After yesterday's scene at school I didn't talk much longer with my classmates and instead headed to training right after school, it's been 3 days that I've been training.
I could see huge progress on my mastery of the footwork but it still felt lacking, even after around 15 hours of training I couldn't feel like I was close to mastering it.
Luckily yesterday's rewards managed to raised my mood a bit and cheer me up enough to not give up and keep training hard.
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*yesterday night*
After finally finishing my hours of training I came back home and layed down on the sofa.
I've been delaying this for a bit because I didn't want to open the rewards while outside but I couldn't hide my excitement.
[Congratulations on completing the side quest "embarass the tomboy"! ]
[Would you like to receive your rewards?]
[Yes] [no]
I clicked on yes without much thoughts.
[Congratulations on obtaining an E class chest!]
[Congratulations on obtaining 20 coins!]
Now I had a total of 45 coins. But the most interesting thing was that E rank chest, after checking the new shop after the upgrade of the system I knew that there were many useful E rank items, the most interesting one still being the stealth skill but there were also some other skills I would love to have.
[Would you like to open the E class chest?]
[Yes] [no]
After taking a deep breath I finally found the courage to open it.
[Congratulations on obtaining a height booster!]
"..."
That was the worst outcome possible.. I almost laughed after seeing the reward, I no longer knew if I should laugh or cry.
I've been saving up for a height booster in the past just because I liked the idea of getting to 170cm but what's the point of growing one more cm now that I've decided to focus on my strength?
That reward was the most useless thing ever. But I still couldn't complain since that reward was worth 50 coins.
It was still frustrating knowing that I could've got things worth 10 times as much such as skills which are worth 500 coins.
After thinking for a bit more I chose to simply stop worrying about it and used the height booster then went to sleep putting all my hopes on succeeding the footwork quest.
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'Now I'm 171cm, new height new me!' I tried cheering myself up after yesterday's failure.
My thoughts got interrupted by a palm right to the stomach.
"Amon I told you to focus on your balance more!" It was none other than Miu who accepted to be my sparring partner, a spar which was more of a one sided beating than anything else.
"Yeah I got lost in my thoughts..." I fell down on my back and laid down on the ground while trying to gain back my breath.
Today was the fourth day of training, we've been training for 3 hours straight but I still didn't get any notifications from the system.
I knew I still had 3 while days but I didn't want to redo the same mistake as with the pendant quest which I completed in the very last moments.
I didn't want this to be my first failed quest, the reward was too great to be wasted.
I drank my last energy replenisher while Miu wasn't looking and stood back up.
"Let's keep going for another hour." Sparring with Miu was way more exhausting than training on my own but it was also way more effective.
Luckily she easily agreed which annoyed Kenichi since it was supposed to be his turn once I finished my sparring, luckily he didn't complain and Miu went back to sparring with me.
One thing was certain, investing all my coins in endurance wasn't a waste, the surprised expression on both Kenichi and Miu's face whenever I stood back up was a such a nice sight.
Unfortunately I knew that in truth this inhumane endurance was also thanks to the energy replenishers who helped me keep going for an additional hour each time.
Today was no exception and I kept trying to evade Miu's hit using her own basic footwork that she taught us. I knew she was going easy on me and only hitting in ways I could already predict but even then it was incredibly hard to counter her.
All her movement were flowing effortlessly and in such a natural way that multiple times I didn't even realize getting hit and just fell down without understanding anything.
She launched her palm towards me again, I could see it reaching for the side of my stomach. Suddenly the sight of a 4 eyed weirdo appeared in my eyes, remembering how easily he took me down, I put all my focus into my legs but this time I didn't trip nor get hit.
I perfectly dodged it!
The notification which rang into my mind was the signal that I needed to finally let my body lay down in exhaustion.
My 17 points in intelligence helped me gasp the essence of the technique way more easily but even when knowing all the theorical knowledge I had a hard time applying it, my 9 dexterity was above average for my age but it was far from exceptional and that's what held me back all this time.
Luckily the 18 endurance points and many energy replenishers I used were enough to make up for that, after repeating the same movement again and again and again my body have grown used to this feeling, all I needed was that last click to add it all up together.
Maybe I should thank that damned 4 eyes for that, I'll make sure to thank him very nicely.
Miu and Kenichi headed home first today, I said I wanted to lay for a bit longer and stayed behind but the truth was that I was way too excited to wait.
I couldn't hold back anymore from opening this quests reward!
[Congratulations on completing the side quest "learn basic footwork"!]
[Would you like to receive your reward]
[Yes] [no]
'Yes!'
[Congratulations on obtaining the F rank skill " footwork"!]
The first thing I did was checking the description of this skill.
[Footwork: (Rank F/ lvl 01)
Description:
F Rank:
Slightly enhance the efficacity and speed of the users footwork. The enhancement will depend on the skills level.
Exp required to level up: 10 exp.
Current exp: 0/10
Upgrade: unlocked at level 100]
Finally I got a skill I can use in a fight! It doesn't seem to be an active skill though, that's to be expected from an F class skill but that's still amazing.
That skill will allow me to improve my footwork even faster and that's exactly what I needed for now. As much as I want to beat up people like the 4 eyed freak I know that staying alive and escaping should still be my priority.