From Player To Npc

Chapter 7: Unexpected Progress

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STATUS

NAME: Shingi Maki

CLASS: None

RACE: Half-Human Half ????

HP: 50/50

SP: 20/20

STR: 10

AGI: 10

END: 10

INT: 12

CHA: 2

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After checking his status window, he closed his eyes. He focused on his body to make sure that the curse's energy was completely removed from his body, and to his surprise, it really seemed that none of it has remained.

'If the curse's energy wasn't the cause, then why are my HP and SP still that low with my current END?' [Shingi]

He started thinking it over, but then he got snapped out of it as some notification windows appeared in front of him, one after the other.

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PROFESSION LEARNED: MENTOR

Description: By investing your time, you can assist others in increasing their growth and development by sharing your knowledge with them

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PROFESSION UPGRADE

Cause of the special circumstances of your body, the attention of ?????? was drawn to you, and decided to give her blessing and upgraded your MENTOR profession into SCHOLAR MASTER.

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BLESSING EARNED: Blessing of ??????

Passive: Requirements of items or skills for mental stats are decreased by 50%

Active: 1/day, you can use the energy of the blessing to increase the INT of a creature you touch by the same amount as your INT for the next hour or if you stop touching the target. During the time this effect is active, the passive effect of the blessing is decreased to 25%

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QUEST UPDATED: ROAD TO LIFE

Task Completed: Earn a Profession

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QUEST UPDATED: ROAD TO LIFE

Task Completed: Earn a higher power's BLESSING

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The system is deciding because the MAIN QUEST: ROAD TO LIFE's tasks was completed before becoming available special rewards.

CALCULATING. . .

REWARD DECIDED

Reward: + 4 INT , +2 CHA

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And as he finished reading all of these notifications, and before he gets his excitement out, he noticed that his sister was looking a little weird. Specifically, her stance was weird. She had lowered her head and seemed in a quiet, relaxed state, unlike before when she was mediating, and her whole body seemed tense.

And as he got closer to her, he understood what was really the reason behind this weirdness.

Annoue has fallen asleep while still in her meditating stance.

Or so he thought at first, but then Shingi used his MANA SENSE and noticed the surrounding Mana still being manipulated and entering and exiting her body. The speed was pretty slow if comparing it to the speed of Shingi's manipulation. Still, it was way faster than it was when Annoue started.

'Could she be in a trance?'[Shingi]

Trance was asleep almost state during which its user was becoming one of the environment and putting his or her whole concentration on a specific task. This is getting you to the perfect training mode as you know the environment enough to know if something possible harmful or another reason to go out of it happens but not enough to be distracted by the task in mind.

This sounds easy to do, but most people were never able to get in this state, but now a child is in front of him.

As he kept thinking of this new fact in front of him, Annoue opened her eyes and looked at her brother with a big smile on her face.

"Brother, I did it. I moved the surrounding Light around. Am I not amazing?" [Annoue]

Shingi sighed as Annoue kept calling mana as Light even after he kept explaining it over and over again. Still, she kept referring to it as Light as it seemed to be bright for her, at least not bright on her eyes, but she could "see" it light when focusing on it. This was how the MANA SENSE skill of Annoue was working as the mana for her was like lights of different colors, while on Shingi's MANA SENSE, it was like colorful mist.

Then Shingi put his hand over the head of Annoue as she was still sitting so he was easily being able to reach it and gave her a small pat on it as a sign of 'Good job.'

"Let's go home. We did well today." [Shingi]

They got out of the tree as Annoue closed its entrance with the bark part, and they start making their way back to the wall, moved the box, entered into the town once more, and started their way back to their house.

It was late in the afternoon, and most of the stores were closed or getting closed, so not a lot of people were around, especially no players.

But instead of going to the house, they seemed to take a different way as they stopped in front of a store. There was an anvil outside it, and there was a sign over the entrance of it that had a hammer and tongs making an X-like shape.

This was clearly a blacksmith shop, and then Shingi remembered that their father is supposed to be a local blacksmith. And so they entered the shop and Shingi was surprised at what he saw.

The place looked almost abandoned as the dust was almost everywhere except in the desk that their father was behind. He was sitting on a chair behind it, currently sleeping as one could clearly hear his snoring when entering the shop.

Shingi also noticed a few empty bottles here and there and a slight smell of booze in the air, but as they got closer to the desk, it was getting stronger. It seemed this shop was doing a different type of hammering than usual blacksmith shops.

"Dad, it is getting late. You should come to get some dinner and rest." [Annoue]

And after a few seconds of silence and no response, Annoue kept now shouting at her father to wake up and come home.

"Ok ... ok, I heard you."[Father]

And after grunting some more, he stood up and looked over his children.

