Blue Moon Festival Final Part
Shingi always considered the unnatural for her age STR of Annoue, but he never thought it to be used against him like that. But, unfortunately, her grip didn't seem to get any weaker as time passed, and Shingi was too weak to get out with his current skill set. So even his PERCEPTION was useless now.
So he tried a fresh approach, to open the window to let some moonlight get in. But, unfortunately, his MANA MANIPULATION was too weak, and he couldn't draw it to him with the window closed.
But the window was out of his reach, but since he had little choice, he took a risk and tried something he hadn't t done in the past.
He manipulated as much mana as he could and moved it around his free arm. And after that, he made a specific move. He raised his arm with a closed fist, moving just his hand back and then moving it forward while at the same time opening his fist. It looked like he was giving a high-five in the air. As he completed it, some multicolored mist barely appeared for a second at some places around his arm and was dismissed right away.
He kept repeating the move as the mist was getting thicker and thicker and was covering more and more of his arm. Finally, after 20 minutes of doing that with some slight breaks to replenish mana that was getting released from his control now and then, he created a misty hand when he completed the move and seemed almost solid. Still, it was barely keeping the shape of the arm.
Shingi used all his focus to keep it up as the mana since it didn't come from his Mana Pool; it tried to release itself, so he kept having to manipulate it. Finally, he commanded it to mentally hover towards the window after getting somewhat used to keep the hand's shape. The hand slowly started doing it. He focused on making it, mimicking his hand movements, which was easier than moving, which was good news.
It took him a while to open the window since he couldn't feel with his mana-created hand, but with his use of PERCEPTION skill, which fortunately since it was that high ranked, it took little focus out of him, he finally opened it.
The whole casting of the spell and opening the window took it a little less than an hour, but it strained him almost as much as the entire night's training of his.
He couldn't stop now as he had gotten too close to his goal to stop now.
After taking a 5-minute break to clear his mind as much as possible, he focused his mind on using his MANA MANIPULATION skill on the mana around him and the unique mana of the moonlight.
His pace was slower than usual since he couldn't get into his meditation stance, making things faster for himself at his current skill rank.
But Shingi knew he was lucky to cast even a simple spell like that in his current situation. And the reason behind his luck was one.
His unknown Blessing and its Passive ability seemed to work on tasks like casting a spell he usually wouldn't be able to. However, the System didn't mention it since he was still not considered an Arcane User even if he had Mana Skills. Typically, a man without a Mana Pool needs at least 20 INT to cast a spell, even the simplest one. Still, for the System, Shingi was considered having more INT cause of the Blessing and had more than enough, but that didn't mean it would be a walk in the park.
Time passed, and Shingi could feel the Mana Seed of his growing its root, but no sign other than that.
Hours passed, and they usually would feel like days at Shingi, but now they felt like weeks, but as time passed, instead of things becoming more complex and harder to handle, they became more effortless. So he thought that his MANA MANIPULATION probably ranked up because of the strain getting more minor. Still, he was too focused to notice any System Notifications that would appear before him, letting him know of something like that.
If someone looked at the room, he would notice something strange happening, and the source wasn't Shingi but the person next to him.
A tattoo appeared on the forehead of Annoue, which one would recognize right away even if it was smaller and was green. The same tattoo that Hineko saw on Shingi's chest during the first night of the Festival.
Her greenish energy-like mist was released from the forehead and was getting towards Shingi and into his nose. Even his high PERCEPTION didn't notice all that since his mind focused on the task at hand.
Finally, what Shingi waited for happened as a tiny sprout appeared on his ground. It kept growing and growing in size as it stopped at the height of close to 25 centimeters from the ground and was like a small shrub.
Of course, this wasn't the final form of his Mana Pool or Mana Tree that surrounded his Mana Pool as it could still grow. Growing the Mana Tree needed patience and effort, as he had to feed it with mana, but not all would be beneficial, so he had to be careful.
