From Player To Npc

Chapter 5: Preparing the Fountation

The creation of a Mana Pools needs a source that contains part of the mana of some entity. The most common use was using herbs to restore mana and was the easiest to be controlled to create a Mana Pool as their mana was meant to be one with the least resistance.

Other sources would be the blood of creatures, as their mana would be more potent in their blood.

One example would be Dragons. As different kinds have different benefits and difficulties to use. The blood from a red one would be easier to be used since they aren't much on the use of magic. In contrast, the Blue Ones, famous for tinkering with Magic, would be harder for their blood to be used. Of course, since the blood's power came from a being of immense power, it would be a formidable challenge in both cases.

Lastly, of course, there are more Natural, or for some, Divine sources. There are multiple gods, one for pretty much everything, and some share their power through something representing them.

Some say that every fire of great forges has the power of the God Of Crafting, for example, and some of them were having the ability to produce items considered divine. But this kind of power was hard-earned but easily taken away if you were considered losing your way or wasting the power the God or Goddess who gave it could take it back.

And now Shingi was ready to encounter something like that.

The moon was a typical full moon, but Shingi noticed a detail that few would pay attention to. There was a very slight blue sheen to the moon.

'So we are at that place, and the festival seems to get close.'[Shingi]

The place he was talking about was called Carda, and it was more like a relatively large village. Even if did have one of the King's castles, the castle belonged to the previous King. The current one, who was his son, had moved to another one a little time after becoming the King.

Carda wasn't a famous place for players cause it was far from the tower and was surrounded by low-level monsters, and was far from any of the beginner's towns. It had an open market that Players could use to make a temporary store, but since it wasn't such a busy place, not many decided to use it.

But one of the stories of Carda that made it different than other places was an event that happened every 20 years. And that was the blue moon festival.

The blue moon festival was an event unique to Carda. Still, it wasn't an event that players were crazy waiting for because they weren't taking any benefit out of it. During the festival, which lasted for three days, the moon, as long as you were in Carda or its forest area around it, would be blue. There were rumors that it had something to do with the Moon Goddess giving her blessing to the land. Still, there was no quest for it, nor was any benefit given to any player last time the festival happened.

The event has happened a few times for people to be able to be sure that this was most likely just a lore thing and not having an actual blessing that they could use.

But Shingi knew that the case wasn't entirely like that. Indeed, this event wasn't actually to help the players by giving them new tools or powers. It was a way to show Gods' interaction with the world, but the way done could benefit Shingi.

The Moon Goddess was putting her blessing to the land through the light that the moon was producing. That meant that the moon was containing part of her power or, more specifically, her mana. Still, it was in such a small amount that it was considered useless but not for Shingi.

He could use even that small amount to at least finish his Mana Pool.

The description given to him by Varan, the elven gentleman that he was focusing on creating with his VISUALIZATION, was to consider the Mana Pool as an inner tree and the fruits of its parts of the mana that he could use.

So he could use some other source to prepare the ground for the 'tree' to grow and finish the growth with the moon's energy. That way, he would possibly create a special Mana Pool one with a Goddess's power even if it was a small part of it, which hopefully would make things easy to handle. But even if that plan didn't succeed, he could try something else. As long as the Mana Pool wasn't past a point, changing the source was a possibility.

'Seeing as the moon started getting slightly blue already, I probably have a day or two at most until the festival. That will be close.' [Shingi]

Estimating by how fast his stats restored, he could move at two days or more barely.

Even if creating a Mana Pool is also a mental kind of training and no movement would be needed in any other case, he wouldn't have a problem. But since he needed to have access to the moon's blessed light, his body has to be in an open space for the light to reach him. And he probably has to be naked to absorb as much of the moonlight as possible, and asking his sister to help him do something like that was out of the question.

Before that happens, he should have finished the Mana Pool's foundations before the festival begins. He wasn't sure if three nights would be enough to finish his special Mana Pool.

But instead of focusing on the foundation, he did something else. He focused on restoring his body.

After increasing his INT to 12, his mind was easier to notice changes in his body and start feeling the energy that seemed to be one restoring his stats.

Even if he wasn't sure what kind of energy it was or how it got there, he was confident that, at least for now, its existence was benefiting him, but it wasn't enough. So he focused on that energy.

