Chương 4: Reading Bubble

That afternoon, I trudged home in despair. I had been beaten. Severely beaten. By two bullies who didn't give a damn about my love for reading novels. This world was not meant for me. This life was not meant for me. I just wanted a world where I could read novels and travel to mystical lands, seeing things I wouldn't normally see in this boring town, in this boring neighbourhood. I had bloody bruises all over my face, but I was used to it. Theo and Ben would do this to me at least once every half term.

It was just that this time, more blood was shed and I had more bruises on my face. There had been a pool of blood on the grass where I had been punched. Thank God my jaw wasn't broken. There was this one time a few years back when Theo and Ben bullied me so bad that they broke my jaw with their punches, sending me to the doctors, where they said I could've had surgery if they had punched me just five times more. But at least this time, the doctors wouldn't be involved. Those two were bullies. Thugs.

They didn't need any justification for their actions. That sucked. As I carried my bag down the street hunched over like an elderly man, I thought about Cayman and Ellie. What were those two doing in school? In my area? Why specifically here in Woking where there's almost nothing to do? Why not London, or Paris, or Seoul? Were they specifically here to meet me? Definitely not.

Those two probably don't even know that they're characters in a novel, and they probably won't know the names of all of the novel's readers; that would be obnoxious and extremely creepy. Maybe I was just being delusional. Maybe those two were just normal people from a different part of town who just happened to move to this area. Maybe they have nothing to do with my novel. When I arrived at my house, I unlocked the door and went inside. There was nobody home, just like usual.

My mother worked extremely long hours, so she wouldn't be back until late at night. She doesn't really care about what I do at home while she's away. When she returns home, she almost instantly goes to bed. And what about my father? Well, I haven't seen him in a long time, and we're talking almost ten years. I remember when I was younger my mother told me he had gone overseas to work and that he would send us a ton of money, but we haven't heard back from him in more than five years.

And during those years, it's like he's been taken out of my memory like unused mathematical facts. I dropped my bag in the living room and walked upstairs. When I got upstairs, I went to the bathroom to look at myself in the mirror. My face was purple, like, extremely purple. I was certain that I had some form of internal bleeding. Those two had extremely horrible punches, but this was a hundred percent the worst treatment they had given me so far. Damn you, Theo Parker and Ben Oxley.

Once I got changed, I took my phone out of my jacket pocket and lay down flat on the bed. My face hurt so much it felt like it was being dipped into a plate of fire; it was almost literally on fire. I will get you back one day, bullies, and I am sure of it. Time to read a bit of Night Hoppers. I didn't know at the time, but that was the moment my life changed.

Theo and Ben had stolen my phone from me at lunch, and it took me almost ten minutes to flag down a teacher and tell them my situation, and only then did I get my phone back. Luckily for me, those two got a stern talking to and received detentions for the rest of the week. Somehow, they had managed to change the chapter to chapter 369, and it took me ages to change it back to chapter 1. Eventually though, I was able to relax and start reading. But before I could start reading the first paragraph, my vision changed.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Why was everything trying to stop me from reading Night Hoppers? Instead of staring at the natural colours of the items in my room, I was looking at something that looked like a blue filter. It was see-through, and it dyed my possessions an awful blue colour. What the hell? I turned my head a hundred and eighty degrees from left to right. Everywhere I could see, my surroundings were blue.

My door was blue, my desk was blue, my bed sheets were blue, my wardrobe was blue. The only thing that wasn't blue was my phone.

