Ambrose walked down the street with a small rock in his hand. He used his left hand to juggle with it and fiddle with his fingers. It was another training session to improve his non-dominant hand, and he did this whenever he could.
As he kept doing that, he soon came across a street with many open dojos. A few of them were NPC dojos, while most of them were player dojos.
There were long lines in front of the player dojos. The players wanted to join the dojos to learn skills so that the “Master” of the dojo could teach their techniques to them. The master title belonged to the owner of the dojo.
Even Ambrose could teach his Kill skill to his students, if he had any, but it was far from easy to learn. Most dojos also take payments from their students, which they use to fund their training and adventures.
It was a good way of earning money, but most of it didn’t end up in the master’s pocket. Having a dojo with many students was expensive.
Ambrose walked away from the street with many dojos and soon arrived in the vicinity of his own dojo.
Strangely, there were two players standing before the wooden gate of his dojo.
‘Do they want to join my dojo?’ Ambrose thought with a strange expression.
“I wonder what kind of style the master of this dojo is teaching.” A long-faced player wondered aloud.
“Hmph, do you see the condition of this dojo?” A player with a red shirt said. “There is no way the master of this dojo has anything to teach! He must have accidentally gotten the Dojo Key with stupid luck!”
“Ah, you might be true.” The long-faced player said. “Maybe we should go check out Silver Heart Dojo? I heard their master is incredibly beautiful!”
“I already visited there, and it is entirely packed!” The red shirt player said. “But we might catch a glimpse of her, so we might as well.”
“Let’s go!”
The two players left in a hurry.
Ambrose chuckled as he pulled out his silver brass key. He then unlocked the gate and entered his dojo. Even if they wanted to learn his style, he wouldn’t teach it. Not yet, at least.
He didn’t even have a style to teach.
Having only one skill for a style was laughable.
‘I wonder if the masters of those popular dojos have more skills, and I wonder how they managed to create them.’
Knock, knock.
Ambrose flinched and turned to the entrance of the dojo. He had a visitor, which was a rare sight. His last visit was with Ken and his goons, which didn’t end well.
However, this time, the visitor was someone with a familiar face.
“It’s you…” Ambrose looked surprised, as he never expected to see him again.
The visitor was a brown-haired young man with a red shirt and pants. He also had a red scarf wrapped around his right forearm. He was RedBand, Ambrose’s first-ever party member.
“I see that you managed to acquire a Dojo Key. Well, not a surprise after the beating you gave to Karma.” RedBand looked around the dojo. “I also want one, but unfortunately my ranking was slightly too low.”
“Yeah, I got lucky, I guess. What do you want?” Ambrose went straight to the point. He knew that no one would come to see him if they didn’t want anything from him. “Also, how did you find me?”
“With the help of a tracking compass.” RedBand pulled out an ordinary-looking compass, but the needle was pointing straight at Ambrose. “I received this from the World Quest as a reward. I can track any player who is within a few kilometers.
“So, I only had to roam the city till my compass started tracking you.”
“And why did you want to find me?”
“I have a quest.” RedBand said and took a worn-out piece of paper from his inventory. He tossed it across the dojo. It drifted with the help of the slight breeze and landed on Ambrose’s hand.
Ambrose frowned and looked at the quest poster.
[Quest]
[Rank: D]
[Mission: Exterminate the Steel-Armed Gorilla’s Lair]
[Description: The Steel-Armed Gorrilla and its small army of Steel-Armed Monkeys have been terrorizing the peaceful village of Tonshen] 𝓋xt.𝐂𝑚
[Time limit: 1 week]
[Reward: Given by One-Leg Marcus after the completion of the quest]
“I need one more damage dealer for my party.” RedBand said. “And I thought that you would be a great addition to the party after seeing your prowess during World Quest. If you join me, there are six players, including us.
“We will decide how to share rewards after the quest. It will be done fairly; there is no need to worry about that.”
“I see…” Ambrose folded the worn-out piece of paper and handed it back to RedBand. “How far is Tonshen?”
“Quite far, but we would take the wagon there. We would arrive there before nightfall, then spend the night there and complete the quest next morning. The reward will be tempting enough to do such a troublesome quest.”
“I guess I have nothing else to do.” Ambrose nodded. “When shall we leave?”
“Right away.” RedBand said and turned around. “There is no time to waste.”
Ambrose nodded and took out his black cloak from his inventory. He draped it over his figure and followed RedBand.
They left the dojo and headed straight to the place where RedBand’s party members were waiting. They had already rented the wagon and were ready to leave at any moment.
As they neared the wagon barracks, RedBand and Ambrose came across a crazy sight. There were nearly 100 players surrounding the yard of a three-story dojo. It also had a sign with the name “Silver Heart” written in silver.
‘This must be the famous Silver Heart those players were talking about.’ Ambrose thought. ‘Also, a three-story dojo. The owner of this dojo must have gotten into the top 10 in the rankings.’
“There are even more people than in the morning.” RedBand said from the side. “The owner of this dojo is a player called Serenity. She got the final hit on Karma and also got first place in the rankings. Many consider her the strongest player in Amaterasu.
“Also, her beauty had become very well known; even players from other cities had heard about it. She has become quite a celebrity.”
“Have you seen her before?” Ambrose asked.
“Yeah, during the battle against Karma. How come you didn’t?” RedBand asked strangely.
“I can’t remember much.” Ambrose said. He only had hazy memories of his fight against Karma.
“Mm, oh, there they are.” RedBand pointed towards a small group of players gathered around a wagon that was pulled by one horse. They also had a wagon driver who seemed to be asleep.
“Boss!” A loud voice came from the group of people as an energetic-looking young woman started waving her hand.
“She is our party’s archer, Roza.” RedBand said and then pointed at the tallest person in the group. “He is Felixar and is Tank of our party. He is a brawler, but he has put a lot of stats on vitality and stamina. He won’t go easily down.”
“How can he protect us?” Ambrose asked with concern.
RedBand chuckled. “We bought him a big shield. Most players take the classes at face value, but there are multiple ways to use them.
“Most people think that Brawlers can’t use any weapons, but they can use shields and gauntlets.”
‘I thought so too…’ Ambrose thought to himself and then saw a big shield on Lucas’ back. He looked like a proper tank, which made him feel at ease.
“The other two are spearmen. Andyy and PamPam.” RedBand first pointed at a short, black-haired young man. He looked like he had barely entered high school. He then pointed at a long-legged woman with long hair and a red bandanna around her head.
Ambrose nodded.
RedBand smiled at his party members and clapped his hands. “Everyone, this is Ambrose. He will be our last party member. We are now ready to go.”
Everyone glanced at Ambrose briefly but didn’t seem very impressed, and some were even disappointed. Their leader said that he would bring someone strong, but at first glance, the newcomer didn’t look anything special.
“Alright, let’s get this party going!” RedBand knocked on the leg of the wagon driver. “We are ready to go!”
“Oh!” The wagon driver flinched awake and wiped his drool. “Get on then. We have long journey ahead of us!”