[Sho's training Room]
Sho was doing the usual, he was running laps around the training room, holding weights above his head, sweating, making his legs move back and forth around the area.
Then, he was doing the Steel Skin exercise to work on his toughness, enduring large amounts of pain while being chained up, trying his best not to flinch or stutter, or make any sounds.
He did that activity for 20 minutes, and later, Sho was doing the activity "Dagger Rush", the same training exercise that he had trouble with when he first had done them.
Daggers were quickly shooting from wall to wall, targeting Sho. Sho had been doing this for 5 minutes, so he felt the difficulty rising as he was dodging the daggers.
'With the fights I've been in since the last time I did this training exercise, I've been able to dodge better. Like my dumbass father said all the time, battering it into my ear, "Change is followed by experience." I hate to think about the things he used to say, but no matter how much of a drunk he became, he wasn't a true idiot. He was in the war as well, he learned a lot from it, but he gained things from it that created a discord within the family. Why am I thinking about this? Focus…focus dammit!'
Sho was hit in the chest by three daggers, and he fell to the ground.
The daggers disappeared, and Sho punched the floor, yelling, "Dammit!"
Sho wiped sweat from his forehead, saying, "I can't focus. I'll train harder if that's the case. That'll distract me, hopefully."
Sho started the Dagger Rush exercise again, already dodging 40 daggers coming from the walls.
Sho was flipping around the room, even jumping off the wall to dodge them; he strafed left and right, thinking, 'Strafing is good to evade attacks, but it can sometimes decrease your speed, meaning I'd have to increase my speed attribute to increase my overall performance. Making me hard to hit. I'd be unstoppable.'
Sho was almost cut in the face by a dagger, but he leaned to the left, avoiding it.
Sho gasped, thinking, 'The daggers are arriving faster, I almost didn't catch that last one. If the exercise is evolving, I should too.'
Sho made his knife form, and he used it to smack other daggers away.
Sho noticed 30 daggers coming to him all at once from all directions, and Sho exclaimed, "Extend: 14 feet!"
Sho's knife stretched 14 feet out, and Sho jumped in the air, turned upside down, and did a quick spin, using his knife to smack away the daggers.
'I've gotten a better handle on my weapon, I feel like it's a part of me, like I know it well, and like it knows me well. I'd prefer this over the butterknife, my old weapon. The butterknife didn't feel right, and I tried my best to not think certain thoughts and memories when looking at it. Still kind of odd why I had to have a childhood traumatic experience as a starting weapon. This tower truly is a mystery, no wonder the Division is doing what they do.'
Sho was falling to the floor, but then daggers shot from the floor as well.
'Daggers from the floor again! I guess since the exercise changes the further you go, the system changes too!'
Sho moved his knife down under him, standing on it like he was standing on a snowboard, allowing the daggers to hit the bottom of it.
'That worked..but more daggers are coming at me at the best times, when I'm fully wide open.'
For the next 30 minutes, Sho was still doing the Dagger Rush, sweating harder than ever, with his veins popping out, and heart beating at a rapid rate.
Sho was running around the room with his knife, but larger daggers began to shoot out.
Sho would smack the other daggers away while sliding on the floor, but once he looked to the left, a large dagger came at him, and Sho jumped over it, but as he was in the mid air, there was two large daggers coming at him from below and from the front at fast speeds.
'They're fast as hell!'
Sho spun downard with his knife and cut the dagger under him in half, but once he flipped back the other dagger smacked his knife out of his hand.
Sho fell to the floor, and another dagger came at him. Sho turned around and put both hands on the sides of the dagger, stopping it in mid air, but the dagger was trying its hardest to fly forward and break free from Sho's grip, wanting to make contact.
Sho held on like his life depended on it, knowing that it was just a training exercise, knowing that he wouldn't die in the training room, he held onto the dagger with his palms like he was about to die at that moment.
Sho grunted, and his teeth gritted to the point where he chipped a little piece of his tooth, but he didn't care.
Sho was leaning backwards because of the pressure of the dagger, saying, "Not yet…not yet!"
Sho held on longer, but the dagger broke free from Sho's grip, and pierced straight through him, pinning him to the floor.
The dagger disappeared, and the exercise was over.
Sho was laying on the floor, breathing heavily, and he was grinning, "Haha..ha..I made it..to level fucking fifty.."
