Multiversal Friendship System

The movie playing on Rokuya Souta's iPhone slowed down.

This was the effect of him accelerating his own time!

In other words, while only a second had passed in the outside world, several seconds had elapsed for him.

"I can actually manipulate time!"

Souta was overjoyed.

Time had always seemed like a mysterious force to him.

He never imagined that one day, he'd be able to control its flow.

Next, Souta stopped accelerating his own time.

He then attempted to speed up time for his iPhone.

The next moment, the movie on his screen suddenly played at multiple times its normal speed, as if someone had hit the fast-forward button.

"So I can accelerate other objects as well, not just myself..."

Encouraged, Souta tried to slow time down.

When he decelerated himself and looked at his iPhone again, the movie appeared to play faster.

Conversely, when he slowed down the phone, the movie played in slow motion.

It seemed like controlling time reduction wasn't an issue either.

Souta then attempted to stop time completely.

But this time, something went wrong!

As soon as he froze time for just a second, an overwhelming wave of fatigue crashed over him.

His body gave out, and he collapsed onto the floor before he could even react.

"Ugh... What the hell..."

He groaned in pain, using his hands to push himself up.

It took a great deal of effort to get back onto his feet.

Extreme exhaustion and hunger hit him all at once, leaving his head spinning.

Souta forced himself to shuffle over to the sofa, where he sat down to recover.

After a while, he started to feel slightly better.

Luckily, his body had been enhanced by the Elixir of Immortality, making his recovery speed quite remarkable.

"What the hell just happened?"

Still dazed, Souta struggled to make sense of the situation.

Logically, his time abilities should consume his own lifespan, just like Tokisaki Kurumi's.

But since his lifespan was theoretically infinite, he should never run out of time to burn.

So why did he feel this way?

Puzzled, he decided to ask the system.

"System, what caused my exhaustion and hunger just now?"

[Excessive energy consumption]

"Excessive energy consumption?" Souta was stunned. "Wait... am I using my body's energy to manipulate time?"

[Correct. Your current energy reserves are on the level of an ordinary human, so the extent of your time manipulation is limited.]

Souta followed up, "Why can't I manipulate time using my lifespan, like Kurumi does?"

[Tokisaki Kurumi manipulates time through her "Angel." You do not possess an "Angel" and therefore cannot use the same method.]

"Wait a minute—Kurumi's time manipulation works through her Angel, but I drew her ability. Shouldn't I have an Angel too?"

[The system extracts conceptual abilities from the target. For example, while Kurumi's time manipulation relies on her "Angel," the extracted ability is classified as a time-related power.]

"Then why not just extract the 'Angel' instead?"

[To prevent hosts from acquiring abilities they cannot use. For instance, if you had drawn Kurumi's Spirit Armor, Elohim, would you wear a dress?]

"..."

Okay, that was a solid point!

So solid that Souta couldn't even argue against it—nor did he want to.

There was no way in hell he was crossdressing!

Souta furrowed his brows.

"Is there a way to solve my energy consumption issue with time manipulation?"

[Introduce an energy system.]

"An energy system..."

Souta sighed. That would be quite difficult for him at the moment.

The Reiryoku system in Date A Live was out of the question—it originated from Mio Takamiya, and it wasn't something he could just learn.

And as for Monogatari, Kiss-Shot's world didn't even have a structured power system.

This issue would have to wait.

At some point, new members would join the Friend Group, and surely one of them would have a power system he could use.

Or, once the Quest System was activated, he could rack up points and try his luck at winning an energy system through the lottery.

For now, there was no need to waste an Invitation Letter on this.

That was a trump card—he couldn't afford to waste it on a minor inconvenience.

Having thought things through, Souta dropped the subject and continued testing his time manipulation ability to gauge its limits.

Just like that, in a cycle of:

testing → collapsing from exhaustion → testing again, about half an hour passed before Souta finally stopped.

In the end, he found that, at his current level, he could only perform three types of time manipulation:

Speeding up, Slowing down, Pausing

Speeding up and slowing down were relatively easy to control.

However, pausing time, even for just one second, would drain him completely.

Souta also speculated that the effectiveness of his time manipulation would vary depending on the target.

For example, affecting an ordinary human would be simple.

But if he tried to manipulate a powerful being, like Tokisaki Kurumi, the effect would likely be greatly reduced… if it even worked at all.

After all, his power level was still way too weak.

"That's enough testing for now."

Souta compared the time on his computer and his iPhone, adjusted the phone's clock, then took a short break.

After a while, he poured a glass of water in the kitchen, placed it on the table, and concentrated, preparing to activate the quirk he won from the lottery.

At that moment, "Half-Cold, Half-Burn" kicked into action.

Souta's right palm suddenly became freezing cold.

A chilling frost spread from his palm, instantly freezing the glass of water.

The entire glass turned to solid ice.

The extreme cold caused cracks to appear all over the glass.

Satisfied, Souta stopped using cold energy and instead swiped his left hand through the air.

At his fingertips, a burst of fire ignited, forming a bright red arc in the air.

Then, flames gushed out of his left palm, engulfing the entire glass like a blowtorch.

Under the intense heat, the ice melted.

The sudden shift from freezing to burning caused the glass to shatter completely.

Thick white steam rose into the air, filling the living room.

Souta let out a long breath, then deactivated his quirk.

"So this is the best I can do for now, huh?"

"As expected, a newly obtained ability lacks proficiency..."

The thing about quirks was that the more they were used, the more refined and powerful they became.

Souta thought about how Todoroki Shoto could freeze an entire building in an instant—he was still nowhere near that level.

However…

He did have one major advantage over Todoroki!