In the beginning, it felt alien to him. Still, the more he was examining it, the more familiar he became with it but not be entirely sure what it was, but he found a way to help it.

He tried a few experiments to see if he could interact with it. He found that it was something empowered by mana but not his since it was pretty much non-existent. It seemed that it already contained an amount of mana of which was empowering it and making it able to consume the negative energy that was weakening Shingi.

'This should be created by the cure that they used on me. Probably that is what wakes me after it ate enough to restore my first points. But in the way it goes, it is way too slow, and it will only get slower as it is losing mana and can't recharge itself. So I should help it at that." [Shingi]

If he found about it when he first woke up, he couldn't do anything to make things faster. Still, since then, even if it wasn't a very long time, just a few hours, a significant difference exists.

His INT stat.

Now that his INT stat was 12, he could create a Mana Pool cause his mind was only with that much INT able to manipulate mana of external sources. Most people used it to create their Mana Pool, as casting a spell without one would be impossible. With that low INT, it wouldn't be possible to control enough mana without storing it, even for the weakest spells. Storing mana at the body other than in a Mana Pool was close to poisoning yourself.

Shingi wasn't going to store the mana in himself but 'feed' the strange energy with it. Of course, this could be dangerous for him if the energy doesn't 'eat' the mana or be too slow to do it, as this would possibly lead to poisoning Shingi. Still, he was willing to take the chance.

And so, with a plan in his mind, he made sure to understand how much mana had the energy lost as it most likely wouldn't be able to pass that or the limit most likely wasn't far away from that. It took two hours to understand its mana's current consumption and make a quite good estimation of the limit.

Of course, at that time, it was late at night, and his sister was sleeping next to him. Still, as a side effect of his curse, he didn't need any sleep for now.

So he started focusing on the mana in his surroundings and tried to attract it to him. Fortunately, he seemed to be close to a river, so water mana existed and some of the moonlight and few trees and flowers and emitted some mana that he could use for this. Of course, since there were multiple sources, he couldn't use them to create the Mana Pool. But feeding his 'hungry helper' was most likely fine unless it had a taste for specific mana. Still, Shingi didn't think it would be the case as something of that low power would most likely not being picky.

Mana traveled in his body, and as it arrived next to the strange energy as it was consumed right away.

'That was faster than I thought it would be, but the benefit is lower than I thought.'[Shingi]

Even if it consumed the mana that got on it, the restored mana was way less than the one it consumed.

But that wasn't so bad for Shingi. He could use the practice of manipulating mana, and since he had a fast eater and one hard to fill, he could be less careful of the quantity.

And so he continued drawing mana on him and letting the strange energy progressing on restoring his body at a faster pace but not a crazy fast one.

After an hour or so, Shingi estimated that his current progress was probably close to 5% faster than before. It would most likely go slower as time passes. That is because the mana around him wasn't without an end. Mana wasn't like the life of something, so consuming the mana of the nature around him wouldn't kill it as the mana after some time would be restored. Still, the rate of something that common recharging its low mana was even lower. So had to find another source.

As he kept using his mind to search his surroundings, he came across a source of mana not far from him. It was one sleeping right next to himhis big sister.

But taking the mana from something not living like the river and a human being was a task as different as day and night. Various sources of mana had different amounts of resistance against creatures that try to take their mana. Still, in the case of what she was currently at, the opposition was close to nothing. But in the case of an actual being, the resistance could be many ways bigger and harder to pass.

Of course, it isn't something impossible to do, but different people had different resistances, either passive or active.

'I doubt she would have more than a novice in the arcane arts, so it should be possible.' [Shingi]

Suppose someone isn't on guard not to let his or her mana being consumed by others. In that case, you have only to pass their passive resistance. Of course, the greater and purer and stronger Mana Pool someone has, the greater its resistance.

Shingi was surprised that she had any mana, which meant that she had a mana pool since she didn't show any signs of the Mana Poisoning, or at least he hasn't noticed any. But she didn't seem much of a practitioner of Arcane Arts, so the reason behind its existence should be something else, but Shingi decided to investigate it later.