After a few minutes of laying on the floor, he was out of his training room, and he was sitting on his bed, and the television was on, and it was on the news, with Passive Fighters giving the news, talking about what happened at the Fighter Event, discussing certain Fighters who beat hard raids alone, or how Passive Fighter are making an impact on not fighting and working hard at the same time.
The Passive Fighter news people were also showing the weather, showing what the weather would be for the next seven days: Sunny, rainy, sun with a few rain clouds, etc. They even showed videos and clips of well known Fighters completing raids with ease.
Sho was also posted on the news, with the newsman saying, "Sho Takahashi, the very well known class C Fighter who has been leveling up pretty fast, has defeated a Fighter Event beast, the famous deer, which has never been done before. He already shocked the Fighters by defeating class A Fighter Acna when he was a class D Fighter. What else does he have in store for us? In other news, City 1, City 2, City 3, City 4, City 5, City 6, and City 7 have been stated to have at least 1 to 10 class S Fighters already. Look, everyone already knows that each city has a unique feature to each of them, with different races and other worldly beings and humanoids, and each city has different attractions and sights there with different shops and eateries and establishments; so adding a few S class Fighters definitely causes them to have something in common with each other! I honestly have never been outside of City 4, I need to go out more. Okay! In other news as well.."
Sho ignored the news, mostly because he was looking at his new stats after his training. He was eager to see what had improved, and what didn't.
Sho's stats:
Strength - 110/300
Speed - 100/300
Agility - 130/300
Toughness - 200/300
Energy - 110/300
Power Level - 1,150 (Class C)
Sho said, "My power level went up a few notches, My strength stat went up 30 points, my speed stat went up 23 points, my agility stat went up 30 points, my toughness stat went up 20 points, and my energy stat only went up a mere 10 points. I mean, after all that running I did, after surviving 50 rounds of Dagger Rush, I'd figure I'd get more. Eh, fuck it. It's alright I guess. All of my stats are above 100, so that's good as hell. I wonder..if I reach the 300 point mark, will that be it? Or will I be able to unlock a new regimen to get even stronger? I have to ask someone. Sucks this tower doesn't come with a fucking manual. You have to do everything yourself kinda."
Sho began to stretch and yawn, and he walked to the nearby window.
He looked out of the curtains, and he heard some battling that was going on far away, and heard some explosions and saw flashing colorful lights.
'Fighters fighting. Nothing new. At this point, I feel like I've seen everything in this tower. In a way, I'm glad mother wasn't able to come here, I wouldn't want her to be around all of this. How do I feel about all of this right now? I've seen a shit ton on earth already when I was being a juvenile delinquent. I'll admit that damn much. But there, I've seen people die, I've seen brutality. But it's nothing compared to this weird ass place. Here..it's like a fantasy, like a dream. When I was a kid, I used to read manga and comics that involved people with powers all the time, and I loved that shit. But now that I see that it's all real, it surprised someone like me. But there's a difference between earth and the tower, I've dealt with more pain there. And another difference, I like it here better. I have 14k Fighter points altogether, and I can buy things with these points, even things that I could buy on earth. I feel like I have 14,000 dollars..I like it. On earth, my only goal was to live without worry, to live the right way. I can do that here, and I can gain something bigger when I reach the top of this tower. Damn..Bebop and Gideon haven't come back yet, or returned my calls and texts. The hell is going on with them? Tch, I'll just wait.'
Sho walked away from the curtain, and walked to the bed. He laid down, closed his eyes, and he went to sleep.
(Morning time)
[Abandoned village]
The sky was light grey, and it was raining slightly. The abandoned village was in the middle of a large open field with no trees around, but had hundreds of log and wooden houses, with hay on the top of it for roofing. There were grey zombie-looking villagers walking around and trying to clean up the place, carrying loads of material on their backs.
From a distance, Sho was sitting on a rock, eating a sandwich, wearing his red and black hoodie and black shorts, letting the light rain tap onto him, and his horse Vixen standing beside him, trying to smell Sho's sand which that he had bought from a convenience store with his Fighter points. It had cost 5 Fighter points.
