There once was a young child that utterly despised fighting. Whenever his father, a Chinese martial arts instructor, brought him along to teach him, he instead ran back toward his mother, an African-American housewife, although he was always forced to train anyway.
His father was not a kind person in any sense of the word. He was rude to the people around him, and he was violent towards the boy and his mother if they didn"t do what he wanted, although he luckily never laid a hand on the boy"s younger sister. If he had, then maybe the boy wouldn"t have stepped down the path that he had, simply because he would have hated his father far too much to care about his reasoning.
That reason for the boy"s choice to follow this road was one quite simple thing — a Smile.
It wasn"t the smile of his father that showed the boy that he cared after all, and it wasn"t the smile of his mother as she comforted the boy as she always did whenever his father became violent or began yelling. It was his smile, the smile that he showed at his father"s funeral when the boy was only ten years old.
Overcome by guilt and self-hatred at something like this, the boy continued training and training, day after day, until he began to see the true worth of martial arts.
It wasn"t the fame or the money he acquired after winning tournament after tournament, although that undoubtedly played a significant role in the fact that he kept fighting and training. And, despite being his most significant motivator, it wasn"t to protect and support his mother and sister either.
The thing that ended up making him enjoy martial arts was quite simple. It made him feel at peace. When he was a child, he had not an ounce of control. Neither over how he spent his time, or how he formed his body, but the further he went along and learned technique over technique, the more control he gained back from the shadow of his father that was still looming over him.
That was, until the day that he figured out he was powerless after all. His father, a prior member of a triad, even now affected his life actively.
The boy"s father betrayed exactly that triad, and in response, they searched for him and killed him. And then, around twelve years later, they also came after the boy, who became more social-politically active and began to try to counteract criminal organizations like the triad his father used to be a part.
Luckily, the boy didn"t end up being killed but wounded to the extent that he nearly had been. But that moment was like a wake-up call, and despite having made a full recovery from the wounds he suffered from that attack, he retired from fighting at the age of 22.
Instead, he wanted to live a regular life. Have a proper job that he didn"t need to travel the country or even the world all the time, find himself a girlfriend or even marry, and generally just live a calmer peaceful life.
And so, he opened up a Martial-Arts studio where he taught children from poor or violent households proper control over themselves, their anger and their life.
And five years later, Andrew Jones became Brody.
Brody found himself in the middle of a dried-up wasteland, with only some hints of a road underneath his feet. He luckily had a leather booklet in his pocket that told him where to go to find the town, so he did that for a little while, immediately trying out this new body of his with different basic motions, leading him actually to gain low-level martial-arts skill as he did so.
And when he entered the quite simple desert town, he met a certain elderly woman with two large horns on her head, who accepted him with open arms after finding out that he had lost his experience. Once she then helped him gain back his racial skills and t.i.tles, she continued letting him live with her as long as he helped out a bit.
And so, he did, meeting many different people while doing so. In all of the places that he has been so far in this game or even the real world, this place that was so open and free to anyone and everyone, it was incredible.
There were a few intelligent pure monsters, although you could count their population with the fingers on your hands. However, one of the largest group of people in the community there were half-monsters, like Brody himself chose to be.
The town that Brody found himself near was indeed like a heaven to those that couldn"t find a place anywhere else. And thanks to all these factors, he not only managed to learn lots of various combat skills but also about how to properly use his body and the mana inside of his body. And it wasn"t long until he became quite a strong force within the town, especially after clearing the field-dungeon that appeared in the trailer with only his two companions, so it was apparent he was one of the people that one came to when they had problems.
A young woman did the same as she came rus.h.i.+ng into the Adventurer"s Guild, a place where Brody spent a lot of his time.
"There you are! Brody, I need your help!" The woman exclaimed before the Demon-Orc Halfling looked at her in surprise. "Hm, everythin" alright, Ana?" He asked before the woman shook her head with tears in her eyes.
"No, nothing is alright! Ryte learned that Martial Arts skill from you the other day, and now he left the village to fight magical beasts!" Ana exclaimed before Brody jumped to his feet without a second thought.
"Do you have any idea where he went?" He asked before Ana shook her head. "That"s why I need your help! Did he tell you something? Please, he"s just 10! He"s not even pa.s.sed level 15!" She told Brody, who slowly nodded, grabbing the three-section-staff next to him and rus.h.i.+ng out the door.