"Damn," I said to myself. Maybe I was hallucinating. Maybe I should head to the doctors immediately and get a schizophrenia diagnosis. I wanted to stretch my arms, but the moment I did, my knuckles hit something and I felt a burning pain like the pain on my face. What the actual hell??? I looked upwards. The blue thing was above me as well, and it looked like it was shielding me from something. But what? That was when it happened. The moment my life changed. That message. [Congratulations, new skill user. Welcome to the world of skill users.] What? I frowned. Wait, that line seems familiar... Was it something to do with Night Hoppers? Yes. I couldn't believe it; it was the opening line of chapter 1 of Night Hoppers. That was the message Cayman woke up to on that fateful day. That message. That exact message. If that was the case, then there should be more. There was. [You have been selected to be a skill user. You are able to use, store and wield mana. Click here to start the tutorial.] I knew exactly what this was. It was the system. I clicked on where it said 'here', and the system took me to a window which I didn't expect. I almost fainted when I saw it. It went something like this: Name: Robert Ryan Age: 17 Height: 5'9" Level: Basic (stage 1, 0/100 XP) Main skill: Reading Bubble Other skills: none Traits: Locked????? Locked????? Locked????? Locked????? Locked????? Locked????? Right. So I've been trapped in this game, if you would want to call it a game.

This was exactly the skills window that skill users saw in Night Hoppers. I was assigned a level, and there was XP, meaning I could level up, just like in the novel. Maybe I was in the novel then and I just didn't know it. Maybe Woking is a setting in the novel and I just didn't know it. Ugh, this is frustrating! Also, what the hell is a Reading Bubble? That wasn't a skill listed in Night Hoppers. My curiosity took over; I had a myriad of unanswered questions that desperately awaited answers.

There was a weird system in front of me, a weird skill that I apparently possessed, and a levels system that made me feel like I was in a work of fiction. I decided to test out this 'system'. The first thing I clicked on was 'Reading Bubble' where it said 'Main Skill'. Reading Bubble Level: Basic Description: A makeshift shield that allows the user to read in peace. Can be used defensively as a shield against Basic skills. Will be destroyed when used to defend against higher-level skills.

Cooldown period: 10 minutes (if broken by Advanced skills), 2 hours (if broken by Legendary skills), 10 hours (if broken by Infinite skills) So it wasn't completely useless. I could see several uses for this. Maybe I could use this to try and get Cayman's attention, since he was also a skill user. Maybe I could use this opportunity to get back at Theo and Ben. I wasn't paying attention to it at the time, but that was when the reading bubble I supposedly possessed disappeared. I wasn't seeing blue anymore.

What the hell was going on? There was a part of me that thought I genuinely had schizophrenia and that maybe I should change my ways. Maybe I should go outside, talk to people and touch grass. That wasn't the end of my supposed 'delusions'. I wanted to reach for my phone, and that was when I saw a blue glow below me around my chest and abdominal areas. It was the same shade of blue as the reading bubble, but this time, it wasn't surrounding me like the reading bubble. It was none other than a mana core.

I was elated, but also apprehensive at the same time. Mana. It is like magic in Earth terms. It is the spiritual energy that one has in their bodies. In Night Hoppers, everybody has some amount of mana in their systems. However, once the person awakens, the amount of mana they have in their bodies increases, they can use and control their mana, and they can use this spiritual energy that defines mana to perform supernatural skills normal people cannot use. The mana core is an important part of a skill user.

Skill users use it to store unused mana for future use. This spare mana can then be used for recovery or activating other skills. If a mana core is destroyed or even partially damaged, it may affect the user's ability to use their skills, and in the most extreme cases, the backlash could permanently stop a skill user from using their skills or even kill them. It is something that a skill user should handle with care.

The blue glow around my stomach area was a small glow, but that was to be expected since I was only at the basic level. That meant my core was only at a basic level, and that it was still developing. It couldn't compare to what Cayman had, but it was a start. I couldn't believe I had a mana core. I could actually use mana. I was a true skill user, someone who could use skills and mana, just like in the novel. I couldn't process the feelings I had at that point; it was a mix of excitement, anxiety and paranoia.

This felt unreal. This may not be an exact scene from the novel, but the important thing was that more and more aspects of the novel were coming to life. The system was definitely real, and I could confirm that I didn't have schizophrenia. This was real. It was not a dream. I could definitely use this to my advantage.