When he sat in the car and recovered from his shock, faster than you can spell 'emotionally unstable', his curiosity took the upper hand. When the system switched back from night mode, he already spotted that the text 'Quest completed' was lit on the display. But since sitting in a stationary car with the police officers so close was out of question he suppressed the urge to ask the system.
Then. "System, is there a Quest Reward?"
>> 1 karma point for capturing criminals; 1 karma point for successfully rescuing people <<
He clearly had more luck than brains. Without the number plate that he had captured by randomly waving the camera, one karma point might have been lost. And the fact that he hadn't even opened the door of the truck made his face flush with shame - what if the truck drivers would have noticed the police and something would have gone wrong?
Nevertheless, the good mood overshadowed his remorse. Next time he'd be more careful.
"Isn't there an item or a skill as a reward? How about I get an inventory unlocked, like the characters in web novels?" Literature which was an embodiments of the evil and that he certainly did not read - who knows where he had picked up this knowledge.
>> Title updated: <<
* Name: Atari Ping *
* Level: 1 *
* Title: Untalented User with karma points *
>> In order to obtain the necessary technology, a number of requirements must be met in the livestream. <<
That his joking question was not denied right away surprised him a bit. Did that imply that it was basically possible?
"You mean the connection to the capsules is available?"
>> It is strongly recommended to take the tutorial before using the connection. Furthermore, a larger optical signal unit for visualization shall help to solve the time-critical tasks after the initialisation. <<
This made the 10 minute drive feel like the longest drive he had in a long time. Glad that at least he didn't have to carry up the spade or hand truck, he crept up the stairwell, looking like a scarecrow with leaves on his back and grass stains on his pants, and hoped that the other residents would be too busy, doing what single students did during lonely night, to notice it.
When he reached his apartment, he hung up his baseball cap on the clothes tree when some dumb ass mistook his bell for an arcade machine. Then he remembered something and when he opened the door a very tipsy sister with a head red like a boiled lobster stood in front of him.
Instead of saying something, she reached out to point her finger at him, which almost cost him his eye, and made a pouting face.
"YOU hung up." He refrained from more as Ai was standing in the background and waved to him with a smile. "Sorry if my sister bothered you," he addressed to Ai Wang."Not really. We had a lot of fun." His sister said good night to Ai with a hug, and then they both went inside. Fortunately, he had tidied everything up before he left the apartment, the scrap parts might have triggered the next interrogation despite being drunk.
"Come on, you need to be cuddled, little brother."
"Haa .. ah!" He exclaims and raised his finger as if he were reprimanding a puppy and took a step back.
"This is not a cuddle, but a nasty stranglehold and your trainer would surely turn in his grave if he knew that you use it to rape young men!"
"Ouch!? My trainer is still alive." she laughs.
With a twisting hand movement, Ping's upper body bent forward and his arm, finger still raised, to the back. Seconds later, his head hit a spot he would certainly not have avoided would it have been any other girl. Then she rubbed her fist against the top of his skull.
Couldn't she just giggle to herself like other drunk girls?
"I had no idea that you have these kind of forbidden fantasies." He hadn't seen her this happy for a long time, it must give her indescribable joy to torment him.
"Who wants a thick faced girl like you?"
He got away what she laughingly accepted as she aimed for the refrigerator.
While he was putting on fresh clothes in the bathroom, he tried to find a compromise so that he would get the chance to try out the new functions of the system as early as possible.
"I'll pay you a taxi, okay? I'm a bit exhausted today and you probably don't feel like sleeping on the floor, too." That was technically the money for the food donation, but it was worth it.
When there was no answer and he peeked out of the bathroom, he saw a slightly snoring Amiga. Not on a yoga mat on the floor, but of course asleep in his bed. Do girls no longer know any restraints about their brothers?
So he put the Bluetooth earbuds back in his ear and asked: "Can we do another training session?" Sleeping was out of the question. At least he would be able to find out what he could do with his karma points. After a short time he left the apartment and got an explanation on how the cultivation quest continued.
>> The user can choose one of two possible training methods. <<
His karma points had already been used without his intervention or consent. It was not too bad because the next method was a more difficult version of the previous exercise. He'd rather repeat the simple version a few times before asking for that.
The third exercise, on the other hand, was child's play. He should practice a martial art and demonstrate a basic understanding of the techniques. That should be feasible since he has been practising martial arts for eight years. Five years wushu and when his family moved, three years of Shaolin kung fu and sometimes sanda boxing. His mother still went to his Shaolin trainer to practice taiji.
Some years ago he stopped to regularly visit on the pretext of all sorts of excuses. However, that only meant that he would have problems with some difficult jumps and that he would maybe needed to look up some internet videos to remember some of the more complex forms.
Since he was still young and the fruits of his training did not yet completely vanish, he believed that 'basic understanding' was definitely doable. Actually, the start of his master's course, not too long ago, would have been the perfect, and perhaps the last, opportunity to continue training kung fu. The only reason he had not joined the university's club was to avoid some other problems.
It would take another two hours before the city railway and buses would be on the road again so he made his way behind the east station where the city was framed by the highway. Between the tracks of the tram and the parallel noise protection wall of the highway were allotment garden areas that could be rented. If one followed the course of the tracks to the next city railway station one would find a football field and other sports facilities.
Ping preferred the sports facility parking area over the small park across from east station. He felt that people would stare less here than when he was doing sports in the park, which of course was completely irrelevant as currently not a single person was in either place.
Soon he reached his destination and started to slowly perform the movements he once learned. Since the more elegant and sometimes more difficult movements for competitions were not needed, he decided to go with a simple Shaolin form called Tong Bei Quan.
He could still remember it because they practised it at the end of almost every training session. After a few half-hearted attempts, he was warm enough to be able to kick. When the system did not react to his efforts, he decided to ask for Internet videos to refresh his memory and review problematic areas.
Soon, he decided to perform the complete program he knew from his training. Running, stretching the upper body, punching in horse stance, doing splits - which did not work so well any more - dynamic stretching with kicks, and finally some basic techniques, jumps and the form.
After four and a half years he was more out of practice than he wanted to admit. He was sweating buckets as if there was no tomorrow. Of course he hadn't brought water or a second shirt to change so he stood there panting with his shirt sticking to his body and watched how his hot breath produced little clouds.
At least it was now bright enough to be able to record himself on video. His back was not straight and what felt like an incredibly low stance was actually a pretty high position. He also wanted to better show rhythm and speed changes on the next run. However, the system interrupted him before he could move away from the camera again.
>> The user shall please define prerequisites to become successful at a martial art. <<