Absolute Shopping Addict

"Going once, going twice, sold!" Jake said proudly. "Looks like you"ve won this auction, old man."

Everyone else exchanged uncomfortable glances at both what had been going on, and Jake"s rather casual att.i.tude towards the leader of the Grand Duelists – someone who wasn"t in a division speaking like that to a leader of not just a division, but a part of the Ten Stars?

Master Li himself took a while to react, but when he did, the puzzled look on his face changed into amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Well then, it seems I have!" the old man declared before letting out a laugh of his own. "Thank you. I suppose we shall be off shortly?"

"As soon as everyone else leaves, and Liam and I tidy up the place, sure," the novice awakener replied, ignoring the other divisions beginning to leave. "I hope you don"t mind me asking for the pill, though; wrap it up in a box or something. Speaking of which, as something of a buy-one-take-one deal, Liam is also included."

***

Out of everyone important in Nohas, Timothy was perhaps the one who lost the most when Li appeared on the scene.

Aside from being given the equivalent of a verbal slap in the face by the old man, he was also unprepared for the Grand Duelists" master to show up and complicate things further.

While he attended the evaluation on behalf of Cheon-Ji-In, he is just a successor for the division, and nowhere near in power compared to the Grand Duelists" leader.

The fact that he thought himself the strongest in the evaluation, only for that old man to show up and upstage him, tore chunks out of his self-esteem.

"What were we doing while Li was coming to Kingsville?"

"Apologies, sir… he just slipped through the cracks."

"Well, do something about it so it doesn"t happen next time! Are you up to the task?"

"I can handle it, sir."

"This situation… Director Lee," he said as he let out an exhausted breath, "is aggravating."

"What situation, sir?"

"The situation where I, the successor of Cheon-Ji-In, am being dragged around like this by an old man," Timothy explained. "The "Grand Duelists" have not finished cleaning up the succession race in their back yard, and now their leader is here."

"I"ll do my best to help you, sir!"

"Doing your best isn"t enough, not anymore," the heir replied. "We"ll have to prove it with results. We need to inform our division first: Li is making a move again."

"Understood, sir."

"What about the other prodigies? What happened to Liam, Ling, Kevin, and Jonathan?"

"Except for Liam, we are still negotiating."

"Why, what happened with Liam?"

"He said he will stay with Jake," the director explained. "After the auction, Jake Smithson said that Liam"s membership was like a buy-one-take-one package deal."

"What?" Timothy asked, furious. "That doesn"t even make sense!"

He already missed his shot at recruiting Jake because he prioritized the ringer (he personally trained) during the evaluation, but now that another promising novice awakener was lost to the Grand Duelists as well?

And to a buy-one-take-one deal as well – what kind of nonsense was that?

"Well, that was what happened after the auction, sir," the director said, confirming the outlandish story that he heard first accounts of from the other recruiters. Furthermore, "there was also one more thing the old man mentioned so he would win the auction, sir."

"What did that old man say?"

"He said that he promised to train Jake Smithson to be your equal in a short amount of time."

The successor barely hid his shock.

"That old man is out of his mind! I guess birds of a feather do flock together – have the scouts found out whether Liam wants out of this deal?"

"He"s so close to Jake that we don"t have any chance to go through…" the director explained. "I"ve made some suggestions… but I don"t think he"d try to listen to it in the first place."

"Great, just great," Timothy ranted. "The old man just shows up, recruits two of the best prodigies from under our noses, and then leaves?"

"I"m sorry, but that"s the gist of what happened."

The successor"s shoulders went slack as he sank back into his chair.

"It"s fine, Director Lee," he finally said after a moment. "Just focus on recruiting who you can. Bring some of the more useful ones down there for support."

Division evaluations exist for two reasons: one, is to recruit talented awakeners.

The other is to recruit whoever they can to do the dirty work.

In a world like Nohas, where power is everything, decisions like this are done by every division every day.

Timothy looked outside his window, and whispered to himself.

"Dark times are ahead for Nohas…"

***

It didn"t take that long for Jake and Liam to clean up the town square where the auction was held. Now, they were back at the inn and talking things over with the old man who won their services.

"It is nice to meet you again, sir," Liam began courteously. "My apologies for not introducing myself properly earlier; my name is Liam."

The old man laughed.

"Li, just Li. You can call me gramps, too."

"Looking forward to working with you, sir."

