It was already evening by the time he got back to the dorm.
Half the day of his weekend had been eaten up by being dragged out by Xingmu—"a little date," a shoe-shopping trip. Then the other half vanished into a hospital follow-up.
By the time he snapped back to reality, his entire weekend had been reduced to a single night.
His plan to properly rest had completely failed, and tomorrow he had to go back to work.
Why did my weekend suddenly disappear? Did I step on someone's turf…? Damn capital—you win.
Muttering his complaints in his head, Fujimura Hikaru set the bags of shoes—and the bento he'd picked up from the convenience store—down on the table.
There was no kitchen in the dorm. Not even a microwave. So he'd had the bento heated up at the store before carrying it back.
He wolfed down the steaming, fragrant meal while it was still hot. Dinner—done.
After that quick, slapdash meal, he still had no intention of resting.
Originally, he'd planned to take it easy tonight.
But the doctor's evaluation after the follow-up left him unable to settle down.
If the doctor was right—if, in the worst-case scenario, his condition could deteriorate beyond recovery within a month—then he was on a brutal clock.
He couldn't keep dawdling around with pointless nonsense.
Extra training. More training.
"First, I need to lock in the division I'll debut in…"
He swiped a finger through the air. A dim blue system panel materialized before him.
[Please select your debut region: Japan / Americas / Europe]
[Note: Difficulty varies by region. Tasks and rewards will scale directly with difficulty.]
On the way back, he'd already made his decision.
He looked at the panel, selected the region, and pressed down without hesitation.
[Americas]
[Debut region confirmed. Updating tasks…]
[Task: Win your debut race. Reward: +30 to all attributes.]
Yes—Fujimura Hikaru chose the Americas division.
Why not Europe?
The answer was simple.
Time zones.
In theory, North America and Europe were similar in difficulty—but their time difference relative to Japan wasn't the same.
Japan and Europe were roughly eight hours apart.
If a race was held in the morning over there, then in Japan he'd have to keep his afternoon completely open.
And afternoons were when he trained the horse girls on his team. That wouldn't work.
Even with the spacetime marker, he could still end up in a stupid situation where both ends clogged up at once.
North America, on the other hand, was about eleven hours apart from Japan.
Which meant: when it was night in Japan, the sun was only just coming up over there.
And generally speaking, nobody knocked on his dorm door in the middle of the night—so he had plenty of time to use the marker and handle race-related business in North America.
The only potential issue was that this would force him into nonstop shift-rotations—day and night—an incredibly harsh challenge for both body and mind.
He'd probably only get a few hours of sleep each day…
An anti-sudden-death challenge, huh? Interesting.
"But I can always patch the sleep problem by squeezing in a nap at noon."
He figured he could probably steal about an hour at midday.
Still, even with naps, this schedule was pure hell.
"Either way—first I win the debut race."
Fujimura Hikaru decisively transformed into his Scarlet-Eyed form, put on the new running shoes, and headed out to train.
Since he'd already decided on a North America debut, he had to prepare properly.
That division was full of monsters…
If he had to describe the intensity of North America, one phrase fit perfectly:
A madhouse of demons.
Take one example—Symboli Rudolf, student council president at Central Tracen Academy. In Japan, seven G1 titles had earned her the name "Emperor."
But put that Emperor in North America, and she'd struggle to win there, too.
Besides the fact that most races were run on dirt, the biggest problem was simple:
The horse girls over there were genuinely terrifying.
Calling it a monster den wasn't an exaggeration.
"Doesn't matter if it's a monster den or not. I'm breaking in anyway!"
If he wanted to live, then even if North America was hell itself, he still had to run.
—
With North America as his target, Fujimura Hikaru finally started spinning like a top—busy from one end of the day to the other.
Mornings: training camp instruction, teaching classes to horse girls who still hadn't found trainers.
In between lessons, he also had to study North America—who the current standouts were, what kind of threats he'd face.
Afternoons: Mejiro McQueen and Xingmu.
Xingmu was debuting next month, so her training couldn't slack for even a second.
And McQueen's training couldn't ease up either.
He'd said those words in front of Mejiro Asama—if he didn't train McQueen to the point where she could comfortably take the Tenno Sho, his conscience wouldn't let him rest.
And at night, he poured every last scrap of energy into his own late-night training.
He was exhausted, but the stat gains were real—so he found himself strangely satisfied.
That feeling—put in the work, get the reward—was addictive, honestly.
Each time he trained until he was barely conscious, then closed his eyes and opened them to find it was morning again, his sense of time grew steadily blurrier.
And as the days passed, the Scarlet-Eyed status panel started becoming absurd.
[Speed: 246 / Stamina: 270 / Power: 220 / Guts: 201 / Wisdom: 210]
And because his average stats had crossed 200, his skill [Seed of the Strong] upgraded to a Superior grade.
Even the name changed—from [Seed of the Strong] to [Aura of the Strong].
[Aura of the Strong]
[Quality: Superior (Upgradeable)]
[Upgrade condition: Average stats exceed 400]
[Effect: If the opponent's average stats are lower than yours, they will feel stronger pressure.]
[Note: The greater the gap, the stronger the pressure.]
Even with those improvements, Fujimura Hikaru wasn't satisfied.
If he wanted a reliable win in North America, then in his mind, he needed an average of at least 400.
If he got cocky at this level and then got humbled in his debut race, it wouldn't be funny at all.
At this point, there was only one answer:
More training.
He would become a true level-grinding maniac.
Tonight, he was going to grind until it hurt.
-------
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