Jack Of Arts

"Wait, how long was I playing?" Tayaw suddenly realized something was amiss after playing his 7th song. In the past, Tayaw can only spend about five minutes inside the void before being forcefully kicked out to the real world. "seven songs, so about thirty minutes. Why am I still here?" Tayaw said to himself as an impending sense of doom slowly dawned on him. "I WANT TO GET OUT OF HERE!" Tayaw said hurriedly and he found himself again in his hotel room still holding the guitar.

"Oh Thank God. Holy sh*t. Hahahahahaha." Tayaw cursed in English as he began a laughing fit out of relief. After calming down a few seconds later, he took a deep breath and entered the white void again. "That was weird." Tayaw said as he walked forward to the void's guitar stand and placed Earl's guitar back.

"Well. This changes things." Tayaw said. He did not leave the void immediately and just stood in the void for five minutes. After five, minutes he was again transported back out of the void, just like usual. "Nice…" Tayaw said in satisfaction as his theory was proven.

He entered again the void and he picked up the guitar. He did not play the guitar but just stood around for five minutes, and he was kicked out of the void again this time, with the guitar on his hand. He entered the void again, sat down cross legged and started to experiment.

A few hours later inside the void, "Heheheheheheh ~ this is practice heaven!" Tayaw giggled in excitement after playing his 100th song. 100 songs averaging 4 minutes each, totals to 400 minutes and if he includes the short breaks in between songs, it would total to more. "I've been playing more or less seven hours now..." Tayaw said in satisfaction. He also found out more about practicing in the void.

After he entered and did not hold the guitar, he was kicked out after five void-minutes, just as expected. When he held the guitar without playing it, he was still kicked out with the guitar in five minutes. When he played one song in the guitar and took a break, he was again kicked out after five minutes of break. When he tried practicing the guitar and his singing, he would get kicked out while playing his second song which means he was still kicked out just five minutes after entering.

However, when he practiced strictly with just the guitar and played songs consecutively like what he just did, he found that he may be able to practice indefinitely.

"Strangely, my fingers feel like they have not been pressing on the guitar for the past seven hours." Tayaw said as he felt that he still feels fresh.

In some days last August when he was all alone in his house in Ironstone during the school break, he tried practicing for as long as he could to test his endurance. He felt totally spent after sixteen hours of non-stop guitar and singing practice, and that was only after receiving his first 'third level' enhancement. After his two additional 'third level' enhancements from his two best songs in his albums, he no longer tested his endurance.

Still, he found it strange. No matter how great his endurance is, his fingertips should at least feel a little sore. However, after six hours of continuous practice in the void, his fingers don't even feel like they've been playing. Especially when each song he played was more complicated to play than the last. The last few songs, for example are basically arranged to be shred fest on the guitar.

He also didn't sweat. Even though he didn't sing at all, he should at least be sweating from the concentration and mini contractions of his muscles from shredding a lot.

Having had enough, he quickly stood up but in the next moment, he felt his surroundings spin. He was dizzy from the abrupt position change from sitting for hours to suddenly standing. He has not felt dizzy in a long time and was shocked. From the shock, he was not able to stop himself from falling. After hitting the ground, guitar then made a horrible sound as it smashed in the void's floor. "The guitar!" Tayaw exclaimed and hurriedly recovered from his orthostatic hypotension, then scrambled to examine the guitar.

"Huh? That's strange." Tayaw said after he noticed that the guitar was not damaged at all, not even a dent. "Wait. That's really strange!!!" Tayaw claimed as he realized that he actually did not control his strength while playing the guitar earlier. His own personal guitar's strings would snap if he lost control of his strength so he had to often change his strings.

Earl's guitar has been on display in the shop for months, and he noticed when the owner packed it up that there are already signs of rusting in the strings. Because he could not wait to play the guitar earlier, he forgot about the guitar's condition. He checked the strings and he found that they're actually pristine compared to the almost rusting condition it had. "This place repaired it? Was it the guitar stand?" Tayaw theorized. He replayed back the proceedings and he remembered that guitar glowed green when he placed the guitar on the stand. "It must have been the stand." Tayaw nodded at himself.