Sho watched the village, thinking, 'There's a bunch of villagers around, zombie bastards trying to rebuild everything. Why though? I can't question it right now, the main target is figured to be in three different locations, three different houses across the entire village. He's supposedly in one of these larger houses, the tallest ones, there's three of them altogether, the target is in one of them. Good thing I bought herbal pills, only one bottle of it, which carried 40 100% healing pills altogether, which had cost me 12k Fighter points. Which left me with 2k Fighter points, and I decided to save those instead of spending them on weapon power stats. Since my other non weapon stats have increased, I figured it would make do. There is a downside to having the herbal pills though: if we are truly wounded, it takes a few seconds to go to our inventory and bring out the pill, which wastes time and would definitely be fatal in the middle of a fight. Most herbal pills are used after the fight. But if someone is able to find a place to hide and use the pill, that's better. Which is why most Fighters go to raids in guilds, it's easier."
Sho handed the sandwich to his horse Vixen, and Vixen chomped it, chewing it fast.
Sho stood up off the rock, saying, "Alright then. I'm not putting this horse back in my inventory, just in case."
In the village, the zombie villagers continued to do what they were doing, until suddenly, Sho landed in the middle of the zombie villagers, and smashed his 20 foot long and 300,000 pound knife in the middle of them, causing a loud BOOM and THUD, creating a hole in the ground, causing some zombie villagers, and destroying the houses that were near him, blasting them all away.
Sho thought, 'Heh. Bastards had no idea what hit their dumbasses. It seems my non weapon strength stat came in handy when smashing my knife, causing tons of damage. I wasn't able to cause this much before, but now I can.'
The zombie villagers began to grow long sharp teeth, and they had a grey aura outlining their bodies.
They screeched as they ran at Sho from all directions.
Sho was dashing around with his knife, grinning and thinking, 'I'm faster than before, way faster. Not too impressive, but it's tolerable. These idiots have no idea who they're fucking with.'
The zombie villagers had glowing yellow eyes, and they had giant insects crawling from their mouths, large black spiders with human faces, but the faces were green, eyes were black, and had long white hair.
The giant spiders rushed through the rubble to get to Sho, making acidic webs come from their backs, and they started to create a webbing wall around Sho, who had stopped in the middle of a few wooden houses and some tents.
Sho looked around him, seeing the wall of acidic webbing created by the spiders.
'The spiders are creating a wall of webs around me, and I can see the webs are leaking with some liquid, and seeing them hit the ground, steam comes off. Definitely acid.'
Spiders started to come from underground, jumping at Sho, but Sho jumped upward at the right time, spinning downward and twisting his knife around, sliding the soldiers in half.
But once he killed them, acid exploded out of them.
Sho was hit with acid on the arm, which only burned a little bit of his skin, but he jumped back with his feet sliding on the ground.
'So if you kill them they explode with acid as a last resort, sounds like a 'If I go, you're coming with me' type deal. If my toughness star was any lower, this acid would've burned half my arm off. Each kill I make on these spiders, I have to do it from a distance while extending my knife. As for the villagers, I'll kill them regularly. Seeming they have no real powers, but are housing the real threats within them.'
Sho made his knife extend by yelling, "Extend: 40 feet!"
Sho took one step to the left, and dashed around in a circle with his knife, and at that second, the acid webs burst, ripping apart in pieces due to Sho's speed and knife power.
'Easy.'
More spiders rushed at Sho, and spiders behind Sho began to build a large acidic cannon made out of webs, sitting on top of a tall house.
Sho looked at it, thinking, 'These damn spiders…they created a large acidic cannon made out of webs…like all the other lackeys in the raids I've been in, these fools are persistent! But I don't have to panic. I'm stronger now, and faster. I got this.'
The acidic web cannon shot large cannonballs of webs drenched in acid at Sho, and each time they hit the ground, there was a large THOOM of an explosion, slashing acid everywhere.
Sho started to run, but as he ran, he dashed past some zombie villagers, he jumped head first at them with his knife, twisting like some dice, piercing through the zombies with his knife and ripping them apart.
Sho jumped on two wooden houses, and flipped off of it, and looked down at the ground, and saw some giant spiders trying to jump up at him.
Sho pointed his knife down at them, but before he could make it extend longer, an acidic web cannonball was shot at him.
Sho had a slight gasp, and pointed his knife at the cannonball, and made it extend 30 feet, and the blade pierced through the cannonball, but it got stuck to it, it didn't explode. But acid was falling from the large hole in it.
