From Player To Npc

The state of Dormon's body wasn't too severe, even if there were some holes in his wings. 

He had a pair of shackles on both his hands and feet, making it hard to move around. Shingi noticed some runes on the restraints, which he understood were designed to keep him sealed and weaken him.

Dormon was unconscious, and Shingi could barely notice his chest moving when breathing.

He never thought that Mikhail had taken him a prisoner, but it made sense considering how strong he was when he met him.

It surprised Shingi that Beliss didn't know, but the Protectors didn't seem to speak with each other a lot.

Shingi noticed Dormon seemed to say something but couldn't muster the power to say it out loud, and his PERCEPTION wasn't working at maximum capacity when on SCRY mode.

He could get closer to him, though, to hear better, and that's what he did until he could hear him clear enough.

*The…power….girl…key….* [Dormon]

He spoke those four words repeatedly in Dragonic.

Shingi couldn't speak, but he understood that Dormon, like Mikhail back then, knew Shingi was here even in his current state.

He started feeling the effects of SCRY get weaker, and after taking another look around the room for any clues but found nothing, Shingi ended it.

The return to his body was a lot faster, as it didn't have to travel back to his body.

He still had some time in SCRY mode, so he took a quick look at Annoue. If Mikhail was around, he would end it as fast as he could.

He saw making the trip once more, and this time tried to pay more attention since this was the way they traveled.

This time he wasn't at the training hall as the last time, but at what seemed to be a lab.

There were tables full of papers, books, vials, herbs, and many other things.

Annoue was sitting on a chair, and she was alone in the room.

She was playing with a rock that had some runes on it, which seemed familiar to Shingi. It was pretty similar to the one Varan gave him to go at the Dragon's place, but there were some differences at the Circles, probably cause they were leading at a different destination.

She seemed to be well and healthy, but he noticed her face to have changed. Her usual smile wasn't there, and her mouth seemed to be just a straight line.

She let go of the stone at the desk as she started walking around the room, checking things around.

"You sssshouldn't toussh anything. Masssterrrr prrohibitssss it."[????]

Shingi then noticed a figure entering the room. It was a Snake Tribe male.

People of Snake Tribe were humanoids, but one or more of their parts were snake-like. This one had his entire head be like one of a cobra, which was quite rare.

Shingi saw that his mouth and tongue were utterly like a snake, which seemed to be why he spoke like that.

The rest of his body seemed to be of an average human, and he was wearing similar clothes to what Shingi had seen Mikhail wearing back when Mikhail 'visit' them at Shingi's house.

This individual didn't note Shingi's existence, which meant that he wasn't of power at the level of Mikhail or Dormon, which was good news.

"What about this thing? He seems to work a lot on it lately and gets him frustrated." [Annoue]

She pointed at an extensive structure that looked like the arc of a door, with many runes and circles on it. It seemed like a more complicated and larger version of the stone Annoue help just a few moments ago.

"Masssterrrr's work iss masterrssss. Little girl ssssshouldn't play with it. Read your book or masssterrrr will get angrrry."[Snake Tribe Man]

"You are no fun, Netsu. You always want me to study those books. Can't we just go back to fighting those training golems?" [Annoue]

Netsu took a seat next to her as he gave her a book that was on the nearby desk.

"They sssstil repairrrr from lasst ssssession. But you need to get your head, mana foundationssss improved. Yourrr sssword can wait. Keep sssstudying the rrrrunessss and let me know what you don't underrrssssstand."[Netsu]

Shingi saw what was on the pages of the book and saw different runes and designs like the one he and Zhen made.

These should be notes of a RUNEMASTER and they seemed to be of a different level from what he had seen Zhen doing.

He tried to see any titles or pages of other books and noticed a lot of them being of some very rare subjects for one to find in written form. This was a paradise for any Arcane User as the books covered many magic-related subjects.

Annoue, even if she got frustrated, she started studying the book.

She seemed more focused on it than what Shingi got used to seeing her while they were training back in the day. It wasn't like she was slacking off back then, but she wasn't giving her all either.

His time at the SCRY MODE didn't last long, as after a couple of minutes he was back, controlling his body.

SCRY Mode went in cooldown for 24 hours this time.

At least this meant he could monitor Annoue and Dormon's situation, now and then.

