Chapter 163: Arena Nexus

They were disappointed that they could not collect the ball from Tongen, but it wasn’t entirely their fault. They were simply outclassed.

Jelo, Mira, and Atlas headed toward their room, while Mira went her own way. They all prepared for the next day.

Close to noon the following day, Jelo woke up and noticed Atlas wasn’t in the room. He lay there for a moment, blinking at the ceiling as the silence settled around him. The room felt emptier than usual, though he couldn’t explain why. It was the same space it had always been, same walls, same dim light leaking through the curtains, but something about Atlas’s absence made it feel bigger. Lonelier. He turned his head toward Atlas’s side of the room. The bed was already made, neat and undisturbed. Atlas had been up for hours. They were sure Atlas had gone to train since Tongen hadn’t called them that day. It meant there would be no training session from him.

Jelo wanted to improve his fire powers. He always wanted to improve. That drive was the one constant about him, the thing that never wavered no matter how tired he was or how badly a session had gone. He planned to use his fire powers even though he hadn’t yet reached a higher level. Most people would have waited. Most people would have told themselves to be patient, to build the foundation first before reaching for something beyond their current ability. wasn’t most people. To grow stronger, he needed to defeat opponents and gain points. Once converted, the system would reward him with abilities, new techniques and enhancements that would stack on top of what he already had and push him closer to where he wanted to be. But it had been a while since he had won a fight, and Jelo could feel the weight of that fact even from a distance.

He sat up slowly, ran a hand over his face, and swung his legs over the side of the bed. The floor was cool beneath his feet. He sat there for a moment longer, not quite ready to move, then pushed himself up and began getting ready.

What came to his mind was the Arena’s Nexus. It was the most straightforward option available to him. He needed opponents he could defeat to gain points, real matches that the system would register and convert, and the Nexus provided exactly that through its virtual interface. The only limitation was time. Students were only allowed a maximum of two hours inside, which meant every session had to be used carefully. You couldn’t afford to ease into it or spend the first twenty minutes finding your footing. You went in with a clear intention, or you came out with nothing to show for it.

After getting ready, he made his way to the Arena’s Nexus.

As usual, it was filled with students. The space hummed with low activity, the sound of equipment running and the occasional shift of someone adjusting their position in their seat. Most of them were already under, their bodies slack in the interface chairs while their minds were somewhere else entirely, locked inside virtual matches that would determine how quickly they advanced. The room always had a particular kind of energy at this hour, focused and a little tense, like everyone was quietly competing even with their eyes closed. He looked around for an empty space he could use.

After searching for a while, Mira called his name.

He paused, scanning the room, trying to locate where the voice was coming from. Then he saw her up ahead, standing beside one of the open stations near the far wall, one hand raised slightly in his direction. He walked over and noticed there was an open space beside her.

“I see you’ve come to train,” Mira said.

“Yeah. I need to work on some stuffs,” Jelo replied. He kept his voice casual, unbothered, the tone of someone with nothing particular on their mind. He didn’t want to reveal that he was actually working on his fire powers. It wasn’t something he was ready to talk about yet, and he wasn’t sure why. Maybe because saying it out loud made it feel more serious, and more serious meant there was more room to fail.

“That makes the two of us,” Mira said. She settled into her usual rhythm when she was working through something, her expression calm but focused, the look she got when a thought had been sitting with her long enough to become a plan. “I need to work on creating more clones. I can create two now, but I need to create more. From my research, I’ll need more stamina to maintain them without getting exhausted. I also need better concentration and a deeper understanding of my ability before putting it into practice.”

Jelo nodded, though he wasn’t fully listening. He was lost in thought. By this time of day, the arena was always crowded. Students here were hardworking, genuinely so, not the kind of hardworking that existed for appearances but the kind that came from knowing exactly what was at stake. Anyone who chose laziness would be left behind. That was simply the reality of this place, and everyone in the room seemed to understand it without needing to say it.

He didn’t notice he had been staring downward. He was staring at Mira’s lips.

She had been talking, explaining something about stamina thresholds or mental focus, and at some point the words had stopped reaching him. He had drifted, the way you drift when your eyes land somewhere and your mind follows some other thread entirely, and without realizing it, his gaze had settled and stayed.

Mira had stopped talking, yet he was still staring.

A beat passed. Then another. She became aware of it gradually, the way you become aware of something that has been happening for a moment longer than it should have. She felt slightly embarrassed and snapped, “What are you looking at?”

Jelo quickly came back to his senses. The question hit him like a splash of cold water and he straightened, blinking, his mind scrambling for something to say. He searched for an excuse, but nothing came to mind. His thoughts, usually reliable, offered him absolutely nothing useful. He opened his mouth once, closed it, and felt the silence stretch in a way that made everything worse. Awkwardly, he froze, then quickly put on the headset.

Within seconds, he was pulled into the Arena Heart’s Nexus interface.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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