Rest of the week

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STATUS

NAME: Shingi Maki

CLASS: None

PROFESSION: Scholar Master

RACE: Blessed Human

HP: 80/80

SP: 40/40

MP: 38/38

STR: 12

AGI: 14

END: 16

INT: 16

CHA: 4

MANA POOL: Earth and Light Element

SKILLS

Base Rank: VISUALIZATION, MANA SENSE, STEALTH, MARTIAL ART, GLASSBLOWING

Master Rank: MANA MANIPULATION, PERCEPTION, IMPROVISED THROW WEAPON, ACCELERATION

SPELLS

Ungraded: FILTH EATER, MINOR ILLUSION, LIGHT

Low Grade: MANA HAND, ROCK THROW, CAMOUFLAGE

Base Grade: INVISIBILITY, DOME OF SILENCE

BLESSINGS: Blessing of ??????, Blessing of Dlog

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It didn't seem like there was any ranking up to any of his skills or stats. Still, his SP had increased since he last checked it, but he wasn't sure if it was cause some time passed. He was less affected by the time he used his Breaking Limit state or cause he got more used in his body after fighting more vigorous opponents like that. During the battle, he noticed that the cost of his ACCELERATION, which was the most SP costly skill of his, was a little less than before but was barely noticeable.

Also, even if the System didn't count it, he could feel his spells have increased in how proficient he was at using them. Many people had said that you could make more progress during a battle of few minutes than the training of few days, and it was true in this case. But the progress he had made during the fight wasn't as significant as the one he did while training in the TRANCE ROOM, but it wasn't too far apart.

Then he turned his attention to the Status Window of Annoue to see her progress, and it seemed like the battle had helped her.

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STATUS

NAME: Annoue Maki

CLASS: Arcane Blade (Apprenticeship State)

RACE: Blessed Human

TITLE: First Student

HP: 108/108

SP: 42/42

MP: 23/23

STR: 15

AGI: 10

END: 12

INT: 12

MAN POOL: Air Element

SKILLS

Low Rank: COOKING, DEFLECT, ENCHANTMENT, MARTIAL ART, COMBAT INSIGHT

Base Rank: MANA MANIPULATION, MANA SENSE, AIR SLASH

Master Rank: LIFT, PUSH

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Her INT was raised by 1, which should boost her Mana Skills, as this was the base requirement for them usually. She also got two new skills, MARTIAL ART and COMBAT INSIGHT.

MARTIAL ART unlocked cause she fought using just her hands but dealt not only damage but hit in specific places to have different effects, like the neck chop she did at the start of the battle. As for COMBAT INSIGHT, she had to adapt since her training with Shingi and fighting this opponent of more incredible speed and skills. She seemed to be a quick learner. If only she had more AGI, she could beat Shingi too. Of course, that would be in theory only as Shingi has some tricks up his sleeves and has learned to adapt to all situations quickly.

Even her HP, SP, and MP values changed somewhat, with HP having the most significant change, which may have caused the craziest change in her status.

Her class.

As with Shingi, Annoue didn't have a class, and now, after one battle, she was an Arcane Blade, but not entirely since she was at Apprenticeship State. A class had some states before an NPC fully earned it. Most of the time, players had to complete some quests to get the class of their choice, as the System did the rest, but that wasn't the case for the NPCs.

When one NPC had met the lower requirements of a class, he would start at Apprenticeship State. Next, he needs to work on more standards, which could be to learn more skills or spells of the class or reach a few specific skills to a certain Rank or find a master to teach you the class's ways. Fortunately, the Arcane Blade was a class that didn't need to have a master, even if it could speed things up if one had one. To go to the next stage of the class, which would be Base State, she had to reach her ENCHANTMENT skill to Base Rank. The easier way to do that was to learn more enchantments, which wouldn't be too hard with the Enchantment Trinket and the notes he gave her.

She also had to learn 4 Weapon Skills that needed the blade and have them all at least at Base Rank. She already had 2 Weapon Skills, AIR SLASH and DEFLECT, so she had to learn two more and Ranking them and DEFLECT to Base Rank.

After she reached the Base State of the class, she needed to pass some more requirements, and she would be a fully-fledged Arcane Blade.

They were similar requirements, like knowing and using more Enchantments and more Weapon Skills. But you had to have at least one Master Enchantment and one Master Rank Weapon Skill, making this class impossible for simple people to earn.

But Shingi was confident that Annoue would handle it until now; things worked out well. Her spirit seemed to be consistently high and not giving up, which was essential in these situations.

'She is progressing even faster than I thought she would, and at this rate, she will surpass me if I don't keep up.' [Shingi]

Shingi had learned a lot since becoming an NPC, but he still kept his mind on one important task.

His MAIN QUEST.

He had completed two tasks back when he trained with Annoue by getting a title and a blessing, but after that, no matter what he did, he had made no progress on the quest. Finally, he knew he should fulfill the only task to earn a Class, but he still progressed in acquiring one.

