From Player To Npc

Chapter 76: Nature of the sword

They left Pan going by herself in the forest as they might scare any beasts that would see them.

Soryn climbed once more over the trees to check everything from a higher ground while Ameanum and Marcy watched their surroundings.

Ameanum wished he had his MANA SENSE now as it would help him detecting if anyone were watching them with magical means, which his EAGLE EYES were unable to see.

Marcy seemed to be somewhat uncomfortable little left alone with Ameanum, a male and the only other Player in their group.

"Maybe you were right."[Ameanum]

Marcy looked at him with a confused look.

"If there is a Master ENCHANTER in the town, he may have access to ways of fast transportation. Someone like that would be able to make even Teleportation Circles of his if skilled enough." [Ameanum]

Marcy agreed on that, but she also understood that influential individuals like that wanted their privacy.

"So what do you think we should act then? You said that we don't have time to look for him, and even if we find him, we will need quite some time to persuade him to help us."[Marcy]

Ameanum was deep in thoughts, as he didn't speak for a couple of minutes.

"We need more information... hopefully, Pan will find something."[Ameanum]

After a few minutes, Soryn joined them as he didn't see anything new from up there, except for some villagers entering the village from the other side. It seemed like there were some farms back then, and they returned from a day of work.

They waited for Pan's return. 

It's been two hours, and they had no signs of her. 

Ameanum told Soryn to got back on the trees to check for signs of her and keep watching if anything changes in the village people's movements.

He wasn't scared of Pan being hurt as even if she acted lazily, she was too powerful when she was getting serious. Even when she was throwing the bamboos at him, she wasn't even close to when she was getting serious; otherwise, he would have died then.

It was close to six hours since she left, and it was getting quite late, and at that point, they saw the large form of panda Pan getting out from the woods.

As she moved towards them, she started to shrunk and turning back to her human form.

Fortunately, her magic was merging her clothes with her new form, so she didn't have to worry about being naked when turning back to normal.

"So, did you find anything?"[Marcy]

Pan ignored her as she got the staff of hers that she left behind and hit with its butt the ground a few times. 

Pieces of the ground started to move and formed small, roughly humanoid-like figures. 

When they finished getting formed, they started gathering stones and branches to make a small campfire, as Pan prepared her tea herbs. 

Marcy wanted to say something, but Ameanum stopped her as he helped on finishing creating the campfire.

Pan put on the fire with some mana gems of hers.

Next, put the pan to heat up with some water she created and waited.

After a few minutes, she threw a single leaf of her herbs in the heated water, but it didn't seem to be one of her usual tea herbs.

As the leaf touched the water, it started releasing some greenish smoke which began taking on a screen-like shape.

This was a trick of Pan.

She could create an illusion to show events that she had or show a story by creating misty figures of the objects and creatures in the story.

Of course, some details about each creature's appearance weren't perfect, but they could get a general idea.

They saw her trying to speak with some beasts and most running away from them. She seemed like a strong predator to them, so they didn't want to sit and talk with her.

After some hunting, she was able to stop some and 'talk' with them, but since the illusion was producing no sound, they couldn't hear what they said, but they wouldn't understand either way.

The illusion didn't show every creature encounter, but just a few of her struggles to find one and some of the ones she had to hunt.

Next, the illusion had shown her to be in an open space and in front of a cave's entrance.

That's when her illusion ended, and the mist was gone.

After that, she threw more herbs in the water, but this time it was to make tea.

"So you say we should investigate this cave?"[Marcy]

Pan nodded.

"Did you see any signs of people in there?"[Marcy]

Pan shrugged.

Marcy would continue to ask more questions but understood that Pan's answers would continue like that, so she turned towards Ameanum, who seemed to be in deep thought.

"What will we do?"[Marcy]

"Hmmm... Pan was drawn to the cave for some reason, or she wouldn't show it to us. This is the best clue we have. But I will go by myself tomorrow morning."[Ameanum]

It was getting late, so they made a camp with some tents they had bought from the city they were before.

Ameanum talked with Pan as she used her illusion to show him the way to the cave.

It didn't seem to be too far from the village, just a bit East of it, maybe twenty minutes by foot.

Ameanum had imprinted the directions and tried to visualize his route with what was shown to him.

He could check it out right away, but he decided to visit it in the morning not to make it look like he was trespassing.

