikky approached the statue, trying to return that same energy to interact with it; But nothing happened, or maybe it did, the boy had no way of being sure. The only thing he noticed for a second, or so it seemed to him, was that the statue was smiling, and for another millisecond, just a tiny instant, the statue's eyes were pointing to his right instead of being fixed on him.
A clue? He couldn't know why but his instinct told him that it was better to follow the instructions, even if they had been a figment of his imagination. However, Ikky wasn't so simple as to blindly believe them, he opened his statistics, the sixth sense ability had gone from a measly 1 to a 2. It wasn't much but it was the symptom that something had happened, so he stood up ready to follow the advice, or his instinct.