A dozen or so minutes passed before Klay felt comfortable enough to remove himself from his post on the ground. Still unsure about the new Consumption ability, he realized there was nothing to do about it and he would need to move on to continue living as peacefully as he could.
Though I don't think I can consider my current life too peaceful, he sighed to himself as he made his way to the dojo.
On his walk over, Klay was examining the system interface.
[Name: Klay Wynne (Cannibal)
Rank: Peasant (Base tier)
Exp: Level 6, 7/11
Stat Points: 1
Stats:
[Strength: 28 (27.7)
Dexterity: 20 (19.9)
Flexibility: 24 (23.7)
Senses: 15 (15.4)
Intellect: 21 (20.7)
Stability: 22 (22.4)
Regeneration: 5.5]
Abilities: [Observation Level 2], [Regen Focus (Passive) Level 5], [Strike Level 3], [Contortion Level 2], [Consumption Level 1]
Additional Pages: Titles, Hidden Stats]
Klay grimaced at the sight of his new title.
That's somewhat irritating, does the title have to stay as whatever I earned most recently?
"[No. After receiving two titles, you had unlocked the Regeneration System's 'Titles' page, which will allow you to replace your titles at will.]"
Oh yeah, I forgot about that. I get all the effects from the titles though, don't I? It's not a one at a time thing?
"[Changing the active title does not remove the rewards from earning each title. It instead alters how others perceive you to a limited degree.]"
Thinking about this for a short while during his walk, Klay figured that made sense, even if others couldn't see his title like he could. He quickly opened the Titles page and began exploring what he had earned so far.
[Titles Page]
[Martial Student]
Description: All practitioners of martial arts have a baseline foundation, which from there they use to strive for greatness. So strive!
Effect: +5 to all physical stats, +5 to Stability
[Street Fighter]
Description: Foolish and chaotic, students all over fall into this category.
Effect: +3 to Strength, +2 to Senses
[Hungry]
Description: For whatever reason, you decided biting your opponents was the best choice.
Effect: +2 to Strength and Flexibility
[Cannibal]
Description: Pearly whites can turn red quickly, as can any choice one makes. Don't lose yourself.
Effect: +2 to Stability, +3 to Strength, Ability [Consumption]
Looking over his titles, Klay decided that the [Martial Student] title would be best for people to think of him as, even if he wasn't a huge fan of martial arts like his father and uncle. Compared to the morbid [Hungry] and [Cannibal] titles, and the negative aspects of the [Street Fighter] title, the [Martial Student] left the least detrimental impression.
Next, Klay used the stat point he earned from leveling up to increase his regeneration.
[Adding 1 free stat point to Regeneration stat. 5.5 → 6.5]
With all that out of the way, Klay spent a few minutes walking and asking questions about the process of evolving his abilities.
"[When evolving an ability, most will become inactive for approximately an hour. They return to their original level with a greater effect after evolving, and each evolution increases the level requirement for the next evolution of the same ability.]"
I can probably handle not having Regen Focus for one lesson in the dojo, since my stats are all almost above the average person. System, begin the evolution of Regen Focus.
"[Level 5 Regen Focus has been removed and is in the process of evolving. Countdown has started.]"
With this voice message, a panel with a digital timer slowly ticking down appeared in Klay's peripheral, tracking the clock down from an hour.
I guess I'll see how this goes, then. Fingers crossed.
With a wish of luck to himself, Klay entered the dojo, keeping an eye on any sort of difference now that his ability was halted for evolution.
Inside the dojo, the other students were all there, waiting for Phoenix to begin the lesson. Klay saw this and hurried to get ready, not wanting to be punished for being late. He stepped out of the locker area and sat down patiently.
Seconds after he sat down, Phoenix stepped out of the back office and began speaking in his usual tone to the dozen students within the dojo.
"Afternoon. For today's lesson, I will be teaching you all a technique of mine that I've dubbed 'Red Arm'. First, I will demonstrate."
