Upgraded Talents and Visiting a Dojo

Stepping into my room, I looked across the room at the full-body mirror I'd had ever since I moved here when I was 12. Looking back at me was a handsome guy with wavy and messy brown hair that I guess you could compare to seaweed in appearance. Though honestly, I really hate it when people do that--Not my fault that hair's naturally wavy as hell, is it?!

Ahem. Anyway, I had light brown eyes and, as said before, a handsome and attractive face*. Or at least I thought so. Back in my original life so did quite a few women as well~

(*A/N - Just imagine he looks like Tokita Ohma. He has the Niko Style as well, pretty much, so he might as well be Tokita Ohma at this point.)

Twisting my body around to look at it fully, I smiled when I saw my lanky figure was slowly but surely filling up with muscle mass and definition. I was about 6'1", which was decently tall for a 16-year-old and especially tall for a Japanese person in general but due to not following the Imagawa Clan's training in this life, my frame lacked muscle and flesh to a degree that made me look all skin and bones. This was also, no doubt, made worse by the fact I'd been in a coma causing my body to atrophy further.

Luckily, with all my talents and skills multiplying my training and growth rate...well, it wouldn't take long for me to grow some truly perfect muscles. Especially with who I'm gonna be training with soon. Well, I hope to train with him at least.

My frame was ever slowly changing in appearance as well as it got a bit broader in this past week. Probably to do with me raising my martial arts talent and my body being changed to accommodate it.

Speaking about training, I dried the rest of my body off before sliding on some underwear. Once I'd done that, I settled into a stance. Slowly, I began to breathe in and out in a calm and relaxed manner. Instead of focusing on the sounds around me - the clock in my room, ticking away, Naomi and Orihime speaking downstairs - and instead focused on my own body.

On the sound of my heart beat. The sound of my lungs filling with air and them emptying themselves. The sound of my blood rushing passed my ears. The feeling of my blood rushing through my body, carrying vital nutrients and oxygen to my body.

I focused on it and began to slowly enter a state where my body was both relaxed and completely ready for exercise.

Opening eyes that I'd closed at some point, I slowly began to go through the formless kata of the Imagawa Style. Because it was formless, it was less organized than I'd like it to be, but it got the job done. I went through the motions of the katas, practicing the moves and imagining that I was going up against opponents.

You see, I may or may not have gone against my own words and brought a skill half-way through the week. Mainly to help my training continue better - so, you could say, I brought the skill to aid in getting more points.

What did I get? It should be pretty obvious.

[Image Training (F Rank) - Through concentration and superb focus, this skill allows you to fight imaginary opponents and gain some degree of learning from it dependent on the rank of the skill and the level of the opponent fought. At the current rank it doesn't give as much as actual fighting would but it gives insights into how you should improve.]

It was what I was doing right now. The thing I was doing before this was one of the other, auxiliary katas of the Imagawa Style, however, called the Nil Kata. It was used for concentration and preparing your mind and body for training and was basically composed of different breathing techniques and whatnot.

A day or two after I got [Image Training], I discovered that using the Nil Kata before doing image training improved the benefits I gained from it. So, after physical exercise, I'd gotten into the habit of doing the Nil Kata followed by some image training.

It was quite an effective combo, honestly.

Though with both skills, [Imagawa Clan Martial Arts] and [Image Training], being at F Rank, it was hardly the most I could be gaining from it.

Yet I still gained something from it, so it was fine.

Slowly, I went through the Adamantine Kata, cycling between Indestructible and Ironbreaker before using my somewhat delicate muscle control, given to me by the skill and my week of training, to practice Iron Fingers. Though due to the skill the Kata came from being F Rank, it was only basic proficiency that I could practice.

Pats had told me that if I didn't want to spend points, I could grind talents and skills up to the next level by practicing but it was a very slow road, even with my growth multipliers in effect.

So, because of only having the basics of the Style, I couldn't practice Bone Binding which would probably turn out to be a very good technique to have in the future. So, after getting to the end of the Adamantine Kata, I stopped and sat down on my bed before calling out to Pats.

[Upgrade?] it asked, already knowing what I was about to ask and I gave a nod in reply to the question. Upon nodding, a screen appeared in front of me.

[Do you wish to upgrade Imagawa Clan Martial Arts (F+ Rank)? This will cost 1000 Points.]

Mentally selecting 'yes', the screen disappeared and more knowledge on how to train the katas began to appear in my head. New training methods for the body began to appear as well and I patiently awaited for the knowledge to stop. Once it finally did stop, I instantly found my understanding and knowledge of the style to have undergone a qualitative leap. If F Rank could be compared to a complete novice with F+ Rank being an experienced beginner, then E- Rank could be compared to someone who's practiced and fought with this style and knows how to use it beyond that of just training with it. It's a complete leap in mastery - as to be expected of something improving to the next rank.

Pats explained it to me with power-levels from 'History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi'. F Rank would be a completely normal person who's somewhat okay at fighting. E Rank, however, is a Low-class Disciple. Stronger than a normal person in a fight but still weaker than Middle-class and High-class Disciples.

So, upgrading my martial arts to that of the understanding and knowledge of a Low-class Disciple might not seem like a lot - and truthfully, it isn't a lot - but it means that I'm guaranteed to win against a normal person if I went up against them. A Low-class Disciple will always beat a normal person and a Middle-class Disciple will always beat a Low-class Disciple unless there's two of them.