A light bulb lit up suddenly inside his head. "Wait. I'll try that." He said as he punched the guitar. *WHRANGGGGggg* the guitar cried. Tayaw then examined the place where he punched the guitar and found that it wasn't damaged at all. "One more." Tayaw said as he secured the strings with his palm. The horrible sound that came out of the guitar when he punched it made him feel guilty so he muted the strings.

*THUMP* the guitar's cry was suppressed this time when Tayaw punched it once again with a considerable amount of his strength. Any other guitar would have been broken by now but when he Tayaw examined it, it did not have any signs of damage at all.

"Good. How about THIS!" Tayaw said as he smashed the guitar with all his strength on the guitar stand. *BAMPPFFF* if the guitar can speak, it would rain curses that would make even the devil feel offended. "F*ckin' AWESOME!" Tayaw exclaimed excitedly when he saw that the guitar was not even scratched.

"Good. This is good. I'm sorry about that." Tayaw apologized to the guitar as he yelled 'I want to get out of here.' to leave the void.

"9:12. Time barely passed." Tayaw said after checking the time on his watch. He arrived in his hotel room at around 9:05 and after entering in and out of the void, he realized that time still stopped when he has been inside the void for that long.

"I'm sorry about this." Tayaw said to the guitar as he punched the guitar's body once again, this time, quite lightly. *CRACK* the guitar made a horrible sound that would drop the hearts of guitarists everywhere had they heard it. Tayaw felt the same and he hurriedly examined the guitar. The part of the body where he punched it was dented and cracked and some of the wood is only a touch away from falling apart, the fiber of the wood holding them together.

He hurriedly went back to the void in panic. If there's anyone or anything that would fix the guitar, he figured the white space is the only answer. He then placed the guitar on the white stand and it glowed green once again. Tayaw felt relieved as he saw the guitar was back in its previously undamaged state. "Oh. Thank goodness. Ohhhhh. Alright. I won't do that again." Tayaw said, holding his stomach in relief.

He then looked at the words of the 'Arts Record' and saw something change. When he first entered earlier, he noticed that his View Points is just a few points excess of 17 million. This time however, his View Points were displaying '16,643,174'; an estimated 350,000 points were gone. "Hm? Where did some of it go?" Tayaw asked himself in confusion as he replayed the events between when he first entered tonight up to this point.

"Practice and repair." Tayaw came up with a guess. Tayaw wants an answer so he picked up his guitar and this time, he carried it in front of the words of 'Art Records'. He started playing and he noticed that the View Points are losing 5 points every second he plays. After a minute, the point's loss increased to 10 points per second. He continued playing for ten minutes and noticed that the point did not increase any further and his practice stayed at a cost of 10 points per second.

Tayaw smiled at the discovery. He stopped playing the guitar and did a quick calculation in his head. He practiced for around 400 minutes earlier, or 24,000 seconds. If each second of practice costs 10 View Points each second, Tayaw figured he spent at least 240,000 while practicing. The remaining points out of the total 350,000 loss in view points must have been spent for the repair of the guitar.

"Okay. So 10 points per second on practice, and 100,000 points for the repair." Tayaw concluded. "How could something so convenient exist in the world?" Tayaw just chuckled, asking himself rhetorically.

Tayaw has long forgotten his worries about the price of having such gift and opportunity to go back in time. It has been around a year and half since he received these blessings and only great things came from it. He realized that it's like he has a divine casino instead, not some deal with the devil.

"Hmmm. In exchange for some points, I can cut down practice time and focus on other things instead. Unfortunately, it won't be long before I become one of the best guitarists in the world even without practicing in there, so this benefit for practice will not be as apparent in the future." Tayaw said in realization.

"What I need instead is a lot of time for composing and songwriting. Looks like I have to hunt around for more items like Earl's guitar." Tayaw said in conclusion.

Unfortunately, he does not know where to start looking. He does not even know what item will give him the benefit of cutting down time for his songwriting.