Chapter 30: Actions and reactions (1/2)
Shingi kept feeding his Mana Tree and Seed and restoring his while keeping his MANA SENSE on the unique mana of their hideout tree roots.
If one brought that info to the right NPC, it would unlock a type of a Chain Quest. It could be that it is the remains of an old entity that was slowly grown back or a new kind of mana created by events that have happened around here through time or a million other things.
Of course, he could use that mana as usual to strengthen his Mana Tree or his seeds. It probably would have a unique effect on them, but it could have undesired results since it had all the elements in one.
He kept restoring his mana, and as he had more than half restored, he started putting it at use to destroy the Spatial Ring's lock.
With his current MANA SENSE, he could 'see' the weak point of this lock and attack them with his mana. Mostly with his Earth, which was more suitable to do damage, and as there seemed to be some 'cracks' on it, he used his Light Mana to move it faster to get in and deal damage from the inside.
He kept doing that, and after half an hour or so, he was finally successful.
It took him a while cause his mana was too low, and he had to keep pf his usage and keep it lower than the amount he was using.
He then brought out everything that the ring had in it, and it didn't seem to have much—just three items.
One of them was a pouch pretty similar to the one that Varic gave him, and it was actually another money pouch but was maybe a third of Varic's size. He checked, and it had coins in there, so he just put them in the special storage of his Dlog Blessing, which was letting him know if he focused how many coins were in there, so he didn't need to count them.
The second item was a scroll with a wax seal on it, and the seal had on it a symbol of the head of a wolf looking at the left.
The last item was a whip or, more specifically, just the handle of a whip. At the end of the handle, where the rest should be, there was a tiny gem of white color.
'Oh, an energy weapon they seem to have funds.' [Shingi]
Energy weapons were weapons made out of Energy. More specifically, they had a Mana Stone on them that was enchanted to use the environment's mana and turn it into a weapon. Even if they were using mana, the weapon wasn't purely made out of mana, as the mana stone seemed to change its nature to be easier to control even by a no-Arcane user.
This one was designed to make the rest of the whip when its user enabled it.
But energy weapons were tricky to use as a command needed to be given to them to enable them, and only its creator knew what this command was. It could be a particular move or a specific word. It could also be, in some cases, even just a thought about it, but since the gem used was white, which was the sign of it being of low quality, it couldn't be the case.
But even if the gem was of low quality, it was still worth a hundred or so gold coins. Cause of the weapon's nature, its damage could pass the defenses of many monsters. This would make the fight relatively more straightforward, especially if you don't have an Arcane user with you.
Shingi considered himself lucky that he didn't give them a chance to fight him or if the Player used the whip to be in serious trouble.
But even with their standard weapons, the fight wouldn't be easy as they had a class and the System's help at using their skills, which is why he had to make sure that they couldn't fight. As letting them go without killing them, he would never think about it. This kind of people would return if he didn't teach them their lesson that this was his place.
It was his sister's hideout, but especially since of the mystery of the multi Element's mana, he considered it his own.
He brought out of his bag a string, and he tied the ring with it and put it around his neck like a necklace. He didn't need to wear it in his finger to use it just had to touch it to pull out or store any items, and since he wanted to hide it, he kept it under his clothes.
He stored in it his Mithril dagger and the two pieces of the hourglass. He went back to his meditate and making his Mana Tree and Seeds stronger, but his PERCEPTION noticed something.
Some birds appeared flying up from the trees from a place not too far from them. It seemed like something scared them, and they flew away.
He used his PERCEPTION and MANA SENSE at their full power towards that direction, and there seemed to be some movement not too far from them.
Almost a dozen Players seem to be heading towards their direction, and they seemed to be mostly low level. Still, there were two at the front that had tenser auras than the rest, meaning they were Higher-Level.
He stood up right away and moved at Annoue and drew her attention as she seemed to focus on her training in Air Slash entirely.
”Annoue, we need to go. Dangerous people get near us, and we need to get back in town.” [Shingi]
Annoue was confused over what he was talking about, but he trusted him more than anything, so she got ready to move on.
But it seemed to be too late as Shingi had to enable his ACCELERATION skill and stepped back just in time as an arrow passed through the place he was, and it seemed to be aimed near his heart.
Then a wolf and a bear appeared out of the woods and behind them the Players he felt of them getting near them. Of course, among them were the three that he had dealt with less than an hour ago.
The one he was talking with seemed to recognize him since even if he had his face covered, his clothing was the same, and his haircut and the rest of his looks.
Shingi could tell now that there were ten players. Eight of them, including the three he had dealt with already, seemed to be less than Level 10, while the other two, who seemed to have tamed the wolf, and the bear, were around level 20.
The two of them were wearing a cloak covering their left arm, and it had on it the same symbol that the wax seal of the scroll in the ring had—the wolf's head.
”So this is the boy who killed you? He doesn't look like the monster you described it to be.” [High-Level Tamer #1]
”Well, you know newbies, they always think of someone that looks different than they expect a monster.” [High-Level Tamer #2]
The first one that spoken nodded at what the second said, and they seemed quite relaxed, almost like they were ignoring Shingi. Still, he could tell that they kept their eyes on him, meaning they appeared to have high PERCEPTION.
Shingi knew that he was at a disadvantage as there was no escape as even if he were faster than the Players, he wouldn't be able to outpace the tamed wolf. But even then, he wouldn't leave without a fight.
He turned his head towards Annoue and spoke to her.
”Return to town by yourself. I will join you soon. I have to talk with them.” [Shingi]
Annoue seemed worried and wasn't willing to let her brother alone with those strangers cause she could tell that they didn't mean to do anything nice.
But as she was ready to say something, Shingi stopped her as he looked at her with a look she had never seen him have before.
He was always serious and rarely saw him smiling, but she was used to having no response from him since all the years she knew him, he was asleep. But now, his serious look was at a different level, and it wasn't like she was looking at her little brother but a Hero, a powerful Hero.
”I will wait for you at home... so be careful.” [Annoue]
She didn't know why she said that, but something in her told her that he would be ok and had to do what he said. It worked until now, so why it wouldn't work again?