A New World, an immersive game experience

Disappointed that she couldn't notice any effects, Nikki turned her attention toward the active abilities. Of which the shield had only two. But both were extremely strong and useful.

[Active abilities:]

[Dome of protection: Summon a barrier of wind, protecting a set area from all attacks. Be they magical or physical. (Allows attacks from inside to leave the barrier unimpeded)]

[Upon activation, the wielder can decide who may enter the Dome of Protection. Without active instruction, the dome will allow party members free entry and exit.]

[Cost (Activation): 200 (per 2-meter radius) <231>]

[Cost (Drain): Raw damage value of blocked attacks minus 51.67 <43.54> (1/3 MR rating). Attacks below 51.67 <43.54> raw damage value will not cost any mana to block.]

[Cooldown: 15 minutes (per 2-meter radius covered)]

This was the reason the shield had actually won the votes. With this, Nikki could invalidate all attacks below Tier 4, and many Tier 5 attacks too, at the cost of just 200 MP (plus some mana because of the efficiency cost, due to her attributes being lower than the required).

And, if she wanted to increase the dome's radius to ten meters, that would still only cost around 1k MP. Her current limit. The fact that the growth wasn't exponential in cost was massive. Though the CD was tied with its size, sadly.

But ten meters was a large area, and it would only 1 hour and 15 minutes of CD even then. And last as long as her mana did.

Such a safety net would be massive in group battles. And that wasn't the only ability the shield offered.

[Healing Winds: Call upon the soothing winds of healing, gracing all those nearby with comfort and renewed energy.]

[Cost: 500 MP (per 2-meter radius) <579 MP>]

[Heal: 110 (503 HP heal) <93> [424 HP heal]]

[Envigoration: 55 SP <46.34>]

[Cooldown: 5 minutes (per 2-meter radius affected)]

Honestly, the cost of healing was a bit much for Nikki. While she had managed to reach Tier 5 in magic (along with the other two classes), her mana wasn't nearly as abundant as normal mages' MP pools. After all, she didn't specialize her gear towards it.

Just as her time was spread trying to master all the classes, her equipment was the same. With more focus on melee, if she was to be honest. That and her throwing daggers, which were super useful in a pinch.

'Oh right, my MP increased thanks to equipping the shield.' Nikki noted. Still, three casts would be her limit with Healing Winds. Meanwhile, she could now spread the dome to 14 meters radius. Which was massive, no doubt about it.

'Oh, this wasn't shown in the photos,' Noticing a footnote under Healing Winds, Nikki read on curiously.

[When Dome of protection has been cast, Healing Winds can be cast at a tenth of the cost while within the barrier, at the cost of matching their cooldowns. The healing range will be matched to that of the barrier—and the cost will scale with the size of the barrier.]

'Well, isn't that just OP.' Nikki thought. Increasing the cooldown to ten minutes wouldn't be a problem. Heck, that was more than worth it. 'Oh, wait, if I were to summon a ten-radius dome, that would be over an hour of CD...'

Still, it was massive. After all, she had mana problems. If the cost of offering some healing was reduced, she could focus her mana elsewhere.

Be it to increase the dome's size (which would then also increase the healing range, but also the cooldown) or on other things like her own spells.

"We need to test what quality of healing the shield offers," Erik said, bringing Nikki out of her analysis of the skills. Like her, he had probably been reading through them too.

Wondering what the footnote was about, Nikki told herself to remember to mention this latter. For now, they had other things to discuss.

The others had all gone through the shield's abilities again. They needed to be aware of each other's strengths and weaknesses for the upcoming tournament.

Sure, the guild battles would include a hundred players total for each guild. But, in the end, it would likely come down to the elites of each guild duking it out.

As a matter of pride, they all wanted to achieve victory without Eldrian's help. He was simply too far ahead. Relying on him felt like cheating.

They would still do so, since they really needed the cash reward. But they wanted to prove themselves in the upcoming tournament.

Prove that they weren't just riding his coattails. Prove that they were truly elite among the players. That they could help him. That they would be able to stand next to him, no matter what course things took IRL and in the game.

Besides the cash reward, like dungeons, the tournament also now offered treasure chests (for all participants—grade depending on ranking) and two Tier 8 items for first place. Three Tier 7 weapons for second, and five for third.

"Right, but..." Nikki hesitated. To test healing, you needed someone who was injured.

It was common fact by this point that spells Tier 1-4 healed various levels of injury. With Tier 5 and above becoming able to regrow limbs and other missing body parts.

While the shield was Tier 8, they couldn't very well expect its effects on an AOE heal to be at the same level.

If it could restore the limbs of all in the area, that would simply be beyond insanely OP. It would be a broken item. Capable of bringing an entire team back to full health with just a single spell—on a 15-minute CD (if they made sure to be efficient).

It was more likely it would recover HP with less focus on actual healing. This was often the case for healing spells of the nature element—that aren't specialized.

Meanwhile, water healing often focused more on the wound and less on HP. Which in turn made them extremely dangerous to use without also using a rejuvenation spell on the patient. Especially if the patient had lost a lot of blood, or was near death.

This meant that the healer had to still be proficient in the element of nature regardless.

While it was possible for someone else to cast the Anthos line spells, it could clash with the healer's spells. Especially with specialized spells.

There were other elements of healing too. Eldrian had explored it shallowly, and Myropsis had dived quite deeply into it. It was how she had found her talent for water healing.

Naturally, she had shared what she had learned with the others. The earth element wasn't good at healing, but it was excellent for prevention methods. Increasing one's immune system and such.

Fire worked well on the sick, providing them with a great deal of energy but not much actual (HP) healing.

Wind... didn't do anything unless the patient was struggling to breathe. But that could be due to Myropsis' lack of knowing how to imagine it to help a person other than allowing them to breathe, despite their lungs failing.

Light and dark were both extremely difficult to use. According to Myropsis, Dark worked well on disease (pestilence and the like). However, any mishap in the spell could cause great harm to the patient. Harm that was difficult to repair, even with divine healing. Not to mention standard elemental healing.

The light element was the same, only it worked well for mental illnesses. But a mishap would make the patient even more mentally damaged. And again, divine healing would be their only hope at that point.

"Right, Judith, let's test this!" Erik shouted.

"Huh?! Why me!?" She shouted in argument.

"Huh? What do you mean why?" Erik asked, honestly confused. "Aren't you the one who goes into fights aiming to be hurt. Aren't you obviously the right choice?"

"That doesn't mean I want to be a guinea pig!" Judith shouted in protest. Realizing that this still left an avenue for arguing, she added with haste, "And it isn't that I like being hurt!"

"Let's leave that for later," Elizabeth said, breaking up the fight before they wasted even more time teasing Judith. "We can test the shield's healing abilities when someone naturally gets injured. So there is no need for fighting.

"We all received the treasure chests. I think we should open them to see what they drop." The rest of the guild had already done just that.

"Oh, right! I hope we get some attribute-increasing potions!" Zyviss shouted, voice filled with hope.

While the increase was meager, it was still a way to become stronger. Something that was quite—no, extremly rare in the game.

Levels were hard to come by and far too easy to lose. Tiers weren't something they could advance through easily. And equipment was expensive, and limited by their stats.

And these potions could increase those stats! Allowing them to use higher Tier equipment. Allowing them to escape from the level and Tier limitation hell.