From Player To Npc

The story seemed to be written from the perspective of Ianthe and not Mikhail, as one would expect.

Ianthe wasn't a Goddess who used to be mortal and had ascended, but she existed since the beginning of time.

She used to be traveling around the mortal realm, as it had so much to offer compared to the other realms they could visit. On one of those trips, she met a young man who changed her world.

That man was none other than Mikhail, who was barely over his twenties then.

She rarely interacted with mortals, and this was one of those rare cases.

They had a great date, and he even showed her something she hadn't encountered, like fireworks or the greatest cooked chicken she had ever tasted. He even told her stories that weren't true, that had her fully emerge into his words.

She liked that man and decided to sleep with him once, but little did she know how much of a blessing and a curse that would be. Mikhail knew who she was all along, and all of that seemed to be a well-organized plan that even the eyes of Ianthe didn't see through. She wasn't the best to read people, but few should be able to lie to her without her noticing as a God.

During their intimate time, it seemed like Mikhail had prepared some special tools that were gathering parts of the Godly powers of Ianthe. The reason she didn't notice was that Mikhail was going rough at her, which she didn't go against, but it seemed only a way to cover his plan.

She had to have noticed that their moment made her more restless than it should, but even Gods made mistakes like that when the heart was involved. It wasn't like she was madly in love with him, but she considered this mortal an interesting company to have.

She actually kept visiting him every time she was getting in the mortal realm, failing to notice that the man was barely getting older. Most of her visits had a break of a couple of years.

When she started thinking clearer and noticing this detail, she asked him about it. She thought that he probably wasn't completely human, maybe a Half-Elf, that didn't have the usual aspects one should have.

But the moment she got into his house, and before she could say anything, he surprised her with a kiss. One kiss led to another, and they progressed to get even more close as usual. She had forgotten at this point her doubts and just wanted to stay with him and live the moment.

This time it took her more than the other times, and she actually needed to take a nap. When she woke up, she was alone in his room, with just a note left next to her and no sign of Mikhail.

The letter had only one word on it; 'Goodbye.'

She tried to look for him, but no matter what she tried or who she asked for help, there were no signs of him. It was like he had vanished into thin air.

Soon after, she learned she was pregnant, which should be impossible. A mortal shouldn't be able to leave a Goddess pregnant, but soon she learned why it was the case.

She didn't find any clues about his whereabouts, but she found about the reason she got that tired during their private moments. He had found a way to steal her Godly essence, or at least small parts of it each time.

He hadn't weakened her enough to be in any danger, but it seemed like the runes were affecting her during that time, she was a mortal.

She kept the child and raised it to the best of her abilities. She didn't know what to say about her father when little Aella asked, so he just told her she should meet him herself to learn what type of person he was.

This was a fascinating story, which also explained why Mikhail had lived for so long, and what had happened to Dormon.

Mikhail had stolen his essence, which led Dormon to lose his class, but fortunately, Shingi took it and not Mikhail.

Shingi wondered if the stolen essence lasted forever or was slowly burned. The story described that Mikhail was quite young, and he didn't seem to get older, but she didn't seem to know him for too long, maybe for a few decades. After that, he was most likely growing slower, or he had to steal the essence of others, possibly the missing villages that Garry told him about.

If that was true, this meant that Mikhail had a limit of how much power he could use without recharge of the essence, but the limit was unknown.

He hoped that there would be more stories like that in the book, possibly hiding more details about him.

Shingi started reading the rest of the pieces of paper that Garry had written down, but none of them had any new information. They were stories of different people meeting a strange man, but their encounters weren't as significant as Ianthe's.

Shingi wondered who could have written everything in the book. If it contained just stories of people, he could understand it, but it had a story from the perspective of a Goddess, which not anyone could learn. It could, of course, just be a false story. But Shingi couldn't think why someone would go to such trouble to write a story like that and it to be a lie.

He paid attention to any detail, but he found no new clues to any of the stories. They still were many others left, and actually, Garry tried to create a way to translate the runes, using the ones he had translated and their translation as a core.

Still, the Old Runic Language was tricky to learn, and even Shingi couldn't fully read it even if he could see.

Syra told him that she was familiar with it, but she could communicate with her to help them without risking others learning about the book. It may not be that important in the end, but he couldn't risk it.

"So what do we do now, son?" [Garry]

"Why did you suddenly decide to go with the son mention?" [Shingi]

Normally Garry didn't even try to talk to him, and when he was doing so, he didn't make it clear that he was speaking to Shingi.

"I know we don't have the best relationship, but I want this to change. We both have been through enough, and we will continue to go through hardships, but at least we can go through them together. As a family. That is what Angel would want." [Garry]

Shingi didn't respond, as he didn't know what to say.

"So… you two are going to stay here for the entire day?" [Zhen]

Shingi thought about it. He had nothing he wanted to do here yet, but he could use this place to train, as it was quiet.

"Garry, just go back home for now. Leave the book and the glasses, though. I have talked with Marcy, the leader of the Blue Moon Guild, and she helps gather what we will need for the attempt to restore one of my eyes. It will take her at least two days. So for now, just rest. You are going to need all the strength at that point." [Shingi]

Garry left, and Shingi could sense his hesitation to do so, but he didn't know the reason or learn. He could try to ask, but he had other things to focus on for now.

He went into his meditation state and started checking the current state that his Mana Pool and Skills were.

He was still in the weakened state resulted from Minor Spirit Madness, even if he couldn't hear any voices, but he had improved a bit since the last time he checked them.

He calculated that he was a little over half to the power he was with his Mana Skill before getting into the weakened state, and that was with the disadvantages of his wounds. The biggest ones were the ones of his eyes, as the rest have healed enough not to cause a problem, but some have left some scars.

He started focusing on each of his Elements, testing their limits leaving Spirit Element for last. It truly was way harder to use, even the one he created himself.

He summoned Sinhunter, who worked after leaving the strange room, and see if he had any problem with his Spirit Tree. It seemed that it was truly the case, as the manipulation of his Spirit Element had fallen to be close to one-tenth to what it used to be.

The first thing Shingi did was to fill his mana storing ring with as much Spirit Element he could find and make himself. The ring would keep improving it, even if it was coming from his Mana Pool. The only difference was if it came from his Mana Pool, it would reach a greater quality faster.

Still, he couldn't use everything he had at Spirit Element, as his limit of Spirit Element had also gotten lower. He didn't know what would happen if he passed that limit out there, but he didn't want to risk anything, especially since he didn't have the protection from his eyes.

When he stored as much as he could in the ring, he started focusing on a different part of his training for the next few days.

He started training in merging all his Elements without merging them in his Mana Pool.

That would take a lot longer to use and wouldn't be as pure as if it came from a Mana Pool designed to produce the merge version, but he decided to keep his Elements separate.

He also wanted to start putting his Master of the Arcane II at its limit and started changing the mana of the environment or his Mana Pool from one Element to another.

For now, he just changed them to Earth and Light, and then turning the Earth Element part to Light Element and the Light Element part to Earth Element. This is because he had those Elements the longest, so he was the most familiar with them.

But his training didn't last long, as a certain female Blessed One was awake.

It seemed like she wanted to talk.