Absolute Shopping Addict

Jake thought that the rules worked really well with the event he was in: five good hits and the game is over. The sooner he can end the fight, the sooner he can get his hands on those sweet GOAT Flyers and start smelling like Icehammer Dark perfume.

The awakeners arrayed against him nodded expectantly at what they a.s.sumed was his recklessness, and when he turned to Connor, the faction head also nodded.

"You seem excited," Connor declared. "Okay, let"s get this started. Who is going to step up against this novice first?"

Jake already had his weapons out and pointing at the various division members, and was about to pick one for his first opponent when a cough interrupted him.

Everyone turned to the source of the cough, and it was one of the awakeners in the audience.

"If you don"t mind me asking… where did you get a weapon like that?"

The tension in the room oozed out like air from a rapidly deflating balloon as the moment was ruined by someone asking a very obvious question, and despite the serious situation some of the Grand Duelists were in, they simply couldn"t help it – and one of them couldn"t help but ask about those absolutely cool weapons.

"So cool…"

"Way too beautiful…"

"It"s less a weapon and more a work of art…"

"It"s shiny! Is the blade made entirely of diamond?"

"Man, I just got my sword upgraded and it looks like a kitchen knife compared to his…"

With a weapon as awe-inspiring as the one Jake was holding, the awakeners felt like returning their swords to their inventory.

If they had stepped up to fight Jake, the fight would have been over before it began, by virtue of that single display alone.
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Jake took a moment to see how the onlookers reacted to his weapon, and gave them a reply.

"This one? I just happened to find it in my inventory," he said with a jaunty smile.

Well, he was technically correct (which, in Liam"s opinion as he watched the spectacle, was the best kind of correct) – when Jake buys something at the Awakener Shop, the items he purchases is shipped to his inventory immediately.

Only Jake, Liam and Master Li know this fact, so Jake"s response would sound ridiculous when heard by others.

"I mean, a sword of such fabulous appearance, suddenly showing up in someone"s inventory?" Connor thought.

It was just that unbelievable, and the sword that beautiful, the Grand Duelists couldn"t feel any anger towards Jake and his gear.

"Really? You have to tell us how you got your hands on one of those."

"Yeah, imagine how good our division will be if we had more of those – if you know any way to get one, share it with us!"

"…As if I"d tell them how to get one, when a moment ago, they were all counting on their fellow Grand Duelists to knock me down a peg or three…"

The questions continued to come until a drunken voice silenced them.

"Whatever happened to your pride as Grand Duelists?" Maven roared. "Throwing it away for a chance at some legendary weapon, have you forgotten who you are?"

He swaggered towards Jake.

"Man, this is just f.u.c.ked up," he continued as he took a swig from the bottle he was carrying around.

Of course, the onlookers reacted.

"Beggar? Watch your mouth, man," one of them said, but his words had already taken effect.

By then, the other onlookers had already snapped out of their admiration for Jake"s weapon.

However, Maven had other ideas, because as soon as he finished drinking from his bottle, a crack resounded throughout the hall.

"Let"s start this one quick. I"m your first opponent," Maven slurred, having thrown the bottle onto the ground right before he sprang towards Jake.

Connor called the start of the fight a few moments before Jake dodged the first twisting blow his opponent threw at him.

***

Jake Smithson was currently feeling very conflicted.

On one hand, he found himself under time pressure because of the items he needed to acquire.

On the other hand, he was having the time of his life in his bout against Maven.

The drunk was moving in a very uncoordinated manner, acted with honest annoyance towards Jake, and pushed aside the line so that he could have a crack at the novice awakener first.

"So, this is how a drunken master fights," Jake told himself as the two of them were exchanging blows in the midst of the main hall, where the makeshift arena was made.

He wasn"t having any difficulty defending himself from the man"s attacks, and his movements indicated a lack of preparation for this fight.

However, Jake found his opponent extremely slippery, with Maven dodging all of his attacks at the last moment, by a hair"s breadth.

His opponent"s fighting posture was shoddy, his counterattacks were telegraphed easily, and the blows had no ferocity to them.

"Never had a chance to fight a drunken master before," I"m going to have to remember those martial arts movies I watched, Jake thought. "How do I deal with this?"

After another exchange where Jake easily blocked Maven"s attacks while his own were dodged, Jake found himself embarra.s.sed – he couldn"t understand why he was having a hard time.

