"...I see..."
He could not help the slightly self-deprecating smile that flashed across his pale lips. He leaned his head back on the wall and sighed.
Truth be told, he was not even mad at all, which was mostly for two main reasons.
The first one was the fact that he could not be annoyed because there was nothing to direct his frustrations at. He could not blame the System, since it was merely a program, albeit an extremely advanced one. That meant that it had a set of rules that it was supposed to follow, one of which in this case just happened to be ensuring his own survival and by association its own as well.
The second reason was for the fact that it had already happened. What was done was done. There was no way he could change the past no matter how hard he might try, so all that was left was the future. This... minor setback merely meant that he would have to figure out a way to proceed further on his own.
"System, what are the possibilities that The White Circle might send their other System Users after me?"
> [Considering that a project such the Soul System Project would have cost an astronomical amount of funds to successfully achieve their required results, it would not be wrong to exist some efforts to retrieve their property. At the same time, such a scenario would be unlikely, since the people that were in charge of this project had deemed the Host a failure slated for destruction]
"So basically, there's a fifty-fifty percent chance that I'm going to be hunted by supersoldiers just like me," he murmured thoughtfully. "And there's a good chance that they'll probably have access to their Overdrive Modes too..."
At this point, he had a fairly clear grasp on his current situation and he was aware of just how disadvantaged he was. Hiding in an unknown city within an unfamiliar world as a fugitive from a government-sanctioned organisation, he was already on the bad side of the law from the start.
Thanks to the System, he now understood that he was already stronger than just about every other human and even surpassed the level of a newly awakened System User. Unfortunately that meant little considering that he now knew he was the last to awaken, which meant that there were probably at least a dozen others like him, all of whom would probably be stronger than he was, with some of them possibly having access to an even more powerful form.
Simply put, if he were to get into a altercation with any of them as he was now, he did not doubt that he would put up a good fight — but that would not change the fact that he would be for all intents and purposes, screwed over.
He needed something to level the scales. And he had an idea just how to do that.
"System, pull up the information on my skills."
The blue interface in his mind transitioned seamlessly into a new page containing information that was fed directly into his mind as he read.
> [Observe (Rank E)]
[Allows the Host to obtain information about a specific target. The information displayed is at the basic level. More detailed information will be made available as the skill rank increases]
[Reflecting Touch (Rank E)]
[An innate ability of the Mirror System. The skill allows the Host to reflect the kinetic force of an attack intercepted by the Host's left hand while the skill is active. The amount of force reflected is dependent on the skill rank]
[Mirror's Edge (Rank E)]
[The true representation of the power of reflection. At the cost of a quarter of the Host's stamina, the Host gains the ability to permanently copy the powers of any System User touched by the Host's right hand while the skill is active. The skill is effective only on targets less than two ranks higher than the Host]
He stopped reading after that, disregarding the information about the Overdrive Mode, partially because he already had the general breakdown of the ability as well as the fact that it was pretty much useless to him now.
His attention remained firmly on the description of the skill: Mirror's Edge, and he could not help the smirk that grew on his lips.
This was it.
His way of leveling the odds when he would inevitably be confronted with enemies that would be more powerful than him.
Provided he did not get himself killed immediately, he would have a decent chance at victory as long as he was able to touch them at least once.
The smirk on his face quickly faded away as he began drafting out future plans to compensate for the visible lapses in the skills he had.
Reflecting Touch was an excellent skill which would be invaluable during close quarters melee fights if he could get the timing right. But without Overdrive Mode, Mirror's Edge had now become his ultimate trump card. With this particular skill, he could potentially expand his arsenal of techniques infinitely.
"These skills have relatively low ranks. I would presume that there must be some ways to increase them?" he asked the System.
> [The skills are merely representations of the innate abilities possessed by the Host, abilities that have been unlocked by the presence of the System. Skill ranks can be increased by two ways:]
[One: As the overall rank of the Host increases, the stats and power of the Host's skills also increase in turn. This method is technically unreliable since the Host would need more powerful skills to defeat stronger enemies in order to increase the Host's rank in the first place]
[The second method is by repeated usage of the skill. The more often the Host uses the skill in battle, the mastery of the skill will increase until the Host obtains a deeper insight on the skill itself]
"Practice makes perfect huh?"
He mused thoughtfully and pushed himself away from the wall to stride towards the smaller secondary entrance of the warehouse.
Now that he had a clear goal and a way to achieve that goal, it was time to obtain some more information regarding the city. Knowledge about his environment would definitely be invaluable when he would start enacting his plan.