As Quinn logged into the Power Fighters mainframe, he decided to split his hour into two halves.
For the first thirty minutes, he would just blitz his way through Level 1's.
Though this technically made Quinn no better than people like Riley, Brandon, and Earl, High-Levels who bullied weak Level 1's, he elected to notthink about that.
Right now, his primary concern was getting as strong as possible, as fast as possible.
Even when fighting Level 1's, he still got a flat 50 Exp.
Well, technically he only got 25 Exp, due to how the System interacted with VR technology.
On average, it took him around five minutes to defeat a Level 1.
That meant that in one half-hour, he could defeat six Level 1 opponents, thus netting himself 150 Exp.
Then, for the remaining thirty minutes, he would use the "Quick Match" option to find his remaining opponents.
This allowed him to fight people of varying levels of strength, allowing Quinn to improve his fighting IQ out in the real world.
As Quinn started his first match, he did his usual plan of avoiding the enemy's strikes, and then dealing with him either with his superhuman strength, or with a barrage of Blood Swipes.
It was then that Nate, or as Quinn knew him, "HardSteely", noticed that the user ID "Blood Evolver" was online.
As Nate was still interested in him, he decided to check in on Quinn.
The way Power Fighters was set up, as long as you had an individual in your Friends List. you were able to sit in and spectate on their matches. This was how Quinn and Tsukuru had been able to watch Vorden's matches when he was demonstrating the game to them.
Nate was suddenly teleported into the empty stands of Quinn's arena, and he began to watch Quinn's matches one after another.
And all that he witnessed during that time was Quinn defeating one weak, Level 1 after another in a manner of minutes.
For someone like Nate, Quinn's actions seemed strange to him.
For someone as strong as him, just what on earth was he doing?
From their brief interactions and their fight the other day, Nate never took Quinn as the kind of person to bully the weak.
Down in the arena, Quinn's opponent had collapsed.
"Let the grinding begin." Quinn muttered under his breath, as a System message popped up in front of him.
[25 Exp received. Exp: 140/800.]
Up in the stands, Nate continued to watch Quinn and his fighting style.
'Just why isn't he fighting the way he was fighting against me the other day?' Nate thought, as he watched Quinn repeatedly fight against Level 1's.
It was clear to Nate that Quinn was purposely only fighting fighters of that level.
Sometimes, new players would do this if they were perhaps trying out a new fighting style, or a newly-learned Skill for their Ability. But watching Quinn, all Nate could see was him doing the same thing over and over again.
He would enter a game, and then dash in using a barrage of those strange red lines or with a flurry of punches, Quinn not seeming to care if he got hurt or not.
It was clear that he was beating his opponents with pure strength, and trying to win as fast as possible.
Unknown to Nate, this was precisely the point.
Quinn didn't have much time between now and when he and his group left for the Portal Outing. So the only thing Quinn could do was grind a few Levels to get stronger using the System.
Finally, after thirty minutes had passed, Quinn's sixth and final opponent of his first half-an-hour had collapsed to the ground.
A System message popped up in front of him.
[25 Exp received. Exp: 265/800]
Quinn was starting to feel tired of doing the same thing over and over again.
The only thing that was keeping him going was seeing his Exp slowly go up with each System screen that popped up with each new defeated enemy.
It was then that he looked up, and noticed Nate sitting in the empty stands.
Seeing that Quinn was looking up at him, Nate smiled, and gave a little wave.
'It's him.' Quinn thought. 'I wonder what he's doing here?'
It was then that Quinn's eyes widened, as he remembered back to his conversation with Tsukuru and Layla when he was explaining the strange cape Nate's friend had used.
The voices of his two friends rang in his head.
'Besides, Quinn, you don't even know what kind of Beast Crystals this 'cape' was even made from.' Layla's gentle voice said.
'Every student of every rank from all seven bases uses that game! That thing could be made from King-Tier Crystals for all we know!' Tsukuru's voice replied.
'And even if we did find out, how do you expect to obtain the required Beast Crystals? It's not like we can just hop a ride through a random portal to go Beast hunting!'
Quinn's eyes narrowed.
This was the perfect chance.
Now that Nate was metaphorically standing right in front of him, Quinn had to ask him.
Quinn went into the Power Fighter's UI, and sent out a Party Invite to Nate.
Originally, Nate was just planning to spectate and watch Quinn fight a few matches. He wanted to study Quinn a bit more before asking him for a rematch. But then, when he saw the Party Invite, he was quite surprised.
The game only allowed for one-on-one fights, so the Party Invite feature was only used rarely. And it was mainly only used between teammates for practicing, or if they wanted to chat and were far away.
In the end, Nate was too curious, and wanted to know what Quinn wanted, and he decided to accept the invite.
Instantly, the arena disappeared, and now both Nate and Quinn found themselves in the same white room they occupied when not in a match.
Nate looked at Quinn, and smiled.
"Hey, what's up?" Nate asked, before glancing away. "I hope you're not planning some type of revenge…are you?" He asked, proceeding with caution towards Quinn.
Quinn smiled back, and shook his head.
"Nah." He replied. "I actually wanted to talk to you about that cape that 'friend' of yours had. Do you know what kind of Beast Crystals it was made from?"
Nate's eyes lit up.
"Oh, you want to know about Sam's cape?" He asked, as he looked at Quinn, examining him.
On his hands, Nate could see the Black-Horned Gauntlets.
As a second-year, he could instantly tell that they were only at the Basic-Tier due to how horrible and shabby they looked.
Nate blinked.
"Wait…are you…a first-year?" He asked.
Hearing Nate's words, Quinn glanced back to the side, and let out a nervous laugh.
"Err…yeah." He replied. "We're going to our first Portal Outing in a few days, and I was wondering if you could tell me if it was the same Beast that…you said his name was 'Sam'?"
Nate nodded.
Quinn coughed awkwardly into his hand, and looked away.
"Right…and I was wondering if there's a chance that the same Beast that Sam's cape was made out of might be on the same planet I'm going to." He replied. "You know, so I can be on the lookout for it."
Nate was a bit surprised by Quinn's words, if he was being honest. He thought back to their previous fight, on how Quinn had been able to damage his transformed body with that "internal attack" of his.
It was a feat that no one had ever been able to accomplish before. He was sure that such a person had to be at least a Second-Year.
Nate then smiled.
"Let me give you a piece of advice, then." He replied. "On your first Portal Outing, they always send you through Green Portals, which contain primarily Basic-Tier Beasts, with the rare Intermediate-Tier Beast."
Quinn nodded.
He already knew this, from Tsukuru's little "explanation" about the different Portal colors in Del's class.
Nate then held up three fingers.
"You have a chance of going to one of three different places." Nate replied. "Caladi, Almpin, and Bartnee. Out of the three, you want to go to Caladi." Nate smirked.
"There, deep in the desert, there's a winged creature. I can't remember the name of it, but it's rare. So if you see a Beast with that description, it's the one you're looking for. That's what Sam's cape is made out of."
Quinn's eyes widened, and he felt a jolt in his chest.
"I'm sorry." He replied, causing Nate to look at him. "Did you say…'desert'?"