Surprising Ken

Nothing too notable happened in school to Ryu today, per his normal routine he was heading to the gym after school. Today was the day he would attend a class at the gym, Ken had signed him up for Muay Thai on Thursdays.

"Quests," Ryu thought as he was walking into the gym.

As he thought this, a display screen appeared in front of him.

[Quests]

[Daily Quest]

[Complete exercise requirements (incomplete)]

[Complete Muay Thai class (incomplete)]

[Rewards: Stat Point, Muay Thai Mastery Level Up, 300 XP]

[Time Limit: 1 Day]

[Emergency Quest]

[Survive the fight against Kenzo (incomplete)]

[Win the fight against Kenzo (Optional, Increases Rewards)]

[Rewards: Stat Points, Random Specialization, Random Skill, 500 XP]

"Today I have a pretty good quest, if I continue at this rate then I'll definitely put Kenzo down once and for all," thought Ryu as he entered the gym, gloating at his recent success.

After he entered into the gym, he exited from the quests tab. He was ready to get a good workout in before class.

"Hey, still up for some Muay Thai after your workout?" Ken said to Ryu as he was entering into the weightlifting area of the gym. 

"Yeah, man, can't wait to show you how much I improved," said Ryu, seemingly overconfident in his abilities from Ken's perspective.

"Slow down tiger, you can't have gotten that good in a week," said Ken.

"Just wait and see," said Ryu as he walked over to the first machine he needed for his workout.

After he had finished his workout he heard the familiar ding, telling him he had completed part of his daily quest.

He had some downtime between the gym and class, so he hit the bathroom and took a quick shower. After he was done, he threw on a clean pair of athletic clothes and headed out to the corner of the gym where the class was normally held.

As he was waiting, the old instructor did not appear today, instead it seemed that Ken was going to be the lead instructor for today's lesson. As Ryu looked around, this class seemed less popular than the first time he took it, only about 10 people were standing there waiting for class to start.

"Alright, small crowd, but I bet this is all who's going to show up today," said Ken, seemingly dejected.

"Last class we went over most of the basics, since all of you are beginners, today we will advance some of our techniques, specifically we will be focusing on sparring for the beginning of today's lesson, can I get a volunteer?" said Ken to the members of the class.

"I'll go," said Ryu with confidence.

"Alright, we got a go-getter today, Muay Thai might not be my best art, but I'm not too bad, so let's see how you do," said Ken, figuring that he could use Ryu to teach examples to the rest of the class by pointing out flaws in his technique.

Although Ken felt bad as using Ryu as a "bad" example of Muay Thai, it was Ryu's fault that he volunteered to go first.

"Alright let's get you protective gear, and we'll go and head into the ring," said Ken.

With that Ken and Ryu walked over to where the protective gear was and got suited up.

The protective gear was a little uncomfortable to Ryu and limited some of his range of motion, but nevertheless he'd rather be safe than comfortable.

Once both of them had gotten geared up they headed back into the ring and went to opposite sides.

"Alright, start whenever you are ready Ryu, no pressure," said Ken with a slight chuckle at the end.

"Alright, just don't be mad when you realize you were underestimating me," said Ryu adding some fuel to the fire.

With that Ryu assumed his Muay Thai form of Muay Bouk, because of this his agility doubled, making him extremely fast and agile.

He darted towards Ken at speed that surprised Ryu, Ken, and the entire audience. Once he was within range of Ken, he threw a jab, then responded with a kick that led into an elbow strike. This fury of strikes continued and as Ken tried to fight back, he was overwhelmed by the sheer number and speed of the attacks.

After about 3 minutes in the ring, Ken was too tired to continue, and Ryu was seemingly unaffected by their short spar.

"When the hell did you learn how to do that, and when the hell were you so fast Ryu?" said Ken, after that fight he felt his reaction speed was lacking for the first time in all of his fighting experience.

"Haha, I've just been practicing using some videos, and have been doing some cardio, you know, the basics," Ryu said being braggadocious, despite acting humble.

"Alright, well, even though Ryu did a great job against me, there are some things we can learn from him. First off, his form is pretty good, right, but the way he uses torque when fighting isn't optimized, and he could put a lot more power into his blows if he properly used momentum and torque," said Ken, analyzing the fight between him and Ryu.

