Absolute Shopping Addict

"How about you stand up and walk over here and tell me that to my face instead of hiding behind your friends? Or… maybe you"re scared that some novice is going to wipe the floor with you?" Jake asked before letting out a laugh.

"About time," Jake thought, smiling at their reaction. "All it takes is to sow a bit of discord and press the b.u.t.tons that reveal their insecurities, and it"s fight time!"

His laugh only enraged the awakeners even further.

"Can you believe this upstart laughing? He seriously thinks he"s the s.h.i.t!"

"Let"s go knock his a.s.s down a few pegs."

Such was the mood among the awakeners Jake roused into anger, and some distance away, Liam could feel the tension of the situation rise up dramatically.

"Oh boy, here we go," Liam thought, the sensation of sitting of pins and needles intensifying. "If this breaks out into a fight, I might end up dragged into it as well."

"All right, come on down and bring it," Jake said, and gestured the awakeners over.

They were too angry to consider they were being played, and not considering their standing, because their pride was hurt; antic.i.p.ating the fight, four of them stood up and made their way to the makeshift arena.

The power they emitted was great, and tinged with their anger, made it more potent.

It didn"t help Jake and Liam"s case that there were no first-year awakeners in the Grand Duelists, or even a second-year.

For two years, this division had not taken in any new recruits; the ones confronting Jake had at least three years of experience as awakeners under their belt.

"Let"s do it," Jake declared further. "I"m just not the type of person who sits still and talks all the c.r.a.p."

And the more Jake spoke, the more Liam felt nervous, because he was also a novice awakener like Jake was, and he had a sneaking feeling that he would be dragged into this mess sooner or later.

Which happened quicker than he expected, because looming before him was another awakener, just as angry as the ones Jake taunted.

"Oi, get your a.s.s up, we"re going to show you two new bloods how things work around here," the awakener said, and when Liam refused to budge, the man was in his face immediately. "GET THE h.e.l.l UP!"

"Remind me again why I teamed up with this guy? He always drags me into incidents like this," Liam thought as his expression that reminded the awakener of a disappointed parent only made the awakener angrier.

He got up smoothly from his seat and took confident steps to the middle of the hall.

"Well, in for a penny, in for a pound, I guess. The old man told me to be serious about this, so serious I shall be," Liam thought, because now that the situation has gone this far and he couldn"t avoid it, he might as well take part in the "festivities" and enjoy the pressure he"s in.

Not to mention that he wanted a crack at another awakener and see just how much he improved with those newly-acquired skills.

I wanted another shot at Damian… but you guys? I think you"ll do just fine for now, Liam thought, his disposition completely unlike Jake"s – where Jake would want to do random things for his personal skill, Liam wanted to comprehensively know the ins and outs of the new skills he acquired.

He even thought that forty days was too short a time for him to work on studying the skills he came to Nohas with, and since Master Li imprinted some new skills on him, it"s only natural that he would want to study these new abilities in detail.

That, and the fact that the loss to Damian still stung inside him, and that if he wanted payback, he"d need to get much stronger.

"All right, let"s do this," Liam said, the disappointed look giving way to a quiet but confident smile as he felt the atmosphere of the place heat up further.

"Right, four guys. One more person and we can get this party started," Jake thought, watching the situation unfold with a satisfied smirk. "Four guys? I need one more."

Jake was watching the situation with a satisfied smirk on his face: he just needed one more opponent so he could get his hands on THOSE KICKS and THAT SCENT.

"Losing is an impossibility here. All my hard work will be for nothing if I lose this."
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While he didn"t know how much about how stronger adventurers with one, two, or three years of experience, he didn"t care; he had the confidence that he"d do well, and the conviction that he must not fail.

That was when a drunken brawler stepped forward, his long hair covering most of his face and hiding his expression.

He motioned to Jake as if to say something, but stopped short… and belched loudly.

"You want to fight?" he asked, his inebriated status causing every other word he said to come out slurred. "I"m your first round."

"Who"s this guy?" Jake wondered, as the guy didn"t seem to come from Connor"s faction. "Also, those guys from Connor are ignoring him."

The new entrant was ignored by Jake"s four would-be opponents, and looked like they didn"t want anything to do with him.

