I didn't go home and cry. I didn't punch a wall. The anger was there, yeah. A hot, burning coal in my chest. But it wasn't the loud, explosive anger like Jax's. It was quiet. Cold.
It was fuel.
I got back to my small apartment, slammed a nutrient paste because I knew I needed energy, and walked right back out the door. My legs carried me to the one place that felt like home now. Court 7.
The tryouts were tomorrow.
Coach Valerius's words echoed in my head. "Don't bother showing up tomorrow."
He thought I was a joke. Everyone did.
And they were right. In their world, I was. Their world runs on one thing. Power. The big numbers. The explosive shots that make the crowd roar. My Power Shot was a whisper. Trying to compete with Jax on power was stupid. It was a game I was guaranteed to lose.
So I wouldn't play their game.
I'd play mine.
My game had different rules. My game didn't care about the roar of the crowd. It cared about one thing. Perfection.
High-efficiency actions. Chaining them together. Earning Momentum Points.
That was the path. The only path. I didn't need to show Coach Valerius I was strong. I needed to show my system I was perfect. The MP was the real prize. With enough MP, I could do anything. Analyze more skills. Maybe even… buy Attribute Points? The system said MP could enhance attributes. I didn't know how yet. But I had to find out.
The goal for tomorrow wasn't to make the team. The goal was to earn MP.
Back in the bright, empty Westwood arena, Coach Valerius sat alone in the coach's office overlooking the court. The lights were dimmed. The place was silent.
He pulled up the security footage from the drill an hour ago. He swiped through the recordings of a dozen clumsy, powerful shots. Then he stopped on me.
He zoomed in. Played the clip.
A skinny kid. Terrible stats. A shot with no power. A thud.
He played it again. And again. Then he slowed it down. Frame by frame.
His thick eyebrows furrowed. He wasn't looking at the impact. He was looking at the form.
The way I planted my feet. The angle of my hips during the core rotation. The perfect, fluid arc of my arm. The clean release. There was no wasted motion. None. It was 100% efficient. A textbook-perfect shot, executed with the kind of precision he'd only ever seen from top-tier pros.
But the kid's Aether Control was a 5.
It made no sense.
It was a contradiction. A puzzle. How could a player with literally zero measurable talent have a form that clean? It was like finding a junk car with a brand-new fusion engine hidden under the hood. The car itself was garbage, but the engine… an engine like that could be put into a better chassis.
Valerius had been a coach for twenty years. He'd seen hundreds of kids like Jax. Big, strong, full of raw talent. Most of them flamed out. They hit a ceiling because their fundamentals, their core technique, was sloppy. They relied on a gift they never truly understood.
But perfect technique… that was different. That was a foundation. You could build on a foundation like that. You could add the power later.
He leaned back in his chair, tapping a thick finger on the screen, right on my face.
"Don't bother showing up," he had told me.
It was a test. A harsh one. The kind he always used. He threw kids into the fire to see who burned and who came out forged into something stronger. 99% of them burned. They broke. They quit.
He pulled up my student file on his datapad. Kai. Rank: Unranked.
He stared at the screen for a long time. Then, with a grunt, he made a small note next to my name. It was just one character.
?
I didn't practice the Power Shot again that night. It was pointless. My Aether Control was the bottleneck, and no amount of practice would change that overnight.
Instead, I went back to the beginning.
I set the training drone to its most basic setting. Simple, slow shots.
I focused. My world narrowed.
The first shot came. I didn't leap. I didn't do a flashy slide. I just tilted my body. A small, perfect movement. The ball flew past me.
Ping.[Perfect Dodge Executed. Chain: 1. +1 MP]
The drone fired again. I met it with my forearm. A perfect block. No wasted energy.
Ping.[Perfect Block Executed. Chain: 2. +2 MP]
Dodge. Block. Parry. Move.
It was a dance. A conversation between me and the system. The court was silent except for the hiss of the drone and the soft thud of my boots.
I wasn't thinking about Jax. I wasn't thinking about the coach. I wasn't thinking about the laughter.
I was just building my chain.
One perfect move. Then another. And another.
The numbers on my HUD climbed slowly. 3 MP. 6 MP. 10 MP.
I didn't stop when I broke a chain. I just started over. My body ached. I was running on fumes. But the number was all that mattered.
Late into the night, I finally collapsed. I was lying on my back, staring up at the rusty ceiling of Court 7.
I checked my status.
MP: 25/100
It wasn't much. But it was a start. It was a weapon they had no idea I was bringing.
Tomorrow, they expected a zero to show up. A ghost.
Let them.
Tomorrow, I wasn't there to impress the coach.
I was there to go to work.