Friends, Enemies and Everything In Between

Jacob's eyes slowly opened, revealing a vaguely familiar ceiling.

A sigh emerged from him as he realised he was once again waking up in a different location after blacking out.

He was getting more used to such a scenario than he wanted.

A quick check-in with analysis reminded him of the origin of the ceiling, the infirmary.

The last thing he remembered was flipping off Victor after socking him square in the face, he didn't know how he got here or how long he had been asleep.

Luckily his ability helped him with one of those facts, he had been unconscious for a little over an hour.

Just enough time for the class to have finished, which he supposed he would now have to catch up on.

"Ah, seems yer awake" a brass voice came from the doorway.

It was Professor Macdonald.

"Alanna checked ya for wounds, says it was mostly scrapes and bruises, main reason ya passed out was mana deficiency." He continued.

Well, at least he now knew first-hand what happened when he used up all his mana. He had heard about it in class, but theoretical knowledge rarely has the same impact as practical experience.

"I know ya head must be killing ya, but there's some things I gotta tell ya first" the Scottish professor began.

"From what I can tell ya have at least some training, which is better than nothing but other than that it's bad news."

Jacob held his breath slightly, being told there was bad news coming never really made him feel better, it just made him wonder how bad the news had to be to warrant a forewarning.

"Ya got no fightin' talent" The man's voice struck him like a bag of bricks, he never really assumed he would be an amazing fighter, but he at least thought he would be decent enough to get by.

"But, I- I managed to get a hit off before I blacked out!" Jacob tried to justify, already connecting the dots and realising his teacher's response as he said it.

"Aye, but that's where the problem is, from start to finish you didn't ever change it up, ya just kept trying the same moves and even when ya got hit ya tried it again. I'm sure you've seen tv shows where the good guy wins that way but in reality, it's different. Ya need to be able to adapt based on who you're fighting and if something fails then try something else. The only reason I'm keeping ya in class is cus at the end ya finally pulled yourself together and started thinking bout how to win rather than how to fight" The large main monologued.

Contrary to his demeanour he had taken serious consideration to how Jacob had fought and gotten a good grasp of his skills.

To be frank, even his final attack hadn't been the result of Jacob actually understanding something but instead came from that slow-motion world he had entered along with the counter-combat system being activated.

Without using both of those he would have stood no chance.

Which meant one thing.

Jacob had no talent for fighting.

Although this was a problem, he didn't consider it a serious one.

His combat system ability should be able to make up for it somewhat and his new ability seemed to help with his reaction speed problem.

Provided he didn't try and make a living by fighting other dreamers he should be fine.

His ability wasn't made for combat in the first place, and he got the feeling the combat system was more or less to cover its absolute lack of offensive measures.

A short conversation about the next class and how he would be taking a more backseat approach to his training ensued and soon enough his teacher bid him farewell.

There was a silver lining to the situation, he had passed out but the symptoms of mana deficiently were much less dramatic than had been described to him.

According to his general knowledge class, mana deficiency should cause major sluggishness, lack of motivation and a general loss of desire. When it got to the point of blacking out it caused large headaches.

But he had experienced very little in the way of the first few symptoms and no headache whatsoever.

A short rapport with analysis revealed that his ability naturally mitigated some of these negative effects when necessary.

What qualified as necessary seemed arbitrary but Jacob narrowed it down to events that he put a certain level of emphasis on.

For example on the plane when he had casually used his mana to the point of near depletion he had experienced the usual lack of motivation.

But when he was fighting Victor he had a clear, defined and immediate goal which analysis used as some sort of shield against the negative effects.

Although he still felt some of the effects, the unexpected benefit was enough to put a smile on his face.

"Waking up from mana deficiency with a smile? Well, I can't blame you after seeing the look on little Vin's face" a feminine voice came from the door.

A quick look revealed two people, first was his roommate Shin which he somewhat expected.

What he didn't expect was the owner of the voice, Victoria.

She was standing in the doorway as well with a large smile on her face, looking at Jacob with clear goodwill.

"Well, I must admit it was some of my best work, 'fucknuckkle' however, could have used some workshopping" joked Jacob, trying to figure out why she was visiting him.

Just as he finished the curtain next to his bed was forcefully pulled aside, revealing another familiar face. Ressana, the wild girl from his general classes.

"Fucknuckkle? Really? Right after you punched that arrogant blond virgin's face? HAHAHAHA, I would have killed to see that! Right, from now on we're friends, and friends tell each other everything, therefore I need details about exactly what he looked like when it happened."

The ball of energy and violence had managed to ask a question, change their relationship from strangers to friends and then ask for a favour all in one breath. Impressive to say the least.

It turned out Ressana was in the infirmary after getting into a fight after another dreamer hit on her, which immediately led to violence.

