บท 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

SKILLS

Low Rank: VISUALIZATION, MANA MANIPULATION, MANA SENSE

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After checking his status window, he closed his eyes. Then, he focused on his body to make sure that the curse's energy was removed from his body, and to his surprise, it really seemed to be completely gone from him.

'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 EVOLUTION

Because of the special circumstances of your body, the attention of ?????? was drawn to you, and decided to give her blessing and evolved 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. When 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 were completed before becoming available. As a result, special rewards have been earned.

CALCULATING . . .

REWARD DECIDED

Reward: + 4 INT , +2 CHA

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As he finished reading all the notifications, and before he got too excited, he noticed his sister was looking a little strange. Specifically, her stance was weird. She had lowered her head and seemed to be in a quiet, relaxed state, in stark contrast to how tense her body was while meditating.

When he got closer to her, he understood the reason behind her odd position.

Annoue had fallen asleep while still in her meditative stance pose. Or so he thought.

Shingi used his MANA SENSE and noticed the surrounding Mana still being manipulated while entering and exiting her body as well. The speed of her manipulation was slow compared to his own manipulation. Still, it was much faster than it was when she first started.

'Is she in a trance?' [Shingi]

A trance was an almost sleep-like state during which its user was becoming one of the environment and putting their entire focus on a specific task. It got you into the perfect training mode, as you knew enough about the environment to know if there was a threat or some other reason to come out of it, but not enough to distract the person from the task in mind.

It sounds easy to do, but most people could never reach this state. However, the child before him reached it so easily.

As he thought about how she could do it almost naturally, Annoue opened her eyes. She looked at her brother with a face-splitting smile.

"Brother, I did it. I moved the surrounding Light around. Aren't I amazing?" [Annoue]

Shingi sighed as Annoue kept calling it Light instead of mana, even after repeatedly explained it. Still, she kept referring to it as Light as it seemed to be bright to her. Not bright in her eyes, but she could "see" the Light when focusing on it. This was how Annoue's MANA SENSE Skill worked as the mana for her was like lights of different colors, while for Shingi's MANA SENSE, it was like a colorful mist.

Then Shingi gave her a small pat on her head to show her his praise.

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

They got out of the tree, and Annoue closed its entrance with the bark once again, and they headed back the way that had come, going through the box-covered hole again, returning to the village, and began their walk back home.

It was late in the afternoon, and most of the stores were already closed or getting ready to close, so very few people were still around, especially not any players.

But instead of going to the house, she took him a different way, as they stopped in front of a store. There was an anvil outside of it and a sign over the entrance with a hammer and a pair of tongs making an X-like shape.

This was clearly a blacksmith shop, and then Shingi remembered their father was a local blacksmith. So they entered the shop, and what Shingi saw surprised him.

The place looked almost abandoned, as the dust was nearly everywhere except on the desk that their father was sitting behind. He was sleeping in the chair, evidenced by his snoring sounds, when they entered the shop.

Shingi also noticed a few empty bottles scattered about, and the slight smell of booze permeated the air. As they got closer to the desk, the odor became more intense. 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 started shouting at her father to wake up and come home.

"Okay ... okay, I heard you." [Father]

After grunting some more, he stood up and looked over at his children.

"Oh, you are standing up so 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]

He sighed and muttered something unintelligible under his breath.

Together, the three of them left the smithy and headed back home. Much to Shingi's surprise, his father wasn't as hungover as he expected him to be as he was walking normally and only yawned a little here and there. But he could clearly smell the booze on his breath from standing next to him, even if he was shorter than his father.

Their house wasn't far from the shop, and when they got back, they went to the kitchen, where a big, lidded metal pot sat on the table. Annoue got three bowls ready, raised the lid, and ladled the soup into a bowl for each of them.

The three of them began to eat, but Shingi was curious about where the food came from. He was completely sure that there wasn't anyone else at the house, and he doubted they had any servants.

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

The first one to finish their meal was father, who gave his bowl to Annoue and asked for a second one, which she gave him. And after he finished it, he stood up and made his way towards his bedroom with a bottle tucked under his arm that Shingi wasn't sure where it appeared from.

And so the two children finished their dinner and shared the remaining soup.

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

"Well... the old mayor lady sends us food now and then in the 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 about her disappearance. Although, he knew well that he shouldn't be too forward with his questions in this kind of situation as it would lead to a decrease in reputation with the NPC.

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

No matter the case, he didn't want to press her about it. His approach for gaining information from NPCs worked quite well over the years, so he decided to stick with them for now. Shingi would wait to ask questions until the situation felt right.

He didn't feel that this was the right time, so he changed the subject.

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

Hearing that, Annoue promptly raised her head, and her sad face was replaced by one of joy.

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

Her MANA MANIPULATION rank didn't surprise Shingi since it was the starting point. But how did her MANA SENSE get that high so 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. The last two days were one surprise after the other from the little girl. She had a Mana Pool; her STR was very high for someone of 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 that, but her earning a title was something that he wasn't willing 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 apparently makes it easier for me to learn things from my Master." [Annoue]

And hearing that, Shingi's wide eyes went back to normal, and he sighed in relief as he relaxed his nerves.

The title given to her wasn't a full title but a sub-title. Sub-titles worked similarly to titles. The only difference was that they were related to another title or another source, like a skill or profession. So their creation was 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's good; this should help you become stronger faster." [Shingi]

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

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

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

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

It surprised the young girl 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]

It seemed like Annoue was too focused on her imagination and didn't hear him or even notice him as he went back to their room. As he got there, he looked outside by cracking the room's window open and noticed something he was waiting for that brought a smile to his face.

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

The first day of the Blue Moon Festival.