But at least for now, he could relax as he reached his goal but barely in time. He had reached his limit as he even seemed to have consumed a little of more than half his SP during the whole progress, which hadn't happened in the previous two days or during training. That showed that even his body got tired from the entire process and not just his mind.
For the first time since he got into this body, he felt a specific feeling. He felt he needed some sleep.
That was actually what he did without even checking his status window, as he was too tired mentally to process any new information.
For the first time in his new body, he fell asleep, and the feeling was unfamiliar.
He felt a warmth surrounding him, but it wasn't hurting him but making him more comfortable and relaxed. Even if everything around him was dark and looked like the same as the place he was trapped in those two years because of that warmth, he wasn't afraid.
Then he heard a voice. He could barely hear a shallow volume voice, but it got slowly louder and louder as time passed.
It was a female voice, but not of someone too old or too young. He couldn't see or feel any other sign of her other than the voice. It didn't come from somewhere specific but from all over the place, but it gave him a peaceful feeling.
The voice sang but in a language that Shingi didn't know but seemed familiar. Then, after a few moments, he remembered where he heard it from, and it was a language he had heard in the past but not in-game but in the real world. It was probably on television or somewhere else, and the words in that song seemed similar to those of that, but he didn't know their meaning behind them, but he understood at least one word.
Angel.
Usually, he would try to make more sense of everything, but the clearer the voice became, the more relaxed he was and left those thoughts behind for now.
The song was on repeat as it didn't seem to be too long. The voice started it from the beginning when it reached the end with no breaks, but Shingi never tired of hearing the song or the singer.
After who knew how much time passed, the voice said something that Shingi had fully understood.
"Sleep well, my child." [Angelic voice]
The voice dissipated suddenly after those words, and Shingi remained in the dark by himself.
This time no warmth existed, and it was like he was back there having this weird feeling of having nobody. And so Shingi started panicking, and even if he couldn't, he swear he started panting.
He didn't have a mouth, but he was almost hearing his screams filling the room.
He didn't have legs, but he was feeling like he was running in panic.
He had spent too much time trapped in the darkness. So he had grown a fear of spending time in a place like that. Especially if on his own and being powerless against it. But, even at the somewhat dark storehouse, he wasn't afraid cause he had his skills and could fight or run away.
But in this room, these options didn't exist.
But then a green-shaped letter made of light appeared that at least Shingi was unfamiliar with. Then, as the light was getting brighter and brighter, he saw at the center of it a familiar face having a big smile on her face while looking towards him—the face of Annoue.
He opened his eyes and saw the same face in front of him, but she was still sleeping and smiling, not with a big smile like what he saw just a moment ago.
He woke up and could feel that his bed was full of sweat, but he didn't know if the reason was the creation of his Mana Pool or his strange dream.
Fortunately, Annoue's grip became more relaxed at that point, and his arm was free as he got to move once again.
Looking outside the still open window, he noticed it was close to sunrise, so he still had some time until Annoue woke up.
He started focusing and putting everything together of what happened, as they were fresh in his mind.
'Could that had been the voice actually of our Mother?' [Shingi]
The song seemed like a lullaby that one would sing to their child. Since a real-world language was used, a player most suddenly sang it as mostly developers wanted to use language created by themselves. But it could be Shingi could be wrong, and there was actually a language like that in the game since he wasn't an expert on them and wasn't familiar with all the game languages. Still, his instinct was saying otherwise, and in this kind of situation, he knew to follow it.
But even if he wanted, he didn't have any way to find out what language it was, as his only option was to ask a player, which would draw too much attention.
Then he remembered some specific individuals. Hineko, the inexperienced player, and the two girls he met while in Spectator Mode.
He didn't have any news of Hineko for the past two days. Still, he had told him to meet him in 5 days, so three more have remained, and the two girls were too far away from him, and no change happened at his SPECTATOR MODE during these days. But time was passing differently for them. For him, five days was almost one day in the real world unless the developers had changed that.
Since he couldn't do anything by himself, he let it go until he could meet with one of them or even someone else he could use.
He finally did what he wanted to do and checked since he woke up.
He opened his status window.