From Player To Npc

He was still restoring his stats, but it was faster than when it started because of his night hard work. After using the mana of Annoue, it seemed to be more likable by the energy inside him as it was empowering it and increasing the pace quite a few times of any of the other types of mana. This was probably of the mana being more closely to the mana. It was usually empowering it as it was human-made.

His current stats were restored to 8 and were enough for him to move around without help. He made his way over to the kitchen table with his sister next to him. She seemed upset for some reason.

On his way there, he noticed another door that was slightly opened but not enough to look inside. When they passed from it, a slight smell was noticed by Shingi.

That was the smell of booze.

Also, he could hear some snoring, so he was sure that this was his father's bedroom.

His sister brought some bread, fruits, and milk as they started their first family breakfast.

She was trying to feed him now and then, but Shingi didn't seem to like getting through that experience again.

Their father passed and took some of the breakfast with him and got ready to head out.

"You seem to get on your feet faster than the Old Lady said. That is good cause we have lot's of work in the future" [Father]

After he left, Annoue sighed and continued her breakfast with her little brother.

None of them seemed to want to talk as Annnoue wasn't sure with what to begin. Shingi was more focused grinding his VISUALIZATION as the old elven gentleman, who now was more detailed both on his face and his arcane robes, was walking around the kitchen and doing movements with his arms and mouth as being part of a play.

Still, no sound was coming from his movements or his mouth as all was pretty much an illusion of Shingi's mind. He tried to use some mana around to surround this illusion and empower it, leading to becoming close to how a spell would work as.

'With my current MANA MANIPULATION, it is almost enough to control the mana for something like that but not enough at the same time without a Mana Pool.' [Shingi]

Even if he could control the mana and use it without storing it and making it his own, it was like a wild beast that would run when left free. His skill was enough to control it for some time, but not to control enough to create a spell as the moment he was leaving free some, it would return to where it came from.

Of course, storing it and making it his own without a Mana Pool was out of the question, but the whole progress made him more and more familiar with what he should be expecting.

"Brother, do you want to come with me to my secret hideout?"[Annoue]

This snapped him out of his training. Most NPCs were rarely suggesting actions except if it was part of a quest. But now that he thought about it, that was mostly the case of NPCs interacting with players. He wasn't considered one by the System, so things should be different.

With that thought in mind, this secret hideout wasn't that interesting, but he had to go out of the house to look around to see a good place for him to make his Mana Pool.

"Sounds good"[Shingi]

His serious face changed with a smile once again while looking at her.

They finished their breakfast their started their way out.

After getting out the house's front door, Annoue stopped and told Shingi to wait for a moment as she started running around the house at its backside. After a bit of time, she returned with a small staff and gave it to Shingi.

'Well, I can move around without it, but maybe would draw too much attention if I am too healthy that fast.' [Shingi]

The two siblings started moving and started getting closer to a gate of a wooden wall around the whole village. The wall didn't seem to be too old, and Shingi was sure that none existed last time he was around, so it was created when he was missing, which brought on the surface some questions.

If a place needed a wall, this meant that it wasn't that safe anymore. So either the monsters around became more dangerous, or a new threat appeared.

'I should carefully learn about the reasons behind those changes. It isn't uncommon for a change like that to be part of the game but things, but I can't think why that big of a crowd.'[Shingi]

Looking around, he could see a dozen players moving around the village. Typically no players were around here, but he kept noticing more and more as they moved towards the gate.

Even if he wasn't a player and could see the UI indication of a player that generally would see in town, the NPCs and Players had a significant difference, and that was what they were wearing.

Most NPCs were merchants or farmers wearing simple clothes fitting their jobs, but the players varied in their looks. Different armor, weapons, and colors separated them from each other as they had their style. Also, Shingi could feel an aura surrounding them that he wasn't sure what it was about and couldn't describe it. Still, even if the feeling seemed to be the same for each of them, there were differences between them.

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SKILL LEARNED

The skill MANA SENSE has been learned at Low Rank.

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'Interesting, so this is the mana of theirs. No wonder I never noticed it with my old body since I never focused on any mana training. But I wonder why I get this only from Players.' [Shingi]

After having that thought, he turned his gaze toward Annoue. He was certain that she had a mana pool his MANA SENSE wasn't receiving anything like the aura he got from the Players, but he could see her mana just seemed different from the Players.

He kept his new Skill as active as long as he could to increase its proficiency. They soon reached the gate that was like a 20-minute walk from their house if they were going at a normal rate. Shingi both showed that he wasn't fully able to walk without help. To gather possible information from his surroundings was getting slower, so they reached the gate in 30 minutes instead.

He kept pondering on different things as they moved away from the gate, moving across the wall, making a right turn from the gate. It seems like their destination wasn't out of the town, or they couldn't freely exit as the gate was closed and guards were on it. But they weren't military guards, but they seemed like some of the town people with simple leather armors and spears with no similarity in their equipment other than not being the best.

'Well, at least the security isn't too tight, which means things aren't too bad yet.'[Shingi]

And so, after a few more mins of walking, Annoue stopped and started looking left and right. After making sure none was watching them, she walked towards some crates on the wall and started pushing one of them.

Even if Shingi wasn't sure how heavy that crate was, he was impressed how a child was having that kind of STR.

And after she moved the crate, a small hole was visible at the of the wall. And so she crouched and made her way to the other side as made indications with her hand towards Shingi to follow.

Being invested and curious about the situation out of the town, Shingi followed without a second thought.

After getting out, Annoue moved the crate back to cover the hole as it had some empty spaces at its backside to be able to be moved.

They moved through the forest but not too far as they got in front of a tree; a massive tree.

Annoue used her hand and grappled part of the tree and moved it a little to the right as it seemed like there was a hole in the tree, and the wooden surface that looked the same as the tree was perfectly covering it.

