From Player To Npc

Shingi was conscious once more, but he wasn't certain where he was. He could feel the ground, which felt nothing like the maze floor, as the maze's floor was stone and this one was wooden.

He heard nothing, and he couldn't hear anything, but not because everything was dark or because there was no sound. The chains had wrapped around his head, damaging his eyes and ears but not reaching his brain.

He could feel pain and feel some spikes still on him, meaning he was not dead since he shouldn't feel pain if he was dead.

His mana pool was empty, and he just had some Light Element Mana in his mana store ring to heal some of his wounds. Unfortunately, he couldn't move, so he started focusing on healing his hands so that he could pull out the spikes.

He was in an extra weakened state, but unexpectedly, the spirit voices weren't speaking at all. Shingi was certain that they would try something in this situation, but it was almost like none of them tried to speak to him.

Even if his eyes didn't work, he could 'see' his Status window and knew what his current HP was, which was critically low. So he was in a worse situation than his fight back in Harbin's town.

He slowly healed his right hand, at least enough to use it. He had his Spatial Ring on that hand, which he used to get one of his MP Regeneration Potions out, right when he could use his arm so that he could drink it.

He also got an HP Regeneration Potion, but he drank them in that order as when the regeneration effects were together, the last that took effect was less beneficial. However, he wasn't losing HP, and if he got his mana back, he could restore it faster.

He focused on his environment to collect mana and convert it to Light Mana, as his ring was almost empty, but there was no mana in the environment. No Spirit Element either, which Shingi had never noticed to be the case at any parts of the tower. Floors could luck some Elements, but there always were at least one of the Basic Elements, and always there was Spirit Element.

'Could it be that I am not in the Tower anymore?' [Shingi]

This was the only explanation he could think of. But where could he be? How did he get here? Those questions were born in his mind, among others, but he had to heal himself first into the safe area.

His Mana Pool restored Mana slower than normal, as it was in a weakened state from completely emptying it. He also was still in his Weakened State that made his Minor Mana Regeneration Passive Skill also slower.

As time passed and he was getting closer to a safer area to his HP, he started focusing on his environment but only using his hearing. He had fixed his eyes a bit, but still not fully, and as far as for his eyes, Light Element couldn't heal it, but Spirit should but would take time.

He heard some drop of water falling on a liquid surface not too far from him. 

He continued fixing everything but his eyes since those would be the hardest to heal, and he would need everything he had to do so.

He didn't know how much time it has passed since he started healing himself. It could be minutes or even hours, but he finally had removed the last spike. He had to burn his wounds using Fire Mana, as he would need to use Spirit Magic to heal most of them completely, and he could get sick in the meantime by an infection or similar effects.

He stored the spikes in his Spatial Ring to examine them later and possibly use them in the future.

He had to let his Mana Pool get restored to full power before healing all his wounds and his eyes, but he could at least move. He still felt significant pain from moving, but nothing close to the one during the torture of the chains.

He couldn't see, but his hearing, even if still damaged, was still pretty good and was boosted from his lack of sight. His other body senses also increased.

He went into his meditation state and started focusing on the environment more, looking for any mana, as it would greatly decrease the time his recovery would take.

But no matter how much he focused, there was nothing.

He had heard about places like that, which lacked any form of mana, but they were supposed to be impossible for one to get in them or even survive there. But Shingi didn't feel the environment damaging him or affecting him negatively otherwise, but only his wounds.

He kept hearing the drops of the unknown liquid, which actually calmed him a bit, as it kept him sane of hearing something else but himself.

He summoned Sinhunter to see if he could use his Spirit Mana to heal himself, but he felt no connection when he summoned it and tried to speak to it. So he continued trying to 'speak' with it as usual, but nothing happened.

He couldn't use the chat System to send a message to others, as he could only 'see' his status window with his damaged eyes and no others. However, he had told them what he planned to do during his first test, and they probably now knew that he had failed.

He had moved too far away from them for too long, which made the System remove him from the party. The only one who may know that he was still alive could be Dark Shadow, as the two of them were bonded. But Shingi didn't know how strong this bond was.

Since he could get any mana from his environment, staying where he was of no use, so he had to move, to hopefully somewhere that this lack of mana wasn't a thing.

He changed his Mana Pool to use the Earth Element in place of Air Element so that he could cast ECHOLOCATION to replace his lack of sight. He also summoned his staff to use it for supporting himself, as his legs hadn't healed completely to have a perfect balance.

He had his sword still out, as it could be a way to notice a change if he could 'speak' with Sinhunter.

He started moving closer to the liquid drop to examine it. It didn't take him too long, and through his ECHOLOCATION, he could tell that there was a small pool, but there was an underground tunnel in it going down and forward.

He examined the liquid, and it seemed to be just water and actually seawater. His ECHOLOCATION allowed him to see the limits of the space he was currently into a small room, even smaller than his room, back to Carda. There didn't seem to be any entrances or exits other than the underwater tunnel.

He started feeling the walls to make certain he didn't miss a switch or something, but after a couple of hours of slow investigation, he was certain there was none. It wouldn't be safe to swim in his current state as he couldn't be certain how clean the water was, and his ECHOLOCATION wouldn't work as well underwater, meaning he would be completely blind.

He didn't have any Water Breathing potions on him, as Hineko was the one who had them, so he couldn't spend a lot of time underwater.

He was to heal himself more, so he had to wait. He couldn't keep using Mana Regeneration potions, as with each use, the effects would get weaker until every portion of the potion gets out of his system, but this would take hours.

His control of Spirit Element also seemed to had gotten weaker, but not for the rest of his Elements. It could be because of the unnatural lack of Spirit Element since that Element worked differently than the rest.

Since all he could do was wait, he decided to take a nap, as the place seemed to be safe enough.

He wanted to use his TRANCE ROOM to train, but he could not do so. He couldn't also use SCRY MODE or even SPECTATOR MODE. It seemed like this was one of those rare times he would have a normal rest of doing nothing.

More hours passed, even though it was hard to tell time with no sign of how much passed other than him counting the seconds that passed, which he couldn't continue doing as he had other things to think of.

He woke up and summoned some simple rations since he needed food, or he would start losing SP and HP by starving. He had some normal bread and meat that they got from the Giant's, which was eatable at its current state as it wasn't completely raw.

Shingi used some Fire Mana to cook it a bit, so it would add some more at the benefits against starvation.

His Mana Pool was almost back to full power, meaning he was closer to heal himself to full power.

But then he started hearing some movement in the water of the small pool. Something was getting out of the water.