From Player To Npc

Chapter 33: The strange room

During the week that he was making the SMITHING orders, he had pushed his bodies enough to want some sleep only twice, but he didn't have the strange dream of going to the Dark Room or hear the mysterious voice. Today it was the same, and during it, he was completely out.

Even his great PERCEPTION didn't work. He had noticed that, and he considered it to be a side effect of lifting the curse, and he should do something for it in the future. He was always on guard even when sleeping, so he decided to sleep only when completely necessary until he deals with it.

He didn't have a dream during his sleep, but he was in an empty white space, but he lacked a body, and his senses were limited like a mist had filled the whole space. He didn't have access to any of his Skills or his Mana or Spells. He just had to wait for time to pass as if he concentrated hard enough; he could feel if he had enough sleep or not. But no matter how hard he concentrated, he couldn't notice if anything was happening in the area around his sleeping body.

This was another reason he didn't want to sleep cause he was in this space not being able to do anything but wander around, but there wasn't anything at all. No matter how much he moved in one direction, he didn't find anything, just more flat ground, and he sometimes even wondered if he was really walking or just staying still.

He kept concentrating on his different Skills of his or using some of his Mana, but nothing worked in there. But then one thing worked.

His VISUALIZATION skill.

His Mana Skills couldn't work cause he couldn't use any mana, his PERCEPTION was completely blocked by the mist, which was quite weird, and most others were depending on him having an actual body, which he didn't in here.

But his VISUALIZATION was a mental Skill that didn't need anything like mana or having a body.

So since he didn't have anything better to do, he decided to work on this as it could be quite useful at higher Rank as he could visualize his crafts at their final form or each part separately, or even help him on his spellcasting as he could visualize a Mana Circle and draw it increasing its quality and possible decreasing his casting time.

He decided to visualize something big and not the usual, just having people doing something. Hence, he started by visualizing his room, which he was currently sleeping in.

He firstly made planks to make the floor and then did the walls. He then put the window and the desk with the mirror and the door to the corridor leading to the kitchen, but it was close. Then he worked on a chest where there was most likely supposed to have toys or clothes, but it was empty. He created the closet of theirs and then their beds.

He kept working on adding every detail he could work even possible cracks in walls he had noticed or make the beds not be tidy to add some difficulty on all and make it more believable as it was most of the times like that, especially Annoue's who seemed to forget of tidying hers sometimes but always did of Shingi if he didn't do for some reason.

After working on it for not knowing how long it was like he really was in the room and wanted to get in his meditate stance to train, he wasn't able to.

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You created a TRANCE ROOM. Want to use it?

YES/NO

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Shingi was surprised by the notification as it was the first time one appeared while he was in here and the name of the room.

He had heard many theories and stories on reaching a trance state, but one couldn't know what was true and what was false as some were just ridiculous and some were considered impossible for one to do.

One using his VISUALIZATION as he did he never heard of leading to something like that, but he didn't know if anyone would really create a full room that detailed with this skill. Even Architects, if they used this skill, didn't put that much detail just through the general layout and draw the rest on paper or something or used illusion magic instead.

Shingi was quite curious as always, and it didn't seem that there was any harm in trying either way, so he accepted on using the room.

The notification became a ball of light and kept increasing in brightness. At the point Shingi saw just white, and then the light disappeared, and he was back to the room he visualized, but there was one difference.

'The mist is gone, and I can feel something different... is that mana?' [Shingi]

He could feel some mana even if he could not use his mana skills, and the mana felt strangely very similar to his own. He tried to manipulated it and seemed to follow his mental commands even if he felt like he wasn't using his MANA MANIPULATION skill.

He concentrated more as with the mist gone, his mind seemed to be somewhat clearer, and his PERCEPTION seemed to be there for him to be used, but there seemed to be restricted for some reason. Same for all his other Master Rank skills, he could feel like he could use them but seemed to be restricted like they were Low Rank. As for the rest of his Skill, it felt nothing of them.

He tried casting a Spell with the mana he could control, and he tried the one he used the most, his MANA HAND, and it was actually cast with no problem. Also, the mana he used was replaced at an unthinkable speed.

He kept using all his Spells, and he didn't have a problem casting any of them, and the mana he used was kept getting refilled as fast as he used it like there was an unlimited source producing it.

'This is greater than I thought it would be.' [Shingi]

Shingi wanted to train his Spells and especially his Base Grade ones to become more familiar with them, but he couldn't do it cause his mana limited him. But here, it was like he had unlimited mana. He still could feel the limits of what he could handle, but the mana surrounding him and feeling like the mana coming from his own Mana Tree was coming without an end, making him just using one spell after the other without breaks. Also, he didn't seem to strain his mind in here and not even losing any SP, but he couldn't be sure cause he wasn't able to open his Status in here, apparently.

So he trained himself on both his Skills and Spells by doing different training activities.

He used his VISUALIZATION to create his own body, and it really succeeded. He had a body in the place, but it took him some time to focus on making the movements he wanted to do. He trained on his VISUALIZATION too, which didn't seem to need to be used to keep the room in place anymore and wasn't restricted but instead seemed to be empowered somewhat.

He kept casting INVISIBILITY on himself to become familiar with it and moving on it as quietly as possible. He had some difficulty as he didn't have access to his STEALTH skill but using his PERCEPTION, and he could notice the problems and fix them. Then he kept casting ROCK THROW instead of creating rocks and throwing them using his IMPROVISED THROW WEAPON skill and kept using his ACCELERATION to increase his speed and get in the way of his spell and stop it by using MANA MANIPULATION to keep the mana created stone in place.