"You"re very polite, unlike Jake, aren"t you?" the old man asked, before nodding at the two novice awakeners who just joined the "Grand Duelists". "Very good."

"What do you mean, gramps?" Jake asked. "I"m polite, too."

"What do you mean, "polite"?" the old man asked. "When the first thing you ask this old man is what you can get from me?"

"Well, business is business, gramps," Jake bantered back, seeing the twinkle in the old man"s eyes.

"True, true…" the old man replied, every trace of the frightening power he revealed against the leader of Skyward long gone as he nodded his a.s.sent at Jake"s banter.

As a tavern lady went to their table and offered food, the old man asked to look at the menu, and Jake took this opportunity to engage Liam in a whispered conversation.

"This harmless old man thing he"s doing, Liam? It"s an act – don"t be fooled."

"What do you mean?"

"About that… well, remember that time when you were taking care of something upstairs for me?"

"Oh, that?" the old man asked, turning back to them with a smile on his face. "Whatever that man is telling you is a lie, Liam! Cover your ears!"

Liam marveled at the way Jake and Master Li bantered with each other; it was like they were grandfather and grandson.

"Is this another lesson from gramps today?"

"Not really… and stop messing around."

"By the way," Jake asked, "when are we leaving?"

"As soon as possible," the old man replied. "Do you even realize the situation you"ve lucked yourself into? You are going to be put in a very high position in the Grand Duelists from the start – do you know that?"

The question the old man asked was meant to see if Jake knew just the magnitude of the favor that he gave the young man. Master Li also wanted to know if he understood what his recruitment implied, what with the auction and that little division rivalry that happened just before it.

"Don"t say that, gramps," Jake replied. "You want me to help you, that"s why you helped me out back there. One favor for another; don"t worry about it."

As it turns out, the old man"s concern was unfounded: Jake – despite knowing little about what was going on – was able to make an educated guess about what was happening, and promised his help.

The leader of the Grand Duelists laughed.

"I would, still! You are young, and some wisdom from these old bones would help you along the way," the old man replied, and Liam was in awe at how quickly those two got along; they already looked like they were related by the way they acted around each other.

Liam couldn"t help but smile at the two men"s antics.

"Well, let"s get a move on, then," the old man declared as soon as they had finished the meal. "If you think that the novice area you came from is interesting, you haven"t seen anything yet!"

"You promised something about the pill," Jake said while the old man was cackling in antic.i.p.ation.

"Well, there are a few things we need to take care of before you can get that pill. Ho-ho-ho!"

"What things? You said you"d give it to me as soon as you were able to."

"Not without this thing first," the old man said seriously before his face returned to its usual state. "But I gave you my word, didn"t I? What, is my word not enough for you? Youngsters these days…"

***

Throughout every place and over the many years of its existence, many skills exist in Nohas.

Some can be acquired by repet.i.tive motion, others by subconsciously making new movements; there is no set-in-stone method on how to acquire these skills.

This is why a segment of awakeners devoted their time and efforts to determine the best way to acquire skills, and once they figure that out, the division they are affiliated with would improve its power and standing.

And the stronger the division, the more resources can be devoted into research and development of skills, much like how an R&D department at a company works.

Through the years of study on how skills work, they have made one key discovery: skills can be transferred from one awakener to another.

"Now that we are far enough away from Kingsville, I am going to imprint two skills onto the two of you," the old man declared to Jake and Liam.

"An imprint?"

"What is it?"

"It is a crystallized concept of knowledge, a comprehensive set of information and usage that can be transferred to an awakener"s body from another," the old man explained.

"I don"t follow," Jake said.

"Is it like my personal skill?" Liam asked.

"Yes and no," the old man replied. "I can imprint a skill onto your body to automatically give you a skill and every detail on how it works."

"These skills aren"t overly complicated?"

"Yes," the old man answered. "Only skills that have been studied extensively can be imprinted."

"I see," Liam thought, going back to his own personal skill – since he doesn"t know every detail on how his Blazing Wrath skill worked, he couldn"t imprint it on someone like, say, Jake.

"Sounds good," Jake said. "How will we do this?"

"We"ll start with seeing your apt.i.tudes toward your personal mana pool," the old man explained. "It will be both hard to understand and a waste of time if I explain them to you, so let"s start with your skills."

"What skills are you going to teach?"

