Absolute Shopping Addict

Both of them wore simple clothes, but Jake could sense the strong enchantments used within them, as well as the weapons they carried for self-defense. They also carried themselves with authority, though the seated man was trying not to intimidate Jake by appearing more casually than usual.

Once the man motioned for Jake to take a seat, he decided to get down to business with his first question.

"What"s in it for me?" he asked plainly, and the man standing up reacted almost immediately.

"You"d do well to speak with more respect to the successor to the Cheon-Ji-In division!"

The seated man sighed, and raised up a hand to forestall any further action or speech from his colleague.

"You"ll have to forgive Director Lee," the seated man said. "He"s quite… spirited… when it comes to these types of things. My name is Timothy."

He extended his hand towards Jake.

"Jake Smithson," the novice answered, shaking the man"s hand, all the while his mind was running a mile a minute.

"A big shot like this guy wants me to join his big shot division, huh? And he"s being all sneaky-like about it, too. He has the reputation of his division to uphold..."

Despite his mind going through multiple scenarios and possibilities, his outward appearance betrayed nothing of the sort.

"You"re here to ask me if I want to join Cheon-Ji-In, huh?" Jake asked, as he returned to his seat. When Timothy nodded, Jake continued. "Okay, let"s say I do accept your offer and join your division. What then?"

The director didn"t like how Jake treated the division nonchalantly, but Timothy was impressed at their prospect"s negotiation.

Jake, though, had other ideas: "if you"re just asking me to join to make your division look good, then there won"t be a deal. This division of yours, no matter how prestigious, had better help me as much as I help it."

It wasn"t out of a lack of information that Jake considered the proposal given to him lightly.

"Lack of shopping as of late aside, I know the score here, I know I"m the prize."

Despite Jake only going with what he knew about how Nohas worked thanks to Liam"s information-gathering capabilities, there were some principles of the world from which he came from that also applied here: namely, if you have the talent, then you don"t have to chase after divisions – the divisions will do that themselves and chase after you.

Of course, if you"re not that talented, then you go where you are directed to go. If you want to rise above your station, put your nose to the grindstone and get to work.

What Jake knew for a fact was that he had made it to the round of 13, and already proved his worth. If you take away the three ringers in the contest, Jake was in the top 10 out of all the novice awakeners in the evaluation.

"You already know Nohas is a place where we fight monsters to survive," Timothy began. "Aside from fighting monsters, there is also a purpose for awakeners to join our division, and that"s power. Join us, and the power you"ve attained yourself will seem minimal compared to what we can give you."

Power tends to corrupt.
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That"s another truth of the world, no matter what kind of power you wish to have.

However, unlike in the world where Jake came from, the kind of power offered in Nohas is similar, but also very different.

Power: actual power. Strength in combat, in skill, in hunting monsters.

This was the raison d"être of the awakeners of Nohas; this was also Timothy"s promise to Jake.

"Interesting," Jake replied. "How will you go about it?"

"Cheon-Ji-In has three units that specialize in hunting monsters, and these are the three core units that lead our division. If you accept my proposal and join us, you will be placed in the core unit directly under my authority. No apprenticeship, no probationary period, nothing. We"ll throw you right into the action and have you face monsters almost immediately. Not only that, since I"ll personally waive the apprenticeship and probationary period for you, that means you also get to immediately learn our division"s exclusive skills."

Three combat units leading Cheon-Ji-In, with one directly under Timothy"s authority. There are also rumors that the skills exclusive to this division are very powerful, and when a strong awakener makes use of them…

There is a reason why the skills and tactics pa.s.sed down from generations of awakeners within Cheon-Ji-In made them elite among divisions.

And this was what Timothy promised to the beginner who has just finished the tutorial; to an awakener who has yet to prove his loyalty to the division.

Skills are not just transferable, and many items are needed to transfer high-level skills.