"To properly utilize your momentum and torque, you need to integrate your hips, back, and rotation into your blows. This allows you to produce more power than your body normally would be able to generate, allowing for you to take down much bigger targets than you," said Ken.

With that Ken proceeded to spar everyone else in the crowd, nobody did quite as well as Ryu, but there were definitely some talents in there since not everyone had a powerful system to help them out.

After this Ken did one on one with everyone, finally it was Ryu's turn.

"Hey man, I hope you know I wasn't trying to lower your confidence; you did great, I just am here to help you become even greater," said Ken in an apologetic tone.

"Don't worry, it didn't get to me, we all have ways we can improve even if we've already improved a lot," said Ryu, his tone indicated he didn't care much about the matter.

"Alright, so going over how to utilize momentum and torque, do you see how when I strike, I don't just strike with my back or my legs, I throw a punch in one fluid motion with the momentum carrying all the way from the top of my back to the balls of my feet," said Ken, demonstrating how to throw a better punch.

"Alright, let me try that," said Ryu.

On his first attempt he almost fell over trying to replicate his movement. Both him and Ken started laughing at how goofy his punch looked.

After a couple more tries, Ryu started to get the hang of it.

"Alright, now add more power behind it, throw it with the same strength as you normally do," said Ken, pointing out Ryu's apprehension to punch at full power.

With that he tried to punch using his full strength while utilizing his body, his stability struggled a bit towards the end, but he managed to keep himself upright.

"Wow, that had so much more power than my normal punch, that it was hard to keep myself standing straight," said Ryu.

"Yeah, that's how it feels when you utilize your full force, you need to learn to be able to move your body with the residual momentum and carry it into your next strike, dodge, or attack, once you can fight fluidly like that, it's almost as if you're dancing," said Ken.

"Furthermore, you can utilize momentum in your kicks, dodges, and blocks, in some cases leaning into punches and kicks can deflect force from them," said Ken.

"Damn, I didn't realize how important all of this was, they never explain momentum online," said Ryu, seemingly left starstruck by realizing how much he was missing out on.

After that, he spent the rest of the class practicing momentum by himself, once he had gotten the hang of it, he started stringing combos together utilizing torque and momentum. Some of the patrons stopped practicing and looked over at Ryu, it seemed as if he was dancing.

After he had finished the class, Ken approached him.

"You did a great job today; you know were holding a real MMA tournament, I don't think you're quite ready yet to be sponsored by us to participate, but you should join our MMA team, we hold practices every Wednesday," said Ken.

"Alright, I'll definitely do that, do you want my new phone number to add me to the group chat or whatever you use for communication?" said Ryu.

"Yeah, sure," said Ken.

With that they traded phone numbers and went their separate ways after saying goodbye.

As he started walking towards his house he heard a familiar ding, indicating he had received a notification.

[You have received an enlightenment, implementing momentum and torque exceptionally into your arts in such a short amount of time is nothing less than a miracle. You have proven to the system you are worthy, because of this the system will offer you a new feature. Newly added to the system, is the system shop, you will now be able to earn credits which can be spent in this shop. In this shop you can buy martial arts guides, books, and you can also buy tools and tonics that will help you on your MMA journey.]

[P.S. No, you will not receive a starting bonus of credits, you're starting at zero, buddy.]

"I guess my system isn't very altruistic, no starting credits, but that's sick as hell I'll have to check it out later," thought Ryu to himself.

After that Ryu opened his quests tab and claimed his rewards, with that Ryu thought to himself, "Status."

[Host: Ryu]

[Level 8: 300/800 XP]

[Strength: 15]

[Intelligence: 10]

[Appearance: 11]

[Agility: 15]

[Unspent Stat Points: 1]

[Health Status: Average, you're basically the most painfully normal human, nobody goes out of their way to think about you, whether that be negatively or positively.]

[A normal human's attributes range from 10-15 in each category.]

[Skills: Regeneration, Hyper Focus, Hyper-Extension, Examine, Enraged]

[Arts: Boxer Puncher Level 2, Muay Bouk Level 2, Kickboxing Mastery Level 1, Judo Mastery Level 1]

"Invest 1 stat point into agility," thought Ryu as he examined his stats.

After that he was done grinding for the day and decided instead to work on his homework and be a student for once.