Chapter 39: Chapter 39

“Your voice is really beautiful son. Anna is right. If all else fails, you can still work as a bard or at the very least a minstrel and you would still be rich.”

Anton heard his father’s comment from the driver’s seat which made him a bit proud. For some reason, praise from other people did not do anything for him but praise from his parents back then and now from his Father and sister lifted him.

“Brother, do you know the full story of Alladin, the thief who turned into a prince because of a wish? You should tell it to us!” Anna said.

“I do know the full story and maybe if you’re nice to me, I’ll tell you the story someday. Now this song is very different. It’s about some city and the man who works there receiving advice from someone that he shouldn’t lose hope. That he shouldn’t stop believing. The song is called Don’t Stop Believing.”

Anton played the intro of the song and the very different tune perked Anna up. When he belted the rock song, his voice soared like a bird that suddenly got freed reveling in its freedom, and reached the upper limits of his flight in the sky. When he was done with the song Anna kept praising his voice.

“Brother there is something different about your voice! Something everyone would want to listen to. I’m guessing if girls hear your voice, they will fall in love with you!”

Because of the praise that he received from his Father and his sister, Anton kept playing until Anders stopped the carriage during lunchtime. They all ate some hot stew, bread, and water from the Glacial Spike spell.

“There is something different about the mana water. It had something more. I don’t know how to explain it,” Anders said.

“I used the spell Glacial Spike to produce the water and it’s a higher-level spell compared to Ice Bolt. The taste is the same but the water had more mana. I’m not sure what benefits we would get if the water had more mana but based on my testing, I didn’t receive any damage or negative status effect.”

“What do you mean by negative status effect?” Anna asked.

“I meant I was not poisoned or something.”

“Then why didn’t you just say so? Are you a noble now, using words that we common people don’t understand,” Anton's sister mocked him but it only made Anton laugh.

“Anna stop teasing your brother.”

“Are you going to sing more songs brother?”

“No, I will need to rest my throat and my fingers. I’m going to go ahead and meditate.”

Anders observed the horses and when he decided that they had enough rest, Anton’s family continued with their journey. The next village that they would arrive at would take them four days of travel but at least they had the carriage now, plenty of food and water and they could even take baths if they wanted to since they had an unlimited supply of water thanks to Anton’s spell.

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Inside the carriage, Anton pretended to meditate but what he did was maximized the game and entered it virtually. He did warn Anna that his meditation would be a lot deeper than normal so if they needed to get his attention, they would need to shake him well and call out to him loudly.

Inside the game, Anton continued with the quest of assembling the Horadrim Staff. Battling the monsters in person was different. It was easier to avoid being hit since he could see their attack personally and he was also getting used to casting his spells which he thought was going to be a huge advantage in the long run because his body would be able to remember the details of how to handle mana and how to manipulate mana. At first, he needed to get used to casting spells with a staff in his hands but after a while, he got used to it and he couldn’t not use the staff since it added a lot of power to his spells.

Anton completed the Halls of The Dead and managed to get the Horadrim Cube which he could also use as an inventory in real life. It was sad that he couldn’t use it to combine things from real life. Then an idea came to him. Could he repair armor and weapons from real life using the game? He couldn’t take out the items from real life into the game but to have Charsi or the other blacksmith repair an item, he didn’t need to. They would be able to fix the items from his inventory. That meant that there was a chance that he could refill the charges on the magic missile wand that they got from the vampire.

He decided that it was important enough to stop the carriage to test it out.

“Father, can we stop for a bit? I may have discovered a loophole in one of my spells that could help us greatly.”

Anders stopped the carriage beside the road.

“What did you discover son?”

“Let me test it out first. Can you give me your sword and the wand first?”

Anders had his sword taken out from its sheathe as per Anton’s instruction and including the wand handed them over to his son. Anton then put the sword and wand into his private stash. When he tried to transfer the sword first from his private stash to his inventory, he received a message window that he would not be able to take items from the real world into the game. The game was really strict not allowing him even that small step so he needed to take out the sword and wand from his private stash into the real world and then from the real world into his inventory. The wand was still the same, it said that its magic missile had fifteen charges while the sword was a regular sword with two to seven one-handed damage and ten over twenty-seven of durability. It’s comparable to a regular short sword in the game. When he tried to imbue his father’s sword with magic using the Charsi’s quest reward he needed to put the sword from his inventory into a small window which of course, he would not be able to do since when he tried he received the message again that he would not be able to take items from the real world into the game. But when he tried to repair the items, he was able to since he didn’t need to take the items out. The sword’s durability went from ten to the full twenty-seven and the wand charges went from fifteen to the full forty charges.

“Father it was a success! I was able to repair your sword and the wand went from having fifteen magic missiles to the full forty magic missiles!”

Anton gave the sword and the wand back to his father and they all saw the sword looked brand new.

“Does that mean that I can use the magic of the wand indiscriminately and you can recharge it anytime?”

“Yes, Father! Now you’re also a mage able to cast magic missiles anytime you want,” Anton said to his father jokingly.