They had some food they had bought and some of the tea of Pan. 

They noticed that her pan seemed to contain more tea than it should as it seemed like barely able to have maybe four cups at max, but Pan had five cups herself only. There was an Enchantment on it, but it was scarcely visible.

Her tea seemed to help them relax more than more tea, and it seemed to give them a boost at SP regeneration and even some HP regeneration.

She was growing those herbs herself and was feeding them with her mana giving them these special effects.

They didn't need those effects as they didn't get tired as they didn't do anything significant yet, but Pan had a lot of those herbs at the ready.

Since they didn't have to get rest, Ameanum decided to look at his sword and see if its consciousness could talk.

He didn't speak with it out in the open but tried to sent mental messages.

After a few minutes of continuous tries, he seemed to have gotten some response.

"Stop shouting. What you want?"[Sinhunter]

"Well, I was just wondering if you wanted something specific. I noticed you didn't like how you ranked up last time, as it seemed painful."[Ameanum]

"Pain? Me no pain. Only annoying feeling." [Sinhunter]

There was some pause, but he felt the sword slightly moving but not trying to break free from his grasp.

"Give food. Fill my hunger and thirst."[Sinhunter]

"You want more Blessed Ones then? Is there a certain number or limitations?"[Ameanum]

"Food needs to be strong. Strength is tasty."[Sinhunter]

Ameanum was in deep thought on his following questions as he didn't know when would be his next chance.

"Do I have to kill the food completely? Would some part of his, like blood, help with your thirst? [Ameanum]

He felt some more movement from the blade that he gathered that it was a sign of it thinking.

"Blood may do. But same work once."[Sinhunter]

He would try to feed it his blood, but his Spirit body didn't actually have blood.

"Soryn, can you join me on a walk to check if everything is clear?"[Ameanum]

Soryn didn't have any problem with it and stood to follow him.

They went a bit further outside the sight of the rest as Ameanum stopped.

"I need to ask you a favor, Soryn. I need some of your blood for my sword."[Ameanum]

"Is it to make it stronger?"[Soryn]

Shingi was surprised by that response.

"I noticed its true nature yesterday when you returned. We had some documents describing weapons like that. Also, they were describing that sacrifices were needed to raise their power quickly."[Soryn]

He wasn't surprised by the Air Spire having something like that. The Four Spire was a quite Ancient Organization, and Air Spire was rumored to have the most significant knowledge of them all.

Soryn brought forward his left arm and raised his sleeve. He used a small knife to cut himself a bit and draw some blood out.

Ameanum kept his blade under Soryn's arm so that the blood would fall to it.

He felt with each drop some reaction from the sword and even got some mental notes of satisfaction.

It seemed to help the blade a little, but they didn't use much blood as they just wanted to see if it worked.

Soryn put some bandages to keep the small wound closed and put his sleeve back to normal.

They returned to their camp, and Ameanum tried to talk more with his sword but couldn't learn anything more.

He discussed with Soryn what else he had read but didn't remember anything else.

They kept watches, and each got some sleep. Only Pan didn't take any watch as people didn't think she would really pay attention.

Ameanum took the first watch, and he climbed a tree but not as smoothly as Soryn did.

He kept watching at the village and the direction of the cave.

He didn't notice any movements in the village, mainly cause it had gotten dark, and they didn't have any torches or any other sources of light.

He thought he noticed some movements in the darkness at some points, but he wasn't too confident about it as they were relatively short ones.

His watch came at the end and changed with Soryn, and Marcy would go last.

During his 'rest' time, since he didn't need much sleep, he went into a meditate stance like the one he had shown Annoue in the past so that he can bond with his sword.

This was more useful to be done for at least a Base Rank weapon, so that's why he didn't do it at the point he got the sword.

It wouldn't give him a significant boost at his Skills, but every bit in the hands of a professional Player was the difference between life and death.

He could also feel this strange energy in his sword, which should be its consciousness. 

He could feel the energy be in the rough shape of a humanoid baby, which seemed quite weird to him.

He wanted to investigate more with his NPC's Mana Skills as he couldn't get much info on this energy's nature with his current senses.

The night passed without anything going wrong, except for Soryn reporting of noticing some people trying to sneak their way closer to them, but returned to the village after understanding he saw them.

After it was some hours before noon, Ameanum started his way towards the cave.