From Player To Npc

The way down didn't take as long as the way up, but they still were careful, as falling from that great height was certain death.

An learned the CLIMBING skill even if she didn't practice as the others, but she was a quick learner, and with Shingi's help, she ranked it up to Base Rank in under an hour on the way down.

It took them a little less than two hours to get down, as the climbing down was easier than going up since not much time passed since they had climbed it up.

As they reached the bottom, they made a simple camp and placed the repellents. Pan had made for them enough to last for a month, and Hineko got familiar with how to create some, but they weren't as strong.

Shingi decided to test An's abilities in combat.

She didn't have the COMBAT INSIGHT that Annoue had unlocked with his help, but he was confident that she could unlock it as she had many more Skills than what Annoue used to have.

He told her to show him how she used the double-bladed scimitar after attaching both blades.

Her techniques weren't perfect, but they were much better than any beginner could do with this particular weapon.

She showed him some different Enchantments that she could activate by making Mana Enchantment Circles.

Her Experience in combat was more than what would be for a beginner, and she was getting better at a visible rate like she was adjusting herself.

Shingi was confident of her reaching the rest in less than two days of grinding because she could fight.

She had to deal at least a minimum percentage of damage to the enemies and not just deal the last hit. Otherwise, the System would give her a reduced amount of exps. It still would be a sizeable amount since they would face enemies ten of levels more than hers, but it would be a waste of time if they didn't try for her to go for the normal amount.

Her techniques were quick and precise enough for her to be careful and deal some damage to their vital areas, but only there.

The monsters out through the day weren't many, as most were night predators and the ones they faced most mornings after ending their camp.

Before they have to rest for the night, they had found a few monsters for An to face, and she got to level 17, which was fast for a couple of hours of grinding. They could have passed level 20, but it was hard to find any monsters out.

They went back to their camp and ate dinner while waiting to see if any night predator monsters would get to them.

Unfortunately, it was a quiet night with no monsters trying to get close to them.

Shingi noticed during their trip here and their hunt that the closer they got to the mountain, the fewer signs of monsters going that way there were. It seemed like they were avoiding this place, but he wasn't sure why.

One possibility could be the Gods had granted this place some protection since it was the resting place of someone, but this was too rare to happen but wasn't the craziest thing in this scenario.

Maybe there were some repellents he hadn't detected, which was also not out of the question.

He didn't have to investigate why they had to make their way and train An by facing monsters they found on the way to the Tower or the morning if some predators waited them out.

They needed a week to reach the tower, but they still didn't have a plan.

As for Price and the rest back home, it seemed like the Broken Tower had made a move, but the guards of Harbin and Anna and Price's sabotages kept them in place.

Also, Marcy's Blue Moon Guild had some powerful members that helped secure the place with the help of Winestone and Ragnarock, who hadn't had some proper action for some time. Soryn also helped Anna and Marcy with their tactics for battle, earning himself the right to command some of the dominant parties during most operations.

It slowed some of their plans and made Price and the rest not leave the town for the Tower, but it was essential to keep Carda up.

Not only because of his shop, but this was the town that his NPC self and Annoue were born and raised, even if he was asleep for most of this time. He had decided long ago that Carda was under his protection and wouldn't let anyone take control of it.

The shop's business was affected a bit as some Players that took some of the gathering missions got killed by the Broken Tower's members while they were outside. Still, the effect wasn't significant, and it just made more people angry towards that annoying Guild.

But in the second week, King Guards came into town and were assigned to protect the shop.

Max Jax sent them. Shingi did not inform him about the situation, but he had eyes and ears in many places.

Of course, he wanted to make a deal with Volig to work under their King, but he knew of Shingi's background and heard of what happened with the Gods, so he didn't rush things out and tried to build a relationship.

More people got informed of the existence of the Grandmaster Volig like a plague, but Master Jax kept them away as he knew how much of jackals they were.

There weren't many people who were ready to go to war with him, as he clarified that action against Grandmaster Volig meant that exact thing.

Volig didn't plan to make a deal with Jax for exclusive work, but he didn't mind making some things for him, as he knew of his reputation and fairness. Of course, Volig knew Jax would share what he created with the King, so he didn't plan to make anything too crazy.

Shingi didn't learn, though, what Volig made for him, and he was both calm and worried about it.

Shingi knew Volig was aware of the situation and wouldn't make any rush movements. But that was if the client was a simple one, and Jax was far from a simple one.

