Tsukuru continued walking down the hall, passing by a few students returning to the dorms from their own combat classes.
'I should probably check that new Skill I unlocked.' Tsukuru thought. 'Skill Tab, open.'
As soon as he issued that mental command, a rectangular System screen appeared.
In the dead-center of the screen, there was a thick, rounded rectangle with a light-blue outline.
The word "Video" was shown in the center of the rectangle.
Roughly three-fourths down the top of the rectangle, towards the far right, a light-blue line extended upwards.
The line traveled for a short distance, before the line slanted at an acute angle, before leveling out and continuing to go straight.
It led to another rounded rectangle with a light-blue outline.
It had the words "Video Creation" written inside the rectangle in the same computerized font.
The lower-right corner of the rectangle's interior also had a row of five "bars", similar to the "battery life" indicator in a digital camera.
However, only the first bar was filled out, with the other four only being an outline.
Tsukuru realized that these "bars" were indicators to his Skill's "Level" in the System.
On the opposite side of the thick rectangle, only slightly farther right than the line leading to the "Video Creation" rectangle, there was another line.
It mirrored the first perfectly, leading to another rectangle.
This one was labeled "Video Summon".
Like with the "Video Creation" rectangle, it's lower-right corner had five "bars" with only the first one filled out.
Another line extended from the fat rectangle, one-fourths along its top, close to the far left.
Like with the other two, the line went up for a bit before slanting into an acute angle.
The line then straightened, and went on to the left for a further distance than the other two lines, eventually leading to a new rounded rectangle outline.
This one was labeled "Video Stasis".
Like the others, it had a row of five "bars" in the lower-right corner, with only one filled.
The final line extended from a point along the middle of the top of the thick square.
It went up straight for a bit, before slanting slightly, and going straight again, looking like a jagged, broken line.
It led to a rounded rectangle that was slightly higher on the screen than the "Video Creation" rectangle.
This was his new Skill, being labeled "Video Glitch".
Like the others, it had a row of five "bars" in the lower-right corner, with only one filled.
'This must be that 'Ability Skill Tree' the System spoke about.' Tsukuru thought, thinking back to that System message that had rudely woken him up the day they left for the base.
Tsukuru focused on the "Video Glitch" rectangle.
It lit up brightly, and a low, electronic humwas heard.
Another System screen overlaid the "Skills" tab, appearing along the far right of the screen.
[Video Glitch - Level 1
Active Skill
Allows you to teleport across short distances, your body physically "glitching" to that location.
Requires MC
-5 MC per activation.
You can only teleport up to 5 meters from your current location]
Tsukuru's eyes widened, as he read the Skill's description. 'A teleportation Skill?!' Tsukuru thought excitedly. 'That's awesome!"
Tsukuru then looked ahead, and imagined using his new Skill.
Like usual, the sound of electronic interference filled the hall.
His body momentarily turned light-blue and casted artificial blue light, illuminating the spot he was standing in the hall.
His body was all blocky, looking as though it was constructed out of numerous light-blue squares.
Though, the details of his form were still clearly visible.
The next second, he vanished, his form scattering into glitching pixels.
The next seconds, pixels began to appear at a spot in the hall that had been 10 feet in front of where Tsukuru had been standing.
The pixels then began to cluster together into a small, humanoid shape.
It was similar to when Tsukuru used his Video Summon Skill.
However, instead of his Haunted Knight appearing at that location, Tsukuru himself appeared.
Tsukuru looked around.
Looking back, he saw that he was significantly farther down the hall than he was a second ago.
A System screen then appeared in front of him.
[-5 MC. MC: 35/40]
Tsukuru smiled. 'It's not a Skill that I can use as repeatedly as Video Creation or Video Stasis, but it's QUITE useful.' Tsukuru thought with a smirk.
Back in the dorm room, Raten walked towards the door, and roughly swung it open.
Raten stood in front of the now-open doorframe, and glanced back at Layla, still gasping for air, red marks on her neck.
"I'm going out." He replied in a harsh tone. "You better not be here when I get back."
Raten then stormed out, and slammed the door shut, making a heavy bang.
Raten began to walk down the halls, and towards the front door of the school.
As he exited the door, he saw Tsukuru walking towards the gate.
Raten watched as Tsukuru raised his arm to show his wristwatch to the guards as he continued walking.
