"Yeah, I guess you could say that,' Quinn replied, a smile on his face. "I finally managed to Level Up one of my Skills,"
Quinn then activated his Shadow Control Skill.
Tsukuru and Logan watched as Quinn's shadow rose like a shadowy mist. He moved it back and forth, similar to the way a Water Ability User would.
"It's easier to control, now," he replied.
Tsukuru nodded. Then, he narrowed his eyes.
"So, how do you unlock new Skills for your Ability,anyway?" he asked. "That was a Level 6 Ability Book, right? I'd hope that you'd be able to access more than four Skills."
Tsukuru glanced to the side and placed his finger under his chin.
"With my Ability, I seem to unlock new Skills and certain Levels," he added. "But then, my Ability seems to be hard-wired into my System."
Quinn thought for a moment about how much to tell.
While Tsukuru knew about both his System and him being a Vampire, Logan was still in the room.
Eventually, he just decided to be truthful.
"Actually, when I first learned my Ability, I only had two Skills," he replied. "My Shadow Space and Shadow Control Skills."
'Huh,' Tsukuru thought. 'That kind of sounds like how my Ability started.'
Back when the Video Ability had first been unlocked, he, too, only had two Skills. Video Creation and Video Summoning.
Logan narrowed his eyes.
"'Shadow Space'?" he asked. "I don't recall that Skill when we were scanning the Ability."
Tsukuru glanced back at him.
"Most likely because there was no point," he replied. "The Shadow Space Skill is kind of like my System's Inventory. It's a storage space. And thus, it is essentially unusable within the game."
He then glanced up.
"I mean, I can access my System's Inventory in my System's Battle Arena, but it's somewhat different from the VR Game," Tsukuru replied.
Logan nodded.
"Yeah," he replied, walking over to his desk. Once there, he lifted a set of Tsukuru's gauntlets. But these ones were heavily cracked.
Looking at them kind of reminded Quinn about how his Basic-Tier Gauntlets had looked after his fight with that first Rattaclaw.
"I'm still trying to figure out how this is scientifically possible," he muttered, looking at the two gauntlets.
Quinn glanced over at Tsukuru.
"Aren't those things Intermediate-Tier?" he asked. "How did you break a set of Intermediate-Tier Gauntlets?"
Tsukuru let out a sigh.
"That got damaged while I was fighting an incredibly strong Intermediate-Tier Beast," Tsukuru replied. "Inside the Battle Arena."
Quinn's eyes widened as the insinuation of Tsukuru's words clicked in his head.
"Wait, you broke them in the VR Game, and they were still broken when you came out?" he asked in astonishment.
"Yup," Tsukuru replied. "It seems that my System's Battle Arena is a part of my System itself. I just need to use VR technology to access it."
He then turned back to Quinn.
"Anyway, if you only had two Skills when you first learned your Ability, how were you able to show Vorden and mefour of them?" he asked.
"In addition to the two Skills, I also received ten 'Skill Points' that I could use to unlock Skills," Quinn replied, before glancing away. "The Shadow Cloak was just the only Skill cheap enough to afford at that point."
Tsukuru's eyes narrowed as Tsukuru mentioned the words "Skill Points".
'Looks like his System uses those as well," he thought.
"Yeah, it's almost like the two Systems use the same software," Reiju replied sarcastically.
Tsukuru glanced back.
'Yet apparently different enough that the way we achieve Skill points is dramatically different!' he thought back angrily.
He then turned back to Quinn.
"Interesting," he replied. "So, you've unlocked a new Skill, then?"
Quinn let out a sigh.
"Not quite," he replied. "When my Shadow Control Skill Leveled Up, I received another ten Skill Points, but the next Skill I want to unlock costs 20 Skill Points. So I need to Level Up one more Skill."
Tsukuru raised an eyebrow in confusion.
"I thought you didn't know anything about your Ability?" he asked. "How do you know which Skill you want to unlock?"
Quinn glanced to the side.
"It was… recommended to me by my System's AI," he replied.
"Ah, I see," Tsukuru muttered, glancing slightly to the right of Quinn, where he could see the apparition of the blonde-haired man standing there.
"So you got one of those, too."
Instantly, Quinn's eyes widened.