"You didn"t hear me?" the man asked, before letting out an alcoholic hiccup. "The name"s Maven and I"ll see how tough you are!"

Thus, Jake had his five opponents, and on the line were the GOAT Flyers and Icehammer Dark perfume that he was eyeing.

***

"You think it"s possible?"

"Do I think what is possible?"

"Taking out three of them."

"If he had all his items? Probable."

"And what if he somehow fails?"

"Then we"ll give him the next quest with a better item, tell him to train more, and indicate the possibility that he can redo this event. I mean, HQ gave us carte blanche, and we don"t actually have to hinder him – give him a chance to try again, that"s the balance I"m trying to get here," Kelderian said, his intentions to give as much out to Jake as he can without getting a memorandum from corporate plain as day.

All these discounts, events, and package deals were all his idea: everything was as large as he could make without violating corporate policy.

This was, to Kelderian"s chagrin, the most he could help Jake with, as Gold Label items required awakeners be able to use and keep their items properly, hence the qualifications for each event and deal.

Keeping an eye on shoppers so that they"re on top of their game was the point of the constant verification.

Therefore, as the quality of things increases, the users are constantly verified.

"…and this is how the matter of discreetly helping him comes into play," Kelderian concluded. "I have a plan."

"How do we do that?"

"Free gifts; you can do that at your own discretion."

"We"ll have to include those free gifts as either product samples, previews, or a part of a set that he"s going to want to purchase completely. These people tend to be compulsive about completing sets."

Thanks to the three months that pa.s.sed where Kelderian"s office figured out a way to deal with a character like Jake Smithson, the employees there gained quite a lot of insight and understanding into the mind of a compulsive shopper.

"Would you look at that. Three months ago, you looked like a wad of salaryman dough. These days, you look like a salesman carved out of wood," Kelderian said, beaming at the decision his subordinate made.

"Well, he"s not one of those run-of-the-mill recruits. If they try to face him, they should expect a rather unwelcome surprise," the employee said with a laugh.

"I mean, we did goad him into a fight for this event, so we have to prepare contingencies if he does mess it up – it"s part of business, if you don"t have a backup, you don"t have a plan," Kelderian said, deciding to give Jake a gift that would help him in this fight.

"These gifts will help make up for the difference in numbers, I suppose."

Kelderian was confident that his gifts would make sure that Jake would win the event and thus gain access to the product set he was looking for, thanks to this employee of his.

When he first started, the guy was working with his head down, trying not to rock the boat; by the time Kelderian needed information on how the mind of a compulsive shopper worked, this man was at the forefront, giving ideas and sharing insights that would help them.

And Kelderian, when he asked for ideas for events, was also counting on his employee to step up with more ideas, which he did.

That"s the kind of work a natural salesman does.

"There"s also one more thing I"ve thought of," the employee added as soon as Kelderian processed the gift. "Why not show him ways on how to earn points effectively? Max out his purchase history before the Superstore comes in, raise the cap of his installment plan, bring in those monsters that give more points in less time. If we"re going to sell him stuff, we need to give him the capital to buy that stuff.

Very useful and prudent; make him earn points, then make him use them up. Jake gets his shopping itch scratched, Kelderian gets his sales performance stats jacked up highly.

All in all, Kelderian thought that his employee"s idea was pretty sound; the smile on his face showed just how sure he was that Jake would snap up that idea easily.

"Well," Kelderian said as soon as the employee made his proposition, "we already came up with that plan the day before yesterday. Still, good effort, though."

The employee"s face fell, but Kelderian"s hand was on his shoulder.

"Just keep grinding. We"ll need every edge we can when the Superstore comes around."

***

"This guy hasn"t been here for a whole day and he"s already kicking hornets" nests wherever he goes."

"Shouldn"t we be doing something here?"

"Klay, sometimes you have to wait for the mountain to come to you. Remember our circ.u.mstances; we should let our boys work things out for now. Schism aside, I am confident Connor can handle this incident properly. Jake and Liam are in a fight with a few awakeners from Connor"s faction?"

"That"s right," the older man replied.

The two men watching the celebration from their own quarters are very old friends and think of themselves as family, not just master and chief of their division, to the point where Li calls him Klay in private.

