Chapter 4: 18 is just a Number

A broken fist was a set back, Marcus could not deny that. Still, it was also an opportunity. You know lemons and lemonade. He was in his small kitchen and inspected his broken fist. A patch work bandage covered it more for stability than anything else. The pain had already nearly vanished together with the skin abrasions and Marcus would carefully track the healing progress over the next days. He might even make some charts and graphs! Besides, even with his hand out of order there was more than enough things he had to take care off in the next days anyway.

His 18th birthday was less than two weeks away and that meant legal adulthood, work and finally paying for his own livelihood. He would no longer be dependent on that man.

He went to his work desk and pushed some documents away with his good hand. The certification for his school graduation fell to the ground and gathered some dust from his not so clean apartment. He quickly cleaned it up and looked at it for a moment.

His marks were okay but not great. Given that he had spent the last years in online schooling (imagine him sitting in class with other kids) it had not turned out so bad. Not going to school and spending times with kids his age was not that much of a sacrifice. He played online games with some international friends and at least some of them were in his age group. Of course...Marcus felt a hole opening up in his stomach… there was something he had missed out on. Girls.

Not that he was particular attractive or super social, on the contrary. Before his leg got better he was a nerdy shut in. “Realistically..” Marcus mumbled. Even if he had gone to school, would have anything happened? A dark mass of insecurity started to quickly form in his mind and Marcus put the document down. Work! Yes, he had to concentrate on work.

Booting up his laptop, he opened an empty white work sheet for brain storming. The most important thing first. Naming his new ability.

“Heavy Strike” was a no go. He quickly tipped in some words that came to mind. “Thunderous, powerful, punch, strike, explosion, destruction…” He starred at the words for a moment and remembered the many silly names of anime special attacks. “Thunderous, destruction fist of divine obliteration!” That was a mouthful. He laughed.

He wanted something short that kind of hit the core of the ability. Maximum two words…

A lot of stupid stuff went through his head before he hit a good trail of thoughts and then wrote down “Impulse Hammer”. Or just Hammer for short.

This was not just some stupid childish game. In truth he was fully aware that his strategy of going full in on vitality had a fatal flaw. Without any investment into strength any half decent close combat class would be able to fold him in half like a wimpy mage. Vitality might increase his toughness and scale his abilities up but it did jack shit for his general strength. For a normal human he was pretty strong but somebody with ten strength crests would flatten him in a direct confrontation in no time. To avoid this he had to accept that direct tests of strength were off the table and Impulse Hammer would be a pivotal part in his strategy. Simply put, every strike or kick he makes has to be a Hammer attack. That was the only way to produce any acceptable amount of damage.

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That was a tough ask but Marcus believed he could do it. With the huge amount of endurance he would gain from “vitality only” and a good power control over Impulse Hammer he could pull it off. Provided he can gain a good power control over the Impulse Hammer.

After the most important task of the day was finished and he had grabbed a big self made sandwich from the kitchen, he focused on the other tasked. Chewing on his supersize turkey sandwich (“A big boy needs big food.”- Frank) he logged into the exclusive online class shop with his class ID. He had already decided that weapons would not work well with Impulse Hammer but as a front liner and most likely tanker he would need at least some armor. Given his funds and lack of any connections, a generic heavy armor suit was the best he could do. It was made out of ordinary materials and looked a lot like one of those bomb disposal protection suits. It was not fancy but not many people would be able to use something this heavy in actual combat and it easily had more protection than some high grade light armor (a fancy dress with an obscene price tag if you asked Marcus).

In the afternoon he went for his job application. With zero experience, no achievements and the worst trash class, there was exactly one place he would gain a job. The Local Civil Protection Service. As the incursions from other worlds grew more and more frequent over the years a system of local fast responder units was established by governments more or less all over the world. It was thankless grunt work. Most times, when a portal opens nothing comes through. From time to time animals or monsters (big dangerous animals) walked through and had to be contained. In the rare case something really nasty like an ork raid happened the low quality troops of the LCPS stood no chance.

It was work, it paid the bills and after spending a year or two in the LCPS without messing up you could hope a low level clan would pick you up because you were not completely useless. Marcus put his information in and cringed somewhat when he had to write out his own name “Marcus Leonardo Freimann”. He put Germany down as his preferred region but the system would put him where manpower was needed the most anyway. And manpower was always needed in the LCPS. People stopped working, got scouted by clans or simply died all the time. At this thought Marcus reminded himself that this was the grim reality of the world he decided to step in nearly 5 years ago. He made that choice, he could not blame anybody else if he got killed.

Over the next two weeks Marcus binged a whole lot of martial arts (real one, not animated stuff) in the web. Karate, Judo, Muay Thai, Jujitsu and a whole lot of MMA. Because he was not an anime character he did not learn any of it just by watching but he still gained some insight. First, humans were really a savage species when it came down to it. Second, striking, kicking kneeing and so on would do really well with Impulse Hammer once he got the hang off it. But grappling was more a thing that he first thought and he could not see how his ability could be used there at all.

Of course he would not go around grappling some giant dragon or monstrous beetle any time soon but humanoids or dangerous animals were a realistic threat. Some juiced up wolf thing pressing you down, trying to rip out your throat, was a scenario he could vividly imagine.

Third, he had watched far too much videos over the last days.

He meet Frank once more and told him about his plans to go away. Frank was not surprised and said Marcus would make it far even so he had a trash class. At the end he asked for an autograph in case Marcus would ever become famous. Then he would sell it and be rich. They parted ways with laughter but on the inside Marcus felt a great loss. Frank had been a great support and friend the last two years. He would miss him dearly.

Marcus sat in his dark apartment and watched the clock on his laptop as it jumped from 23:59 to 00:00. He was 18 now, an adult. He did not feel any different than a minute ago. The whole thing was just a human custom, rules to regulate human society. He was the same person he was minutes ago but now society would treat him differently. He watched the minutes go by.

Pling!

A small icon informed Marcus that he got mail. He looked at the headline and sender. “Alles Gute zum Geburtstag.” from Reinhardt Freimann. Marcus exited the email program and closed his laptop. Everything was still the same.