"Alright ya little turds, my name is Douglas Macdonald. But you can call me whatever you feel's right. From this moment on I'm the poor bastard that's meant to turn all of you into first-rate challenger material." A large Scottish man's voice thundered from the centre of a large training hall.
Jacob was currently attending his first challenger training class, taught by the behemoth of a human that was Douglas Macdonald.
Not only was the man's sheer stature intimidating but the multitude of scars, booming voice and crimson red hair and beard made him even more menacing. One other odd aspect of his appearance was the fact that his hair and beard constantly swished about as if they were being buffeted by the wind.
Jacob was currently standing next to Shin, his friend, roommate, and student in the art of English writing.
Jacob had one goal in this class, to keep to the background and finish analysing his roommate's fighting style. He had no definitive idea about what would happen upon unlocking his combat system, but he assumed it would boost overall battle capability.
Boost might be a little generous considering he was starting with nothing, but he liked to think that his experience in the mansion had at least taught him how to take a beating.
Another slightly less welcome presence was that of Victoria, the tiny, angry, golden-haired teacher's pet who picked a fight with Shin in his general abilities class.
Before he could ponder exactly how he was going to observe Shin or Victoria fighting without having to fight himself he saw an unwelcome face entering the room.
"Hey Douglas, these the new kids on the block?" The arrogant young man asked casually as he strode into the room.
The arrogant young man's face held some negative memories for Jacob, not near the level of trauma but definitely enough to gather a fair amount of animosity.
It was Vincent the dual mana prodigy who had attempted to beat the living daylights out of him on his first day, nearly succeeding.
The bully swept his gaze over the half dozen new students, resting it on Jacob for an extra second before scoffing and moving on, finally halting on Victoria.
A snide grin formed on his face as he looked at her, practically oozing pride and malice. A second later he had moved behind the large Scotsman indicating that he wasn't going to start anything right off the bat.
A slightly frustrated sigh left the teacher's lips before he continued.
"Now each of you probably has some ideas about what this class will entail, and frankly I don't care. This class will have one focus, practical experience."
"None of you have any bloody clue what being a challenger means and most of you haven't had the benefit of a fancy dreamer upbringing to teach you since you were wee little turds" The man boomed.
Jacob was now fairly sure that his new teacher was an outsider dreamer like them, otherwise, he wouldn't be speaking about the dream-born education like it was an underserved privilege.
Not that he was wrong.
"This class will have you learn by doing, at your level that means sparring in every class. If any of you show promise at the end of the semester you can move up to intermediate training" The Scotsman explained.
Jacob nodded along to this. Although the elective was called 'challenger training' it was split into three segments, with each having a different class.
He was currently in the beginner class, the lowest of the three. At a guess, he would say that Vincent was a part of the advanced class which was at the other end of the spectrum.
Shin had mentioned that some of the advanced class students would assist in beginner classes from time to time, Jacob was simply unlucky that Vincent had chosen to visit his.
'The system itself makes sense, I mean, if they split everyone randomly then people at my level would just spend the whole time getting demolished by people like vincent.' Jacob thought to himself.
"Since I got no clue what I'm working with we'll start off with each of ya's coming at me one by one so I can see what I'll be working with." He stated.
"Right… you first" he announced, pointing at Shin.
Shin was surprised at being called first for a moment before nodding and silently making his way to the centre of the training area where his new opponent waited.
"Now don't be shy-" he was cut off, surprised as Shin took the initiative to attack him as he spoke.
Sadly, Shin's attack was doomed to fail, their teacher was an active platinum rank 4 dreamer. Meaning he was dozens of times more powerful than a dreamer like Shin or Jacob who wasn't even ranked officially.
Unfortunately for Shin, this was exactly what Jacob had wanted.
[Analysis in progress: Shin: 26% Douglas: 1%]
This also allowed Jacob to make another helpful assumption about his ability to analyse combat styles, the speed at which they were analysed depended on how complicated the style was.
For example, Shin, the fastest person he could analyse at the moment, had the simplest combat style. He had vaguely gathered that his style was based on his natural instinct and good reaction time rather than a uniform martial art or proper technique, making it easy to analyse.
However, his teacher's style was obviously on another level, one high enough that Jacob couldn't even guess at its theme or orientation.
[Shin: 45%]
On that topic, Shin was clearly out of his depth but refused to give up. He attacked while consistently making faints and always tried to rely on his natural abilities and determination to create openings
A shame that their teacher's abilities were not just on par with Shin's but well-honed and much more experienced.
[Shin: 68%]
What Jacob found most interesting was the fact that the Scottish warrior didn't use his ability at all throughout the fight.
He was of the Vass clan and apparently specialised in the wind element and yet didn't appear to need to use it, at least not to deal with a bunch of no-rank dreamers.
[Shin: 83%]
To be honest, Jacob probably didn't need his combat system, with his current ability he could get a job, maybe in data analytics or something, and succeed easily.
Hell, he could probably dominate the stock market if he tried.
But somehow, he felt things wouldn't be that simple.
He just had the feeling that from the moment he was granted the analysis ability his life had changed, not necessarily for the better.
But if he was lucky, not for the worse either.
Regardless he now had some secrets he would rather keep, and unlocking this system would help him with that.
Be it the unique nature of his abilities or his nightmare trial. Both could potentially become massive problems for him if others were to learn of it, and in a world of the supernatural keeping secrets would undoubtedly prove more difficult than he'd like.
[Shin: 99%]
And before he knew it he was almost done, and so was Shin.
The dark-haired young man was panting hard, sporting multiple bruises from half-hearted counters done by the teacher. It was clear he had lost the fight, but his expression made it even clearer he didn't like that result one bit.
So as a last hurrah a small sprint, into a kick which somehow feinted into a punch were all thrown in a matter of two beautifully choreographed seconds.
Right before Shin was slammed into the floor.
[Shin: 100%. Unlocking Combat System]