That, however, changed in an instant, when Jake overextended on one of his sword swings, causing Maven to weave in the path of the flat of the Swiftstone.

"GAH!" the drunk shouted as the flat of the weapon hitting his shoulder caused him to spin a few times before he fell onto the floor.

Jake thought it was more drunken master acting, but when the drunk emptied his stomach on the floor to the shock of the other awakeners, it looked like he was really done for the night.

"Enough!" he said after coughing. "I"m done. It"s over."

"What"s he doing?" Jake thought, still unable to accept what happened, as after the quick and anticlimactic end of the match, Maven pulled himself up off the floor, grabbing onto his shoulder as soon as he stood up.

He shuffled his way out of the makeshift arena, but before he returned to his spot on the table, he turned to Jake and gave a rather goofy smile.

"Looks like our new member can fight!" he said, his voice still slurred, hiccupping every other sentence. "That was pretty (hic) good fighting you did there. You"re okay (hic) in my book – I"ve got (hic) your back now! Heh-heh-heh!"

As soon as he left the circle, he grabbed another bottle on the nearby table, perfectly fine with being defeated by an awakener who just finished the tutorial.

"If that"s what you want," Jake thought as he both found the victory uncomfortable, and had to figure out exactly what was going on, as he stared at Maven opening the bottle and taking a swig with one hand.

Maven"s expression was strange, almost as if he had baited Jake, and he had actually won the contest for the other awakeners by losing.

"Are you frustrated?" his face seemed to be saying, but Maven realized his mistake in a moment, as Jake bowed from the hip towards the man who was drinking.

"Thank you very much!" Jake declared, accepting the situation very happily.

How he won the fight didn"t matter; all that mattered was that he won the match.

"Great! Two more wins, and I now have a chance to score the GOAT Flyers and the Icehammer Dark!"

Jake"s bow was filled with grat.i.tude: winning didn"t matter; losing didn"t matter. The need to compete, the l.u.s.t for victory and domination?

None of that was relevant to Jake. All he wanted to do was shop, and if Maven"s gesture helped him get to where he needed to be quicker, there is no reason for him to dislike it. To the contrary, Jake found it very welcome as he went back to where Liam was seated.

"Liam," he said, "fight as quickly as possible. If you think you are in trouble or you may lose, surrender – the sooner your fight ends, the sooner my next fight begins. Got it?"

Both Liam and Maven looked at him as if he grew a second head.

***

Liam emerged from the long road from Kingsville to Carter a changed man.

The skills and training Master Li gave him propelled Liam to the heights of power he could barely imagine.

Despite all of this, though, Liam found himself at a disadvantage against the awakeners Jake picked a fight with.

"I KNOW you can do better than that, young blood!" Liam"s opponent said, his tone having long since pa.s.sed taunting.

As the fight went on, he thought that his own fight wouldn"t be easy.

Two more wins, huh? Should I drink one of those cans of Red Cow now?

It"s his desire to not lose, no matter what, that is motivating him – that and the fact there won"t be any Cheon-Ji-In f.u.c.kfaces interfering in the fight.

A notification interrupted his viewing the fight, and when he looked at it, something clicked on his head like a light bulb.

[You have received a free gift! Please check your "Gifts" page for details.]

After what Jake thought was a farce of a fight against Maven, Jake quickly navigated through his Awakener Store profile, and found a "Free Gift Coupon" when he looked at his gifts page.

[This coupon delivers places a random gift in your inventory when used.]

Once he read the description, he used it immediately.

Hope I don"t c.r.a.p out, I need something for this fight! Jake prayed before using the coupon, hoping the something random in the box would end up helping him.

He actually closed his eyes when he used the coupon, only opening then after his inventory alerted him to a new item.

***

While Liam was fighting the other awakeners, Jake was busy.

"What"s he doing?"

"He got a bottle out of a weird box, and now he"s putting what"s on the bottle onto his face."

"Thanks, Captain Obvious. The question is, what is he putting on his face?"

Once again, Jake"s eccentric nature was front and center among the Grand Duelists, who were all caught off balance upon seeing his antics.

And to think that in this world, I can gain a lot of attention just by doing this, Jake thought, embracing the various looks of panic, shock, confusion, et cetera being directed at him.