Phoenix stood before the students, all sat in a line as he began to demonstrate the Red Arm technique. First, he rolled his sleeve up to his shoulder, fully revealing his large, brawny arm as he began to breathe slowly. As his breathing became more natural, he slowly flexed all the muscles in his arm, making each vein pop. His arm faded into a pinkish-red color quickly.
After holding this position for around a minute, he sighed loudly as he let all the air escape his lungs. His arm had become a faded red tone, his muscles pulled taut as the dozen students under his tutelage observed the process.
"When you learn to perform this technique, you will feel the difference it makes in your strength. But it does require more than just flexing your arm, which is where the trouble comes in when first learning this. This process can also be fairly painful at first, so I will be teaching you to deal with that before I allow you all to practice on your own." Allowing this to soak into everyone's head, he gave them a minute as he demonstrated the Red Arm technique once more.
After a fairly quick demonstration, Phoenix sat down crossed legged and explained the method of breathing that helps remove pain from the forefront of one's mind.
Klay remained attentive as Phoenix explained the techniques, even following along while trying the breathing method to get some extra practice in with it.
If this actually works, I can make any pain I receive easier to deal with!
With that in mind, he continued trying the breathing method, up until Phoenix ended his demonstration and had the students practice Red Arm.
"I don't fully expect any of you to immediately understand how to perform the Red Arm technique, but you should all be able to understand it within the next week. We'll keep practicing here before I have you guys try it out against one another." Phoenix ended his demonstration and let everyone begin to work on learning it for themselves.
With the end of the lesson, Klay stood up and walked off to the corner, next to one of the training dummies set up around the perimeter of the dojo.
So first, I should just flex my arm, right?
Klay squared his stance and held his arm out in front of him. Breathing slowly, he began to use the breathing method as he flexed his arm.
What do I do after flexing? Uncle said that it takes more than just flexing, but I didn't see him do anything else.
Unsure, Klay decided to just experiment and see what works.
He began to try shifting the muscles in his forearm around. This caused a slight pressure to form on his arm, but not any pain or discomfort.
Uncle said that it would be somewhat uncomfortable or painful, so I guess I'm on the right track.
Klay continued for a couple of minutes, flexing and shifting his muscles but nothing seemed to come of it, leading to him finally letting his arm down.
"Why won't it work? I felt some reaction but nothing like what I think I was supposed to feel." Klay mumbled to himself as he trained, repeatedly trying to activate the technique but coming short each time.
Taking a break, Klay was drinking some water as he saw Jeans' arm turn slightly pink and Jeans himself breathed heavily before dropping his arm and panting like he had just run a marathon.
Phoenix had also seen Jeans nearly use the technique properly, and walked over to congratulate the student. "Well done, Jeans. You got pretty close in a short time, but remember to use that breathing method to relieve the pain or else it will be extremely hard to keep up for very long."
Jeans nodded to Phoenix and walked over to where Klay was, grabbing his water bottle and taking a swig from it.
"You have to make your muscles ripple."
"Hm?" Klay jumped slightly as Jeans addressed him and turned to him to respond. "What do you mean?"
"For the Red Arm to actually start working, you need to have your muscles ripple throughout your whole arm. It's tough though, and distracts you from breathing properly to nullify the feeling you get from it. Otherwise I would have gotten it on the first try." Jeans continued to explain his advice while Klay was puzzled but otherwise paying attention.
"Why are you telling me all that? I'm confused…" Klay asked hesitantly, unsure of the answer.
Jeans grinned and told him. "Because the technique makes crossing that strength gap between two people pretty easy, and you seemed like you had figured it out somewhat a bit ago." Klay nodded to confirm, as Jeans continued. "In a week, we'll all probably be pitted against one another to try and use Red Arm, and you seem like you'd make the fight interesting, at the very least."
Looking him in the eyes, Klay quickly looked away as his hands jittered nervously, unsure of what to do. "Th-thanks…?" Jeans walked off back to his training spot and was chatting with some of the other students while Klay worked to digest the advice he was given.