The strange room

During the week that he made the SMITHING orders, he had pushed his body enough to need some sleep only twice, but he didn't have the strange dream of going to the Dark Room or hear the mysterious voice. Today it was the same, and during it, he was entirely out.

Even his great PERCEPTION didn't work. He had noticed that, and he considered it a side effect of lifting the curse, and he should do something for it in the future. He was always on guard even when sleeping, so he slept only when completely necessary until he could deal with it.

Shingi didn't dream during his sleep, but he was in an empty white space, but he lacked a body, and they limited his senses like a mist had filled the entire area. He didn't have access to any of his Skills or his Mana or Spells. He just had to wait for time to pass as if he concentrated hard enough; he could feel if he had enough sleep or not. But no matter how hard he concentrated, he couldn't notice if anything was happening in the area around his sleeping body.

This was another reason he didn't want to sleep cause he was in this space, unable to do anything but wander around, but there wasn't anything at all. No matter how much he moved in one direction, he found nothing, just more flat ground, and sometimes even wondered if he was really walking or just staying still.

He kept concentrating on his different skills or using some of his mana, but nothing worked there. But then something worked.

His VISUALIZATION skill.

His Mana Skills couldn't work cause he couldn't use any mana. The mist, which was quite weird, completely blocked his PERCEPTION, and the rest of his Skills depended on him having an actual body, which he didn't in here.

But his VISUALIZATION was a mental Skill that needed nothing like mana or having a body.

So since he had nothing better to do, he worked on this as it could be pretty helpful at a higher Rank. He could visualize his crafts at their final form or each part separately or even help with his spell-casting. He could visualize a Mana Circle and draw it, increasing its quality and possibly decreasing his casting time.

He visualized something big and not the usual, just having people doing something. Hence, he started by visualizing the room in which he was currently sleeping.

He firstly made planks to make the floor and then did the walls. He then put the window and the desk with the mirror and the closed door to the corridor leading to the kitchen. Then he worked on a chest with toys or clothes, but it was empty. He also created their closet and then their beds.

He kept working on adding every detail he could work, even possible cracks in walls he had noticed. He made the beds not be tidy to add some difficulty on all and make it more believable as it was most of the time like that. Annoue seemed to forget tidying hers sometimes but always did of Shingi if he didn't do it himself.

After working on it for not knowing how long, it was like he really was in the room and wanted to get in his meditation stance to train, but he couldn't.

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You created a TRANCE ROOM. Want to use it?

YES/NO

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The notification surprised Shingi, as it was the first time one appeared while he was in here.

He had heard many theories and stories about reaching a trance state, but one couldn't know what was true or false, as some were just ridiculous and some were impossible for one to do.

He never heard of a person using his VISUALIZATION as he did to lead to something like that, but he didn't know if anyone would create an entire room that detailed with this Skill. Even Architects, if they used this Skill, didn't put that much detail just through the general layout and draw the rest on paper or something or used illusion magic instead.

Shingi was curious as always, and it didn't seem that there was any harm in trying, either way, so he accepted using the room.

The notification became a ball of light and kept increasing in brightness. Then, Shingi could see just white, and then the light disappeared, and he was back in the room he visualized, but there was one difference.

'The mist is gone, and I can feel something different... is that mana?' [Shingi]

He could feel some mana even if he could not use his mana skills, and the mana felt strangely very similar to his own. So he tried to manipulate it and seemed to follow his mental commands, even if he felt like he wasn't using his MANA MANIPULATION skill.

He could more with the mist gone. His mind seemed more straightforward, and his PERCEPTION seemed to be there for him to be used but was weaker. Same for all his other Master Rank skills. He could feel like he could use them but seemed to be weaker like they were Low Rank. As for the rest of his Skills, it felt nothing of them.

He tried casting a Spell with the mana he could control, and he tried the one he used the most, his MANA HAND, and he cast it with no problem. Also, the mana he used got replaced at an incredible speed.

He kept using all his Spells, and he didn't have a problem casting any of them, and the mana he used got refilled as fast as he used it like there was an unlimited source producing it.

'This is greater than I thought it would be. '[Shingi]

Shingi wanted to train his Spells and especially his Base Grade ones to become more familiar with them, but he couldn't do it cause his mana limited him. But here, it was like he had unlimited mana. He still could feel the limits of what he could handle, but the mana surrounding him and feeling like the mana coming from his Mana Tree was coming without an end, making him just using one spell after the other without breaks. Also, he didn't seem to strain his mind in here and not even losing any SP, but he couldn't be sure cause he couldn't open his status here.

So he trained himself on both his Skills and Spells by doing different training activities.

Shingi used his VISUALIZATION to create his own body, and it succeeded. He had a body in the place, but it took him some time to focus on making the movements he wanted to do. He trained on his VISUALIZATION, too. He didn't need to use it to keep the room in place anymore. It didn't get weaker, but it got empowered instead.

He kept casting INVISIBILITY on himself to become familiar with it and moving on it as quietly as possible. He had some difficulty as he didn't have access to his STEALTH skill, but he could notice the problems and fix them using his PERCEPTION. Then he kept casting ROCK THROW instead of creating rocks and throwing them using his IMPROVISED THROW WEAPON skill. He also kept using his ACCELERATION to increase his speed, impede his spell, and stop it by using MANA MANIPULATION to keep the mana-created stone in place.

He noticed he couldn't use his Breaking-Limit stage here, but he thought it made sense as it wasn't actually a skill, and the rumors were that Trance was to help you in your Skills and Spells.

