From Player To Npc

During the week, he hadn't just pushed his body to its limits but also his Mana Skills. One of these limit-pushing exercises was manipulating the Elements around him with MANA MANIPULATION as he did with the sunlight today. Manipulating elements like that was something that took him a while to succeed. Still, he was far from his technique to be perfect as he knew that these actions would be impossible without his Blessing's passive effect. Even with that, he seemed to be barely capable of doing it.

But it wasn't just his INT being too low but also his limitations of the Rank of his skill but because of his Blessing; he was using the advantage of his high INT to push through the other requirements.

At some point during his craft of the hourglass, he felt the sunlight becoming more comfortable to control, but he didn't know at that point that it was because he broke the limit of the Base Rank of his skill.

He could also feel that his MANA SENSE has been increased cause he used it a lot during that to replace his sight, but it didn't seem to be enough to reach the Master Rank yet.

After he waited and made sure that Annoue was asleep, he started his tests with the new limits of his skill, and this time he did the same exercise that he gave to Little Phoenix. He manipulated and gathered the mana of his and Annoue's shadows.

Also, as he did with the sunlight, he didn't cut the mana's ties with its shadow, so he started manipulating the shadow entirely and not just its mana.

Cause this was supposed to be of Dark Element, it wasn't as easy as controlling Light Element. However, it was still way more manageable than when he managed the Light Element with his Base Rank skill. The difference was quite evident as he had tried it in the past, like during his second meeting with Hineko at the storehouse where he gave himself that darker look. Still, it took everything he had, but now he barely needed to put some focus on it, and the speed was multiple times faster than then and more precise.

After making a ball of shadow filling his hand, he spread the shadow to cover his whole body with the shadows, and it happened in a matter of seconds.

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SPELL LEARNED

The spell CAMOUFLAGE (Low Grade) has been learned.

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'Oh, that is interesting. Then with some adjustments, I should be able to cast that spell.' [Shingi]

Shingi kept the shadows to cover his body. He tried to mix some of his Light Mana with the shadows, which wasn't easy as the two elements were repelling each other as it was in their nature.

That wasn't much for Shingi now as he focused a little more and had everything under his control. Before he was sure that he might have a 30% chance of succeeding if he tried to do something like that, he used all his focus. Now he wasn't even using 20% of his focus, and he had everything under control. This was the true difference in the power of a Base Rank and a Master Rank skill.

And so part of the shadows combined with his Light became somewhat transparent and then invisible to the eye. Still, it wasn't like you saw through it as the body part of his cover was hidden too. With the Light Mana's help, the shadow was like magnets for light, and it was manipulating the light and gave the deception of not being there. But if one was quite perceptive, he could see his figure, especially if he was moving, but it seemed the System thought of it as acceptable.

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SPELL LEARNED

The spell INVISIBILITY (Base Grade) has been learned.

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'If someone heard that I learned a Base Rank spell and have no class, they would just think I am crazy.' [Shingi]

Ungraded spells were considered simple tricks that anyone who could use mana could learn no matter how untalented or talented they were. Low-Grade spells weren't thought that much different really than ungraded ones. Their difficulty to learn wasn't that different except for the ones whose specific type of Element of Mana was needed, like ROCK THROW. As for Base Grade, that is when one is considered a real Arcane User.

A Base Grade Spell was way more powerful than a Low-Grade spell, and not just because it needed more mana, but their difficulty on casting was in another level.

Shingi had seen the INVISIBILITY been cast before, and he knew that his own was far from the same quality as it, but that is cause it was the first time he cast the spell. He could train on it, and the spell would increase in power when he would be truly invisible to the naked eye that not even his Player Character will be able to see him. But same as that unlucky Rogue he faced last week, his spell will allow others not to be able to see him. Still, they will hear him or see his interaction with his surroundings, so he had to be careful when using this against perceptive foes.