He wanted to send a message to Beliss to let her know about Dormon, but he still didn't have a certain way to do so. Maybe next time he should go meet Jax, but he was very far and a hard man to meet in normal circumstances.

He worked on his Mana Tree as he noticed that the Earth Mana here more compatible but the difference wasn't too big. But every little could make a difference. It also made it easier to replenish his used Mana Seeds but wasn't enough to grow a Mana Fruit.

He was confident that in some of the Tower's floors the mana there would be enough to help him make some Mana Fruits.

He had noticed some things on his 'trips' while using SCRY mode as its speed at the beginning wasn't too fast, and so noticed a few camps of others that they probably should avoid.

He still didn't know how to get in the Tower, as it seemed to be completely surrounded by people of the Dark Guild. But he could investigate further when they got there. He had some plans in mind, but he needed more pieces of information to form a final one.

But now with the help of SCRY, he could get some more information before they got there.

The rest of the night passed with him restoring all his Mana Seeds, but not all of them were in full power yet.

Shingi noticed some monsters were not running away, but neither was getting closer. They got affected by the repellents so that they don't make it to their camp but didn't affect them that much to scare them away.

Shingi kept his guard up just in case they were preparing something, but from their moves, it didn't seem to be the case. They just waited for their prey to be free of any obstacles.

Shingi recognized the creatures and knew that they were night predators, which couldn't handle sunlight, so would get away in the morning. They were more intelligent creatures than normal beasts, but still far from having human-like intelligence.

Morning came and before they move they had to fight a few of those creatures that stayed behind but were too weak because of the sunlight.

Shingi noticed they were too thin from how normal they would be, meaning they didn't have any decent meal for a while. He considered it the reason they stayed behind even when the sun was out, as the potential meal worth much by the burning pain that the sun was doing at their skin.

Those were high-level creatures for the students of his, so after a while, they actually were taking some decent chunk at their exp bars.

Shingi was also part of their Party as he got recruited by Little Phoenix, who was chosen to be the unofficial leader of their party. Shingi was the official Leader, but the System wouldn't let him be considered one.

The Leader of a party had some function to choose for the progress of the party.

Since they were part of the same Guild, more functions were unlocked and one of the most important ones was Exp Distribution.

Normally everyone took the same amount of exp. There were the extra exps for the ones who did the most damage, took the last hit, etc. Of course, the amount would get reduced if the monster was of quite a lower level than the member. But the Little Phoenix could change the percent of what each one would take for her party members.

Shingi took the least since for now, exps weren't of much of a help, and they were changing the settings with each battle.

They had unlocked some new Class Skills when they reached level 40, so they used the exps to raise their levels to level 10 fast, and then they could focus on raising their actual class level.

Phoenix had also raised her COOKING Skill to be considered early Master Rank, which enabled her to make some special dishes with extra benefits for the ones who ate them. Shingi helped her, but mostly to raise his Skill also, which was slower than Phoenix's since the System wasn't helping them both the same way.

The dishes she could make for now helped them replenish their SP faster and also to need less time to rest and to travel once again.

This way they were covering a bit more ground than usual without needing to use any of their potions.

As for ingredients for their meals, the beast monsters they fought now and then were perfect meat sources for those dishes.

The two female Players had some problem eating it, considering where it came from, and Little Phoenix had some trouble cooking it in the beginning. But soon, with Shingi's help, they left this problem behind.

They had met some of those camps he saw during his use of SCRY, but none seemed to be too prepared and they could go around them.

Shingi kept monitoring Dormon's and Annoue's situation each night, but he learned nothing other than getting some improvements in reading parts of the books Annoue studied. It improved not only his understanding of Enchantments on designing them but also using them.

He also started understanding a little more about the Runes, which was what Zhen's design made of

He could learn skills of an ENCHANTER and not of a RUNEMASTER, which was its evolved version, so he couldn't design functional Runes, but could help Little Phoenix to learn how since she was an ENCHANTER, so could evolve to a RUNEMASTER.

They made it to the place on the map a couple of days sooner than he calculated because of the benefits of the special food.

The place was at the foot of the mountain and the map gave no clue of what they were looking for.

An idea came to Shingi's head as he brought out from his Spatial Ring the Black Silver Feather his mother had left with the map.

He then focused some mana on it, and there was a reaction that there wasn't before.

The feather got a little warmer.