So he started focusing on the mana residing in Annoue. Firstly starting testing the ground putting a little focus on it, making sure that this wasn't affecting his sister so that it may wake her up. He knew that it shouldn't be the case unless he took all her mana, but since this was his first time doing something like that, he couldn't stop himself from being careful.

And with the little test he did, he could tell that the passive resistance of Annoue was greater than he thought. But not impossible to pass, so he only has to be careful.

He was like a burglar. He could break the door to open the way to make an easy entrance and exit and take as much as he could and run. He would draw attention or use a small window and take careful steps and slowly take portions of what he needs and keep repeating until he reached the goal or the limit of what he could take.

Of course, he went with the second option as the target was supposed to be his sister, and he was quite selfish in either case, but at least that way wouldn't disrupt her sleep.

Of course, the first time took some time, as even if the resistance wasn't too great, Shingi was still a beginner but at least a fast learner and adaptive one. And so, for the next 6 hours, he continued this until he noticed something new.

The strange energy inside him was working faster than before. Its consumption of man was way less than it used to be, almost close to nothing.

At that point, Shingi has restored his STR, AGI, and END to 5 and should be close to 6.

Annoue didn't seem to notice anything while sleeping and didn't seem like anything strange was happening to her after that much mana been taken from her.

At that point, Shingi decided that it was ok to go back, focusing on his Mana Pool's foundation. He could now move, to at least take some steps closer to the window, sitting there and take a meditate sitting stance.

He tried to focus on just the moonlight and the small amount of mana it contained to start the foundations of his Mana Pool.

He focused in his mind on an empty field of uneven ground full of wild roots and stones. He then used the moon's mana to start moving and rocks and roots away from a spot of the land he picked.

Sometimes the mana took just the form of a hand and picked the stones or roots and threw them away. Other times it was taking the shape of tools like pickaxes or axes.

Of course, that wasn't necessary to do that way, but he wanted to see the uses of his newest skill that he unlocked while working on Annoue's Mana.

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SKILL LEARNED

The skill MANA MANIPULATION has been unlocked at Low Rank.

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It seemed like his Skills were working like and he could upgrade them as any NPC would

This was both good and bad information at the same time. Good because the NPC skill ranks and the Player's skill level worked differently as a Rank of NPC skill was multiple levels of the same Player's skill. Some NPC skills had benefits that players didn't have. But at the same time, increasing the Rank of an NPC skill was way more challenging than taking the number of levels a Player needed to be close to being considered of the same Rank. It was of a better quality was but to get it, the road was more challenging, but this was more than Shingi could ask since an easy way is boring.

As far as the Ranks of a skill, they go as Low, Basic, Master, Grandmaster, Divine.

The higher the Rank, the harder it to get to the next one. More requirements are needed, like having other skills to certain Ranks or completing specific action and challenges. Getting a skill to Master Rank was the goal of most as anything more was considered impossible by most. Still, even Master Rank wasn't easy to reach

An easy way to consider a Craftsman having his skills at the Basic level would be the typical one with its store and making your standard weapons and possible simple enchantments. Though, the Master one wouldn't now only create the weapons faster and at better quality but could also work in rarer materials and have access to more advanced enchantments that any player would fight for.

But a Grand Master one is where it gets exciting because that is someone, even the NPC Kings, would fight for. A weapon created by a Grand Master was rumored to be strong enough for allowing a low-level adventure to kill a Dragon. That is why when a Grand Master would appear, he or she would disappear just as much as the Kingdoms. Men of power were getting crazy over either getting him or her at their side or destroy him or her otherwise.

None else was rumored to have ever existed as far as Divine one other than the God Of Crafting. None has ever attempted to enslave the god, or if someone has tried, most likely none have heard about him or her.

So since now, his MANA MANIPULATION was at the low Rank, he had to be more familiar with its limits and try to pass them as that was the way to go from Low to Basic for most skills.

Close to 3 hours passed that way as he had made quite good progress but got interrupted at that moment by a voice right next to his right ear.

"Lil bro, what are you doing there?" [Annoue]

After being surprised as he had forgotten entirely about her cause he was fully focused on his training, he turned towards her. After letting a smile, he spoke to her for the first time with his currently weak voice since his body was still getting restored.

"Good.... morn- morning sis" [Shingi]