From Player To Npc

The fight started once again, with the only difference Little Phoenix was out of it until her MP Regeneration Potions restored enough of her MP. An and Wild Tycoon covered her until then.

As for reusing the same tactic, it was impossible. The Spell was like Shingi's LIGHT FORM; it had a cooldown of itself. The cooldown for Shingi's LIGHT FORM had been decreased with this Class and was significantly less than it used to be, but it still existed. This was a mechanic used in few Spells that the System deemed necessary until the user reached a certain state or understanding of the Spell.

But they still had some other way to stall for time.

Little Phoenix pulled out a Spell Scroll, unrolled it, and started reading its contents; ice started appearing on the feet of the Semi-Liches and started spreading upwards.

Some moved fast to free themselves, but when their feet touched the ground once more, Ice captured their feet until all of them got affected. This time the Spell affected only the Semi-Liches.

This was a Spell Scroll of ICE PRISON, a Master Grade Spell of Mizuneko's Ice Mage Class. This was a medium power Master Grade Spell, and Little Phoenix had to use Ice Mana Gems to keep it active, as the Spell Scroll had only the mana for casting it.

The Ice Mana Gem was an imperfect one, especially in this corrupted environment; its mana was weak, which weakened the spell. She kept them still for less than half a minute, and even if they tried to get at least one of them down since it was stuck in place, they failed. Their HP Regeneration Ability was stronger than their damage output.

It also seemed to increase as time passed and their speed, but not at a quick rate. The reason was that when Dark Shadow made an opening for Shingi, some energy got released sometimes, which boosted the Semi-Liches. But, unfortunately, he had to replenish his Light Element Mana, as a large amount of it got destroyed in the fight against the Lich's soul.

Little Phoenix used more Spell Scrolls with ICE PRISON and similar spells, which even if she could keep active by using Mana Gems, the spells had a minimum time they could stay active by themselves.

They normally couldn't replace those scrolls since Mizuneko wouldn't be with them for some time. But this wasn't a problem anymore.

After Shingi found out about what the gift of Nivlek's could do, he thought, what if the other box could also do something like that? But if that was the case with what box was it connected? Maybe all of them were connected with each other, or there were crafted in pairs. Then he remembered.

Harbin mentioned that Annoue also had a gift, but he never showed it to Shingi. If the gift was in another box like that, there was a good chance that the boxes had the same enchantment as the one he currently had stored in his Ring. So he had it stored just in case it proved that the feather wasn't the only gift, which he was happy he did so.

He had sent a message to Price to get the other box from Harbin, which took some persuasion, but in the end, he gave it to them. They had tested it, and it seemed like they really could move things through it, but they could use it five times per week. Still, this was more than helpful, as the box could have in it up to six normal potion vials or four scrolls.

So they had Marcy's Guild focusing on providing them with scrolls and potions when needed and providing them with some materials available to the outside world that could fit in the box. Of course, he would send them a message if they needed anything, but he always tried to have at least one use available if they needed something they can't get in the Tower fast enough.

There weren't any other Ice Mage in the Guild other than Mizuneko, but others could make scrolls with his Spells with Ice Mana Gems. But they gave only the ones who truly trusted those tasks. Shingi left the Guild's management to Marcy, but he gave her some tips as he knew they would eventually draw attention, and spies would try to infiltrate them.

Probably some Guilds had already made their moves, but Shingi hadn't talked with Marcy recently, and Price didn't care enough about the Guild other than keeping their business profitable. He was getting part of the profits of selling the potions and scrolls made from the guild since he provided some special services himself with some of his sources.

So Little Phoenix kept using what she could to help, which gave them two extra minutes. She had used a little over two dozen of scrolls, with some affecting them close to half a minute to a full minute max, while others had almost no effect. Especially if she used the same type of Spell Scroll, then the effect was weaker than last time.

Wild Tycoon wanted to use her potion to increase her STR to that of a Stone Giant. But Hineko actually hadn't studied it yet, even after all this time. So if she used it, they wouldn't have any template from possibly creating one with the giants' parts they gathered on the previous floor.

They had stalled any extra time they could, but it still wasn't enough.

But then the phylactery light up. The Semi-Liches turned towards it, and clear fear appeared in their otherwise emotionless face. Then, cracks started appearing on it, like some yellow light and gray mist started leaking from them.

Soon enough, the phylactery exploded with a wave, grayish energy spreading and hitting everyone in the room. It did not affect Shingi and his Party or Dark Shadow, but it had on the Semi-Liches. It had weakened them to be even weaker than the other semi liches they faced before.

Shingi and Dark Shadow joined the fight, which ended soon enough with the Semi-Liches regeneration not being as effective.

What had happened was that Shingi had an idea, or to be more precise, he followed one suggestion. The suggestion came from the voices of the spirits, which most of them were telling them to do different things, in the majority to harm someone, but there was one that suggested using Spirit Mana in the fight against the Lich.

It was an accident that Shingi heard that voice's suggestion or at least part of the suggestion. He heard the mention of Lich and paid more attention in case it really was something worthwhile, which in the end, it seemed like it truly was. It seemed like not everything was bad with the voices, but this didn't mean he would trust the voices.

He used some Spirit Mana, which actually seemed to have some extra effect on the battle against the Lich's soul. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. The Spirit Element until now, the way he used it, was to either heal himself and others or stop others from getting healed, as well, for mind manipulation purposes.

The Lich's soul was regenerating itself, but his Light Element dealt more damage than it got healed. But still, the healing created a delay.

When using Spirit Element, he weakened the healing, making that delay shorter and his attack more effective, even if he provided less Light Element, since he had to pass Spirit Element instead. But the weaker the healing, the weaker the attacks of the souls, so he was losing less mana, meaning he had less to replace.

Finally, he destroyed the soul in a little less than four minutes since the battle started, which was less than half the time he would normally need. He hadn't used his Spirit Madness Cure yet, and he was happy for that as he learned something new about the voices.

After they dealt with all the Semi-Liches, the voices went almost completely mute, and he could just barely hear them, like whispers.

He then saw Syra walking towards them.

"What happened to you?" [Shingi]

During the entire time since they reached the room, Syra stood at its entrance, not taking a step inside until now.

"The air was suffocating me. I couldn't even take a step closer to that thing you destroyed." [Syra]

The response surprised Shingi. Syra didn't seem to get affected by the corruption, so Shingi found it weird why the phylactery had this effect on her.

"Have you ever had any similar feeling even in a weaker form?" [Shingi]

Syra gave it some thought, and soon she seemed to have remembered something.

"That black crystal you worked with. I remember feeling weird around him, but not that much." [Syra]

The Black Crystal had part of the soul of Kevlin, same as the Lich's phylactery had the soul of the lich, but they didn't work the same way. So maybe the reason wasn't that they had a soul stored, but the soul that they had stored.

One had a part of the soul of a Necromancer, and the other the soul of a Lich, both being a Dark Arcane arts and able to raise the dead. The phylactery had the full soul, so it made sense that it had a bigger effect, if that was the case.