"Wh-where"s he going?" Ana asked in worry, and the two people that were sitting at the table with him, one giant demon with full armor and one robed woman, simply chuckled.
"Don"t worry; your kid"ll be back without a scratch. You didn"t just come here to ask him about that anyway, right? Ya gotta"ve heard how strong he is. He reached level 100 super quickly, after all." The giant demon said with a grin before Ana slowly nodded, not being able to deny that this was the case.
On Brody"s end, he already reached the gate of the town, since his Agility stat was by far the highest of all the stats he had. Strength and Endurance shared second place, and then, despite technically being the third-place Wisdom and Intelligence, where nearly entirely at the bottom of the barrel.
Brody increased them a little bit, but he didn"t use them all that much except for some simply in-body strengthening. And since that barely took any mana to keep up, so they didn"t need to be that high.
Immediately, Brody rushed outside into the open wasteland, running to the location that he expected Ryte to be. While he was teaching him some of the basic movements needed to fight, Brody began telling him some stories about when he was still low-level like the boy himself, and how he managed to increase his level explosively by fighting a particular group of monsters.
Because of stories, Ryte became overly excited, saying that he wanted to fight them as well, so he could become as strong as Brody, not realizing that he couldn"t get beyond level 15 due to his age. Of course, Brody told him that was a horrible idea and that he can"t do that, but regardless, Ryte still seemed caught up on the idea. But it really wouldn"t end well if Ryte went to fight those monsters.
They were technically weaker than usual compared to their rank, but they never appeared alone. And since these beasts were semi-humanoid, Brody was able to perfectly apply most of his techniques to them, since his skills were developed for fighting against people.
A regular person never would be able to actually fight against them, especially without the support that Brody had through his two companions acting as support and defense. At this point, Brody was able to take care of ma.s.sive hordes of these monsters, since they were meant for low-levels to take care of in groups.
After a while, Brody managed to reach the area where those monsters usually were, seeing a large crowd of them in the distance. "Ryte must be there… please, don"t let me be too late…" He muttered to himself, activating all of his status-increasing skills at the same time to increase his speed and strength for the attack he was about to launch against the group of monsters.
Immediately, with a swift motion, Brody swung the three-section staff forward to create a gap for him to reach the center of the monster-crowd. It seemed like Ryte was being attacked, but the fight only just recently started.
"M-Mister Brody!" The child yelled out before the Demon-Orc began grinding his teeth as he slid across the ground to end up directly in front of Ryte. Swiftly, Brody then pushed back some of the monsters and then turned around toward the boy behind him.
"You idiot! What the h.e.l.l do you think you"re doing?" He yelled out with an angry expression, before looking Ryte up and down with a few glances. Ryte was shaking all over, scared out of his mind, so it probably wouldn"t help to have Brody yell at him.
With a loud sigh, the Martial Artist then handed the child the Three-Section-Staff. It was a weapon that he bought just to get some actual combat-proficiency with it, and he only received it just a day or two ago anyway, so he was far better off with his fists and legs than with the three-section-staff. So, in order to cheer up Ryte behind him, Brody squatted down in front of him and laid the staff into his hands.
"Hold this for me, alright? This bout is gonna be over pretty soon." Brody told him with a smirk, before standing back up and cracking his knuckles.
"Alright, whoever of y"all wants some, come get some." And with that, Brody lunged forward, attacking the first of the monsters.
Within a few seconds, that monster was dead, and so were a few of the ones standing behind it. That was one of the first times that Brody managed to gain control over his mana in a way that he could use it during combat, in a prototype version for the Yin and Yang energies that his body and mind created themselves before he then gained the actual alternate energies only a few days later.
With cracks that resounded within his movements, Brody brought down the numerous monsters around him within only a few minutes. Of course, he then quickly grabbed the mana crystals to sell at the adventurer"s guild for some extra cash, as he then escorted Ryte back to town.
And in this case, during the escort even included a particular educational portion, where Ryte was told over and over again not to be such an idiot by Brody. And after a while, the two of them reached the town again, and Brody escorted Ryte back to Ana, the boy"s mother.
"What were you doing out there?!" She yelled out as she pulled her son closer into a hug, simply happy that he was still alive, before then pus.h.i.+ng him back a little bit again and looking at him with stern eyes. "You"ll never do that kind of thing again, you hear me?!" Ana exclaimed, ready to lock her son up until he became an adult if necessary.
And Brody was just glad that the kid was still alive and kicking.