A few hours later, Al woke up in his bedroom feeling a little bit dazed or dizzy.
He rubbed his face a little and cleared his eyes. Then, he felt the need to cool his head or even just his face so he slowly stood up from his lying position, wanting to go to his washroom.
Before he knew it, he was already standing in front of his bathroom's mirror, his reflection staring back at him.
"Wha…" He exclaimed, almost moving back.
He was immediately startled, and his dizzy state was gone like a lie. He was now more awake than ever.
The situation was absurd.
He had a confused expression on his face and it took him a moment to realize what was happening. He remembered how he got home earlier.
'Is this a dream?' This wasn't normal.
'But even in my vivid dreams, where I can even feel and taste, I've never asked whether I was dreaming.' He kept thinking with a frown present on his face, and this clearly showed in his reflection in the mirror.
'I don't remember ever sleeping in a dream either.'
For the next few minutes that followed, he tried several things to verify whether he was in a dream or not.
He pinched himself, splashed water on his face, held his breadth… He even went online to search for other ways to verify if he was dreaming.
There was really some absurd stuff on the web, but he tried whatever he could.
However, each new attempt only solidified the possibility that this was all real.
. . .
Sometime later.
He was now sitting in a chair in the living room of his house, dazedly staring at the ceiling of the place.
'I guess this is not a dream then?'
With this fact sinking in, a new budding feeling started growing in him. It was a spark of joy. It was still restrained and suppressed but it was there and it started growing.
Nevertheless, as the scientist he is, he started making a few theories of how this new power could be working.
After the theory came the testing.
He removed his digital watch from his wrist and held it in his hand. Then, he switched to the timer feature of the watch and got ready for his tests.
The test was to start the timer, teleport, and immediately stop it.
He considered where to start and thought of returning to the bedroom first.
With great anticipation, while holding the timer in his hand he pictured returning to his bed.
It was instant.
Before he knew it, he felt like he was dropped onto his bed.
"Wow!" That was the only thing he could say after a few seconds of being dazed.
He was so surprised that he forgot to stop the timer. He had to redo the test.
He thought of returning to the bathroom.
*beep-beep*
Al looked at the timer.
[00:00:00:56]
"0.5 seconds…" Al muttered. Then he exclaimed.
"Point five seconds?! For that distance?"
With a happy expression on his face Al said with a tinge of disbelief, "Teleportation is insane."
He kept on trying different places in the house, with increasing ecstasy.
He teleported to the living room, the bedroom, the washroom, the kitchen…
"hahahahaha~"
At some point he was even laughing like a madman.
He started teleporting and taking poses.
Teleporting to the ceiling and then teleporting to the ground with a superhero landing.
Teleporting in the air with his leg up as if doing a bicycle kick.
He had long forgotten that this was supposed to be an experiment and he just kept trying different things with his teleportation.
At some point he felt the house was not enough and wanted to teleport outside to play more.
Yes, play. He completely forgot this started as an experiment.
Oddly enough, when he tried to teleport outside, the teleportation did not work. Two tries, three tries, nothing…
That quickly cooled him down. It was as if his expression glitched.
"Uh… is it broken?"
He tried teleporting in the house again and it worked.
An expression of confusion occupied his face.
"Wait… can I only teleport into and around the house? What would be the point of that?"
He went to the door and left the house. Since it was night time, it was very dark outside with only the lights of the lamp poles and a few houses street lights to assist the moon in illuminating the surroundings.
After walking a little he tried teleporting again, and… it worked.
He tried again, and it worked again.
'That's odd.' He thought.
He continued trying and soon enough realized that the places he teleported to were all within the range of his vision.
He thought of teleporting to the first place he teleported to that was outside his house. It took some time but it worked.
He kept trying different things and soon enough, realized that he needed a clear picture of his destination in his mind for it to work.
It wasn't just about thinking of the place, he had to visualize it, he had to "see" the place to go there.
Having mostly calmed down from the earlier excitement, he made his way back home.
He started walking back home, he decided to walk since he was not that far, and he wanted some time to think, and the fresh air of the night was really helpful.
'Having an ability is great and all but, what should I do with this? I mean sure, it will save me a lot on transport cost and the time I try to get a taxi but nothing more… '
Thinking of this, he remembered the things he kept seeing on the news recently.
'Nothing more? Is that really the case?' He asked himself.
'Maybe with this, I can finally help some people. With this ability, even if just a little I can reduce the number of people who have to suffer for no reason other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I can be the one who is there for them.'
He could not stop disasters from happening but he would try to save all those that he could reach. At the very least, he would be a damage controller.
He started entertaining the thought more and more and was in no time lost in thoughts.
Suddenly-
"Ah I think I left my belongings at work." He made a teleportation trip to his workplace.
He picked his backpack that was on the mat leaning against the table, as well as his shoes that were on the floor by the sofa he was lying on earlier.
Then he returned home, he teleported directly in his room.
When he reappeared, the room was dark. He had turned the lights off in the house when he was leaving to test the teleportation outside.
