I reappeared in the bathroom stall, exactly where I was, I checked over my character sheet and sure as shit.
Class: Blacksmith
I was now a blacksmith, and I was able to see future perk options for this class, well, only one perk selection into the future, the next ones I could choose were either:
Heat resistance (0/5):
The fires of the forge have strengthened you in mind and body, you are able to withstand heats that would make the average person keel over in pain. Each level in this perk gives you +10% Heat Resistance.
Or:
Unlimited Blade Works (0/10):
A blacksmith needs to kit an army with the equipment they need to survive and thrive, you can summon a weapon of (Basic) rarity every day, the amount increases with every level in this perk.
They were both pretty good options, I'd probably sleep on it. The prerequisites for getting one of these perks were to get 10 Skill levels in Blacksmith. Which didn't seem too hard as long as I was able to get access to a forge and enough metal to work with.
Now I needed to focus on something else, that being my Martial Artist Slot (Rare)
I used the mental command required to make the slot machine pop into existence, I grabbed the big red bulb and yanked down on it. Most of what I saw was weapons or training equipment like a heavy bag, I saw a few magazines that pertained to different fighting styles, there were some pills and syringes full of stuff I really didn't want to touch and much more.
The slot machine slowed down and eventually it clicked onto a:
Hasshoken Skillbook (Rare)
Guess I was taking another trip to the shadow realm.
"Dude, my fight's in 5 minutes, how long are you gonna take a shit for." Ben said from outside the bathroom
I thought for a moment and decided to shake a little as if I was startled awake. "Oh, right, I think I was taking a nap, yeah, I'll be right out." As I put my skillbook in my inventory. I haven't heard of anything called Hasshoken in one piece, is it something from another verse? Like how I can learn boxing from Mike Tyson- Tython.
I exited the bathroom and Ben viciously dragged me over to where I needed to go, which was right back to the main stadium.
"You're my cornerman, shout advice, you're less experienced but you should be able to spot stuff I can't from an outside perspective." He said as he entered the ring.
"IN THE RED CORNER IS… BOXER BEN."
The opponent made his entrance, with terrible rap music playing in the background, shit, I'd rather listen to the entire Nickelback discography rather than this.
The enemy entered the ring, he was a tall guy in his mid 20's, he had short, bleached white hair, classy aviators on and gloves that looked like they were plated in goals. I asked this before when I was facing that one guy with the spiked gloves, and I'm gonna ask it again, how the fuck is this sanctioned?
"IN THE BLUE CORNER IS… FRANCO VICCI."
The bald man from earlier approached me, he was that guy who gave the poisonous drink to me, th'fuck was he doing here after that?
"Mr Blackstone, a very important man wants to see you."
"Tell him he can piss off." I said, shooing him away.
"The man in particular is," He said, ignoring my comments. "Is a man who you may know as Alister Vicci."
"Dunno the guy, doesn't make me want his head on a pike any less, is he the guy that authorised the bullshit in my fight?" I said, again shooing him away, the fight was about to start.
"I suggest you meet him before things get ugly." He said, taking out a revolver from his pocket and discreetly aiming it at me, so that the crowd couldn't pick up on me being threatened by some guy.
I weighed my options and sighed. "Fine, but you better explain who the fuck Mr Vicci is."
He led me out the vomitorium and down a few hallways where I could see a few sketchy guys in masks and trenchcoats watching me.
"Mr Vicci is my boss, and the man who runs the pleasure industry in the West Blue, he's one of the leaders of the five families." He said, emotionless.
"I take it they're the ones who tried to kneecap him and the whole gym." I said. "God, I'm gonna murder that boss of yours."
"You would be correct in saying that." He said, a tiny glimmer of a grin appeared on his face but he quickly composed himself.
"I'm simply a made man, so I had no part in orchestrating it, but it was fun to watch, certainly." God, I'm gonna murder this guy too while I'm at it, I just need him to take me to his boss first.
I was walked down some stairs and into a dark basement, a man wearing a tux that looked like it was made out of gold, was sitting down opposite me on a shoddy table, he was pointing a golden AK-47 up into the air, resting it on his shoulders, smoking a thick cigar and wearing gold plated aviators, he was a bit taller than me, and it was obvious he was much stronger than me judging by the way he composed himself and the way the suit hugged him tightly, as if there was some muscle under there.
"Alright let's skip the bullshit, I'm not here to chat about the weather- I mean, you can't even see the sun from here so there's nothin' to talk about but still." He said in a thick Chicago accent. "I'm here cause I want'ya to be MY boxer, I killed that motherfucker, whatshisname…" he said, snapping his fingers, trying to come up with something. "Lao Gui, Lao Tzee? I don't fuckin' know to be completely honest, I forget about people I dome." He said, pointing his gun at me. "Do you want me to forget you?" I take it you don't, that's fine, then ya better do as I say, sign a contract saying that you fight for me, become a pro boxer, I will do the usual shtick of getting my main man." He said, pointing to the guy who led me here. "What'syer name again? Oh, right, I remember, Clamster, yeah, I'll get Clamster to poison your opponents right, and you can just beat the shit out of 'em, doesn't that sound nice." He grinned as he grabbed something from his drawers, slamming a clipboard with a contract on it. "Sign this shit and I think we will have a prosperous business venture together, you can just up n' leave that guy, whatshisname?" He said, snapping his fingers again. "Benny? Sure, you can forget about this guy, you work for me now, you'll make a lotta money,"
This motherfucker rambled A LOT. My brain was spinning trying to keep up with what he was saying, but I got the general gist, and I know my answer to his question.
