◉◉◉◉◉
Silence!
Heavy and oppressive.
The enormous lounge was clearly filled with players, yet strangely, not a single person made a sound.
Only increasingly rapid breathing echoed through the room, rising and falling one after another.
The expressions on the players' faces were no longer the excitement and passion they had worn while challenging the Gym through the night.
Instead, they had become somewhat… uneasy.
Expectation mixed with resistance. Longing mixed with fear.
The same expressions appeared on the faces of the players as if they were all waiting for something.
Step! Step!
Suddenly, in that quiet environment, the sound of footsteps rose, growing louder and louder, making the silence feel even sharper.
"He's here."
Someone growled under his breath.
The players all turned their eyes toward the dark entrance ahead that led to the battlefield.
There, under the light shining from the room, a blurry figure gradually became clear.
Step!
The footsteps stopped.
A straight-backed figure appeared before everyone.
He wore the classic red-and-white League Trainer uniform. It was a common outfit, yet it could not hide the calm, mature aura around him.
A baseball cap printed with the League emblem sat on his head. The deliberately lowered brim cast a shadow that covered half of the mature man's face.
Noan.
Professional gamer.
Veteran of virtual games.
One of the core members of the famous guild, Snow Wolf.
In the current Azure Bay City, Noan could be considered a notable figure among the players.
The hard strength of his Pokémon, among the group of players who had rushed to Azure Bay Gym for Sobble, could absolutely rank in the top five.
But right now…
The situation did not seem very good.
Although most of Noan's face was hidden beneath the shadow of his cap, making it impossible to see his exact expression, the tightly pressed, faintly pale line of his lips revealed that his true state of mind was not as calm as usual.
He said nothing.
Noan merely swept a gloomy gaze over the players gradually gathering around him. Then he stepped forward again, pushed past the companion who was about to ask about the battle, and walked out of the Gym.
His cold and unfriendly attitude, combined with the terrifying guess that had gradually become clear in their minds, made the players refrain from stopping him.
Instead, they all sank into a state between numbness and shock.
"Even Noan… lost?"
Only after he had already left the Gym for a while did a player slowly speak.
By now, five days had passed since Quinn left the Gym.
During these five days, almost every player who had been staying in the lounge back then had fought Kael.
And the result was unexpectedly one-sided.
Miserable.
Not a single one of these players had managed to win a Badge from Kael.
Not even one.
And that meant these players, who had thought so highly of themselves, who believed they were naturally above the NPCs in the game, and who had regarded Sobble as something already in their grasp, had all become defeated opponents under his hands.
They did not even have a chance of winning.
So how could they even talk about capturing him?
Failure after failure changed the players' mood from the initial excitement and eagerness into shock, then gradually pushed them toward numbness.
Their original goal of capturing Sobble slowly faded under the endless sense of defeat, turning into something closer to watching a spectacle.
Because of that, even the players who had already been defeated by Sobble could not bear to leave. Instead, they stayed quietly in the lounge, watching and hoping to find some unbelievably powerful fellow player who could defeat Sobble.
Unfortunately, up until now, not a single person had gained anything.
No one had been able to show off the shining Gym Badge they had dreamed of before everyone else.
Not even Noan, who had just walked out and possessed such powerful strength.
"Next challenger, number 68. Please enter Field Two."
From the speaker in the corner of the room, the flat and emotionless voice of a Gym staff member suddenly echoed through the room.
It jolted some of the players who were still lost in thought awake.
The players looked left and right, exchanging glances, as if trying to find the next lucky person.
No, the next unlucky one.
Only after the announcement rang out for the third time did a thin player with a gloomy face stand from his seat and stride toward the dark corridor ahead.
But the players around him, who were watching him closely, failed to notice the flash of determination and genuine madness in the eyes hidden beneath his messy long hair.
…
"Hah…"
Kael breathed heavily, gradually calming his rapid breathing.
The challenger who had looked incomparably mature and calm just now was the strongest player he had encountered so far.
If the other party had not gotten slightly impatient during battle command and exposed an opening that Kael caught, Kael really might not have been able to finish him off that quickly.
Of course, Kael enjoyed this kind of fierce and tense battle.
Over these five days, through high-frequency battles with players, he had fully confirmed the correctness of his earlier thoughts.
Compared with the in-game NPCs who came to challenge the Gym right after obtaining their starter Pokémon, the players were indeed a full level higher in overall strength.
Although the game had only just launched, and they had not had much time to develop, the players, who also had help from a system, had still reached a fairly high level of strength.
At the very least, on average, if Kael wanted to end the battle quickly, he had to take them seriously and put in some effort.
Some of the stronger individuals already possessed enough strength to threaten Kael.
If there had not been a huge gap in battle experience, it would not have been so easy for him to win.
This was actually unreasonable.
Because Kael also possessed a system, and compared with the players' systems, his was clearly countless levels higher.
He had exchanged for a large number of items in the reincarnation space, and he had the system panel's ability to digitize experience data.
After passing through the earliest newborn stage, his growth curve should have taken an almost ninety-degree turn and shot upward like mad.
And the growth period Kael was currently in was precisely that soaring developmental stage.
But contrary to expectations, his strength seemed to have strangely stagnated.
Why?
The reason was simple.
Because, to maximize his benefits, he was using a so-called system bug to perform the strongest possible act of level locking.
◉◉◉◉◉
~Support with 200 PowerStones = 1 Bonus Chapter
◉◉◉◉◉
For early access to advanced chapters on P-atreon:
P-atreon/iamxeno
(Just remove the - hyphen to access normally)
Thank you so much for your support and for reading!