It was at this time that he finally noticed the purple-light square present at the top right corner of his sight.
When he tried moving in the direction of the light, it moved along with him.
Whether he turned his head or simply walked in its direction, it moved with him. This made him ask himself.
'When did I become a cat to be chasing after dots of light?'
He then came up with the idea of trying to focus and teleport directly to the light.
How is that any different from what a cat would do one might ask. The answer is very simple. Cats cannot teleport. That is just common sense.
As he tried to focus on the light, before he could even teleport, it popped up and expanded into a holographic window.
This sudden development startled him.
'The light was an icon?'
He felt very stupid at this time. To such an extent that he felt like hiding. Lucky for him that he was currently alone.
Not that anyone would have understood why he felt stupid anyway.
.
The window was a see through/transparent, deep-purple window with flowery patterns at its edges. It had a Close (⨉) button and a Minimize (_) button, both at the top right of the window.
In no time, the loading window shifted to another window. The next window as if waiting came right after.
[…]
[Binding Request]
[Do You Authorize Binding?]
He saw the System's pop-ups. All the windows that came up were silent or rather voiceless since there was a pitch less *click* sound with every appearance and change of the windows.
[Binding Request Pending]
Strangely enough, he could clearly see and read the text on the windows as if his brain had forgotten about his myopia problem.
Not that he was complaining about that.
"What should I do? Why would I suddenly get a System of all things?"
Al then took a strange posture with his left hand crossed under his right hand, which was in turn holding his chin.
A thoughtful posture that was somewhat of a comical posture.
However, he easily adopted comical gestures when he was happy, and it just so happened that becoming a teleporter made him happy, and getting a System put him over the moon.
Who in this day and age didn't know about a System or want one of those.
With a System, he would, in no time become a real superhero.
It was no surprise that he quickly accepted the binding.
'(Authorize binding)' He replied excitedly.
[Binding Starting…]
With that, a rapidly charging loading bar popped up. After which-
{Successful]
[You have become a 'Player']
The windows just kept popping and then closing. Then-
[Loading Status…]
'Finally!' He exclaimed inwardly.
STATUS
[NAME: AKROATÍS SOFÓS ALTAIR ROHAN]
[LEVEL : 1 ]
[RACE : HUMAN ]
[TITLE(S) : PLAYER▾▻ ]
[CLASS : NONE ]
[HEALTH : 25 ]
[ENERGY : -/- ]
[STRENGTH : 8 ]
[AGILITY : 8 ]
[VITALITY : 5 ]
[INTELLIGENCE : 16 ]
[SENSE : 1 ]
[POINTS : 0 ]
'Strange numbers.' Altair thought.
'I wonder what each stat represents qualitatively. What exactly is the difference between 1 in strength and 2 in strength?'
'Why does my ENERGY show as blank?'
As he was in his muses, the next prompt came up.
[⚠ Requesting Body Reconstruction Permission ⚠]
'A body reconstruction huh. Hmmm, why not?' Just as he was about to accept, a red prompt came up.
[⚠⚠ Caution Advised ⚠⚠]
'Why the sudden warning?' He wondered.
[Accept--/--Decline]
The System's window just stood before him. Silent and without reaction or change, giving him no response.
In the silence of the room, he examined his body.
He suddenly got a lightbulb moment.
"Ah! The calories! It's probably because of that."
Altair was not exactly thin or scrawny. Instead, he appeared rather lean, courtesy of the light exercise he did on a regular basis.
He goes for a run at least three times every week and does a few stretches before returning home.
He also developed a habit of eating simple foods not rich in fats and oils.
However, even with this habit, he was addicted to a certain brand of filled biscuits from country Numidia on the Alkebulan continent, branded MAXON.
All these things combined, ended in him having a body that was neither fat nor thin.
However, he turned out fit but his body lacked the clear muscle definition that would usually imply fitness.
'I should probably take some food first. Those kilocalories must be important if I get a warning for not having them. I'd rather not finish just finding myself looking like a skeleton or dying because I ignored a warning.'
With this thought, he teleported to his kitchen.
'Teleportation is really convenient.' He thought with a smile.
In the kitchen, he slowly started to eat any light foods high in calories and easy to eat that he set his sight on.
Milk, cereals, biscuits, cakes, fruit juice, fruits, more milk…
Of course, despite his best attempt and efforts, he quickly got full after a few minutes of eating.
His stomach felt bloated and he felt like he could not even walk.
'Pregnancy must really suck. I never want to experience that.'
Seeing that he could no longer take in anything, he returned to his room with another teleportation.
He laid flat on the ceramic floor and decided it was time.
For a moment, he contemplated increasing his diet.
"Maybe I should fatten up for the week before doing this."
However, he was too excited and even impatient to see what the system could do.
'I don't think I could stand this anticipation for a whole week.'
He wanted to explore the System but could not do so because nothing he did would close or minimize the window of the body reconstruction message.
This prevented him from any further exploration of the System.
'Ah, whatever. (Accept)'
. . .
. .
.
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