He aimed for one that had an Arcane Nature, but he knew he couldn't get one with his spells and current skill set. He didn't also seek to be an Arcane Blade, as even if he could use a few Enchantments, it wasn't much of his style to focus on that type of magic.

But he didn't overthink it and just went with the flow and made progress with his Skills' ranks and Spells' proficiency as he considered then to fit his style.

And so he focused on his VISUALIZATION and making the TRANCE ROOM. This time changed it to be their Tree Hideout instead of their room, and after a few minutes, he got the notification if he wanted to use it as a TRANCE ROOM.

He worked similarly to last time to raise his Master Rank skills, proficiency, and Spells. However, he seemed to barely use his MANA SENSE, which appeared to have gone very near being raised to Master Rank.

Of course, in the room, he could sense the surrounding mana without the skill. Still, it differed significantly from the skill. He could tell more details, like estimating the amount of mana in its element and where exactly it was. While without using it, he could tell if there was some mana and its general position.

He even visualized his dagger and made his Light Blade, as it seemed like quite a good attack, but even here, it seemed pretty hard to handle for a lot of time. The best he did was 7 seconds after that; even here, he wasn't able to keep the mana together like it was exploding and released. It seemed like he was lucky that it lasted 5 seconds for the first time he used it, and probably it helped that he used the Mithril dagger, which he couldn't replicate here.

Nonetheless, he had made much progress on his INVISIBILITY and CAMOUFLAGE spell and his ACCELERATION skill most of all, as they were ones he worked on the most. When he used CAMOUFLAGE now, he was confident to hide from anyone with no Master Rank PERCEPTION while he stayed motionless, even if he was next to him. Even if one had Master Rank PERCEPTION, he could use it to make his attack less predictable and cause confusion, but only if the target's PERCEPTION were on the early levels of Master Rank. But that didn't consider if he combined it with his STEALTH skill or if one knew to use the PERCEPTION skill at its limits.

As for his INVISIBILITY, he was confident that he was at the limit of the spell that one could reach without the appropriate Arcane Words that he wanted to research at some point. So he improved his spells to be used to others and almost worked the same at others as they would at him. Last time when he used his INVISIBILITY at Annoue if he didn't cause a distraction. They were lucky that the players were on guard against Shingi, so they were extra focused on him; she wouldn't be too hard to be detected.

Even items he didn't touch, he could turn them near invisible using the same technique he used in the last battle. He let the mana get transferred to them through his MANA HANDS to surround them with the CAMOUFLAGE field. His range was around 5 meters, which significantly improved from the little more than a meter he had during the last battle. After that range, he needed to use more mana to be considered in the safe zone, so unless having no other option, that was his range for now.

His ACCELERATION skill didn't improve how fast he could go and how quickly he could react. The ACCELERATION skill boosted the user's adrenaline, but that wasn't causing his senses to increase as much as his body's capabilities. So he had to find a balance between them to control his moves better. Cause no matter how fast he was, if his brain didn't register that an attack comes right at him, it wouldn't be beneficial.

The TRANCE ROOM's time ended, and once more, it went in 24 hours cooldown, so nothing changed from last time. But it did not upset Shingi as most people never even got the chance to get access to something like that even once in their lifetime.

It was another morning, and Garry had left them a note in the kitchen that he would be away for a couple of weeks and they should continue their work at the shop in the meantime. But, of course, he didn't mention why he had to live, and even Annoue found it strange as even if sometimes he left the house, he never really have left a note like that in the past.

The young brother and sister went their way to the shop, with Shingi being on guard all the way, but fortunately, nothing happened.

He continued using his mana to create some of the superior dust he wanted to use; he also used MANA HANDS to work on some orders and helped Annoue with her training. This time he did it specially.

He cast one MANA HAND and had it touching the shoulder of Annoue, which seemed to get considered like him touching her for his Blessing's active effect to work.

The DEFLECT skill itself was a Weapon Skill, so STR and AGI mainly affected it. Still, COMBAT INSIGHT got influenced primarily by a user's INT.

So, with the effect of the Blessing, he boosted the INT of Annoue. Then, all he had to do was increase the difficulty of his attacks, making Annoue use her COMBAT INSIGHT skill. This would make his moves way more comfortable to read and so, helping at her DEFLECT training.

Also, he didn't forget the title of Annoue as his First Student, which made it easier to learn skills from him. So with everything, that one hour that his Blessing was active had the most significant effect.

Shingi worked on some orders that his MANA HAND couldn't handle. He also used his MANA HAND to fight Annoue to gain experience fighting against different opponents of strange nature. Getting used to fight only a specific opponent wasn't granting you actual strength.

And like that, the week passed with no accidents or hearing about those Guild Players, but he knew it was most likely the calm before the storm, but he could only prepare and wait for now.

The week came to its end, and it was finally the time that he and his student players waited for.

The day to explore the nearby Dungeon.