"So you did unlock a System AI when you reached Level 10, then," he replied. Although Tsukuru was unsure if it was a statement or a question.
"Yeah," Tsukuru replied. "My mother uploaded a digital copy of her mind into the System mainframe when she was making it."
Quinn's face tensed slightly.
'I bet she'snot nearly as annoying as he is,' Quinn thought in irritation, thinking back to the blonde-haired man whose voice he now heard regularly.
Logan put his finger under his chin.
"Auntie Reiju…" he mused. "I think I recall meeting her once. Although I was incredibly young."
Tsukuru let out a sigh.
"Yet another thing your System has that mine lacks," Tsukuru muttered bitterly.
Logan turned to Tsukuru.
"What, your System doesn't use these…' Skill Points'?" he asked.
"No, it does," Tsukuru replied, looking back at him. "But my Skills require Skill Points toLevel Up. So I can't earn them as easily as Quinn can."
Logan raised an eyebrow in confusion.
"Then how do you earn them?" he asked.
Tsukuru let out a sigh.
"The same way I earn everything else in my System," he replied. "Through Level Ups."
Tsukuru's eyes then narrowed.
'Although, according to mom, there is one other way for me to obtain them, and I think I finally figured out what,' he thought, thinking back to his new book.
He turned back to Quinn.
"So what's this new Skill you want anyway?" he asked.
"It's called Shadow Void," Quinn replied. "Apparently, it creates an area of shadows around me, making it so that I don't have to worry about being seen using my Ability by others. But the main reason is that it blocks out the sun."
Quinn's eyes then narrowed.
"According to the person I met in the VR Game, the Beasts I'm looking for live on a planet called 'Caladi'. I want to unlock the new Skill before we leave," he replied.
Tsukuru's eyes widened.
"The desert planet?!" he exclaimed, before then looking to the side. "Well, that sure sucks."
Logan developed a confused look on his face.
"I take it Quinn doesn't like the sun," he replied.
Tsukuru let out a sigh and turned back to him.
"It's a System thing," Tsukuru replied. "It makes him weaker in direct sunlight."
Logan's eyes narrowed slightly in understanding.
"Hence the suit," he muttered.
"Right," Quinn replied, glancing away.
There was an awkward pause.
"Well, you two had better head back to your dorm," Logan replied. "Curfew starts in less than two hours."
Quinn's eyes widened.
He brought his wristwatch up to his face and looked at it.
In the upper-right corner, he saw "20:41" being displayed.
"Man, it's really easy to lose track of time with no clock in here," Quinn muttered.
With that, Tsukuru and Quinn departed from Logan's room.
As they left, Logan returned to his workbench and continued working on the invention that he was tinkering with when they had first arrived.
***
When Tsukuru and Quinn reached their dorm room, they once again found both Vorden and Peter fast asleep inside.
Quinn headed to his bed and went to sleep as well.
Meanwhile, just like the night before, Tsukuru created one of the rectangles of fried dough filled with meat, cheese, and tomato sauce. It was a snack from the old world called a "hot pocket". However, it was not unheard of for people to eat them for meals similar to how Tsukuru was now.
Once the hot pocket was gone, a System message appeared in front of Tsukuru.
[Daily Quest 2 Completed. 5 XP received. XP: 320/8000]
Tsukuru then laid back in bed.
'Just four more days to go,' he thought.
As soon as the upcoming weekend was over, it'd be the last time they'd see the Base for a few days.
His eyes then narrowed.
'Maybe I'm just being jaded, or paranoid, or both, but I've got a bad feeling about the upcoming Portal Expedition.'
"You are right to be concerned," a feminine voice replied. The abrupt appearance of the voicesurprised Tsukuru, causing him to fall out of bed.
Tsukuru's head whipped back and forth, searching for the source of the voice. However, the other three occupants of the room appeared to be fast asleep.
The thing that unsettled Tsukuru the most was the fact that the female voice had an ethereal, almost angelic tone to it.
It was as if he was hearing the words of an angel, or some kind of divine entity.
"Take heed, Hikiko Tsukuru," the female voice continued. "During your upcoming expedition to the desert world of Caladi, a great tragedy will occur. And one of you will meet their very end there."
A moment later, the female voice faded away.
"What the hell was that?" Tsukuru muttered.