Chapter 320: Divine mercy (2/2)
[Duration of buff: 02:59:56]
Ben's eyes flashed. This was a rare opportunity. He needed to take full advantage of these three hours while he was at Barbosa's during this BJJ tournament. So he glanced at Valentina. ”You want to go take photos?”
”F*ck off!”
…
He shrugged as she walked away. 'Guess we'll go with the backup plan…'
Since he couldn't get what he really wanted, he'd just have to make up for it by smacking Nick around. Pulling up his system menu and navigating through it with his thoughts, Ben soon looked at his personal talent stat.
[Personal Talent: 8(+1) - Temporarily not a waste]
…
It wasn't much of a compliment but it was about as good as he could get from the system so Ben accepted it with stride. More important than that, now, he believed he could accomplish his goal, because compared to his technique level in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu before, moving up from a 7 to 8, was a huge difference!
Still, he'd have to experience it on the mats to see if it was really as big a boost as he believed it would be. Luckily, he would soon have that opportunity, because the tournaments—were starting!
The white, blue, purple, and brown belts all separated to different rooms or areas, their tournaments segregated in tiers by the colors of their belts. So a few minutes later, when everyone had separated into their partitioned zones, Ben couldn't avoid being an eyesore amongst the crowd of purple belts—a random white belt in a guacamole gi…
Many of the purple belts who'd heard his earlier conversations with Fariq and Valentina showed expressions of even bigger disbelief, realizing he wasn't kidding. Even so, they somehow doubted it, as if this was some kind of prank and Ashton Kutcher would pop out from somewhere…
However, when Ben's name was called and he stepped towards the mats, ready to begin his first match with the referee not stopping him, they realized this was real, and showed various expressions of surprise, which soon turned into ridicule. In any case, even if he pulled some strings to get into this tournament, not a single person gave him a chance, that is, except for a few scattered amongst the audience:
Fariq who smiled with confidence.
Valentina who showed a complicated expression.
And Corey the priest, who was injured, so was watching the higher belt tournament to learn. When he saw Ben, however, Corey remembered the beatings he'd taken in those white belt classes… Even worse than that though were the tongue-lashings...
This twisted boy simply had the mouth of the devil…
In fact, after a few of those classes, Corey had almost lost his religion.
…
So as the priest watched Ben about to consume the souls of a new batch of innocents, he looked up at the ceiling...and prayed. 'May God have mercy on their souls…'