"I still have my doubts, though. Do you think Jake is a match against them? I fear for his injury, and it"s been a while since we recruited…"

"Oh, don"t worry too much about them, Jake can handle himself."

"What do you mean?"

"Remember? The awakener I told you about? He was this close to defeating a first-year awakener from Cheon-Ji-In, even when the ringer used the Force of Heaven."

"The ringer was fighting seriously?"

"He wouldn"t be using the Force of Heaven if he was just playing around, no? And besides, even with the Force of Heaven, this guy was still overpowering him."

"Interesting point," Klay concurred. "Someone who used Force of Heaven against a novice awakener because he was close to defeat – and he was still being overpowered? Is what Li is saying true? That this guy is someone much stronger than first-year awakeners?"

This Jake fellow must be some sort of genius or something. My scouts told me that Damian of Cheon-Ji-In was powerful due to having the heir personally train him. Still, something worries me.

"We don"t have any first-year awakeners, though. Our youngest awakeners have at least three years of experience fighting monsters here now."

"I also took that into consideration, Klay," Li replied. "It might not make up for a lot, but I did train these boys myself on the way to here from Kingsville."

Klay nodded.

"You took the scenic route, didn"t you?"

Li smiled slyly.

"Obviously."

Not only was there a large distance from Kingsville to Carter, the old man also deliberately chose a longer route to get there, most likely to make sure all the time "wasted" on the route was spent training.

"Typical Li, always does things in a roundabout manner. Come to think of it, Li doesn"t usually train awakeners this way; is there something he has seen from this Jake Smithson character?"

There are a lot of talented awakeners in the Grand Duelists, enough talent to dominate novice awakeners… but despite the newly-gained powers of the novice awakeners, the advantage three years of experience has that the five awakeners confronting Jake have is still something worth considering.

"I guess there"s something. I suddenly want to see how this fight goes," Klay said, finally admitting his curiosity about the fight about to start and wanting to go down there in person and see it with his own eyes."

"There"s still something you should need to know, though."

"What is it?"

Li took a deep breath.

"A sword with a diamond blade," he declared before sighing. "Honestly, I wanted to see how good he was without it. For an old man like me, it would have made for such a shameful display."

Klay couldn"t believe how his old friend was now laughing awkwardly at the would-be incident, and at the same time thought: "a sword of diamond? I hope Li would be fine with me going down there to see the fight myself."

***

Some of the awakeners were excited, angry and looking forward to the fight because of Jake.

Connor, meanwhile, just sees it as entertainment; a visual spectacle that will make the taste of his drink go down better.

The matter of the succession was put aside for the moment, and all could enjoy themselves.

"This type of thing is not worth making formal, anyway. This is less a fight and more a farce."

This is one reason why Connor doesn"t consider this fight as serious. "If it starts at a drinking party, it ends at a drinking party. No need for formality, just give it a bare bones setup."

"Something like this sounds good," Connor thought before addressing the combatants.

"All right, we"ll make this a gauntlet match. Fights will be scored on how many clean hits you land, lasts for five minutes only. And of course, if someone taps out, goes limp, or cries "stop", I will halt the fight," he said, and all the awakeners nodded at his simple set of rules.

"Not a problem, sir."

"Just as it"s always been."

"Loud and clear, sir."

His faction members agreed; it had been a long time since they settled differences in this way, and were thus used to it.

Also, while they didn"t like the way Jake acted and wanted to beat him down to show him the pecking order, they didn"t want to do it in an unfair way.

"Plus, if I make the game fair, I won"t hear any of this upstart"s excuses when he loses."

It"s only through a fair match that an opponent can lose without objecting too much or starting more drama.

The rules might not matter, but how you put them into use.

"This guy"s going down."

Despite the rules, the five awakeners were pretty confident that they could take the newbie out, but something soon changed that.

"What in the world is that?" one of them asked.

"You"re all talking like you"ve never seen a diamond sword before," Jake declared as he unsheathed his weapon in the combat hall.

"Brilliant, huh?" he asked as he brandished a large sword with a diamond blade, its reflection illuminating the hall further, shining and sparkling just like Jake Smithson"s smile as he went into a fighting stance in front of his opponents.

***