Having finished signing up for the purple belt tournament at Barbosa's, Ben turned around when he heard a familiar voice.
"Hey, Valentina, you going to compete against me today? I promise not to go too hard on you." Nick smirked as he looked down at the Brazilian beauty in her pink gi.
*Snort* Valentina frowned at him. How could she compete against him? She was a brown belt, a higher rank than him. This was him mocking her that she couldn't defeat him. Yet, there was nothing she could do about it, because it was true! She didn't have a way to deal with him, and could only gnash her teeth as this bastard mocked her in the open. 'I could wipe the mats with this brute, if only I wasn't a woman…'
It was a thought she often had, but something she couldn't change. Nature made it so that she was weaker. Yet, while nature took sometimes, it also gave; in her case, huge tits, ass, and even thicker legs… Getting a view of her backside now, Ben was almost paying attention to the scene aspiring in front of him. Did nature give to her or to him? It was unclear…
In any case, he sensed this was an opportunity as he stepped forward. "You don't need to worry about her. I'll be knocking you out of the tournament today."
Seeing the short Ben step towards him with confidence, Nick couldn't help but chuckle. He'd almost torn this shrimp's arm out of its socket only a few days ago. The difference between them wasn't something Ben could make up for with such little time. In fact, Nick believed it was something Ben could never make up for! Besides, there was an even bigger issue. "Kid, aren't you a white belt? What you talkin' about?"
Ben looked at Nick's waist, at the purple belt with four black stripes. Not only was this giant the biggest and strongest purple belt in the gym, but he was close to reaching brown himself, possessing every advantage on Ben in terms of his physique and skill level. Yet, Ben had a way to even the odds. "Don't worry about that. You'll be seeing me soon."
Shaking his head with a smug grin, Nick couldn't even take Ben seriously. This was a waste of his time. So he turned around to leave. However, right at that moment, Ben reached into the pocket of his gi pants and held onto something—a dry paper scroll.
[Stat Steal(Magical Skill Scroll, Consumable, Fine) x1 – Use to steal one point of a chose stat from someone and apply it to yourself for a period of 3 hours]
Before Nick could leave, Ben activated it with his mind.
[Stat Steal activated]
[Target locked]
[Choose a stat to steal]
For a moment, Ben considered selecting looks, but soon shook his head when he realized getting a sudden tan wouldn't help him much at this moment… So instead, he went with his original plan—choosing personal talent!
[Stat chosen: Personal talent]
[Commencing steal]
At that moment, Nick stopped midstep as he was about to walk away, and shook his head, as a strange feeling overtook him. If he had to describe it, it was as if he became a little bit more of a waste…
[Target's personal talent -1]
[Duration of debuff: 02:59:58]
Meanwhile, Ben experienced a surge of energy in his mind, as he felt his understanding of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, photography, cursing, and more useless things solidify and sharpen.
[Host's personal talent +1]
[Duration of buff: 02:59:56]
Ben's eyes flashed. This was a rare opportunity. He needed to take full advantage of these three hours while he was at Barbosa's during this BJJ tournament. So he glanced at Valentina. "You want to go take photos?"
"F*ck off!"
…
He shrugged as she walked away. 'Guess we'll go with the backup plan…'
Since he couldn't get what he really wanted, he'd just have to make up for it by smacking Nick around. Pulling up his system menu and navigating through it with his thoughts, Ben soon looked at his personal talent stat.
[Personal Talent: 8(+1) – Temporarily not a waste]
…
It wasn't much of a compliment but it was about as good as he could get from the system so Ben accepted it with stride. More important than that, now, he believed he could accomplish his goal, because compared to his technique level in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu before, moving up from a 7 to 8, was a huge difference!
Still, he'd have to experience it on the mats to see if it was really as big a boost as he believed it would be. Luckily, he would soon have that opportunity, because the tournaments—were starting!
The white, blue, purple, and brown belts all separated to different rooms or areas, their tournaments segregated in tiers by the colors of their belts. So a few minutes later, when everyone had separated into their partitioned zones, Ben couldn't avoid being an eyesore amongst the crowd of purple belts—a random white belt in a guacamole gi…
Many of the purple belts who'd heard his earlier conversations with Fariq and Valentina showed expressions of even bigger disbelief, realizing he wasn't kidding. Even so, they somehow doubted it, as if this was some kind of prank and Ashton Kutcher would pop out from somewhere…
However, when Ben's name was called and he stepped towards the mats, ready to begin his first match with the referee not stopping him, they realized this was real, and showed various expressions of surprise, which soon turned into ridicule. In any case, even if he pulled some strings to get into this tournament, not a single person gave him a chance, that is, except for a few scattered amongst the audience:
Fariq who smiled with confidence.
Valentina who showed a complicated expression.
And Corey the priest, who was injured, so was watching the higher belt tournament to learn. When he saw Ben, however, Corey remembered the beatings he'd taken in those white belt classes… Even worse than that though were the tongue-lashings…
This twisted boy simply had the mouth of the devil…
In fact, after a few of those classes, Corey had almost lost his religion.
…
So as the priest watched Ben about to consume the souls of a new batch of innocents, he looked up at the ceiling…and prayed. 'May God have mercy on their souls…'