He noticed that he couldn't use his Breaking-Limit stage here, but he thought it makes sense as it wasn't really a skill, and the Trance was rumored to help you in your Skills and stuff like that.

And so the time passed until a System Notification appeared in front of him.

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The TRANCE ROOM has reached its Limits.

It is gonna be unavailable to use for 24 hours now.

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When he finished reading that, the whole room disappeared, and he was back to the white misty space.

He tried to use his VISUALIZATION, but this time it seemed like he couldn't use that either, so this time he really had nothing to do.

'Well, at least I can do this once per day, and maybe the cooldown will decrease the more I use it' [Shingi]

He focused on seeing what state his body was in, and it seemed like he had enough rest not to need more sleep, at least so he woke up right away.

As he woke up, he noticed the sleeping Annoue being next to him and noticing by a crack in the window outside that it was dark as it was nighttime.

'Did I sleep for that long?' [Shingi]

He should be asleep for more than 8 hours, but he could know specifically how long he was asleep since he didn't have a clock or something, so he had to estimate the time somewhat.

His body was in a better state than before his sleep, but he still needed more time to be back to 100%.

He noticed a bowl of soup next to their bed at his side, and it seemed like it got cold as it was there for some time. He was hungry, and it wasn't like it was inedible when cold.

He would normally go to the storehouse to meditate there to feed his Mana Tree and Mana Seeds, but he didn't want to do it in his current state just in case. It wasn't like he couldn't do it here as it wouldn't wake Annoue up as he didn't make any noise, but the mana around the storehouse seemed to be better than the one here case he had a better view on the moon as its light seemed to have the greatest effect at his tree.

So he focused on feeding his Mana Tree and his Mana Seed and focusing on their progress and if his Tree had changed at all.

The Seeds seemed somewhat bigger than they used to be, meaning that they had more mana, so they could be more helpful but could feel that they still had a way to reach their limit and possibly become a Mana Fruit.

His Mana Tree seemed like there were some changes in the distribution of his Light and Earth mana as it went from 70/30 to almost 65/35. Those, of course, were estimations as he didn't know the exact numbers, just going through how much he was feeling the amount of each to be. It was like he could feel how much each weighted and change that to the amount of mana, but he had to keep in mind that the Earth Mana was weighing more than Light mana, so even if it was 'heavier', it was still less in quantity than Light.

But it wasn't so hard to make the calculations as the Mana coming from the Mana Tree was like a part of him, and after the time he passed in the TRANCE ROOM, he became even more familiar with it.

At that point, he also tried to grind his MANA SENSE, and this time he barely used his PERCEPTION, trying to get all the details with his MANA SENSE only. He could feel it making some progress, but he could also feel that wall that he couldn't pass.

This was what was separating the Base Rank and the Master Rank of one Skill, and even if he had a few Master Rank skills, it didn't mean that he could raise all his skill at that Rank as each one had its own way to be raised and had to pass different obstacles to reach the Master Rank.

But he knew that he shouldn't complain as he was an NPC who was able to transfer high-Rank skills from his Player character and use them even with his child body even if they were limited, but in time, they would grow. Even his ACCELERATION, which had reached Master Rank, which would be close to the level at his Player Character, still had a long way to go for him to go as fast as he could when he used it as his Player. But this also somewhat caused the limits of his current stats, but he is slowly getting there.

After reaching 16 in his END, his body would handle even more as, after 15, one was considered Proficient on that Stat. The difference between someone having a stat at 16 and having it at 15 was often more than the difference between 15 and 14.

It seemed like some Passive effects were granted to the ones who passed the limit of 15, which was the limit that an NPC would normally reach without having a class of help from an outside force.

Of course, Shingi was a special case, and he had both his INT and END at 16 cause of his vast knowledge that a normal NPC wouldn't have and some luck.

He had his INT at 16 for quite some time, but he still didn't know what benefits were getting out of it as the benefits seemed to vary per character. But either way, his goal was to reach at least his INT at 20, where he would have no problem casting Base or Master Rank spells so that he would be a powerhouse at that point.

If he were lucky, he would be able to cast some Grand Master spells too, but they were quite rare to find and learn.

But either way, that wasn't something he could do shortly as increasing one's stats wasn't easy, especially after reaching 16.

Even Players had a problem as leveling up wasn't granting you Stats points as at other games, but only some Rare Quests could possibly do something like that. There were also some potions, but they needed quite rare ingredients, and one could use them only once for each stat, and if try to consume another one, even if it were a different potion, it would have no effect.

One Player in the past had found the recipe, which was granting +2 END. One of the main materials needed for it was the heart of an Ancient or older Black Dragon killed at least a week before creating the potion.

A dragon to be considered ancient has to be at least 1000 years old, and Black Dragons are known for their acidic nature and their body dissolving their innards when dying, making gathering his heart even harder even if you could find one and kill it. The rest of the materials weren't as ridiculous but not the least rare or hard to get.

The player who found the recipe had posted it in the forum of the game saying how ridiculous the materials were for one to gather, and not even one of the big Guild would be able to make it. For some time, many Guilds tried to gather the materials since they got the recipe for free as he posted even how to make the potion, not just what materials needed.

But none came close to gather them all, even if some worked together and they stopped trying after a while.

Even the Dragon that Shingi fought was a little too young to reach the Ancient stage, and Shingi, or more specifically Ameanum, was barely able to defeat it back then.

'To increase my power and of the rest, my knowledge won't be enough. I also need money. Their equipment will cost a lot, especially if we go to train to some of the special places I know.' [Shingi]

At that point, he had an idea and checked if something was available in his System.

Without any delay, after making sure he was ready, he activated his SPECTATOR MODE, which was ONLINE currently.