However, Raten then saw something strange happen to him.
Tsukuru's whole body began to glow bright blue, and he looked as though he was made out of blocks.
A second later, his whole body scattered apart into pixels, him appearing as if he had 'glitched' out of existence.
Raten and the two guards instinctively jumped back.
"What the hell was that?!" Raten yelled.
A split-second later, Tsukuru reappeared beyond the gate, appearing in the form of clustering pixels.
If Quinn or Layla had been around to see it, they would have noted that it appeared similar to when Tsukuru's Haunted Knight manifested.
The guards turned back to Tsukuru and yelled, but he ignored them.
He continued walking towards the forest. Tsukuru had intended to use his new Video Glitch Skill in short bursts to lessen the travel time.
However, he soon came across…a problem.
After the second successive use of the Skill, Tsukuru suddenly hunched over, his hands on his knees.
He began panting heavily. He felt like he had just got done running a marathon.
"What…the hell…is going on?" He asked between labored breaths.
As if to answer his question, a System screen popped up in front of him.
Looking at it, Tsukuru instantly recognized it as his Status Screen.
[Name Hikiko Tsukuru
Race Human
Level 3
XP 230/400
Title —
Ability Video
Ability Level 2
_____________________
HP 20/20
MC 20/40
______________________
Strength 11
Stamina 11
Agility 12
[Stat Points: 1] ]
Tsukuru's eyes narrowed at the screen, as he saw his "Stamina" Stat flashing red like a warning sign.
'Wait, is the System telling me that I can only use my new Skill twice in succession with my current Stamina Stat?!' Tsukuru thought.
He brought his thumb and index finger to the point between his nose and upper lip, where facial hair would likely be growing in another few years or so.
His face morphed into a puzzled look, as he began to think, analyzing this as if he was analyzing the mechanics in a video game.
'11 Stamina…' He thought. 'If I divide that by two, I get roughly five. Does that mean that each usage of Video Glitch requires 5 Stamina? And if that is true, does that mean that there's a cooldown period?'
Tsukuru gritted his teeth.
If that was true, then he might have to put increasing his Agility Stat on hold, and start investing his Stat Points in Stamina, which meant his stats would be trailing even more behind Quinn's.
Although he had a free Stat Point from leveling up, that still wouldn't increase his limits of successive Video Glitch uses.
He would need another three Stat Points to increase it to three uses.
Looking at the screen, Tsukuru thought about placing the Stat Point into Stamina, to start the process.
Instantly, he saw the number next to his "Stamina" tick up, increasing from "11" to "12".
He felt his level of endurance increase ever so slightly.
Tsukuru let out a sigh, and glanced up ahead of him.
He could see the far edges of the park in the very back of his seeable vision.
He brought his hand back down from his face.
"I don't have time to mess around with this rightnow, but this does seem like something I'll need to look into." Tsukuru replied. "Perhaps I'll have to do some 'experimenting' of my own."
He then began walking again. After roughly five minutes of walking, Tsukuru stopped panting, his stamina seeming to return to normal.
He then sat down in the clearing, and withdrew his card binder from his Inventory. It appeared in his hand in the form of clustering pixels.
He unzipped the zipper, and began to flip through pages.
"If I want to create an aerial scout, then I know the perfect reference material." He muttered.
He stopped on the fourth page, and tapped his finger on the third card on the first row, the card being on the upper far-right of the page.
"This one."
The card in question had a light-tan border, with a green symbol in its name bar.
The bar read "Harpie Lady".
The card's image showed a woman with light-blue skin and long, red hair.
She appeared to be mid-leap, her arms over her head, as her hair was flying upwards making her look like one of the "Troll" dolls of old.
She was wearing what appeared to be a skin-tight, sleeveless, blue gymnast leotard, with straps over either shoulder.
The leotard also had blue garter straps that led to blue leg warmers around her legs from her knees down to her ankles.
The woman's arms from her biceps down to her wrists were covered in blue fur, with feathered wings growing out of them, like the wings of a bird.
She also had similar wings growing out of her waist, looking like a "skirt" of sorts, reminiscent of the "tail feathers" on birds.
Additionally, she had bird-like talons in place of hands and feet, although they all strangely enough had five digits.
A System screen appeared in his vision.
[Would you like to use this image as a template for your second Video Summon Race?
[Yes] [No] ]