From Player To Npc

Shingi always had on his mind the unnatural for her age STR of Annoue, but he never thought it to be used against him like that. Her grip didn't seem to get any weaker as time passed, and Shingi was too weak to get out with his current skill set. Even his PERCEPTION was useless now.

And so he tried a different approach, which was to try to open the window to let some of the moonlight get in. His mana manipulation was too low, and he couldn't draw it to him with the window closed.

But the window was normally out of his reach, but since he didn't have much choice, he decided to take a risk and try something he hadn't tried yet or even had done in the past.

And so he manipulated as much mana as he could and moved it around his free arm. And after that, he made a certain move of raising his arm with a closed fist moving just his hand back and then moving it forward while at the same time opening his fist almost like giving a high-five in the air. As he completed it, some multicolored mist barely appeared for a second at some places around his arm and dismissed right away.

And so he kept repeating the move again and again as the mist was getting thicker and thicker and was covering more and more of his arm. After 20 or so minutes of doing that with some small breaks to replenish mana that was getting released from his control now and then, a misty hand was created when he completed the move and seemed almost solid. Still, it was barely keeping the shape of the arm.

Shingi used all his focus to keep it up as the mana since it didn't come from his Mana Pool; it tried to release itself, so he keeps having to manipulate it. After he got somewhat used to keeping the hand's shape, he started to command it to hover towards the window mentally. It slowly started doing it. He focused on making it mimicking his hand movements, which was easier than making it move, which was good news.

It took him a while to open the window since he couldn't feel with his mana-created hand, but with his use of PERCEPTION skill, which fortunately since it was that high ranked it didn't take much focus out of him, he finally opened it.

The whole casting the spell and opening the window took it a little less than an hour, but he was strained almost as much as the whole night training of his.

But he couldn't stop now as he had gotten too close to his goal to stop now.

After taking a 5-minute break to clear his mind as much as possible, he returned his mind to focus on his MANA MANIPULATION skill, using it on the mana around him and, more specifically, the special mana of the moonlight.

His pace was slower than normal since he couldn't get into his meditate stance, making things faster for himself at his current skill rank. He was also mentally strained from casting the spell.

But little did Shingi know that he was lucky that he could even cast even a simple spell like that in his current situation. And the reason behind his luck was one.

His unknown Blessing and its Passive ability seemed to work on tasks like casting a spell he normally wouldn't be able to. However, the System didn't mention it since even if he had Mana Skills, he was still not considered an Arcane User. Normally, a man without a Mana Pool needs at least 20 INT to cast a spell, even the simplest one. Still, for the System, Shingi was considered like having more INT cause of the blessing and had more than enough, but that didn't mean it would be a walk in the park.

Time passed, and Shingi could feel the Mana Seed of his growing and spreading its root but no indication other than that.

And so hours passed, and normally they would feel like days at Shingi, but now they felt like weeks, but as time passed, instead of things becoming more difficult and harder to handle, they actually become easier. He thought that probably his MANA MANIPULATION was ranking up the cause of the strain, but he was too focused to notice any System Notifications that would appear in front of him, letting him know of something like that.

If someone were looking at the room, he would notice something strange happening, and the source wasn't Shingi but the person next to him.

A tattoo appeared on the forehead of Annoue, which one would recognize right away even if it was smaller in size and is green in color. The same tattoo that Hineko saw on Shingi's chest during the first night of the Festival.

And from the forehead of her greenish energy like mist was released and was getting towards Shingi and into his nose. But even his high PERCEPTION didn't seem to notice all that, especially since his mind focused on the task at hand.

And finally, what Shingi waited for happened as a small sprout appeared on his ground. And it kept growing and growing in size as it stopped at the height of close to 25 or so centimeters from the ground and was like a small shrub.

Of course, this wasn't the final form of his Mana Pool, or he had in his mind when creating the Mana Seed, but some Mana Pools had different stages. Of course, the higher stages have more benefits, but of course, unlocking them isn't an easy thing to do but depends on the Mana Seed used, and even if Shingi knew that, he wouldn't be one of the easy ones he was up for the challenge as always.

