Chapter 3

After dropping off the leftovers at his sister's place, Phan went to a secluded place in the tribe, away from the eyes of the tribes' men. It was a somewhat neglected corner of the tribe, it was a mess and looked like cesspool, but that didn't matter to them as the cause of most illness were mostly unknown to the world. Phan wandered the area looking for a fairly clean spot to sit and receive the teaching of Hircus. Once Phan had found a spot he sat the and started talking to Hircus in the same way he did to get answers out of him.

"Oh great and mighty Hircus, please bestow you wisdom onto this mere mortal, known as Phan." Phan said after sitting and once again asking for Hircus' help.

"(Phan, can you stop with that, I made you do that as a joke.)" Hircus said now regretting what he made Phan do in the morning.

"Then can you help me, figure out what I need to do next?" Phan ask Hircus how he would normally ask for help.

"(Yes. So what you need to do now is, try to stay awake whilst trying to enter your Inner realm.)" Hircus explained making it sound simple, but in reality it was hard to accomplish.

"And how would I do that? It sounds hard and almost impossible." Phan replied after thinking about how he would do it.

"(Try doing it on your own first, do research or whatever.)" Hircus replied, trying to get Phan from asking further questions.

"Hmm... Awake but asleep. How would I do that?" Phan muttered to himself, trying to figure out what he needs to do. "Maybe I should ask about it first?" Phan said to himself, as he was getting up.

Phan ran from the cesspool like area and went straight to his sister, now that it turned day time. He went to his sister's house as fast as he could. By the time he arrived, at his sister's place, she was getting ready to make breakfast. Phan watched as he tail was wagging and entered as quietly as possible. He snuck up behind her, careful not to make a sound, reached out his hands to her waist, started to wiggle his fingers as if they were worms and started to tickle her.

"KYAA~!" Screamed Phan's sister in laughter and in fright. "Phan, why did you do that? you could of gotten hurt, because I'm holding a Blade." She said telling of Phan after turning around.

"Why though? It was fun to see you get scared." Phan said laughing, and his tail wagging like crazy.

"So what do you want?" Phan's sister asked giving up on telling Phan off. "You don't eat with me unless you what something. Also I got a lot of smoked boar cutlets, from someone, to think someone would leave food here again." she told Phan.

"So… Er... I wanted to know if it's possible to be awake and asleep at the same time, because I read it somewhere in a book this morning." Phan asked, whilst trying not to be found out.

"I don't know about Wolf-men, but I do know that some Aquatic Beast-men do, apparently they have half their brain asleep and the other awake in case they get attacked whilst asleep." Phan's sister thinking long and hard about Phan's question.

"Thanks Sis." Phan said as he thank his sister. "Well since I'm here I should eat with you." Said Phan to his sister after thinking about it for some time.

After eating with his sister, Phan thanked her for not only sharing his leftovers with him, without her knowing he was the one who left them there for her, but also for the information. After giving his thanks, Phan left for the library that the tribe owns. The library was a large multi-storey building made of wood and stone.

Though Phan is hated among the tribe, for being incapable of 8th tier script magic, he is given the benefit of having access to the first two floors of the library. The first two floors consisted of, world knowledge, history, magic theory, common knowledge and books about the ancient language. After entering the Library, Phan began to rummage through books about any Aquatic Beast-man and what they do. Phan's rummaging took about three hours to complete, though the return was only three books. The three books were about, merfolk and their society but nothing that Phan was looking for.

"There's nothing about, being awake and asleep at the same time." Phan said to himself, feeling dejected as he couldn't find anymore useful information after what his sister said to him. "Maybe I should try sleeping with my eyes open." Phan said to himself jokingly afterwards.

"(Seems like you need help.)" Said Hircus, to Phan after Phan's little joke.

"Yeah, I do. No matter how hard I look for the right information, I find stuff not related to it."

"(Well, your on the right track, so I'll give you a clue, but it is very hard to do and very risky.)"

"Really!" said Phan with his ears popping up like an exited husky puppy. "Plus it can be thaaaat hard... right?"

"(Well its rather simple to do, once you get used to it.)" Hircus replied to reassure Phan. "(What you need to do is, fight in your sleep.)"

"Huh? How am I meant to do that?"

"(Well that's for you to figure out.)" Hircus said enjoying Phan's cluelessness.

Phan sat in his spot, with his left index finger under his nose, thinking of ways to fight in his sleep. After sometime Phan's body started to get antsy and fidgety, not out of excitement but out of boredom, as he was stumped. Leaving the library without a care, Phan decides to go to the where all the trash of the tribe goes. Phan walks hastily to the dump, on his why he encountered the ill mannered younglings.

Phan's dislike for them ran deep, deeper then all the blood they caused to leave his body. No matter how hard Phan tries to avoid them inside the tribe, they would always find him and beat him to a pulp, with Phan unable to do anything to them, as the blame for starting something would be pushed onto him for reasons being obvious.

Phan began running from his fast walk, but not long after started running on all fours like an exiled wolf. Soon enough the others caught up and surrounded Phan.

"W- What do you guys want?" Shouted Phan in fear whilst twisting and turning, trying to keep an eye on all of them.

"Us?" Said the one that seamed to be the master mind, arrogantly. "Just teaching the youngers their place."

"And what's that gotta do with me?" As the group started to creep closer and closer to Phan.

"That is... It's above you." He said with an evil looking smirk. "Do it!"

From behind, two of the larger ones grabbed Phan, from his arms preventing him from escaping. After, the ring leader, punches Phan square bang in the middle of his face. Following that, all the others join in and start throwing kicks and punches at Phan. Once they were done, they left, leaving Phan bloody and bruised on the floor.