Timothy intends to use those for Jake; and this gesture means that he"s willing to invest a lot on this awakener – and if Jake fails to show more talent than what he did in the tutorial, it will lose a lot of value.

Still, Timothy was confident about his choice.

Jake will prove to be worth such an expensive investment from within the division… so far.

He could see it on the equipment that novice awakeners wouldn"t normally have; that was the proof he needed.

"Unique skills, huh?" Jake answered, surprising the two with his lukewarm response.

"What"s that reaction?" Director Lee said. "You don"t seem to get what Timothy is saying. The unique skills of Cheon-Ji-In are different from those trivial skills acquired in the tutorial. Just learning those skills will make you a cut above from the average awakener. Don"t you get it?"

While Timothy shushes the director and engages him in a whispered conversation, Jake is weighing his options.

It"s not that he doesn"t get it – he does, in fact the understands what Timothy implies perfectly.

However, there was one thing that still bothered Jake.

"All this, and he hasn"t promised me that membership in his division will allow me enough time off to shop.

True, those skills are mighty.

But these are combat skills. Those won"t feed me, or more importantly, give me time to shop.

And the most important thing of all, if I join this unit, I might not be able to shop on the go, or be ordered to do something that takes all my time shopping time away."

For all the vaunted power the skills you could learn as a member of the Cheon-Ji-In division had, there was one thing the two scouts failed to consider: Jake was a firm believer of what was called work-life balance.

He already had his obligatory stint in the military, and it was the worst experience of his life, as he could not indulge himself in any shopping throughout those two years.

Furthermore, since his access to the Awakening Store was limited to him and him alone, thanks to his character cla.s.s, he considered it prudent not to talk about that skill to them.

"If they hear about it, what"s the possibility they"ll just reduce me to some errand boy or something, buy things from the shop by special request?

That is not negotiable."

"I do," Jake finally replied. "I do understand. There are still evaluations ongoing, do you mind if you wait until the evaluation ends so I can give you my answer?"

Jake did his best possible decision: defer it.

Besides, there were still several rounds to go, and he still had something important to do.

"That"s fine, that"s perfectly fine," Timothy said, standing up and extending his hand out for a shake again. "Good luck with the evaluations tomorrow."

"Thank you," Jake said, shaking the man"s hand again. "Is there anything else you need me for?"

Timothy was caught off guard by the sudden question: "is he trying to get a better deal out of me?"

He thought Jake was working on the art of negotiating to get better terms from him, and by extension, Cheon-Ji-In.

"None," Timothy replied. "You just do your best in those evaluations tomorrow."

"I plan to, as the evaluation itself is my priority. Let us talk again once the evaluation is over."

"Agreed," Timothy answered, and as he saw Jake turn around and leave the meeting room to return to his own waiting room, he found himself impressed with Jake"s skill with negotiation.

What he didn"t know, as Jake left the meeting with the successor of Cheon- Ji-In, one of the Ten Stars, was that Jake only wanted to focus on the evaluation.

***

Despite Jake"s shopping addiction and the withdrawal symptoms of a lack thereof beginning to creep up on him, he was still mindful about the divisions and where he"d go once the evaluations were done.

"No matter how well I do in the evaluation, I"ll still need to broaden my perspective. I might be nothing more than just a novice to the people here, but at some point, I"ll have to look into the division system."

Thanks to the information he got from the meeting and from Liam earlier, he knew how important it was to get into a good division: allowing him a sanctuary would be a very good start to living one"s life in Nohas.

"There"s just one problem, though: I don"t want to think about that yet."

There was another, more important thing on his mind: Gold Label.

The ongoing wager was the only thing that was on his mind.

"First things first: win the whole d.a.m.n thing. I can sort out this division mess once I finish this evaluation in first place."

With winning the evaluation tournament as his sole objective, Jake Smithson set his priorities for the immediate future.

As the tournament wore on, 13 fighters went down to 8, 8 fighters down to 4, and four fighters down to two.