There are exceptions, of course. Say if I got pissed off enough to activate my [Berserker Body] skill...then I could most likely take on a Middle-class Disciple as I am now.

Though, to be perfectly honest, I haven't full digested the knowledge from the upgrade and just because my understanding has increased doesn't mean my body has the muscle memory to keep up with my understanding and knowledge.

Onto the reason for why I didn't upgrade either of my Body talents: They're goddamn expensive to upgrade. I couldn't even buy a new body talent for my Agility either. Cost an exuberant amount of points. Above the ten thousand range, so I had to wait a little before I got that. Plus...with my current multipliers, it wouldn't lag that far behind anyway. For now, it could keep up but I'd put it on my list of things to upgrade. A martial artist can't be focused on just one stat, after all. Everything must be strong if you want to be strong...or some sage-like bullshit like that. I just don't want to be a slowpoke, honestly.

Hence why I needed more training. For my body AND for the style, so that I could fully build up my current proficiency into a stable foundation. Luckily, the upgrade had also upgraded my talent for the style, so it shouldn't take too long to do that.

Though I wasn't done upgrading just yet.

'How much would it take to upgrade [Image Training] to E- Rank, Pats?' I asked, getting an answer almost instantly.

[500 points to get it to F+ and then a further 1000 points to get it to E-.]

'Do it then,' I answered and rather than another screen coming up asking for me to confirm it, the upgrade began which I accepted because confirming it every time would get a bit tedious. Pats had told me how much it cost anyway, so it's not like I was being scammed or anything.

Suddenly, I felt an odd increase to something in my head. Like a small puddle have become a slightly bigger puddle before it turned into a water well full of water. The increase came with a sort of increase in mental clarity as well as my ability to...imagine things suddenly becoming much better.

[Mental energy. Unrelated to the Energy stat but incredibly useful to mind and soul related talents and skills. It's comes from the soul and can't usually be increased through normal means.]

'Huh,' I gave a hum, curious if there were hidden stats in the system, before standing up and settling into the image training once again and a less blurry opponent appeared in front of me. It was vaguely reminiscent of me but didn't have any facial features of hair. But it certainly moved and attacked like I would.

None of the delinquents I'd fought could put up much of a fight, after all, so fighting myself was one of the better options. But I'll soon have a wide pool of fighters to pick from, so I have to be patient, I guess.

Anyway, this time around I was using my newly refined understanding on my katas to slowly wipe out any of the mistakes I had and improving any of the small inconsistencies I seemed to have gained from my unsupervised training.

A few minutes of this, and a few cycles through the other katas, I heard a shout from downstairs.

"Nii-sama! Are you just going to stay up there or something?! Orihime has been waiting patiently for you all this time, so get down here!" Naomi shouted up to me in her usual headstrong way, and I found myself taking it all back: Where was my caring and loving sister from the day I woke up? Why had this strong-willed and bold person returned?

Smiling wryly, I shouted back, "Give me a second, Naomi! I'm just getting dressed--Unless you want me to come down there basically naked!" I teased back, to shut her up, and it worked.

'I can practically feel Naomi and Orihime blushing from here,' I smilingly thought before I began to get dressed. I can do more training later - though I need to be up earlier for what I have planned. I have a dojo to visit, after all.

. . .

'Finally found it,' I let out a sigh, wondering how they ever expected people to find this place. It wasn't exactly hidden or anything...but there were, like, no signs pointing to where it was. It wasn't even on my phone's map or anything. So, in the end, I had to lean on my people's skills and ask around about a Dojo full of eccentric martial artists.

Funnily enough, when I asked about it, most people actually knew. Mainly because of Akisame Koetsuji's medical help being remembered by most of the people he helped.

...Though there was quite a lot of people who complained to me about noise complaints as well.

Probably due to Sakaki or Apachai, if I had to guess.

Well, it doesn't really matter in the end. I eventually found the place and I just found myself in awe of the place.

Something all my talent upgrades, and even my [Berserker Body] talent, did was they upgraded my instincts to keep up with my talent. And honestly? Just looking at this place is giving me chills. Like it's some sort of horrific dragon's den. Every cell in body is telling me to run but...'What'd be the point of that? Nobody got strong through being a coward, did they?' I laughingly thought to myself before pushing on the doors.

It was extremely heavy and pushing it felt like pushing a ten tonne boulder up a hill. But it was slowly making movement and once it was in motion, pushing it was much, much easier. But still, it was quite a hard thing for me with my E- Ranked Strength.

My stats followed the same system as my skills and talents. That being that F was equal to a normal human, E was equal to an athletic human or a Low-class Disciple, D was equal to a Middle-class Disciple or a Peak Human and C was equal to a High-class Disciple or a person who'd broken humanities normal limits and became a superhuman. So, right now, with the strength of only an athletic human, opening this massive door was a real hassle.

Though I could feel it working my muscles out. Maybe if I did this a few more times my strength might improve a little?

Internal joke aside, I got the door open enough for me to squeeze through and once inside, I stood there, thinking of the best way to approach this whole thing.

I really didn't want to get captured and brutalized by one of the masters because they through I was a burglar or something. So, instead, I chose to make my presence as known as possible - I sucked in a lung full of air and then shouted out.

'Brilliant idea, Seth. You impress me day by day...you blathering bloody idiot,' I thought, chiding myself as I began to shout.

But before I could even begin to shout, a tall and incredibly brawny man walked out of a nearby door holding a bottle of alcohol. I looked at him and he looked at me.

Huh.