"Movement," the old man said with a grin. "You need to walk before you can run – or do you think you"re walking properly because you can move your legs and move?"

The vague question rankled at Jake for a bit, but since he"d already spent a significant amount of time as a dissatisfied salaryman before his arrival at Nohas, he already knew how to answer questions like that.

"Oh," Jake replied, awe in his voice. "So, we were walking the wrong way, huh? Are you going to show us the right way to walk here, in Nohas?"

"That"s right – well," the old man said, stopping short as this young awakener already answered his question for him. "It"s what I"m going to be teaching you two."

"Just one question, gramps," Liam asked. "After we get this imprint, do we gain the ability to fly?"

The old man laughed and shook his head before he continued into his lecture about the skill he was going to teach these two novices.

***

The headquarters of the "Grand Duelists" is located around 400 km away from Kingsville.

In our world, it would be comparable to the distance from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.

The reason this fact is relevant is because…

"Are we there yet?"
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"That"s the tenth time you"ve asked since we"ve started, and that was just a few minutes ago, bro."

"Gramps, are you sure we"re going the right way?"

"Come on, he"d know if we went off the path, let"s do what we"re asked – besides, this is training!"

…Jake and Liam were taking on that ridiculous distance by running.

The both of them were a stark contrast of reactions: Jake wasn"t quite as enthusiastic about this task as Liam was.

They may have been friends due to previous circ.u.mstances, but the running was beginning to show the differences between the hardworking criminology student and the disgruntled shopping-obsessed former salaryman.

"You traitor," Jake groused. "The old man teaches you a skill and you"re favoring him over me? Pay for all those free meals I gave you!"

"How can I pay when we haven"t even started hunting monsters? Would a rain check work?"

Jake groaned in fake distress.

"What happened to my dependable fellow Liam? He changed… and you replaced him!"

The first skill the old man imprinted onto the two of them was "Cloud Walk"; Master Li also told them that they would need to be sufficiently skilled in the use of that skill by the time they arrive at the division headquarters.

The old man also taught a few things to start Jake and Liam learning "Cloud Walk" the right way.

"From this point forward," the old man had said, "you won"t be fighting in battles anymore. You"ll be in war, and the most important thing in a war that whose end you don"t know is stamina. You need to know how to walk efficiently, and our basic movement skill works best for that. Once you"ve gained a level in this skill, you will be able to understand how helpful this skill will be."

"I"m pretty sure that when you get the hang of this, you"re going to use this skill for journeys, and you won"t get tired running anymore."

Sometime through the run, Liam mentioned to Jake that he remembered reading the skill from a martial arts novel when he was in high school, and that to learn that the "Grand Duelists" used it as a basic movement skill was the reason for his enthusiasm.

Master Li eventually mentioned that every member of the division knows how to use this skill, and that everyone entering the division learns and masters it first, because of its relative lack of mana to spend.

"I think it"s a lot slower than Haste, but I can use it for a long time," Jake thought, comparing his Haste skill to this new one. "It"s slower, but I can use it longer – Haste for dashes, Cloud Walk for marathons."

"Gramps, do we have to keep running all the way to the division?" Jake asked, because he could feel that his magic was strong, he wasn"t out of breath… and his legs felt like they weighed a ton of rubber – each.

"That"s right," the old man said. "The roads are better-built than you thought, aren"t they? It"s the best path for novice awakeners to train themselves."

Master Li was walking along side them, and his use of the skill was such that it looked like he was hovering a few inches off the ground.

The road itself was a different sight than Nohas – the whole place was a meadow, except for the village on the top of a hill.

Jake took out his watch to find out it was just over an hour since they left Kingsville via Cloud Walk, and he turned to see Liam asking Master Li a question, even as they continued running.

"Who constructed these roads?"

"The divisions," Master Li replied. "Back in the day, they had completely driven the monsters out of here, and built a road. Unfortunately, the end of the road is near, making it impossible to use the Cloud Walk. A monster is nearby, and messed up the road."

The old man considered using the threat of a monster to bring Jake and Liam back in line, but Jake"s reaction was different.

At the first mention of a monster, Jake"s eyes lit up, and his previous exhausted gait was replaced with his usual exuberance.

"Monster? Where? Find me one! I"m here to kick a.s.s and earn points – and I"m all out of points. Point me to the monster, gramps!"

Finally, Jake was back in familiar surroundings: it"s time to resume shopping.