From Player To Npc

Chapter 178: Training at Hideout part 5

He had to work on this project with Little Phoenix, but first, she had to decide on the Runes to use. Belly had drawn the possible Runes and explained them, so he just had to find the right combination. He had studied them already, but most were difficult to reproduce without help.

He studied them with his RUNE APPRAISAL Skill and added some personal notes as he started carving them on two test battleaxes he had bought beforehand. He had many weapons stored for testing and in case they needed to fight while keeping their proper equipment a secret. They didn't have the best pieces of equipment, but they were way above average, and many would try to get them from them if they saw them.

Dark Guild knew they were there, but they didn't have enough time to see their equipment's full power to know how rare they were.

But if they got their class to evolve, their power would increase enough not to be scared from most of them, at least not the normal members. Still, there would be some special cases, and they would need to level up quite a bit not to have any worries, but Shingi was confident they could do it.

He worked on the right Runes and had made some prototypes without the help of Little Phoenix, but he couldn't finish the last step. Other than carving them, he had to pull a part of his selected Element or Elements on the Rune, but it didn't work for whatever reason he did it himself.

He spoke with Little Phoenix and Syra, and it seemed like when they used the mana, it took the form of a string instead of the usual shapeless form. Shingi couldn't give his mana that form for whatever reason, but he got close sometimes to succeed. If he continued, maybe he could actually get the necessary Skill to make Runes by himself.

Other than upgrading his students' equipment, he would create a special trinket for himself. This was the special project Soren had mentioned. That was also the reason he got all these special parts of the Bosses.

Except for the 6 items gathered, he would use the second ring of his, which had some of his Spells stored. It wouldn't be another staff, or a blade, or any type of weapon, but a trinket used as a focus for his spell casting. It was a useful one as it saved him from using his Mana Seeds unless he wanted to have them strengthened, as the speed was similar.

He would make another ring that wouldn't be able to store Spells in it, but the materials used on the ring would be helpful to the mix of the special materials at his disposal. It would help keep the Element of each item perfectly balanced and increase his proficiency in using MANA MANIPULATION Skills on the different Elements. He would choose what Elements the ring would affect, but the more Elements, the weaker the effect.

Shingi pulled out the pearl, the Sphinx's stride of hair, the heart of the Mother Earthworm, the Harp, Kelvin's dark crystal, and Lava Dragon's core. He tied the Dragon Core and the pearl together using the hair stride and the harp strings. He trimmed the dark crystal and the hearth of the Mother Earthworm, which was pretty much a rock itself that a piece of flesh.

He mixed those two and spread them around the connected core and pearl. Then he had his forge to be at full power and even more since he used Light, Fire, and Air Element to strengthen them and purify them simultaneously.

When the flames reached their limit, he pulled in the weird result of combining all the items, and after a bit, he put the ring too but was holding it with a pair of tongs. He wouldn't melt the ring, at least not completely. He had to move the ring with the tongs to spread the mix all over the ring, as long as it was still liquified.

He used some of his Air Element remaining in the fire to hold the materials in place, and when he had all of it used, he started pulling the ring away from the forge slowly. He unleashed more of his Air Mana to cool it off.

He let the ring become less warm as he pulled it in a special box, made of enchanted silver, embedded with Ice Mana, so it had a cooling effect.

He needed to let it in there, but not to cool off but to embed the element on itself; the water and air element of the box. He would then have to put it in a similar box with Fire Mana, Earth the Light, and finally Dark. He had prepared the boxes before they got into the Tower but embedding them with the right Element during their breaks with the help of his students.

Shingi wanted to make one for Spirit too, but making the right Enchantment on the box was something he didn't know how to do, and Syra wasn't certain either. But he could try to do it by feeding it with his Spirit Mana, which hopefully wouldn't make him reach his limit, as he had to finish the entire process at once with no breaks.

Since he used the boxes, he didn't need to use his mana for any other elements, meaning he could use everything on his try for Spirit Element. He hadn't put material for Spirit Element, but he thought the ring itself would count as one. Syra had recognized part of the runes to be spirit-based, which had him thought of how could that be possible since nobody could use Spirit Element at this level.

But it was a secret that he had never found out how to create those types of Equipment, and even if they could be bought, it wasn't cheap, and not just anyone could get them. But with the help of his past friends, getting one was possible.

Soren seemed to genuinely hadn't heard of the existence of the Spirit Element, so if anybody existed who could use it, they should be on the level of Mikhail to keep it a secret from him. Even if it sounded impossible, Shingi thought otherwise.

Mikhail seemed to be a special case, but that didn't mean he was the only one. Shingi knew that there were other people like him and Harbin, having special eyes, and some people who were their nemesis, as Harbin called them. He still didn't know who those people were or what exactly they did or could do to be considered their nemesis, but Harbin seemed unwilling to tell him.

Shingi had thought about the possibility of Mikhail being one of them, but since he didn't know who they were, he couldn't be certain.

Shingi wanted to learn more about one more group of people, which had something in common with him. The ones created by the company by other employees' DNA like him and Annoue. He still didn't know why Annoue was so different from him, even if she was supposed to also got made by a part of his DNA, but since she was a girl, maybe she turned to be different in more than just her gender.

She was the first one since the System referred to her as sNPC#1, and he remembered that it also called him sNPC#12 when he first tried to get his class. That meant that there were at least ten more like him. He also remembered Benjamin mentioning them, but when he got close to one, they disappeared.

He let Marcy, Price, and Anna keep looking for any information about any NPCs that could fit those requirements, but he didn't know if any of them could not act like he was when under the effect of Never-Ending Sleep.

There were many mysteries still to solve, but the more he thought about it, the more certain he was that Mikhail held the answers to all of them.

Mikhail had his ex-Blessed mother somehow working for him, or at least one that looked and sounded like her, as also had her memories. But it wasn't necessarily a Spell, but it could be some special power of his race, as he definitely wasn't just a human. He also had power that even Soren didn't know the limits of, as he could hide from him, which was something that even the Protectors couldn't do.

Even if he had reached a level of power as Varan had, Soren and others could detect him, but it was like he didn't even exist to their eyes. That was why Aella had such a hard time finding clues of his whereabouts. Especially when he was in the tower, it was even hard to monitor even a simple mortal the higher they were on the Tower, and Mikhail seemed to have his headquarters pretty high.

Shingi relaxed his mind as he continued checking his new ring, making sure it didn't stay in the box more than needed and moving it to the next one. He also kept working a bit on the spirit part of his Mana Tree to improve it as much as he could.

He had calculated that it would take them at least 4 days of training for all of them to finish their training, maybe two, if they were lucky. But if he made this trinket of his to work with Spirit Element, it would also increase the help he could provide in the training of Little Phoenix on increasing her proficiency in controlling the Spirit Element.

The ring should be over in a little less than an hour, as after that, any more alteration would be impossible. He had to make it work with one try.