In the waiting room, awaiting the final match, Jake Smithson was shaking with antic.i.p.ation.

"One game left.

Only one match left to win.

This is the only thing standing between me and the Gold Label."

He was so close to the Gold Label; he could almost taste it.

Just one more win.

Divisions don"t matter.

Nothing matters.

Just the Gold Label.

"Partic.i.p.ants in the Novice Awakener Evaluation Tournament, please proceed to the arena grounds for the finals."

The announcer"s voice echoed in the waiting room, and Jake stood up, walking out with other awakeners who also worked as security for this event.

As they made their way down the dimly-lit pa.s.sageways, Jake could hear the cheers, whistles, stomping feet, and applause as the announcer was talking about him and his opponent.

When then they got to the end of the tunnel, the daylight outside was blinding, and Jake took a moment to close his eyes to get used to the change.

He opened his eyes and briefly saw his opponent standing across him, before turning around to see the audience gathered in the arena, all of them awakeners who had already been eliminated. Near the tunnel where he emerged, he saw a familiar figure.

When that figure clenched his fist, he knew Liam was rooting for him to go and take down that guy.

After the gesture, Jake turned back to the opposite tunnel, where his opponent also looked around the crowd – it was also a familiar face.

"This is more than what you think, Damian. Are you going to stand in my way here?"

Jake already saw a bit of what he could do in the qualifiers, and also defeated Liam.

He didn"t hate the guy for doing that, though. It was a fair fight, and Liam took a big risk and cut his losses when he found out he was outmatched.

Liam asked for Jake to give Damian some payback, but he wasn"t about that.

There was one thing, though: one thing that led him to look at Damian like he was a calamity-cla.s.s monster Jake had to defeat by any means necessary.

"You"re standing in my way towards the Gold Label."

He doesn"t care about Damian"s intentions. What is important to him now is that he needs to defeat Damian to access the Gold Label.

It"s reason enough for raw, unfiltered hatred to begin bleeding off him in waves.

"Now, let"s start the last game right away!"

The announcer signaled the start of the match: the final round for Jake Smithson"s quest for the Gold Label.

***

Two similar combatants: Jake Smithson and Damian.

Both wield swords.

That was their only similarity, as Jake had worn equipment that made him stand out from other novice awakeners.

He was also festooned with accessories and what looked like cosmetic weapons; and his opponent"s simple leather armor set made Jake"s outfit look even more ostentatious.

Damian only had an ordinary set of equipment on him.

But from the beginning of the fight, Jake found himself at a quandary.

All the attacks coming from his opponent were directed at his joints: wrists, ankles, elbows.

"Wait, I know how this works."

Jake only had himself to blame for this, as he had let Damian attack first, wanting to see how his swordsmanship was like.

Despite defeating the third calamity-cla.s.s monster by himself, Jake found his opponent to be an even tougher challenge.

"Still, that control, to move in such angles… this isn"t a novice awakener"s swordsmanship."

Jake had seen many swordsmen in the evaluation, but none of them used their weapons like this.

It was like he was less swinging a sword and more taking small cuts and thrusts, all attacks aimed at Jake"s joints.

And despite Jake evading these attacks, a lot of them ended up hitting. Jake had to take the hits to his arm and to his leg to avoid his joints being hit or his wrists struck, making him drop his weapon.

"I know what you"re planning. You"re going to disarm me.

And using the threat of disarming me, you"re trying to keep me from using the full power of my swordsmanship!

So, this style is what you"ve been keeping for this final battle, huh?

All right, time to show you what I"ve been keeping in reserve myself!"

Jake backpedaled a bit, out of range, and fired the Griefen"s chains at his opponent, and while those were keeping his opponent busy, he focused for a moment.

He opened his eyes and readied both his weapons, both of them covered in a layer of magic that Jake enchanted them with.

"Let"s get this party started right."