Sho hatched an idea, thinking, 'Hoh? It didn't explode since my knife went straight through. If this is the case, I can see if it can explode if I use the cannonballs for myself, using my knife to slam the acidic web cannonball at the spiders! Let's fuckin try it!'
Sho spun around in the air a few times, and slammed his knife on the horde of green faced spiders, and the caused a loud explosion, making acid blast all over the place, squishing and destroying the spiders.
Sho landed on the ground, grinning, "It worked…but.."
On the other roofs of the village houses, more spiders were creating dozens of acidic web cannons filled with acidic web cannonballs.
Sho thought, 'I'll catch what I can catch with my knife, and outrun what I can outrun. This is like the Dagger Rush exercise, but slower. This will be a breeze.'
Sho started to run around the village, as all of the dozen acidic web cannons shot the cannonballs at Sho. The acidic web cannonballs were blowing up all over the place, acid was flying everywhere, as Sho was dodging his best to avoid it, running and sliding under the destruction and web cannonballs.
Sho thought, 'There's no point in rushing head first to the web cannons, since the spiders will just create another one out of thin fucking air. I'll run near my target's potential location, and have the web cannons be shot there. If the cannons hit the building, it would potentially soften my target. But I'm guessing the lackeys' attacks won't work on the main target. I should still take the gamble anyway, I'll head to a potential location!'
Sho kept running, but zombie villagers jumped from the houses, and they opened their mouths, which expanded largely, and rotten hands holding swords came out of their mouths, trying to take a stab at Sho.
They were on both sides of Sho, and were coming out of village houses ahead of him.
Sho ducked down to dodge their attacks without hassle, and he took a hard step, and darted through the area fast, but as he was going, he was slashing his knife at the zombies villagers, jumping and twisting, allowing his knife to cut zombie villager heads off.
Sho stopped, and he saw more zombies Villagers headed his way.
Sho exclaimed, "Extend: 20 feet!"
His knife was 20 feet long now, and he slung the knife sideways at the zombie villagers, which sliced them in half, spilling them all over the ground.
Sho then heard vibrations behind him, and he turned around and saw a large zombie villager landing on him with a large fist.
Sho turned around as well, and his fist collided with the zombie villagers fist, and the zombie villagers fist broke immediately.
Sho then rushed up under the giant zombie villagers, and punched him in the stomach. The villager coughed out blood, and soared 18 feet in the air.
Sho then jumped up with the giant zombie villager, and punched him in the face as hard as he could. The giant zombie villager was hit, flying 20 feet to the left, crashing through more wooden houses.
As he kept flying, Sho zipped behind him, grabbed him by the face, and slammed the back of his head into the ground, flattening the giant zombie villagers head like a pancake.
Sho thought, 'I sent this bastard flying with a punch, and my speed made me catch up to him really quickly.'
Sho laughed, "I really have…gotten better! Haha! Come and get some you motherfuckers! Let's go!"
Sho's knife made itself go back to Sho, and Sho caught it without looking, he turned around, and jumped, and made his 20 foot knife stick through a acidic web cannonball, he turned around again in the air, and smashed it on a large mountain of green faced spiders, blowing up and killing them all, knocking them all over the place along with acid.
Sho landed on a village home, and ran to the first potential location for his target.
He punched the doors down, and he thought, 'I figured. The other spiders won't shoot their acidic web cannonballs in here. Meaning..it must mean that..the target is here.'
Sho looked up, and saw the ceiling was 50 feet high. The large house had no no floors or levels, it was just one really tall room.
And at the top of the room, was Sho's target, the humanoid, Zamu.
Zamu was wearing an ancient samurai outfit, and was wearing a samurai helmet that only covered the head, and he had five zombie arms, and seven zombie arms to replace his legs under him. He looked like a rotten zombie, with glowing blue eyes, and his skin was dark green and grey. He was sticking to the wall, and some of his arms were holding swords. He had on a necklace of skulls as well. And he was 11 feet tall.
The skulls on his necklace began to talk, saying with a malicious whispering tone:
"There he is.."
"We have company.."
"Fresh human.."
Zamu said with a loud whispering tone as well, "Please…I don't wanna be lonely…you..boy..become an amulet for my necklace, so I will have more company. Please…be attached to my necklace..and keep me company..I don't wanna be lonely anymore…please..help me fulfill my goal!"
Zamu jumped down with his multiple swords; and Sho responded, "If you wanna die that badly, then be my fucking guest, fool."