Martial Arts Worlds

Doom! Doom! Doom! Doom!

"Haa…"

An ordinary-looking man with glasses and a short beard stopped scribbling and looked up from his notebook at the person sitting next to him.

"Grimm, can you please quiet down your heartbeat? You're distracting me and scaring away the kitties!"

Maxx pointed across from the park bench to a frightened kitten peeking out from a dark alleyway, its tail puffed up in fear.

Doom! Doom! Doom! Doom!

"I… apologize."

Grimm said meekly and punched himself in the chest—it made such a powerful sound that the kitten ran away in terror.

However, the thunderous heartbeat disappeared.

"Well, we must get going. The meeting is in half an hour, and we don't want to be late, now do we?"

Maxx said, closed the notebook, and placed it inside his shoulder bag.

"…Mm."

Grimm nodded and stood up—he wore a black jacket with an arched shield with the letter "B" embroidered on his back—it was a famous symbol in the world of martial arts.

They climbed inside their majestic-looking carriage, but several park walkers saw the symbol on the man's broad back and exclaimed.

"Isn't that the symbol of Bastardians?"

"Did you see who from Bastardian came here?"

"I think it might've been Grimm or maybe even Darken?"

"One of their Emperor League fighters?! I thought they would be training for the upcoming World Fighting League season!"

"It looks like they are on a recruitment mission. I also saw the general manager of Bastardians, Maxx."

…

"Keys…"

Kiernan checked his pockets and took them out, nodded, and put them back in his pockets.

He wanted to make sure that he had keys with him as he was planning to go out.

"…"

Kiernan then looked over to the living room and saw Imperius sleeping on the couch, without any care in the world.

'If I told anyone that Pirate Immortal is sleeping in my living room, they would laugh in my face and say that I am delusional.

'Ridiculously enough, it happens to be true.'

Kiernan shrugged his shoulders, stepped out of the house, and closed the door behind him—he then crossed the street and started walking in one direction.

He received an email yesterday—it contained a map of God City—it was to help the representatives walk around the city without getting lost.

Thus, he just wanted to visit the grocery store and get some food—especially after Imperius complained that he hadn't eaten for weeks.

He didn't want to see grumpy Pirate Immortal.

After arriving at the grocery store, which was only about a five-minute walk away from his residence, he quickly went to the food aisle.

While he was picking up some food items to make stew, he thought inside his mind.

'By the way, system. Will I be receiving a quest for the Junior Martial Arts Championship?'

He put the food items on his shopping cart and headed to the checkout line to pay—at that moment, the system answered.

[Do you want?]

'Maybe not. I'd probably fail.'

Kiernan said and arrived at the checkout line, but there was a person standing ahead of him in the line, so he had to wait.

[What about this?]

The system said, and then he heard dinging noises.

***

[Quest Has Activated!]

[Championship Quest]

[Rank: S]

[Mission: Compete in the Junior Martial Arts Championship]

[Description: Compete in the championship and defeat your peers—the name of Kiernan Hunter shall go beyond the fame of New Rakuya and reach the ears of the global audience!]

[Time limit: Till the end of the championship]

[Reach Top 300: 1,000 Gold Coins]

[Reach Top 200: 10,000 Gold Coins]

[Reach Top 100: 100,000 Gold Coins + Pill of Strength]

[Reach Top 50: 100,000 Gold Coins + Willpower Attribute]

[Reach Top 25: 100,000 Gold Coins + System Level Up]

[Reach Top 10: 100,000 Gold Coins + Tattoo of Old Kiernan]

[Reach Top 3: 100,000 Gold Coins + Escape Saint Ring]

[Reach Top 1: 100,000 Gold Coins + Soul Fragment 10x + Restriction of True Iron Style Lifted]

***

"What the…"

Kiernan closed his mouth.

If he wasn't inside a grocery store, he would've actually cried "WTF" as he jokingly asked for the quest but received a very serious response from the system.

'It looks like the better I do in the championship, the greater rewards I get. That top 1 reward is very tempting. That's a lot of gold coins and Soul Fragments for Fen, and I bet that is enough to make him leap all the way to Martial Master.

'And… True Iron Style's restriction finally lifted, which would be huge. I don't know why the system is restricting me so heavily, but it's nice to see that it is at least possible to get it lifted.

'However… System, if I get top 1, do I also get the rewards of top 3, etc?'

[…Yes]

'That means… I can win over 600,000 gold coins, a Pill of Strength that most likely just increases my strength, and a Willpower Attribute added, which probably just helps me to deal better with pain.

'System levels up… It takes over a year to level it up once now, so that would be huge, and Tattoo of Old Kiernan?'

Kiernan frowned and checked the tattoo on his hand—it was called Tattoo of Kiernan—so it would be an upgraded version of it.

'System… does this Tattoo of Old Kiernan let me use True Iron Style techniques?'

[…Yes, but once per day]

Kiernan's eyes brightened, but it felt like cold water was poured down on him as he noticed that he had to reach the top 10.

He had to be in the top 10 against the best talents across the world.

'Escape Saint Ring? What the hell is that, I wonder.'

Kiernan waved his hand, and the stuff in front of him disappeared into thin air—he wanted to check it out closer when he had returned back to his residence.

However, when he looked to the front of the line, he saw a tanned man just staring at his groceries, slowly putting them on the counter for the cashier to ring up.

The gentle-looking cashier tried to be patient, but even she was beginning to get frustrated with the man's slow pace.

"What's taking so long?!"

An old man shouted behind Kiernan and threw his arms to his side—the tanned man looked young enough to be speedy, but he moved slower than a snail!

"…"

The tanned man stopped moving to the groceries, glanced at the old man with a side eye, then turned back to the groceries and began to put the ripe tomatoes into the checkout basket.