"Oh, you are standing up that soon without any help. Good, then you can start working tomorrow." [Father]

"DAD. Brother woke up not too long ago. He needs to stay home more to get better." [Annoue]

And so after he sighed, he said under his breath in a low voice something that none could hear.

And so they started going back home, and in the surprise of Shingi, his Father wasn't as hungovered as he presumed he would be as he was walking normally, just yawning a little here and then. But he could clearly smell the booze on his smell by standing next to him even if he was shorter than his father.

They made it at their house that wasn't too far from the shop and got in the kitchen where there was a big metal pot with a lid over it on the table. Annoue got some of the bowls they had, raised the lid, and scooped with the bowl some of the soup in it, and in the end, they had three bowls with soup.

The three of them started having their dinner, but Shingi was curious where the food came from. He was completely sure that there wasn't anyone else at the house, and he doubts they had any servants.

But then he noticed something on the lid. A symbol carved on it that he recognized as he saw it not too long ago. The symbol was one of the symbols used to represent Mother Nature. He remembered seeing the same symbol on mayor Aneta's clothes.

The first one to finish his meal was the Father, and he gave his bowl to Annoue and asked for a second one, which she gave him. And so after a while, he finished his second too and stood up and started his way towards his room with a bottle at his arm that Shingi wasn't sure where it appeared from.

And so the two children finished their dinner and shared the remained soup,

"Annoue.... where did this food come from?" [Shingi]

"Well... the old mayor lady is sending us food now and then in the past years after ...." [Annoue]

And in the middle of her sentence, Annoue got quiet and lowered her face and continued speaking in a low voice for only Shingi sitting next to her to hear.

"... after mom disappeared"[Annoue]

Shingi was interested to learn more details of this disappearance. Still, he was aware that in this kind of case, approaches of learning information shouldn't be that forward as it would lead to a decrease or reputation with the NPC.

'But I am an NPC now. Would the reputation system still work like that for me?' [Shingi]

Even thinking of it like that, he didn't press on the matter. His ways of approaching NPCs to learn information over the years on the game worked quite well, so he decided to stick with them for now. So he decided to bring the questions when the situation seemed right slowly.

And so he decided to change the subject.

"So, how did your training go? What Rank did you get your MANA MANIPULATION?" [Shingi]

Hearing that, Annoue raised her head right away, and her usual happy one replaced her sad face.

"Hehe... my MANA MANIPULATION is at Low rank, and my MANA SENSE is at Base Rank." [Annoue]

Shingi wasn't surprised hearing about MANA MANIPULATION's rank since it was pretty much the starting point, but why was her MANA SENSE that high that fast. He was still at Low Rank, but he shouldn't be too far from ranking up.

"I also got a title, hehe." [Annoue]

Hearing that, Shingi froze up. These last two days kept getting one surprise after the other from the little girl. She had a Mana Pool; her STR was way high for someone at her age; she learned MANA MANIPULATION and MANA SENSE after a few hours of training and got one of them at base rank. He was willing to accept them, but her earning a title was something that he was unwilling to believe.

Titles were difficult to earn. Even if he learned one, it was a happy effect cause of his actions, which should be impossible for any other NPC child, but now that was disproved.

"What is the title's name?" [Shingi]

He said and was ready to hear one of the special titles given to ancient heroes at that point.

"First student. It is apparently making it easier for me to learn things from my Master." [Annoue]

And hearing that, Shingi's wide eyes went back to normal, and he left a sigh as he relaxed his nerves.

The title given to her wasn't a full title but a sub-title. Sub-titles were working pretty much the same as titles. Still, the only difference was that they were related to another title or another source like a skill or profession. Their creation was probably because of that source.

'She should have earned it when I got my profession. This should make things faster, especially with my current occupation and my blessing's active effect.' [Shingi]

Also, now that he thought about it, he earned his profession a little before Annoue finished her training, so it was probably triggered by her MANA SENSE reaching base rank since he was the one who explained everything to her.

"Well, that is good; this should help you becoming stronger faster." [Shingi]

"Yeah, I will become the stronger Light user there is." [Annoue]

Hearing that, Shingi let another sigh remembering who was really in front of him, which began considering a genius among geniuses.

"Well, learning how to control ma... *sigh* Light is the first step. You also need to learn some Enchantments and some weapon skills, and then you can start really learn your class. You won't be a full 'Light' user, but it will fit you better." [Shingi]

"C ... class?!?" [Annoue]

The young girl was surprised to hear that and could see in her eyes that she was currently daydreaming.

"*cough* well before that happens, we have ways to go, but first we have other things to do first." [Shingi]

But it seemed like Annoue was too focused on her imagination and didn't hear him or noticed him going back to their room. As he got there, he looked outside by slightly opening the room window and noticed something he was waiting for and brought a smile on his face.

The moon was slightly more blue than yesterday, and he was sure that tomorrow was really the day.

The first day of the Blue Moon Festival.