The inside of the tree was a little bigger than their room back at their house. In there, there was a corner full of leaves looking like a makeshift bed. There was also a little tree stump in the middle that seemed to be used as a table.

He could see that most of the tree seemed to be hollow, but the tree's remaining bark still had some depth, but even with that, there was enough space left for 2-3 adults to be in. But since both Shingi and Annoue were children, they were even more comfortable and had more room.

Other than these things, nothing else was around.

The moment they got in, Annoue sat on the leaves pile and looked towards Shingi.

"It is a cool place, isn't it, little Brother?" [Annoue]

For a few seconds, he kept looking around, making sure that the place was sturdy and wouldn't fell over them. Still, it seemed like it was something created quite some time ago, so it should be able to last for some time.

After nodding at her, he sat down in the same meditate stance he was at his house. He started continuing his foundation creations of his Mana Pool. Or so he wanted to do.

"What you doing there? This is a weird stance to sleep." [Annoue]

After hearing this question usually, Shingi would ignore it and continue his training, but he had a different idea.

"I meditate. Make me strong."[Shingi]

Since his body wasn't still at full power, he couldn't speak long sentences without stopping in the middle of it, so he tried to keep small sentences.

Annoue seemed interested in what Shingi said, but before she could say something, he spoke again.

"You want to be strong too?"[Shingi]

Annoue got even more surprised by it, but then she stood up and rolled up the sleeves and showed her arms muscles.

"I am strong already" [Annoue]

She started doing poses to show her muscles, which seemed well built for one of her young age. Still, her actions seemed ridiculous, especially since she was doing this with a wide smile.

'She seems to have low INT but high STR. And somehow, she already has a Mana Pool. She should be perfect for that special class.'

All players, when they started, had three choices of starting class. Warrior, Rogue, or Mage. As they progressed and levered up, they could earn a new class that would increase their power. Most classes were a better version of the main ones following specific paths. Still, some special classes were combinations of two or more simple classes.

One of them was Arcane Blade, a combination of Warrior and Mage. This class had the Warrior's combat abilities to fight with different weapons but mostly with swords but weren't limited to them. It also could cast various enchantment spells, not as strong as full Enchanter Mage, but using them with his Warrior combat abilities was a dangerous combination. Some of this enchantment could also be used at allies, increasing their combat capabilities too.

Of course, each class had requirements to learn them, and also, there were some particular triggers like quests or needing an NPC to tutor them.

This sounds easy in theory but, in reality, was way difficult to do, especially for NPCs. Special classes needed stats at least on specific value and other factors, such as having a Mana Pool or Rank of Skills.

Shingi remembered Arcane Blade's requirement was high STR and having Mana Pool and Base Rank MANA MANIPULATION. Some INT was a requirement, but that was the case to increase the MANA MANIPULATION's effect and create Mana Pool.

Since Annoue already had great STR and a Mana Pool, they had to work on her MANA MANIPULATION. Then they would be able to work on some of the Arcane Blade's Skills.

"Can get stronger. Use Magic and sword." [Shingi]

"M..mm...magic?!?"[Annoue]

She got frozen in place, hearing the last sentence spoken from her little brother.

She always heard stories about magic, and lately, some adventures came in town and saw some magic deployments here and there. Even if it wasn't something too powerful in reality, she was fully amazed by it.

And now she may be able to use magic herself?

She snapped her out of her frozen state and run and sat in front of Shingi.

"So what do I do?" [Annoue]

And so, with a slight smile on his face tried to explain to his sister what mana was. Also, how to draw it on her, store it, and then release it. Since she had a Mana Pool, this was an excellent way to increase her skill's rank. After trying it on, Shingi learned that she didn't seem to have the Skill at Low Rank, but her Mana Pool seemed to be entirely constructed. This was a rare case since most were unlocking the skill while creating their Mana Pool.

But that wasn't always the case and was for a specific amount of people. Those that were born with a Mana Pool.

But if she was, which made sense, why wasn't the case for Shingi himself. Most time, people that were born with a Mana Pool were because of their race. As far as Shingi could tell, both of them were humans, but then he remembered something.

His race was Half human and half something unknown.

Could it be that his sister was full of that unknown race or took different benefits from it?

But what could that be that unknown race? Most people who were a combination of different races had something that made it easy to separate them from other races.

The only thing that was weird for him was his eyes' color, but for Annoue, as far as he could tell, other than having high STR and Mana Pool, she looked like an average human child.

With all that in mind, he couldn't think of any race that they could be part of to give them these benefits.

This question joined the rest at the back of his mind to be answered later when he knew more.

After 2 hours of trying to help Annoue fully understand how the training she was supposed to do worked, he continued his own.

His preparation was going quite well as he had cleared enough space for what he needed for his Mana Tree to grow. Now he needed to dig to make space for the seed that he later would create with the mana to get in. He had to use the special moonlight to create the seed, but he could prepare the hole for now.

And so started imagining the mana he was manipulating to take the shovel's shape and started digging. Fortunately, since they were in the forest, there were more trees to take mana from, but even the tree they were into, for some reason, also seemed still to produce mana and quiet a bit.

And so hours passed, and as he was mostly done with the hole, Shingi thought he was ready to call it a day. To be sure, he wanted to finish it with the special mana if the system considered this part as important for the Mana Pool's quality. Different discussions were going over this, but experimenting on it wasn't something easy as once one finished creating a Mana Pool, it was harder to create another one, as not everyone could create one, and also, you couldn't say a Mana Pool's quality until it is fully constructed.

And so as he stood up, he checked his status as the inner energy that was fully restoring seemed to have finished its work and has been disappeared from his body now that it had nothing to do.

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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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