12 Jack Murdock
After a short bus ride, I reach what you could call the bad part of town. I have to traverse through some real shifty alleyways to even reach the gym. No wonder this place isn't more popular, those who want to learn how to fight probably wouldn't even reach the gym in the first place.
In just the few short minutes it took me to walk here, I almost got mugged twice. In both cases, I let the mugger drag me aside out of view from the others, where I proceeded to knock them out and lift them into a dumpster. In combination with them being drunk, the now functioning spider-sense lets me dodge their knife attacks quite easily.
The two muggers gifted me a total of 2 xp. It's not a lot, but every little bit helps.
When I finally reach the gym, there is no sign of a receptionist in the front, instead, there is a box with labeled keys and a letter telling me to take a key and find a locker with the same number as the key to store my stuff in.
I take one and change into my workout clothes, putting the rest of my stuff in the locker. Just in case someone tries to rob me while I am in the gym, I put my wallet, phone, and keys into my inventory.
Entering the training hall, I see a big muscular man hitting a boxing bag. Using observe on him, I identify him as Jack Murdock. The gym itself has a startling amount of equipment for working out. If not for the run-down look of the walls, I would almost be tricked into thinking this is a popular or profitable place.
Of course, this place is not popular at all as the only people here are Jack and a kid sitting on the bench in the back reading a book in braille.
"Hey kid, are you, uh… Peter Parker? I just saw the message that you were coming over, but I didn't expect you to be here so soon." Jack stops hitting the boxing bag and walks over to me, extending his right hand for a handshake.
I reach forward and shake his hand as hard as I can but end up losing, coming out of this confrontation with a hurting hand. Jack seems to appreciate the effort nonetheless as he gives me a big smile. I wonder what his guy's strength stat is because that hurt like hell, and it looked like he was going easy on me.
"Yeah, I wanted to learn how to fight, and this was one of the cheapest options available, so here I am." Money problems is the excuse I'm going with for picking this place over other arguably better options, the price for learning here was relatively cheap.
Jack furrowed his brows. "Learn to fight? Kid, you should be having your nose in the books, not getting it bloodied in a fight. Why don't you take my advice and just go home, focus on math or law or something similar."
What? I already paid, you're not scamming me that easily. "I know, I know I just want to learn some self-defense. You know how bad the crime rate is around this city, it wouldn't hurt to know some techniques."
He nods and starts walking back toward the fighting ring with boxing bags, I follow behind. "Alright, I can understand that. Still, I want to test you out first." He throws some boxing gloves and one of those soft helmets at me and tells me to put them on, he does the same.
"Imagine I was a thug coming at you with a knife. Show me what you would do." Jack says, getting in a fighting position.
Is this a trick question? I think I've seen this on youtube and in movies before, so I already know the correct answer. I turn around and run away at my fastest speed until I reach the wall.
"Good, good." Jack says, calling me back over, "Always run away when you can, no need to risk your life for no reason. However, if you do need to fight, I can teach you how."
I walk back over to Jack, who has now agreed to teach me. What I didn't expect was to get a punch to the face as soon as I reached him, knocking me down to the ground. He clearly didn't put much force into it since it only took off two health, but damn was that fast.
Spider-sense triggered to warn me about it, but I just didn't have enough time to react, and even if I did, my body wouldn't be fast enough to dodge that.
I get back up. "Ow, what was that supposed to teach me?"
He punches again but this time much slower. Slow enough for spider-sense to warn me and let me sidestep. "I'm teaching you how to get hit and how to not get hit. The best strategy is to just evade anything thrown at you, but as a backup, you need to be able to get back up no matter what."
He continued throwing punches at me, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. In the beginning, I wasn't able to dodge most of them, but as time went on, I started getting better. After a few hours, Jack switched over to teaching me some techniques to fight back.
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"Well, Peter, I think that's enough for today. I have to say I'm impressed at how quickly you're picking up on things. I have never seen someone improve so quickly." Jack says after 8 hours of practice. "Not many can be knocked down so much and keep getting up. You have some real talent."
To be honest, he looks more tired than me. Thanks to him stopping to explain things often, I had time to recover my stamina, never completely running out. At some point, he had even started calling me Peter instead of kid.
The training session had been fruitful for me with a gain of 4 strength, 2 vitality, 6 endurance, and a whole 11 dexterity. It's a fantastic feeling whenever my stats increase because I can clearly feel myself growing stronger by the hour.
In addition to stats, I had also leveled up my spider sense three times and gained a few new skills.
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[Physical Damage Reduction - Passive] (Level 4 - 4%)
The body's durability increases, reducing physical damage taken by 2%.
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[Hand to Hand Combat - Passive] (Level 11 - 33%)
Increases damage dealt in unarmed combat by 11%.
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For the first time, I finally get some numbers on how much a skill actually helps me. It still doesn't tell me everything a skill does, though, because I could feel myself getting significantly better every time my Hand to Hand Combat leveled up, and that isn't mentioned in the description at all.
"I have my own boxing matches and training to worry about as well, so how about you drop by… I don't know, three times a week? I'm sure we can figure out some sort of a schedule." Jack says as we both take off our fighting gear.
We decide that I can come over any Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for training if I wish, and if I am for some reason (spiderman reason) busy, I will just call him and let him know that I am not coming.
He is charging me monthly, so it's not like he is losing out on any money if I skip some days.
"Can you let me know when you have matches beforehand? I would like to watch some." I ask him, and he happily nods.
I remember him dying in some rigged boxing match in the comics, but I don't remember any details, so I will have to keep my eyes open if I want to save him. Unfortunately, I never watched any of the marvel tv series, so I don't know what happened to him there, but I would imagine it's the same.
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[New Quest - Rigged Match]
[Description - Save Jack Murdock from getting killed in the rigged match]
[Failiure condition - Death of Jack Murdock]
[Reward - +10 levels, 25 Free Stat Points]
[Failiure - All stats -25, Removal of Hand to Hand Combat skill]
[ACCEPT?]
[YES / NO]
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The failure penalty is troubling, but I wasn't planning on failing anyways, so I accepted the quest.
After that, I say bye to Jack and little Matt, who has been sitting in the back the whole day, and leave. On the way home, I stop by a nearby park to complete my daily training quest, putting my three free stat points into intelligence.
