17 Sparring

Once Steve stood in front of John, he realized he might have made a big mistake. He had been training hard for the past month, but...

'This guy is fucking HUGE!! Why did I even decide to spar with him? His muscles are at least three times bigger than mine...' Steve became miserable as he figured he should have been more careful selecting his sparring partner.

As he was thinking about his bad decision, John suddenly dashed forwards and tried to jab him. Steve was only barely able to dodge the punch.

'Lesson 1 was actually useful...I should thank Cara for that later,' Steve thought. He was quite happy he had put the few attribute points he had gained so far into his dexterity. Without them, he wouldn't have been able to dodge it.

After dodging the punch, he quickly got into a fighting stance. John didn't really give him much time to get used to the situation, as he was continuously throwing punches at Steve. He was holding nicely but was unable to return any punches back. All Steve could currently do was dodging and blocking.

After a minute of sparring, he felt like John was slowing down his relentless assault.

'Maybe his arms are getting heavy?' Steve remembered watching some boxing on TV back on earth. There usually was a time when a boxer would take a moment to rest and lower his pace.

Steve grasped this chance with open arms and tried to go on the offensive. He started returning punches, aimed at John's head. Unfortunately, Steve's punches were too slow and rough. He never got close to hitting him. John was able to dodge all the punches easily. Nonetheless, John was quite surprised at the power in those punches. He couldn't let any of them hit him, or he'd pay a hefty price.

Cara was watching them spar from a distance. 'Steve's punches may be amateurish, but at least his defense is pretty good.'

After 5 minutes of intensive fighting, both of the men took a break from their sparring session. Both men, especially Steve, were panting quite heavily.

"Quite impressive for having never sparred before," John muttered, "let's move on to swords next, shall we?"

"What, too scared of my fists, big guy?" Steve taunted him.

John was quite affected by the taunt, but Steve had no eye for him anymore... He noticed a message on his retina and read the message immediately,

[Ding!]

[You have gained a new skill: Taunt ]

[Taunt (level 1) (passive skill): By talking badly about your opponent, you are able to anger them so much they will only have you as their target. When angered, your opponent might lose reason. Train this skill by angering your opponents.]

'Another skill?' he started laughing, 'I have gained so many skills in the last few days! I love you system! And this skill is actually easy to train too!'

"Hey big musclebrain, come at me! Are you too tired to carry on?" he shouted.

"Your punches are so light, that even my mom could fight you!" he continued.

'I wonder if it's giving me experience...'

Not long after thinking that, Steve was knocked out cold.

---

"What an idiot..." Olivia said, looking down at the knocked out Steve. "Did he really start insulting John? The John known for his rash behavior?"

"... I believe he did..." Cara replied.

"Looks like we're going to have to train his brains too, not just his body..." Butch said with a sigh. "Since he likes reading so much, we should just leave him a note and let him recover on his own."

---

When Steve woke up, he tried to recollect what happened. He couldn't remember anything at all! That is... up until he found the note next to him.

[Lesson 3: DON'T TAUNT YOUR ENEMY WHEN YOU'RE NOT CAPABLE OF BEATING THEM! AND IF YOU DO, AT LEAST BE SMART ENOUGH TO PAY ATTENTION!

PS: If you're really looking for a beating, just ask Cara. She will gladly fulfill your desires.]

"..."

'I guess I should be more careful when trying to raise my taunt skill... I probably shouldn't try it on my companions, or at least I should keep my attention on my opponent while in a fight... Lesson 1 & 3 are valuable...'

[Ding!]

[+1 intelligence!]

[PS: You finally managed to think something smart! You have now reached the intelligence level of a toddler!]

"..."

'WHY WOULD INTELLIGENCE EVEN WORK LIKE THAT??!!' he sobbed, as he got up to return to the training field.

"Well if it isn't weak, little Steve... Come looking for another beating?" John asked while cracking his knuckles. It appeared he was still somewhat angry at the insults he had received. Steve for once, was smart enough to ignore the provocation. He realized he should be more careful with the guy, as he was too easily provoked.

Cara arrived before any more trouble could arise, "Just practice with Tom for now, I can only hope you don't start insulting your roommate as well..." she pointed at Tom.

Steve nodded, somewhat embarrassed, and went towards his newly appointed sparring partner. He didn't fail to see the glare John gave him as he walked away.

"You okay there Steve? It looked you took quite a beating there," Tom asked.

"I'm fine, I just forgot to... block his punch..." he said while scratching his head.

"Good to hear you're fine, care to test our sword skills?"

Tom was the second to last recruit, only having been here 2 weeks longer than Steve. He didn't get much more training than Steve did, meaning that the two of them would probably make a better sparring duo.

"Sure," Steve replied as he went and grabbed 2 wooden swords. He threw one to Tom, and gestured to start the fight.

They started off carefully, probing each others strength. Steve could hear his sword making a clapping noise as it met its counterpart.

For outsiders, it would look like the two were having a swordfight like two little kids would on a playground. Cara was quite surprised though...

'It looks like he has greatly advanced in getting control over his sword. You can tell he's been training hard. He might not be a hopeless case after all... Unfortunately, he's swinging his sword around like an idiot. I should get Butch to train him.' she thought.

CRACK

'What was that noise?' most of the people on the training grounds thought.

Tom stood there, dumbfounded. His sword had split into two.

"..."

The surrounding agents were bewildered, did Steve just break split the other wooden sword, using a... wooden sword?

The one that was most surprised, was Steve himself. How did that even happen? He was just casually swinging his sword around... Where did that power come from?!