"Kill yourself, fuckin' lunatic." I said, walking off.
"Myahahaha, that's not how it works, it's too easy for me to pop 2 or 10 in your skull, 'ya don't get it. YOU WORK UNDER ME!" He screamed. "I mean, I am called a narcissist douchebag who thinks he's untouchable, y'know, so I won't kill ya myself, instead, I'll just have my new recruits deal with'ya, they were those guys you saw in the hallway. Lovely bunch, aren't they?"
Well fuck, good for me to know that I only had to go through maybe a dozen or so mooks to escape, bad to know that I was an ant and he had his palm milimeters away from squashing me.
I kicked open the door to the basement and ran up the stairs, speakers in the hallway rang and Alister started saying something over them.
"Boys… take out your machetes and let's have a grand ol' party, why don't we?" He started laughing. "KILL THAT MOTHERFUCKER! MYAHAHAHAHAHA!"
I could almost hear the song Freebird by Lynyrd Skynyrd playing in my mind.
I saw two men on opposite sides of the hallways pull out something from inside their big trenchcoats, I activated Sprint and dashed towards one, slamming my face into their nose, slamming their head against the wall behind them before they could even get their machete out, I pushed off the wall with my foot and dashed towards the man on the opposite side, throwing a Strong Punch into his gut which made him keel over immediately before he could take out his weapon either.
+500 EXP for beating a fodder opponent (2x)
"C'mon assholes, I can do this all day, I'm gonna murder ya'asshole boss, you guys sure as shit won't stop me even if you all rush me." I regretted saying that last part, I didn't want to give 'em ideas.
They all gathered in a large crowd, if I had to guess there were at least 30 people armed with machetes and ready to kill, they all ran towards me at once, causing the ground to vibrate like a small stampede.
"Oh- Fuck this shit, I'm out." I said as I took my hasshoken skillbook out, opened it up and hopped inside.
Inside was a man I knew as Don Chinjao meditating inside what seemed to be a modern yoga classroom with purple mats and posters with inspirational quotes and chakra symbols.
I pulled on the glass door and entered, taking a closer look at the man who was clearly a part of the society of people in one piece who are 'humans' but stand at fuckin', what? 30 Feet?
"Hmm, a visitor in my guided yoga class, I haven't had one in a while, the last person was rather mean, I must say…" He said. That was when I remembered what Hasshoken was, it was that bootleg Gura Gura no Mi shit, or was it Goro? Who knows, who cares, it vibrates.
"I wish to learn Hasshoken." I said, approaching him and trying to resist the urge to call him 'conehead'.
"Ah, yes, I can do that, please take off your shoes and enter a meditative pose on the mat right in front of me, we shall first learn how to feel the vibrations around you." He said, I sat down on the purple yoga mat in front of me and entered the cross legged poses with my hands in the 'ok' position and my eyes closed.
"Hasshoken is simply you taking the vibrations around you and channelling it through yourself, these vibrations can come from a wide variety of things, from the sound of my voice, to music, to the screams of agony on the battlefield, you may hear those but can you feel it?" He asked.
"No you can't, of course, I haven't taught you yet, Bohohohoho." He laughed. "Listen to my voice, I want you to focus solely on that, and only that." He explained. "Make sure to control your breathing too, if your heart isn't steady, then you can't focus on me."
I nodded as I followed along with his simple instructions, but I knew this was gonna soon become incredibly complicated since this style is basically magic vibration Kung Fu.
"The next step is to turn hearing into feeling, you hear my words and that's it, but why don't you try speaking." He requested.
"Like this?" I asked.
"Like that, notice how you feel your throat vibrating as you say something." He stated.
"Yeah, I do actually."
"You need to visualise yourself from a third person perspective, you need to force an out of body experience, or at least visualise one." He said. As a gamer, this was my calling, years of playing games that had you view a character from a third person perspective made this incredibly easy, I couldn't exactly visualise myself but I could visualise this environment and the man sitting in front of me from a higher angle.
"I think I've got it." I said, smiling.
"Excellent, many don't get it so easy, you may be a prodigy." He smiled. "Now, shift your perspective and look at yourself, then, I want you to visualise yourself as a silhouette." I did as told.
"Hasshoken is all about visualisation, if you cannot see yourself winning, you do not win, if you do not see the vibrations, you cannot control them, I want you to hum." He requested.
"Hmmmmmmmmm…"
"As you hum, visualise the vibrations in your throat travelling down, into your shoulder and down into your fis-"
As I tried doing that, I felt the vibrations travelling down and entered a coughing fit.
"What the fuck?-" I shouted inadvertently.
"It's okay, try again, it is an unfamiliar experience for most."
I was snapped out of my visualisation thingamajig so I restarted, creating the environment in my mind, creating Don Chinjao, and shifting my perspective to a silhouette of myself.
"Hmmmmm…" I visualised it going down, and I felt it going down, I resisted the urge to scratch at my throat and cough, instead I endured the weird feeling until the vibrations reached my shoulder and creeped down my arm. It was still a peculiar sensation, but it didn't necessarily warrant a reaction.
"To expel it, you simply let the vibrations go outside of you, and it will ripple outwards the moment it exits." He said. I let it out and I felt the air ripple in front of my fist.
Meditation (2/25)
Hasshoken (1/150)