He recast the spell, and it took him around 10 seconds to cast it, which wasn't too fast but not too slow either. He noticed that his figure was less noticeable when moving but still needed work. He was able to hold the spell for one minute, which was caused by his mana to be almost over. He needed to use his mana after casting the spell to keep the shadows around him and feeding them with Light Mana, so it was quite expensive for him. He calculated that he could probably stay invisible for two minutes in total if he had his mana full, and that is with one casting of the spell. If he had to cast other spells or recast it, the time would be less.

So then he focused on his Mana Tree. Since his MANA MANIPULATION was higher Rank, he could now manipulate more mana, feed it, and make its growing progress faster. With his work and helping Annoue, he didn't make much of a breakthrough during the week at growing his Mana Tree, as it had barely grown a few centimeters in height.

But after he restored some of his mana, he stood up. He cast his CAMOUFLAGE spell, which wasn't as good as his INVISIBILITY spell. Still, since it was dark outside and combining it with his STEALTH, he was sure that no one would notice. And so he made his way out and to the old storehouse, which he considered to be a remarkable open space to develop his Mana Tree.

Of course, he knew that he didn't need to use a spell since his STEALTH should be more than enough. Still, it was an excellent way to consider it as a practice round of how it would be when using his INVISIBILITY.

And so he made it at the storehouse. Even if he was, in theory, should be slower as he was the more careful cause of the change of his stats, he made it a few minutes earlier than usual.

He sat over the box that he always used, but this time he didn't need to take his clothes off, and while keeping his MANA SENSE and PERCEPTION on to make sure he doesn't have any guests, out of nowhere, he focused on feeding mana on his Mana Tree.

He tried to focus on attracting at the moonlight, but it was a cloudy night, and it wasn't a full moon either, so he wasn't able to get much, but there was quite few Earth mana that he could work with. He needed to strengthen the Earth side of his Mana Tree, which was lesser than his Light one, which could easily succeed by feeding Earth-based mana, which was the easiest one to find. But he didn't want to change the balance of his tree too much. Some of his spells needed the Light Mana of his, so it was good that his Mana Tree could make a lot of it.

Right now, he had calculated that his Light/Earth Mana ratio was 70/30, with Light being the higher number. He considered trying to make it 50/50, but after getting a spell-like INVISIBILITY, he aimed for 60/40. It wasn't like 30 percent wasn't enough, but he was seeking to learn more offensive spells in the future, and they would mostly use Earth Mana.

Also, he was using quite a bit of his Earth Mana during his crafting especially using Earth MANA HAND. It could withstand heated metals better than his Light MANA HAND. Light MANA HANDS needed to keep feeding them with mana or get dispelled after a while as the heat damaged them. Of course, it wasn't like he couldn't work without it, but it was a way to improve the final craft's quality.

So for the rest of the night, he kept manipulating mana, and this time it wasn't just strengthening the tree itself but the ground of it too.

And so, after hours, a change finally happened. A cocoon was created around the tree and looked like an oversized seed. Still, the left part of it seemed to be bright as it was created out of many lights, and the right part of it was made of Earth. But the two parts weren't the same size as the Light part seems to cover more than the Earth one.

After a few minutes of nothing happening and it rejecting letting any mana that Shingi tried to feed it vanished into the ground. A small tree started to grow and grow as it stopped when it reached almost a meter and a half in height, which was way bigger than when it was a shrub. And it grew some seeds on its branches. Shingi counted them, and they were 12 at number, which was less than what Annoue had, but it was still counted of him being at the Base Rank. As for fruits, he didn't have any, but it made sense since the fruit was a grown seed, and he just grew some seeds.

He made some careful tests to understand the nature and power of the seeds. After almost an hour of careful research, he was certain that each of those was close to the mana needed to cast a ROCK THROW spell of his.

That wasn't much, but they were just grown, and in time he could possibly even be able to use them as a replacement to cast an INVISIBILITY spell. But if they become a fruit, he should be able to cast his INVISIBILITY and keep it active for a minute without using any of his mana.

But growing fruit on a Mana Tree wasn't an easy task as far as he understood, and it took time. He wasn't sure how many he could grow, so even if he had one wouldn't dare to use it unless he had no other choice.

He still had a couple of hours before he needed to return, so he kept feeding his Mana Tree and his Mana Seed.