When Quinn and Tsukuru arrived in the VR Room, Quinn turned and glanced at Tsukuru.
Seeing the look, Tsukuru rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, yeah." He muttered.
He walked over to the receptionist, and once again paid the 20 credits required to rent out two capsules for one hour.
The amount of money was such a miniscule amount compared to the enormous amount of credits Tsukuru currently had, that he hardly even noticed.
Tsukuru took the two tags from the receptionist, and signaled over to Quinn for him to follow.
This time, the two were assigned to a pair of pods near the middle of the room.
Quinn and Tsukuru both looked at each other, and nodded.
"Good luck in Power Fighters." Tsukuru said, as he got in his own pod.
"Yeah." Quinn replied, getting into his own. "And good luck to you in that…'arena' of yours."
The lids of both pods closed.
While Quinn was transferred instantly, there was a short delay for Tsukuru, as he had to wait for the System Prompt to appear for him to be sent to the strange space where the System's 'Battle Arena' was located.
As Tsukuru opened his eyes, he noticed that he was already standing on the south end of the concrete platform.
"Well, at least this time I didn't have to waste time waiting for the Battle Arena to form itself." He muttered.
As he looked up at the four translucent screens floating above the four sides of the platform, he saw that the screens were blank, denoting them as being in "standby-mode".
As Tsukuru stepped forward, a familiar System screen appeared.
[Wave 1 will now begin. Would you like to proceed?
[Continue] [Retire] ]
Tsukuru smiled, and pressed the "Continue" option.
The bar lit up, and a beeping sound was heard.
Instantly, the four translucent screens flashed to life.
Tsukuru noticed that the "XP", "Kills", and "Waves" lines were zeroed out, while the "Time" line was counting up from "00:25".
It appeared that the Battle Arena recorded his total accumulated time, not just his time per session.
Additionally the "Win Streak" line showed "1", which was the highest "Wave" he had reached in the Battle Arena so far.
Instantly, the sound of electronic interference filled the arena, and Tsukuru saw three groups of pixels appear on the other side of the platform.
The pixels clustered together, and the shape of the giant spiders, the "Swarmers" as his System had called them, could be seen.
There was a flash of light.
When it faded, the three Swarmers fully manifested.
They all let out a scream, lifting their front legs up in the air.
Tsukuru smirked, and held his left arm at his side.
He activated his Ability.
Once again, the sound of electronic interference filled the area, and pixels appeared under his arm.
However, instead of forming a set of three Black Obsidian Daggers like he normally would, the pixels clustered together into the shape of a single arrow.
There was a flash of light, and the arrow fully appeared.
It was pitch-black with red feathers at the end.
Additionally, it had a red arrowhead that was stylized to look as though it was made out of roaring flames.
Tsukuru smirked, as he activated his Video Stasis Skill, catching the arrow with it, and causing the arrow to float in mid-air.
'Time to test out these new arrows of Layla's!' He thought, as he swung his arm forwards, launching the Intermediate-Tier Firebomb Arrow towards the space between the three Swarmers.
The second the arrow hit the concrete ground of the platform, it was like an incendiary bomb going off.
A roaring inferno flashed into existence, the flames reaching a good few feet off of the ground, as if someone had dropped a lit watch onto a pile of dry leaves.
A loud "whoosh" could be heard, and the flames illuminated the general area of its location, like a flash bomb.
Tsukuru instinctively leaned back and winced from the sudden combustion.
'Holy SHIT!' Tsukuru thought.
Within moments, the three Swarmers were engulfed.
They let out screams of pain, and moments later, they burst into pixels.
Once they fully disappeared, the flames died down, as well.
A System Screen appeared in front of Tsukuru.
[You have killed three Swarmers. 3 XP received. XP: 63/1600]
Tsukuru stared at the System screen with a deadpan look for a moment, before one of the lines of text on that big, bulky System message that he had received when he had first entered the Battle Arena flashed in his mind.
[Repeating a Wave that you have already completed will only award you 10% of the XP you would normally receive per kill.]
"Oh." Tsukuru muttered, his eyes narrowed in annoyance. "Right."
Even with his new Title giving him an extra 20% on kills, it wouldn't make a difference.
1 plus 20% was still only "1.2", and judging from how Quinn always had clean Stats while in the sun, the System didn't give partial numbers.
Tsukuru glanced over at one of the large floating screens.
Its "Kill" count had increased to "3" and the "XP" line showed "6".
Seeing it, Tsukuru let out a long sigh.
"I feel like I'm Exp Grinding in a Low-Level starting area in a video game when I'm already at the mid-way point." He muttered.