And so the time passed until a System Notification appeared in front of him.

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The TRANCE ROOM has reached its Limits.

It is going to be unavailable to use for 24 hours now.

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When he finished reading that, the entire room disappeared, and he was back in the misty white space.

He tried to use his VISUALIZATION, but this time it seemed like he couldn't use that either, so this time he had nothing to do.

'Well, at least I can do this once per day, and maybe the cooldown will decrease the more I use it.' [Shingi]

He focused on seeing what state his body was in, and it seemed like he had enough rest not to need more sleep, at least so he woke up right away.

As he woke up, he noticed the sleeping Annoue next to him and detected by a crack in the window outside that it was dark as it was nighttime.

'Did I sleep for that long?' [Shingi]

He should be asleep for over 8 hours, but he couldn't know precisely how long he was sleeping since he didn't have a clock or something, so he had to estimate the time somewhat.

His body was in a better state than before his sleep, but he still needed more time to be back to 100%.

He noticed a bowl of soup next to their bed at his side, and it seemed like it got cold as it was there for some time. But he was hungry, and it wasn't like it was inedible when cold.

He would typically go to the storehouse to meditate there to feed his Mana Tree and Mana Seeds, but he didn't want to do it in his current state, just in case. It wasn't like he couldn't do it here as it wouldn't wake Annoue up as he didn't make any noise, but the mana around the storehouse seemed to be better than the one here case he had a better view on the moon as its light seemed to have the most significant effect at his Mana Tree.

He focused on feeding his Mana Tree and his Mana Seeds. He also focused on both of their progress and if his Tree had changed at all.

The Mana Seeds seemed more prominent than they used to be, meaning that they had more mana, so they could be more helpful but could feel that they still had a way to reach their limit and possibly become a Mana Fruit.

His Mana Tree had changes in his Light and Earth mana distribution, as it went from 70/30 to almost 65/35. Those, of course, were estimations, as he didn't know the exact numbers, just going through how much he felt that the amount of each Element was. So it was like he could feel how much each weighted and change that to the amount of mana, but he had to keep in mind that the Earth Mana was weighing more than Light mana, so even if it was 'heavier,' it was still less in quantity than Light.

But it wasn't so hard to make the calculations as the mana coming from the Mana Tree was like a part of him, and after the time he passed in the TRANCE ROOM, he became even more familiar with it.

At that point, he also tried to grind his MANA SENSE, and this time he barely used his PERCEPTION, trying to get all the details with his MANA SENSE only. He could feel it making some progress, but he could also feel that wall that he couldn't pass.

This was what was separating the Base Rank and the Master Rank of one Skill, and even if he had a few Master Rank skills, it didn't mean that he could raise all his Skills at that Rank as each one had its way to be raised and had to pass different obstacles to reach the Master Rank.

But he knew he shouldn't complain as he was an NPC who could transfer high-Rank skills from his Player character and use them even with his child body even if they were weaker, but in time, they would grow. Even his ACCELERATION, which had reached Master Rank, which would be close to the level at his Player Character, still had a long way to go for him to go as fast as he could when he used it as a Player. But this also somewhat caused the limits of his current stats, but he is slowly getting there.

After reaching 16 in his END, his body would handle even more after reaching 15 since the System considered him proficient on that Stat when reaching that point. Therefore, the difference between someone having a stat at 16 and having it at 15 was more than between 15 and 14.

The System granted Passive effects for passing the boundary of 15. 15 was the limit that an NPC would, in the best case, reach without a class or help from an outside force.

Of course, Shingi was a particular case, and he had both his INT and END at 16 cause of his vast knowledge that a normal NPC wouldn't have and some luck.

He had his INT at 16 for quite some time, but he still didn't know what benefits were getting out of it as the benefits seemed to vary per character. But either way, his goal was to reach at least his INT at 20, where he would have no problem casting Base or Master Rank spells so that he would be a powerhouse at that point.

He could cast some Grand Master spells if he were lucky, but they were pretty rare to find and learn.

But either way, that wasn't something he could do shortly, as increasing one's stats wasn't easy, especially after reaching 16.

Even Players had a problem as leveling up didn't grant them Stats points as at other games, but only some Rare Quests could do something like that. There were also some potions, but they needed pretty rare ingredients, and one could use them only once for each Stat, and if they tried to consume another one, even if it were a different potion, it would have no effect.

One Player in the past had found the recipe, which was granting +2 END. One of the primary materials needed was the heart of an Ancient or older Black Dragon killed at least a week before creating the potion.

A dragon to be ancient has to be at least 1000 years old, and Black Dragons were famous for their acidic nature and their body dissolving their innards when dying, making gathering his heart even harder even if you could find one and kill it. The rest of the materials weren't as ridiculous, but not the least rare or hard to get.

The Player who found the recipe had posted it in the game's forum, saying how ridiculous the materials were for one to gather, and not even one of the big Guild could make it. For some time, many Guilds tried to gather the materials since they got the recipe for free as he posted even how to make the potion, not just what materials needed.

None came close to gather them all, even if some worked together, and they stopped trying after a while.

Even the Dragon that Shingi fought was a little too young to reach the Ancient stage, and Ameanum could barely defeat it back then.

'To increase my power and of the rest, my knowledge won't be enough. I also need money. Their equipment will cost a lot, especially if we go to train to some of the special places I know.' [Shingi]

At that point, he had an idea and checked if something was available in his System.

With no delay, after making sure he was ready, he activated his SPECTATOR MODE, which was ONLINE currently.