His resources were close to unlimited and had the King's support, so there were a few things that would tempt even Volig to work with.

But he was confident that Jax was too wise to make Volig craft something too dangerous, especially if it fell into the wrong hands.

The Broken Tower Guild members didn't show themselves much after those special guards showed up, as they were too powerful for them.

But Price and Anna found out that they waited for someone to arrive, but couldn't find out who.

Still, there was no news on the situation, but Shingi told them to be ready for anything and keep trying to learn their plan.

It took them close to ten days to reach the tower, which was more time than planned, as they had spent time to raise the level of An and train their teamwork.

Everybody, except Shingi, who couldn't level up yet, was over level 50, with Will Tycoon almost reach level 60, which would enable her to evolve her class.

Fortunately, she didn't need a tutor to evolve her class, but it still had some unknown triggers or unknown for most who didn't know someone as knowledgeable as Shingi.

Through this week, Little Phoenix finally did something she had worked on for the past months.

To make her Mana Pool a Dual Element one.

Since her first Element was Dark Element, that made it harder to raise her Mana Tree, especially to earn a new Element, but its power was at a different level than the rest of the basic Mana Trees of the other Elements.

She planned to go with Air, as Shingi had suggested to her when first met, but she changed her mind and went for Earth instead.

She had noticed how Volig's innate Earth mana enabled him to strengthen his creations, and she wanted to increase her defense not to have to make Wild Tycoon worry. Of course, Air Element could provide her ways to avoid the danger instead of trying to make it not affect her, but she didn't want to be one hiding from her problems or risks anymore.

Dark Element was giving her some very offensive Spells, and Earth would act for Defensive purposes.

Shingi didn't mind that decision as she was the one who would decide what to do with their characters. He only tried to give each of them some suggestions.

After she finished developing her Mana Pool to produce Earth Mana, Shingi taught her how to develop their 'breathing. ' He didn't have to do this for Mizuneko, as it was only effective if you had your Elements separate.

He also taught her MANA DOUBLE - EARTH ELEMENT, with which she also made the MANA DOUBLE - DARK ELEMENT too.

Shingi had also learned MANA DOUBLE - FIRE ELEMENT and Mizuneko had MANA DOUBLE - AIR ELEMENT and MANA DOUBLE - WATER ELEMENT, but couldn't make one out of Ice Element. So they had the Spell for all the basic Elements.

Each one had their benefits and would be helpful to have some extra hands sometimes.

Of course, Shingi could use his Golems, but it seemed like he couldn't teach GOLEMANCY to anyone of his students.

He wasn't sure why, but he thought it was because it was a Grandmaster Spell, so for the Players to get access to it would be impossible except through some special events.

During their trip, he also found out something strange about An.

He guided her through how to enable and disable her eyes, and it seemed like each time he enabled them, their color was a different one than the last time, but there was no order.

While she had them enabled, she was more aggressive than usual, but she wasn't attacking them for no reason.

Also, everyone could see the changed color of her eyes, which wasn't the case for Shingi or Harbin.

Shingi explained to them what this power was.

"That reminds me. We had seen your eyes being red the day Annoue was taken, but we thought it was the light or something." [Wild Tycoon]

Shingi didn't know of that, as they never considered mentioning it.

He enabled his eyes, and they were still black for them.

"An, are my eyes black?" [Shingi]

She blinked twice.

Even after all this time, she couldn't speak. It was like no sound could leave her mouth as she never even made sounds of pain when she was clearly into one. Shingi had examined her and found no reason behind why this was the case.

He didn't know why An's eyes worked differently than others, but they tried to see if they could control what eyes she would use, and she could at least make it be the Red Eyes Shingi, or the Golden Eyes Harbin had.

He didn't know what the rest could do, and she could use her eyes for one hour per day so they couldn't waste them to test things out.

She mainly used Harbin's golden eyes, who helped her see the monsters' weaknesses and let others know how to act.

But since she couldn't speak, she had learned sign language to communicate with Shingi or Hineko, who was familiar with it, and they would let the others know what to do.

With that, their teamwork had reached a different level than before, and they had formed other tactics for different situations.

As they were almost half an hour away from the Tower, Shingi and Hineko detected some people, who fortunately hadn't noticed them yet.

They noticed the tents around the tower that they were more than Shingi thought they would be, as he couldn't see them all while using his SCRY mode.

Luckily, he had thought of a plan to get themselves in.