Watching visual animes through billboards gave Laz an edge in opportunity. He could tell that the screen in front of him was a status window — his status window — even though they had empty fills. He now understood what Codez meant when he referred to their existence as that in a Game-Like world.
Not getting over the screen, he watched as it shattered into transparent shards of glass before traversing into nothingness, followed by another screen that dug out from the book at the same time.
'What... now?'
Laz watched, as the screen, as though controlled by a repulsive upthrust force floated in the air approaching his eye level. Curiosity was going to make him a dead cat as he thrust his right hand out to touch the screen in front of him.
But, he pulled it back again.
He didn't know much about the Land of Call he had transmigrated into, but he guessed that what happened to the previous transparent window was going to happen to the one right in front of his eyes. So, there's a high possibility that getting in contact with it was going to disintegrate the second life he was able to get.
Somehow, he was thankful for having had this life and didn't wish to lose it so soon.
His eyes traveled down to the open notepad which the screens were seeped out from, and it looked the same color as the plastic. Just as though it was a deliquescent magical substance all along, which has melted to take the appearance of the table.
Yet, he thought that if he needed to write on the notepad to make it give him information, this screen in his front might need the same process to display the information it had.
At intervals, Laz drew out his hands to reach for the empty screen and still pulled them back.
The gap that arises between what one knows and what one wants to know makes his hands itchy. The former screen had shown him what his status should look like, so, he felt that this second screen was going to give him detailed information about how his status worked.
'Damn...'
The decision of whether he was going to disappear into nothingness and cease to exist, or what benefits he would get caught him in the net of curiosity. Now that he had become aware there was a small piece of missing information he needed to grasp, the tension that his brain now experienced was an uncomfortable one.
The whispers he felt that came from the empty screen in front of him went thus:
"I know something beneficial to you that you don't."
Knowing that his brain can't rest until it's able to find out what that something is, Laz instinctively, without stopping suspended his hands into the transparent screen. Still, immediately, he regretted not making use of the pen on the table to test what could have happened.
'The truth is...'
The instant his right hand collided with the screen, he was drawn further into it by an unknown magnetic force — it struck what looked like empty air, but wasn't. His resistance was all to no avail, as his hands got trapped in a smooth, cold surface, yet invisible and unmistakably solid.
'... my fear is about to become a reality.'
The hand that was thrust into the screen was gone from sight, except his outstretched limbs which were slowly pushing themselves in. For a second, the screen surface shimmered before his eyes which were now closer. The sensation from the glow crawled up his arm.
He struggled to hold up against the force from within the screen and pulled his second hand to strengthen his lost hand. But that was the wrong decision he had taken.
The equilibrium that his body has created with the other half of the body has now been distorted to the advantage of the seeping screen. Before Laz knew what was on board, his whole body followed.
'I pray this not to be my end.'
The young boy's left leg stretched out behind, he wanted to exert a new opposite force to that of the screen, but he was too late with this action. The transparence had already claimed his shoulder, then his chest, raising him from the ground to place him in a diagonal position to its entrance door.
Laz gave in.
He let himself loose as his limbs convulsed in slow motion until he was fully engulfed in the transparent screen.
Once he was gone, instead of welcoming himself into the kind of landing that caused mental overthrow — landing with his head — since his final seeping process had occurred beveled with his head facing down, he found himself floating in space.
Around him, flickers of stars swarm in circles, too many in numbers that a distant observer could easily note it was a constellation. Flowing shadows of blue streaks decorated the little spaces created by the stars. The sight, for a moment, almost made Laz forget why he had ended up in such a situation.
Suspended in the vast void, his hands hung sideways as he performed involuntary, occasional, slow rotary motion, allowing him to take in his environment. But this was not why he was here. He had performed this deadly experimentation to kill his curiosity.
"Tch."
Laz sighed and shut his eyes. At the same time, his eyelids were about to close, he noticed some change in his environment and quickly opened his eyes back.
The shadowy blue streaks that had solely beautified a blending coloring of the building, were wrapping around the suspended stars, shattering into atoms and reforming into runes which thanks to how it happened, Laz could read the language it formed.
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«↓ Bloodline ↑»
« Description: Your bloodline is a build-up legacy that will be based on two factors — your innate affinities and choices manifested as an inherited specialization. Your specialization could come from how far and well you strived to survive. Whatever bloodline you inherit from your efforts is what is going to decide your abilities. »
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Laz watched intently, downloading every piece of information the reformed runes provided for him.
His instinct was right after all, making him check out this given that already looked like what was going to be serving as a huge help to him.
Meanwhile, the words that had appeared before him were changing course again. Then, his eyes widened as he gasped at the new form that the star shards had taken.
A question...
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«↓ Do you wish to awaken your Bloodline? ↑»
«↓ Yes ♦ No ↑»
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'Who the hell still imposes privileges in the form of questions?!'
Laz cursed in his mind.
It was already clear to him that his survival in this Land of Call was going to depend on whatever bloodline he would awaken. Hope glinted into his box of succeeding as he thought since something like this happened, he still had a high chances of escaping this weightless void.
Floating around in rotation, he imagined the system or whatever was in control of the runes from the screen windows, in existence. He would have clear-headedly hit it on its head several times to order it to pick the affirmative answer.
Since that was not the case, he mumbled...
"Yes."
In that instant, the runes changed once again, this time into a row of data.
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«↓ Origin: Undefined ↑»
«↓ Talent: Undefined ↑»
«↓ Rank: Initiate ↑»
«↓ Rank Core: [0/50] ↑»
«↓ Core Trait: Undefined ↑»
«↓ Ability: Undefined ↑»
«↓ Weakness: Undefined ↑»
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'Okay, now I've come to understand that our possibilities can become our realities.'
Only his rank showed initiate, which meant he was still at a beginner level — even if there was something below being a beginner — that was his actual level.
He wanted to retract his hands and cup his palms against his face to soothe himself, but his hands were stuck, outstretched. The new information that proved the system was yet to retire even gave him the most shocking feeling.
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«↓ Bloodline Awakening Completed ↑»
«↓ ... ↑»
«↓ ... ↑»
«↓ Bloodline: Null ↑»
«↓ Laz Mann, don't be in a haste to awaken your bloodline. You are yet to begin your trial, and your actions are termed as "laziness". Only until you pass your trial will you be able to awaken a Bloodline. ↑»
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'The fuck!'
Laz yelled in his mind. 'You asked me a question, and I simply provided an answer!'
Laz regretted his inability to move his body voluntarily in this vast void. He clenched his fist at the words the system had shown him at last.
'You dared make me look like I'm pathetic?'
BOOM!
The response Laz got was a hit from nowhere, sending him to interlock on the cold concrete of the walls with a loud thud.
"Rrrrr...!!!"
The distortion caused by the deep growl caused Laz to shift into his reality. Raising his brow to the towering figure some meter before him, he froze.
"Huh?"