Sword training

Shingi was ready to head back to call Annoue but noticed that there was something on the ground. It was a ring.

It wasn't in the ground before, but he remembered noticing that ring on the fingers of the Player he was talking with just a few moments ago.

'It seems my luck is high today.' [Shingi]

When a Player died, he would typically lose some exp, but there was a tiny chance for one of his items on him, either if they had it equipped or not, to drop. This chance would increase if the Player who died were a Red Player, but if the killer's level were way higher than that of the Player, it would decrease. That was so that high-level players wouldn't bully low lever ones. That is why when he killed the Players outside the Goblin cave, they didn't drop a single of their items even if they were Red Players.

One of these Players' chances to drop something should be less than 1%, but it actually happened.

Shingi picked up the ring, and he didn't have to investigate it for long as, with one look, he knew what it was.

"Either their Guild is one whose funds are unlimited, or this guy was an important character to his Guild. Maybe a prodigy or something." [Shingi]

The ring was a Spatial Ring. Those rings had access to a pocket dimension that he could use to store items. Still, unlike with his Blessing of Dlog, which was limited to coins, this could store anything that wasn't living.

Three different types of Spatial Rings existed, depending on how many things they could store.

There is the small one which can store close to 100kg or items. Then there was the medium size, which could handle up to 200kg, and the large one could handle a ton. The ring he found was a medium-sized one.

Players could find or buy the small and medium ones if they had the funds. Still, the large ones were available only through special quests, and they were the only one of the three that they were bond to their user so that only they could use it. After the user died, the ring would disappear and hide for others to earn it.

Through his research, Shingi had found out back when he was a Player that there were 5 Large rings. Someone created them before the Great Pact, which was hundreds of years before the game started.

He was familiar with how the ring worked cause he used to have one himself, but he wasn't lucky enough to get one of the large ones, so he had a medium one then.

Others could use the small and medium rings, but they had to be unlocked first, which was impossible for the Large ones. To unlock the ring, he had to overpower its defense with his mana, which if one wasn't a Mage, they could hire someone to do it for him.

But he currently had used almost all his mana, so he had to do it after he was back at full power.

He then made his way back to Annoue. He didn't have to go far enough as it seemed like she had made her way here, and she was actually at the same shrub he was when he got here.

"I thought I told you to stay back and wait for me to call you." [Shingi]

Annoue took a deep breath and spoke, or more precisely, shouted with her eyes closed.

"I AM THE BIG SISTER, AND I WANT TO STAY WITH YOU. YOU SAID YOU WON'T LEAVE ME ALONE AGAIN." [Annoue]

These sentences surprised Shingi, and he understood Annoue seemed to depend on him more than he thought. He wondered if she didn't have her training while he was away, what would happen?

He just sighed at the thought.

But it didn't seem like Annoue was here for long, and she hadn't seen the players. So she probably got here while Shingi was at his DOME OF SILENCE, which was what the System called his new Spell.

While in there, they could hear no sound in the dome, and everything was pitch black. The shadows were consuming light and sound, so even his PERCEPTION was useless in there, but not his MANA SENSE.

"Let's start your training. As I mentioned yesterday, I will have you train in two moves which are quite basic for your class."[Shingi]

He brought the two daggers out of his bag that he had bought a few days ago to keep his stuff. His Mithril one and his wooden one and gave the wooden one to Annoue.

She still seemed to be a kind of upset about Shingi leaving her behind, but she took the dagger and heard him out.

"So since you have Air Element Mana this moves, I am going to show you they differ for you since you can boost them with your mana." [Shingi]

He made a vertical swing after turning himself to have Annoue at his right.

The swing happened at an incredible speed as he had used his ACCELERATION skill. It produced a wave of air that moved towards that direction with great speed and force, but it hit nothing, so none could be entirely sure how strong it was.

"As you saw, this is a simple move but needs great speed or substantial force at your swing, but there is a way to make things easier and strengthen this." [Shingi]

Annoue seemed to understand where this was going, but Shingi explained further, step by step, what she needed to do.

It was pretty simple. Instead of using speed and force to the swing to make the AIR SLASH, she could instead create a ball of Air mana around the tip of her blade, then do the swing to form the slash like she was painting in the air using the blade as a blush and the Air mana she manipulated as paint. But, of course, then she had to use the swing force and empower it with more of her Air Mana.

It would have the same effect; however, it would be more potent than a regular AIR SLASH, as it would actually use mana to turn from an ordinary Weapon Skill to a Mana Weapon Skill way more powerful than their standard versions.

But this was more suitable by Air Element as their main mana, as their manipulation of the air was at a different level than the others. Also, since they used their mana and not the environment's mana, it would be more comfortable and faster to control.

"This is one move you need to master to move on with your training. As for the other one, it is one focusing on defense instead of offense." [Shingi]

Once more, he would show the move, but he asked Annoue to punch him to do it. Of course, she argued she didn't want to hurt him, but he persuaded her at the end that it was just a demonstration and he wouldn't get hurt.

Annoue punched him, but before her fist connected with him, he brought his dagger and its blunt surface in the way of her fist. Then, when they touched, he turned the blade down with great speed to move the force of the impact, making Annoue lose her balance.

"This is DEFLECT, and it is a move that you can also empower with your Air Mana. Create some air around the source of the attack. Here, it would be your fist and push it in the direction you want to deflect. Of course, in the middle of the battle, your control of mana has to be perfect to use it in that small amount of time, but we take small steps for now." [Shingi]

Annoue seemed to be impressed by her brother and the power he demonstrated by using these moves.

But she didn't know that those moves weren't even at half of their usual power. Not even the System was thinking them close to the Skills they were to be since they didn't become available to Shingi after demonstrating them. His stats were too low.

Of course, AGI was necessary for the AIR SLASH, but STR was just as important, and his STR was relatively low to what they required.

The same with his DEFLECT as his STR was lower than Annoue's, but his high PERCEPTION helped him use the move and adjust as needed.

He suggested she try to master the AIR SLASH first, keep familiar with the dagger, and then move on to DEFLECT training. She needed to have someone attacking her to train on that.

Shingi, while keeping some of his attention on her, went into his meditation stance to feed his Mana Tree, restore his mana, and work on unlocking the ring.

But as he started focusing, he noticed something, which he didn't last time he was here.

The hollow tree's roots were emitting some mana. But that wasn't strange, as even if it was hollow, it wasn't dead, so it still could produce mana, but the peculiar thing was the mana's color.

Mana's color depended on their element. Red for Fire, blue for Water, green for Earth, etc. But this one had multiple colors blending like a rainbow.

This unique mana was little in quantity, and he was sure that without his MANA SENSE being close to rank up to Master Rank, he would never have noticed.

Different Elements had different interactions with each other. Some were repelling each other, some had no interaction, and some were consuming the other. But here, Shingi noticed all Basic Elements of Fire, Water, Air, and Earth being close to each other and blended in peace like they meant to be together. There was no sign of Dark or Light Mana, which kept things less crazy.

He had never heard of anyone else encountering something like that. Still, there was an instance of Players engaging with stuff that wasn't making sense, but almost all the time, this meant one thing.

'This should be the trigger of a Quest.' [Shingi]