Tsukuru was broken from his musings when the sound of electronic interference once again filled the room.
Looking straight ahead, Tsukuru saw seven groups of pixels begin to appear on the opposite side of the platform.
The pixels clustered together.
The first four on the left took on the shapes of the Swarmers, while the four on the right took on the small, humanoid shapes of the Goblins.
There was a flash of light.
When it faded, the three Swarmers and the four Goblins appeared.
Tsukuru narrowed his eyes.
He created another Firebomb Arrow, this time under his right arm, and launched it at the group of four Swarmers.
Just like before, it burst into flames, incinerating the four Swarmers.
The same System message appeared.
[You have killed four Swarmers. 4 XP received. XP: 67/1600]
The three Goblins jumped back, wide-eyed as they saw the ball of fire suddenly burst into existence right next to them.
Tsukuru took the chance while they were distracted to manifest a set of three Black Obsidian Daggers under his left hand, and launched them at the Goblins, piercing them all in the head, killing them instantly.
The three Goblins fell to the ground, motionless, before exploding into pixels.
A new System message appeared in front of him.
[You have killed three Goblins. 6 XP received. XP: 73/1600]
A moment later, Tsukuru heard the sound of electronic interference again, signalling that the next group of enemies was about to appear.
Tsukuru narrowed his eyes, as he saw the five groups of pixels cluster together into large, humanoid shapes.
He remembered this group of enemies.
The Hobgoblins.
As the group of five Hobgoblins manifested, the one in the center looked at Tsukuru, and smirked.
"Oh, what's this?" She asked, cracking her knuckles. "Our liege is here to get his ass kicked again?"
Tsukuru narrowed his eyes at her.
He wasn't sure if the Battle Arena spat out the same group of five Hobgoblins every time.
But given the smug look on this Hobgoblin's face, he was pretty sure she was the one who had punched him in the gut the last time.
He grit his teeth, and dashed towards the Hobgoblins.
As he ran, Tsukuru activated his Ability, causing the sound of electronic interference to be heard.
Pixels began to appear in his open left hand by his side.
The pixels clustered together into the shape of another arrow.
However, when this arrow appeared after the flash, it wasn't the Firebomb Arrow.
This one was a light-blue color, and its arrowhead looked like one of the points of a snowflake.
The Hobgoblin raised her eyebrow in confusion.
However, a moment later, Tsukuru vanished, activating his Video Glitch Skill, and his body breaking down into glitching pixels.
He had entered the "five feet" distance requirement for his Video Glitch Skill.
Seeing this, the Hobgoblin's eyes all widened.
They remembered what had happened the last time.
Instantly, they all snapped their heads behind them, expecting to see more daggers flying at the backs of their heads.
However, what they did see was Tsukuru standing behind the group of three on the right.
Without saying a word, Tsukuru slammed the arrowhead into the concrete ground, like he was stabbing a stake into the ground.
Instantly, thick ice began to spread out from the point of impact.
The ice continued to spread across the ground in a 3-foot radius around Tsukuru, covering it in thick ice.
As the ice reached the spots where the three Hobgoblins were standing, it crawled up their legs, encasing them in ice halfway up their calves, rooting them in place.
"Hey, what the hell?!" One of the Hobgoblins yelled, as she tried to pull her legs free. "I…can't move!"
However, Tsukuru knew that the ice wouldn't hold for long.
He could already see cracks beginning to appear on the ice encasing the Hobgoblin's legs.
Due to her athletic physique, she had quite the high level of physical strength.
Quickly, Tsukuru activated his Ability.
Pixels covered his hands up to his forearm, and pixels appeared in his hands.
The pixels covered his hand clustered together into the shape of his Intermediate-Tier Knight Gauntlets, and the pixels in his hand clustered together into the shape of the Intermediate-Tier Knight Sword.
In a flash of light, the two sets of Beast Gear appeared, and Tsukuru could feel Beast Energy flooding his body, strengthening him.
A System message appeared in front of him.
[Intermediate-Tier Knight Gauntlets and Intermediate-Tier Knight Sword equipped.
Strength: 25]
Tsukuru stretched his left arm over to his right shoulder, and jumped high into the air.
When he reached the height of the three Hobgoblins, he swung his arm in a long arc, decapitating all three.
As their heads fell to the ground, the bodies of the Hobgoblins fell to their knees, before falling forwards on their fronts.
A moment later, they exploded into pixels.
A System message appeared in front of Tsukuru.
[You have killed three Hobgoblins. 18 XP awarded. XP: 91/1600]