TJ

Sitting on a bus heading home, Magnus couldn't erase the smile lingering on his face. All his worries about the future and the upcoming battles against the gods had been shoved into the background, leaving the image of Summer's face shining as bright as sunshine in his mental world.

"Summer…" he mumbled like a lovesick boy.

In the same mental world, Magnus 2.0 couldn't get his imaginary eyes off the girl's face. Both Magnuses were stuck in their own little world.

If not for a toddler dropping her toy on the aisle while walking to the opened bus door with her mother, Magnus would've stayed in his daydream and missed his stop. He quickly rushed to the front and got off.

"Phew, that was close. Anyway, what should I do now?" he wondered while walking to his apartment. "Maybe I should go and visit him."

He fished out his phone from the pocket and sent a text message to his best friend.

- Oi! Where r u right now?

Not even a minute after he sent the text, his phone vibrated, a message notification from TJ popping up on the screen.

- Where else would I be?

Judging by how fast he sent the reply, Magnus knew that his friend had probably not gone out in days. He knew his friend well. That shut-in disliked going out or talking to people. And given how long the summer holiday was, he sure was using much of his time awake playing video games or submitting to the might of his teenage hormone.

With a spring in his steps, Magnus headed to his best friend's house.

He then arrived in front of a wooden door of a house built with red bricks. Located within a residential area adorned with rows of similar-looking three-story houses, the house was only within ten-minute walking distance from Magnus' apartment. Compared to where Magnus lived, it was closer to the private school they both attended.

He pressed the bell button on the side of the door and waited. A few seconds later, he could hear light footsteps approaching the door. With his sharp hearing, Magnus deduced that the person was most likely TJ's mother.

The door finally opened to reveal a beautiful woman roughly the same age as his own mother. Her short hair was as black as the night sky—the same color as TJ's. Her brown eyes looked at Magnus in slight surprise, which immediately shifted into a welcoming delight. "Magnus! What a nice surprise! Come in, come in!" she said in a warm tone while making way for him to enter.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Haysmith. I hope I'm not bothering you," said Magnus while stepping into the house. He was immediately greeted by a pleasant aroma of freshly-baked chocolate cookies.

"Oh no, of course you're not. How have you been?" she replied, walking to the kitchen and preparing a plate to place some of the cookies on.

"I'm good, thanks, Mrs. Haysmith," answered Magnus.

"Tyler's in his room, as always. He's been stuck in front of his computer for I don't know how long." She was showing a tired expression while telling Magnus about her son's habit.

"It's a good thing you decided to come today. I baked lots of cookies for Mrs. Harold's daughter's birthday earlier." After neatly arranging the cookies on the plate, she walked up to Magnus and handed the plate to him. "Here, you can have some. Also, please tell Tyler to go outside sometimes. I really don't know what to do with that boy," she said and then sighed.

"Thanks. I'll do that, Mrs. Haysmith."

Magnus then walked up the stairs while carrying the plate full of cookies. He stopped in front of the door located furthest from the staircase. He knocked three times before announcing himself. "The Great Magnus has arrived!"

There was no response, which either meant TJ had his headphones on or he just couldn't be bothered answering. Magnus didn't hear the clacking of keys or clicking of mouse from behind the door. This was an obvious sign; it was as if TJ was saying, "Come in or not, do whatever you want."

Magnus then opened the door and saw his best friend lying in his bed, his phone held right above his head, screen down and facing his eyes. He was typing on his phone, not caring that Magnus had just entered his room.

TJ was a teenage boy about half a year older than Magnus. His messy black hair contrasted so well with his pale-as-ghost skin. He was even skinnier than Magnus, almost looking like he would pass out if he had to run for more than ten seconds. If he got up, he would stand a few centimeters shorter than Magnus.

He was wearing a black T-shirt and black jeans, unsurprisingly. Inside his wardrobe, Magnus could count on one hand how many colors being present other than black, and these included blood-red, which was his second favorite. Darting his eyes across the room, Magnus' eyes fell on several posters of heavy-metal bands plastered all over the walls.

TJ was one of those guys, indeed.

"What's up, dude," greeted Magnus.

"Mm," hummed TJ as a response. This was already a gesture of friendliness by TJ's standard, and he only did this to Magnus and his own parents.

Magnus put the plate of cookies on TJ's desk and then took a seat on the feet of the bed. He then stared at his best friend intently.

The TJ right now truly couldn't compare to the one Magnus had journeyed with for more than six years. That TJ had a much fiercer look on his eyes, and his Azrael-themed powers as well as all the bodies of his enemies that he'd piled up had granted him the nickname 'Death'. He was an unstoppable force of nature, carrying with him the cold and unfeeling aura of an angel of death. Everywhere he went, he would announce his presence by spreading his suffocating killing intent, which actually was a passive of his.

Fortunately, TJ had always subconsciously excluded Magnus from the targets of his killing intent. Despite the massive difference in personality, they were still as close as brothers, after all.

"Stop staring at me with that stupid smile of yours," TJ's voice woke him up from his reminiscence.

Magnus chuckled and replied, "I was just remembering some things from the past."