But at least for now, he wanted to relax as he reached his goal and barely in time as he seemed to have reached his limit as he even seemed to have consumed a little of more than half his SP during the whole progress, which has never happened in the previous two days or during training but that showed that even his body got tired of the whole progress and not just his mind.

For the first time since he got into this body, he felt a specific feeling. He felt that he needed some sleep.

And that was actually what he did without even checking his status window as he was too tired mentally to process any new information.

And so, for the first time in his new body, he fell asleep, and the feeling was unfamiliar.

He felt a warmth surrounding him, but it wasn't hurting him but instead making him more comfortable and relaxed. Even if everything around him were dark and looked like the same as the place he was trapped in those two years because of that warmth, he wasn't afraid.

And then he was starting to hear a voice. It was a shallow volume voice that was barely able to hear, but as time passed, it was getting louder and louder.

It seemed to be a female voice but not of someone too old or too young. He couldn't see or feel any other indication of her other than her voice. It seemed that it didn't come from somewhere specific but from all over the place, but it gave him a peaceful feeling.

And the voice seemed to sing but in a language that Shingi didn't know but seemed to have heard of. And he remembered that it was a language he had heard in the past but not in-game but in the real world. It was probably on television or somewhere else, and the words in that song seemed similar to those of that, but he didn't know their meaning behind them, but he understood at least one word.

Angel.

Normally he would think more about it and try to make more sense of everything, but the more clear the voice was becoming, the more relaxed he was and let those thoughts behind for now.

And the song went on and on as it didn't seem to be too long. The voice was starting it from the beginning when reaching the end without any breaks, but Shingi never got tired of hearing either the song or the voice.

And so, after who knows how much time passed, the voice said something that Shingi had fully understood.

"Sleep well, my child" [Angelic voice]

And the voice dissipated suddenly after those words, and Shingi remained in the dark by himself.

This time no warmth existed, and it was like he was back there having this weird feeling of having nobody. And so Shingi started panicking, and even if he couldn't, he swear that he started heavy breathing.

He didn't have a mouth, but he was almost hearing his screams filling the room.

He didn't have legs, but he was feeling like he was running in panic.

He had spent too much time in the darkness, and he had grown a fear to spend time in a place like that by his own powerless that. Even at the somewhat dark storehouse, he wasn't afraid cause he had his skills, and he could fight or run away.

But in this room, these weren't options.

And then a strange green-shaped light of a letter appeared that at least Shingi was unfamiliar with. Then, as the light was getting brighter and brighter, he saw at the center of it a familiar face having a big smile on her face while looking towards him—the face of his sister Annoue.

And then he opened his eyes, and he saw the same face in front of him, but she was currently sleeping and smiling but not with a big smile as what he saw just a moment ago.

And so he woke up and he could feel that his bed was full of sweat, but he didn't know if the reason was the creation of his Mana Pool or his strange dream.

Fortunately, it seemed that Annoue's grip became more relaxed at some point, and his arm was released as he got to be able to move once again.

Looking outside the still open window, he noticed that it was close to sunrise, so he still have some time until Annoue wakes up.

And so he started focusing and putting everything together of what happened as they were fresh in his mind.

'Could that voice actually be our Mother?' [Shingi]

The song seemed like a lullaby that one would sing to their child. Since a real-world language was used, a player most suddenly sang it as mostly developers wanted to use language created by themselves. But it could be Shingi could be wrong, and there was actually a language like that in the game since he wasn't an expert on them and wasn't really familiar with all the game languages. Still, his instinct was saying otherwise, and in this kind of situation, he knew to follow it.

But even if he wanted, he didn't have any way to find out what language it was as his only option was to ask a player, which would draw too much attention.

But then he remembered some specific individuals. Hineko, the young player that he terrified, also met the two girls while he was in Spectator Mode.

He didn't have any news of Hineko the past two days. Still, he had told him to meet him in 5 days, so 3 more have remained, and the two girls were too far away from him, and no change had happened at his SPECTATOR MODE during these days. But time was passing differently for them. For him, 5 days was 1 day in the real world unless the developers have changed that.

And so, since he couldn't do anything by himself, he let it go until he met with one of them or even someone else he could use.

And so he finally did what he wanted to do and check since he woke up.

He opened his status window.