"All your looks won"t take this away from me. It"s been quite a while since I got some honest-to-goodness pampering. Would have loved to go to a spa here or something, but I don"t know if this world has places like that…" Jake thought as he continued ma.s.saging something onto his face.

"Okay, on to the next one!" Jake announced before he began to remove his armor; when he had finished, he procured the bottle once more and began ma.s.saging the same stuff on his face all over his upper body.

A sense of curiosity and consternation emanated from Connor himself as he approached the novice awakener.

"Hey there, new guy. What are you doing?" the faction leader asked, curiosity written on his stare.

"Rubbing on lotion," Jake replied.

"Lotion?" Connor asked, his curiosity piqued even further.

"That"s right," Jake answered. "I"m from a time when even men take care of their looks. That trip from Kingsville all the way to here did a number on my complexion, let me tell you that…"

Connor found himself asking a lot of strange questions.

What kind of awakener would bother with luxuries like this?

With the focus on fighting, other concerns shouldn"t even be entertained; this is the kind of gesture that would make other awakeners feel insignificant.

Heck, a problem Connor was considering over the last few months was about how to make awakeners who have made their living in battle adapt to normal life – fighting had become a part of them, to the point where a normal life becomes dull and quotidian.

Still, now, an awakener who thinks about the state of his complexion has come forth.

"Well," Connor thought before asking his next question, "there are a lot of things I still have yet to discover about Nohas, maybe this guy is one of them."

"Really? So how often do you take care of your skin like that?"

"Not very often, I take care of my skin every couple of months," Jake demurred, not really saying the reason for applying lotion right then.

[Aloe Lotion: Part of making a good first impression isn"t just combat strength. These days, you don"t just have to win, you have to look good doing it. Not to worry, as this product is meant for those who look after both their looks and their strength. Thanks to its nutrients and moisturizers, it doesn"t just moisten your skin, but help nourish and protect it. But wait – there"s more! Using this lotion gives you a beneficial effect in battle, too: for a limited time, every day, after applying this lotion, all clean hits on you will be downgraded to glancing hits, improving your evasion and defense. How about that?

For short, Jake was using it for the upcoming fight: since the score was being decided by clean hits, a lotion that makes opponents" clean hits on you slip off and end up as grazing hits are just as good as dodging them cleanly.

But, of course, Jake had no plans on saying these effects out loud.

"The stuff you get and use blows my mind, truly – where do you get such wonderful things?"

Jake just shrugged as he put his armor back on.

"Well, one day, I was scrolling through my inventory…"

"…and then you suddenly found it?" Connor asked, expecting the same answer.

"Whoa, how did you know that?" Jake answered as if b.u.t.ter wouldn"t melt in his mouth. "No wonder you"re a faction leader here!"

Jake"s face sold the statement, and Connor laughed it off.

"Okay, okay. I"ll stop asking," he said, stepping back with a smile as he saw Jake finishing up his armor.

"I"ve got time, we"ll get to know your secret. You"re still a part of us, which means it"s only a matter of time," Connor thought, and when he returned to his spot and watched the fight, it was only a few moments until someone shouted…

"…I surrender!"

Liam admitted his defeat, and went back to where Jake was seated.

"You did what you could, right?" he asked, and Liam nodded. "All right then, have a seat, I"m next on the dance card."

"Hope you do a better showing than I did," Liam said. "And you could stand to look at least a little sad, your second just lost, you know."

"Quick question: was there something tangible on the line for you in this fight?"

"No?"

"Then don"t feel sorry for losing. You either win or learn," Jake declared before he turned to his next opponent and strode forward to meet him. "Don"t worry about that, just study these guys I"m fighting."

As Jake made his way to the middle of the hall, the other Grand Duelists looked confused – his partner had lost, and he"s shrugging it off like it was nothing.

"What the h.e.l.l is that guy thinking?

This guy basically told his fellow novice that he doesn"t consider winning or losing important – this isn"t the kind of thing a compet.i.tive awakener could say just like that!"

Everyone was too scandalized to see Jake bring out a metal can, pop the top off and guzzle half of hit before he made it to the spot where he"d start fighting.

There was a confident smile on his face and there was an opened can of Red Cow in his hand.

As he stood in the circle, he looked at his opponent, the audience, and Connor, took a deep breath, and made a declaration.

"You guys mind if I finish this before we start?" he asked, gesturing with the can in his hand. "All this fighting got me a bit thirsty, you see."

***