23 Hit the road Jack

Jack walked away from the warehouse with mixed feelings. He felt good about his martial art knowledge although he lacked battle experience since his opponents, for now, were even dumber than the Nazi guy. You could not expect to get battle experience from an artificial intelligence which basically always behaves the same way, and there is no pressure on you even when you are facing death.

Facing Muerte would be much more terrible than facing the orc warriors. Even though the orc warriors with a good AI could make mincemeat out of Muerte in the trials, they were just big dumb guys with predictable movements which were there for Jack to abuse as he pleased.

Jack needed an adaptable opponent who won't pummel him half to death if he loses the fight to raise his battle awareness. He decided he needs to join a martial arts school or even more than one of them as soon as possible. Going to the underground fights was not an option for him. He knew nobody there, and the feeling of insecurity of what would happen next was not enjoyable.

For all, he knew the Salvadorans and Chinese gangs' confrontation could have ended in a shootout. Jack decided to avoid future trouble and never go there again. Well, at least until he was bulletproof.

He quickly reached the L train stop, and he was lucky since it came just a minute after him.

As he was riding the train, he imagined who he would least like to face from the four fighters. Nazi was easy, and even Jack with his current abilities could snap him like a twig. Muerte also didn't seem like a worthy opponent since other than brute size and strength he didn't have much going for him. Jack could have probably pushed him off himself even if he got clinched like the

Chinese guy Long.

Long and Johnson were the most problematic- They were fast, and they had technique. The only reason Long lost was that he was too complacent. Jack could not define Johnson's capabilities since the fight was over too fast.

"Long and Johnson," Jack cringed at the two names since Johnson was slang for penis.

Jack soon came to his stop and decided to walk around some more. He googled martial arts dojos near him and found quite a few that were not too far away.

It was 9.30 pm, and after an eventful day, Jack decided to just go home and start exploring the dojos tomorrow.

Jack went to the bathroom took a shower and looked at himself in the mirror. He was looking good. Well, at least a lot better than in the morning. His gaunt and sickly appearance from the morning was almost entirely gone. His arms and legs became thicker. His ribs were less prominent, and cheekbones lost their edge.

Jack checked his stats.

Name: Jack "Doggie" Russel

Strength: 10

Constitution:8

Endurance:10

Speed:9

Dexterity:8

Perception:8

Intelligence:10

Wisdom:9

Willpower:9

Charisma:5

Luck: ???

His charisma got another point up since he looked a bit less like a starving person.

"Soon I will be back to my old self," Jack thought.

As he went to bed, early Jack woke up at 5 am. He was surprised when looking at the time, since even if World War III had started, it would be hard to get him out of bed before 8 am a week ago, no matter how early he went to bed the next day. Sleeping was one of his favorite activities. Well, it was no wonder since sleeping and doing tedious work like coding were basically his whole life for the last 7 years.

He got up and went to the bathroom, and as he checked himself in the mirror, he noticed a notable improvement since last night. He brushed his teeth and went to work.

He made a list of all the dojos, training halls and sports centers in a 3-mile radius (5 km).

Jack decided he will first visit the martial arts dojos. As he looked through their websites, he noticed a problem. Most of them only operated in the afternoon.

There was only one close enough for aikido that opened at 10 am. Jack decided to visit it.

He didn't get any aikido books when he hunted for martial art books in the bookshops and libraries, but he knew about aikido from the Guide to martial arts. It was a mainly defensive martial art with an emphasis on using your opponent's strength against him using leverage.

Jack had time to kill so to avoid looking at the clock he started to clean his house. He vacuumed, wiped the floors, disposed of the garbage…

When he came to clean the bathroom and wanted to clean the toilet, he frowned. He remembered he did not use the toiled since the synchronization ended. Considering the amount of food, he ate yesterday he should be bloated. Constipation was no longer a plausible reason. Even more concerning was that he didn't even go to pee once since then.

"Well, it's not the weirdest thing that has happened this week and shitting and peeing was not my favorite things anyway." Jack just shrugged it off.

Jack paid the 2in1 promotional fee for classes online and had to be there at 9.30 am to get his kimono or gi as they call it. Two months of classes were 100$ and one month of classes was 100$, so it was the sensible thing to do. It was 7.30 am, and he decided to revisit the pancake place for breakfast.

Last time he was here he ate 60 pancakes, and the cashier was the same, so Jack got a nasty look straight away.

Through gritted teeth, the cashier asked: "Welcome to the Unicorn pancake house. How may I help you?"

Jack was not famished this morning, so he didn't mean to cause trouble, but once he saw the expression on the pimply faced student he could not help himself: "Give me an All you can eat unicorn pancake bonanza and an extra-large super duper chocolate unicorn milkshake!"

»That would be 29.95$. Anything else?« the cashier replied as he slammed a big pink plate with a winking unicorn on a tray and turned around to make the milkshake.

»No. That would be all,« Jack replied as he handed over 30$, »Thank you.«

The cashier put the milkshake on the tray and wanted to serve another customer right away, but Jack was still in front of his station.

"Can I help you with anything else!?" the cashier almost yelled.

"I am waiting for my change," Jack extended one hand.

The cashier looked at him with an angry expression, but then he just grabbed the 5 cents and threw it in his palm.

"You think you are funny." yelled the cashier.

"No, but you are Mr. Unicorn pancakes employee of the month." Jack pointed at the wall with the cashier's picture on it.

Jack just turned around and found a seat and start munching away. He needed to break the 65 pancakes record and get to the Aikido training Centre until 9.30 am so he was in a hurry.