'70 percent?!' Quinn shouted in his head, seeing the System message. 'Are you freaking kidding me?!'
A moment later, the voice of the blonde-haired Vampire rang in his head again.
"Now, now," he replied in a placating voice. "Calm down. I thought you would act like this, so I didn't want to say anything."
Hearing this, Quinn's eye twitched in annoyance.
'Yep,' he thought. 'I'm definitely going to punch this guy if I ever meet him in real life.'
"At least I had a chance of fighting in the sun BEFORE," he hissed under his breath. "I thought that if I raised my Stats to be at least in the twenties, sucked a few people's blood here and there, I would be like a normal person in the sun. What am I supposed to do now?!"
Layla gave Quinn a concerned look. To her, it sounded as if Quinn was talking to himself.
However, Tsukuru narrowed his eyes.
Ever since he had reunited with Quinn, he saw that blonde-haired man standing behind him. And now, every once in a while, he saw the man's lips moving. It was as if he were talking to someone. And…every time he did, he saw Quinn's expression harden imperceptibly as if something was annoying him.
"Well, honestly, I never had this problem before," the man's voice replied. "Back in the…" the man's voice suddenly stopped, as if he just realized that he was about to say something that he shouldn't. "Back with the others, we had plenty of items that stopped the sun from affecting us. In fact, just look at your System Shop. That 'Vampire Ring' is what we gave to the weakest of our ranks."
Quinn's eyes narrowed.
The System's AI was suddenly revealing a lot of new information due to his outburst. Usually, whenever Quinn would ask the System who the man was, or if there were other Vampires out there, it would just ignore him and pretend that it had never heard himin the first place.
However, Quinn needed to deal with one problem at a time. And right now, the sun was an urgent one.
"Look, I can see that you're depressed," the man's voice replied. "How about this?"
Quinn watched as his System's "Shadow" Tab opened itself in front of him.
"You want to be able to fight in the sun, right?' the man's voice asked. "Well, all you need to do is unlock the Shadow Void Skill."
On the screen in front of Quinn, the Skill labeled "Shadow Void" began to illuminate and dim in a set pattern. It looked like a blinking sign that was meant to draw attention to itself.
"As you can see, it costs a total of twenty Skill Points to unlock," the man explained. "I would recommend you unlock that one next. The Skill allows you to create a sort of dome of shadows around you. Not only will it block out the sun, but it will shroud you from the vision of those outside of the dome."
Quinn thought about this for a second. It wasn't a permanent solution, but it was a solution.
As Quinn struggled to walk, Layla ran up to him and held the UV-blocking umbrella over his head. Ever since they're sets of "tests" the weekend before the incident, she had kept it on her at all times for situations like THIS.
'Heh, heh,' Layla thought, a smug smirk on her face. 'Looks like I'm needed more than you think, huh, Vorden?'
Suddenly, Quinn was feeling a lot better.
A new System message popped up in front of him.
[Direct Sunlight has been blocked. All Stats have returned to normal.]
"Do you two have to act all lovey-dovey in front of me?" Erin asked, seeing the two under the umbrella.
Layla snapped her head back towards Erin.
"We're not a couple," she replied, her face noticeably flushed. "He's just not feeling well. The sun gives him heat stroke easily."
Erin's face hardened subtly.
"What a wimp," she muttered, walking off ahead.
Quinn didn't know why, but Erin's words always seemed to sting a bit more than when others said such things to him.
Eventually, the group of four made it to the Beast Weapons hall. Once they entered the building for the Combat Classes, the umbrella was no longer needed, so Layla folded it back up and placed it in her bag.
As the students entered, Leo looked over them from the back.
"Split up into pairs, everyone!" Leo announced. "As usual, classes will be one-on-one sparring matches!" Leo then turned towards Quinn. "Oh, and get a new weapon, my boy! You're going to need it on the Portal Expedition! And my offer still stands, feel free to have a duel with me whenever you wish!"
The class then split off into groups of two.
Quinn let out a sigh. He was about to go look at the weapons lining the walls when he felt something metal being pressed against his stomach. Looking down, he saw a set of Tsukuru's Intermediate-Tier Knight Gauntlets being pressed against his gut.
"Here," Tsukuru muttered, before walking away. "You can borrow these until you get a new set."
This was all merely for theatrics, of course. Quinn already possessed a pair of these gauntlets. But they were kept in his Shadow Space. And that meant that accessing them would reveal his new Shadow Ability to the class. And he, Tsukuru, and Vorden had agreed to keep that a secret until the "All Bases Tournament" that Vorden had spoken of while they were in the training center of Pioletic.
Quinn slipped the gauntlets on and felt a rush of energy flow through him.
A System message popped up in front of him.
[Intermediate-Tier Knight Gauntlets equipped.
+7 Strength, +5 Defense
Strength: 15 [+7]
Defense: 5 ]
Tsukuru then walked up to where Erin was located. He watched as she swung her sword and landed a finishing blow on one of the many boyssurrounding her.
"Hey, Erin!" Tsukuru called.
Hearing the voice, Erin turned to him.
Tsukuru then retrieved the two copies of the Intermediate-Tier Black Fang Daggers from his Inventory. They appeared in the form of clustering pixels in either hand.
Two overlapping System messages appeared in front of him.
[Intermediate-Tier Black Fang Dagger equipped.
+4 Strength, +6 Agility
Strength: 11 [+4]
Agility: 15 [+6] ]
[Intermediate-Tier Black Fang Dagger equipped.
+4 Strength, +6 Agility
Strength: 11 [+8]
Agility: 15 [+12] ]
Erin's eyes narrowed slightly as she saw the daggers. They were quite different from the ones Tsukuru normally used. While those looked as though they were made out of black glass and had a volcanic pattern, these looked as if they had been carved from the body of a snake.
Tsukuru thrust one of the swords forward.
"I wanna test the new daggers I just bought from the Marketplace!" he replied, adding in a white lie.
Upon hearing Tsukuru's declaration, the boys around Erin all clicked their teeth in annoyance. They all began to back away from Erin.
They weren't surprised at this point. Tsukuru and Erin fought almost every day. And Tsukuru always lost. In fact, the only reason they had been able to fight Erin during Friday's class was that Tsukuru had not been there. Being trapped on another planet.
Erin assumed a fighting stance.
"Let's see if that little 'trip' of yours did anything to improve your skills," she replied.
Tsukuru smirked and lunged at Erin, both arms out by his side.
***
Back with Quinn, he had just now completed his fourth spar. It had become quite easy for him. Between his battles in "Power Fighters" and, more importantly, his fight against the Scordana on the Red Portal Planet, his fighting skills had become quite fine-tuned. However, something was wrong.
After Quinn had defeated his first opponent, who had been a Level 2 Ability User, he had a feeling that something was off. But he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Then, his eyes widened as realization hit him.
'Wait a minute…' Quinn thought. 'Where's my Exp?'
***
Back with Tsukuru, he crossed his two arms, creating an "X" with his two daggers.
Like usual, Erin held her sword downwards at a diagonal angle, blocking the two daggers. However, she noticed that Tsukuru seemed to have more force behind his daggers now.
'He's gotten stronger.' Erin thought, a noticeable strain in her hand, the blade shaking slightly. Before, she could effortlessly block his attacks with her sword. However, now she had actually put effort into keeping his daggers at bay.
A slight smirk crept at the edge of her lips.
'I might have to actually try this time,' she thought.