TJ looked at his friend with suspicious eyes before shaking his head. "Whatever. Just don't make it weird. That perpetual smile of yours annoys the shit out of—"

TJ frowned upon noticing something on his friend's body. "The heck? Last time I saw you, you weren't this…big."

"Hmm?" Magnus then looked down at his own body. It was then that he noticed the effect the stats transfer had done to his physique. He was still lanky, but now with more muscles—their firm outer curves showing through the garment of his hoodie. "Ah, well, I recently started working out."

The frown on TJ's face grew deeper. "So that's a lie."

Magnus chuckled, unable to refute his friend's statement. "Let's just say…I have some supernatural methods on how to look more like a man," he said jokingly. Through the expression shown on his friend's face, Magnus could feel what TJ was feeling right now. TJ somehow knew the Magnus in front of him was different from the one he'd met a couple of weeks ago.

'He knows me well,' thought Magnus, feeling the warm closeness of their friendship.

"Anyway," said Magnus, trying to divert TJ's attention. He raised one arm to show off his biceps and said, "Now that you've seen these big guns, what say you we go out every morning to do a little bit of exercise?"

"Piss off," replied TJ without hesitating.

"Come on! You'll need it, trust me," pressed Magnus, which wasn't a lie. As he was right now, TJ would get lower-than-average numbers on his base stats after awakening. He was weak, slow, and lacked stamina. This lazy teenager needed some strengthening, and it would be better to start sooner than later. "We're just gonna run some laps around the neighborhood. It won't take more than an hour, I promise."

"No."

Magnus then decided to use his puppy eyes. "Pretty please?"

TJ didn't respond for a while, glaring at his friend's eyes without blinking, like a feral cat challenging an opponent. Magnus himself didn't want to back down, so he maintained the eye contact, his smile unrelenting. Slowly, Magnus could feel TJ's emotions slightly fluctuating.

Eventually, the moody boy looked away. "I forgot you can always read my emotions."

"And that's how I know you want something from me in exchange for accepting my request," said Magnus.

TJ clicked his tongue and said, "That's right. Tell me what's really going on with you and I'll pick up my running shoes starting tomorrow."

Not expecting such response, Magnus froze for a moment.

'Uh-oh, it seems we can't really avoid this for much longer,' Magnus 2.0 pointed out.

Heaving a deep sigh, Magnus said, "How about we make it the other way around? You agree to work out diligently and I'll tell you everything in a year's time."

"In a year? The fuck?" asked TJ, feeling like it was an unfair deal.

Magnus scratched his head and let his complicated feelings shown on his face. "Yeah, well…it's kinda hard to explain. And I'm telling you the truth. It's a really big deal. But I promise you it'll all be revealed in one year."

TJ narrowed his eyes for a moment. But then he yielded. "Whatever. I don't really have much to do now, anyway. I just lost some money after another gam—" he stopped before he spilled too much of his dirty little secret.

However, Magnus didn't need to hear all of it to know what his friend was going to say. Online gambling had taken over the guy's life these days. "Again? You sure are showered in great fortune," he said sarcastically.

"Fuck off."

The two best friends then chatted some more while munching on some cookies, before Magnus bade him and his mother farewell. It was already almost nighttime, and he wanted to have dinner with his parents. "Aight, see ya tomorrow morning, bro!"

Leaving the Haysmith's residence, Magnus walked home while looking at his Protagonist screen. He then swiped it to show the screen for Protagonist #2 and asked the system, "After assigning a Protagonist, can I withhold their awakening?"

[Affirmative.]

Every Protagonist would receive two notifications from the system: one was of their awakening, and another one was when they were selected by an Author. An awakening was basically a term for what happened to people who received their Status Window for the first time after the Prolog. This awakening would also allow them to use mana and receive skills as well as stat boosts, basically making them superpowered humans, ready for an era after the Prolog. By assigning TJ as his Protagonist, Magnus would also be able to awaken him. However, he knew right now wasn't the right time.

Still, even before an awakening, anyone could manually raise some stats like Strength and Stamina by training. With that in mind, Magnus thought he could help his friend get a little stronger before his awakening during the Prolog.

"Then assign my friend TJ as Protagonist #2, please. But don't let him know, yet. I'll tell you when you can send him the awakening notification."

The system then quickly got to work while the Protagonist #2's screen underwent massive changes. The first being the POV window flickering to life, showing the sight of TJ's room from his eyes' point of view. This feature was not active on Magnus' own Protagonist screen because, well, it wasn't necessary; he wasn't blind, after all. The second change was the display of TJ's Status Window.

Magnus smiled excitedly, curious as to how his friend's stats looked like.

[Status Window

Name: Tyler John Haysmith

Race: Human

Author: Magnus 2.0

Age: 17

Title(s): None

Level 1

XP: 0/100

HP: 50

Mana: 10

Strength: 6

Agility: 5

Perception: 10

Stamina: 5

Skill(s): None]

"Boy, is he frail," Magnus couldn't help but remark after reading TJ's Status Window. "He's got a high Perception, though, for some reason."

He closed the Protagonist screen and continued walking home with an excited smile on his face.