Funnily enough, she didn't seem particularly mad about being hit on, just that she lost the fight.

Apparently, she too had seen Victor around the campus once or twice, noticing his general demeanour and eventually personally experiencing it.

He had asked her out with what Jaocb would describe as 'less than gentlemanly means'. Ressana on the other hand called them cheap one-liners and self-entitled arrogance.

Needless to say, after getting a full dose of the bully's toxic personality she was quite pleased at his humiliation.

Apparently, after Jacob had blacked out Victor had wanted to continue the fight, stating that Jacob was faking it. But had been stopped by the teacher, leading Shin to take him to the infirmary.

Afterwards, Victor was sent out of the class and barred from participating in future, reduced to the role of an observer.

Considering the pride the prick had displayed, Jacob doubted he'd be coming back anytime soon.

All of this was much to the delight of Victoria, who seemed to have even more animosity towards the arrogant blowhard than the rest of them combined. 

She practically relished in describing his face and reaction when Jacob had hit him and then when he had been asked to leave the class as punishment.

It was to the point that even the bad blood between her and Shin wasn't enough to keep her from congratulating Jacob on his performance.

Jacob suspected she was a bit of a sadist, but she seemed really friendly, if somewhat arrogant. Well, to everyone but Shin who she still seemed hostile to.

Shin himself had come to the infirmary because Jacob was quite possibly his only real positive relationship at the university.

His silent personality wasn't particularly suited for being a social butterfly.

One of the topics broached was his skills. Or lack thereof.

Thankfully all three of them agreed to take a little time to train outside of class as a group, since they wanted to improve and wouldn't be allowed to use combat abilities in class they wanted somewhere where they could get used to fighting all out, and Jacob really wanted the data.

Ressana hadn't signed up for a combat-based class since she wanted to use her elective for a spirit connection improvement. Jacob was a little surprised given her personality but when he mentioned it she just laughed him off.

While his new training buddies talked, he zoned out slightly.

He had finally decided to check out how exactly he had slowed time before.

[Overclock: overclock sensory input and increase mental processing speed]

[10x (Current MAX) = 5 mps (mana per second)]

[Low usage example: 1.5x = 0.5 mps]

A couple of back and forth with the system later and he had a rough idea about what exactly his new skill could do.

It was actually pretty simple.

His ability overclocked his brain and senses so that he could temporarily create the illusion of time slowing down, allowing him to think.

His body couldn't move faster so it didn't grant him superspeed, but it did let him plan his next move.

From what he could tell the degree of dilation was based on his mana.

In the fight, he had activated it at full power which he could only do for 20 seconds even at full mana. That had slowed down time to a 10th of its usual speed. Meaning each second seemed like 10.

But if he wanted to, he could use it as lightly as he could which would only slow down time so that each second would appear as 1.1 seconds, more time than most people had but not enough to make a massive difference.

Another thing he made sure to clarify was that the 'seconds' referred to real-time rather than dilated time. Which was fortunate as if he had only been able to use it for 2 real-world seconds at max power it would make the ability nearly useless.

He quickly set up two minor safeguards, the first was a warning whenever his mana was below 10%, so that he wouldn't blackout randomly again.

The second was kind of an automatic panic button, anytime his adrenaline kicked in from whatever source, fear for example. Overclock would activate at 2x meaning it would take 1 mana each second in exchange for turning 1 second into 2.

After messing with his ability, he rejoined the conversation in earnest and eventually was discharged by the nurse and sent back to his dorm with Shin.

"… you were stupid today." He heard as he was settling down in his bed.

"A little harsh" responded Jacob to his usually silent roommate.

"You couldn't win. You realised after the first minute, but you kept fighting the same way. Stupid" The reticent boy elaborated.

Jacob winced slightly at the cutting remark as an automatic self-deprecating smile sprung up.

"But you won." Shin followed up, stunning Jacob slightly before he could make one of his usual friendly-fire style jokes.

"You lost the fight. But it wasn't about the fight. It was about pride. You come out with pride, he didn't." Shin finished, turning away to indicate he was done talking.

Jacob sat on his bed, stunned.

It was out of nowhere, to say the least. He had gotten used to being one step behind others, his sister especially.

The idea that he had actually 'won' at anything was so foreign to him that he almost didn't understand what Shin had meant.

He had spent so long half-assing pretty much everything and then laughing off his failures with jokes that such an honest compliment caught him off guard.

He closed his eyes as he contemplated what exactly he should say back.

Jacob hated when people used thanks as a way of getting out of repaying favours and kindness.

So he stayed silent.

But he made sure to imprint this moment into his memory. He promised himself he would pay Shin back for this small but genuine bit of kindness.