The next couple of weeks went without any issues. Jin had assimilated himself into his new workplace and had gotten a hang of it by now.
Although externally everything seemed to be going on alright inside Jin's head a storm was brewing. He didn't showcase it but throughout this entire period, his thoughts had constantly been around the death of his parents.
His consciousness shifted between various emotions: Anger, bitterness, sadness, powerlessness, nervousness and worry.
To make sure his mind stayed in order Jin went back on his words and started training with the system once again just a couple of days after starting his new work.
His Chokehold Proficiency was at 15%.
He was dedicating almost an hour and a half after work to this. It didn't mean that Jin had decided to become a hitman instead he had seen this system's ability as a way to settle his unsettled self.
Tonight he also discovered another thing about the shadow dummy.
Out of frustration, he punched the shadow dummy expecting nothing to happen but to his surprise, the shadow dummy was affected by the impact and took a few steps back to brace the punch before standing back again.
"Interesting," Jin said as a few words appeared in front of his eyes.
Hand-to-Hand Combat (Proficiency: 0%)
Jin tapped the dummy in the list of moves apart from the chokehold, Hand-to-Hand combat was also now visible. He attempted to tap on it to see if something would happen and it indeed did.
A red-like boundary which was earlier over 'Chokehold' now shifted to 'Hand-to-Hand Combat'. The moment it did the shadow dummy which was earlier standing normally took a fighting stance.
An instruction appeared: Red- Punch, Blue- Kick
A few circles of red and blue colour appeared in certain regions of the shadow dummy.
Jin understood what he needed to do. He punched the dummy right on its face on which a red colour was shown. The dummy braced the impact and took a few steps back.
"Sweet!" Jin felt exhilarated. This was much more fun compared to the one-dimensional choking practice he was doing earlier. He moved ahead and kept on pushing the dummy back with each of his punches.
Left abdomen, right abdomen, the solar plexus, the head...Jin continued on with his barrage of punches. If a trained fighter saw Jin's punches right now he would have laughed his heart out because of how clumsy it looked but Jin didn't mind it.
He was just focused on the dopamine rush he was getting. Because of his scrawny appearance, he had never provoked anyone in his life and luckily as a result never got involved in a fistfight.
In short, he had never thrown a punch at anyone, so this feeling was reinvigorating for him. The dummy was now backed to the wall with no space for retreat.
Now, that the dummy didn't retreat anymore each punch felt even more revitalizing. The feeling of his hand making contact with him felt surreal.
Although the shadow dummy was just a dummy the feeling one would get when they touched it would be similar to that of touching a human.
So Jin knew that what he was feeling was exactly how he would feel if he punched a fellow human. This further fueled his excitement.
His body was covered in sweat, he was panting loudly for air but his hands didn't stop. Even though he felt that his arms were becoming heavier he didn't stop. He kept on punching.
He finally stopped after fifteen minutes. Not because he wanted but because he was unable to lift his arms up any longer. Jin looked at the beads of sweat dripping down his chin onto the floor as both his twitched from being strained for so long.
At this moment a message appeared: Hand-to-Hand Combat (Proficiency: 10%)
"Well that was quick," Jin said as he lay on the ground to recover his breath. He felt a lot better now. After 15 minutes he stood up and freshened himself up before going to sleep.
He needed to wake up early since he had a bus to catch for work.
The next day after getting off the bus Jin started walking towards the school gate. He saw a few kids in the school uniform surrounding one another.
'Bullying huh?' Jin thought as he ignored it and made his way in. During the last week, his impression of the school deteriorated a bit. He had seen several such cases of bullying happen from time to time.
He thought that since this was a reputable school such cases would be negligible. It was not.
Jin had no intention of getting involved in this thing. He wasn't a superhero...and even if he wanted to be one he couldn't since these kids looked much fitter than his scrawny self.
'I should start working out and gaining weight,' Jin thought. Now that his pay was much better compared to earlier he could afford to buy a few cheap second-hand gym equipment.
'Let's do that after getting my first payment,' There were still two weeks left till the payday so Jin postponed this idea until then and made his way to the changing room.