The week after the scrimmage bled into an endless blur of sweat, aching muscles, and the sharp sting of near-miss plasma bolts. Coach Valerius drove us like machines—no mercy, no pause. Every morning began with a two-hour conditioning gauntlet he called "The Forge," designed with a kind of brutal, mathematical cruelty to find our breaking points.
The worst of it was a drill he called the 'Stamina Wall'. We had to stand on a small platform while a turret fired a relentless, patterned series of shots at us. The goal wasn't just to dodge, but to block, absorbing the energy, which drained our gear's power and our own physical stamina. It was a test of pure endurance.
I was always the first to feel the burn. My base stats were still a joke compared to the rest of the team. The others could hold out for ten, sometimes fifteen minutes. I was hitting my limit at five. My vision would start to swim, my shield flickering, my breath coming in ragged gasps. I saw the familiar red text flash in my vision, a warning from my own private world.
[Warning: Stamina below 10%. Risk of muscular injury is high.]
With every drill I barely passed, the fear grew colder, a knot of ice in my gut. What if the coach was wrong? What if there was no engine to build inside me? What if I was just… a zero, like Jax said?
During one particularly brutal session, I stumbled, my shield collapsing a second too early. The low-power bolt slammed into my chest, knocking me off the platform. I crashed onto the safety mats below, completely spent. One of Jax's friends, a big defender named Marcus, let out a loud snort. "Look at the zero, can't even handle a warm-up…"
"Shut up, Marcus," a new voice cut in. It was Ren, our team captain. He was floating by the platforms, his own face beaded with sweat, but his eyes were on me, and for the first time, there was something other than suspicion in them. It was a flicker of grudging respect. "He got back up. Every time."
Marcus's mouth snapped shut. A subtle shift had occurred in the locker room. The open contempt was gone, replaced by a wary distance. I was no longer a joke; I was an enigma, a puzzle they couldn't solve, and that made them uneasy.
Jax was a ghost. He was a pillar of cold fury at every practice, his performance a display of terrifying perfection. He shattered every record in the Stamina Wall drill, his expression never changing from a mask of bored rage. He never spoke to me. He never even looked in my direction. His silence said more than any insult ever could. But sometimes, silence wasn't enough for him. As I was pulling myself up from the mats, he floated past, his voice low and full of venom, meant only for me. "Still running, zero? Save your energy. You'll need it to warm the bench."
I didn't have the breath to reply. I just pulled myself back onto the platform, my mind focused on the coach's words:
"You will work harder than anyone else.". This was the price of my spot on the team. And I would pay it.
On Friday, after a solid week in The Forge, the coach called a team meeting. He stood in front of a large holo-screen, his face grim. "For the past week, I've torn you down," he began, his voice a low rumble. "I've shown you your weaknesses. I've pushed you past what you thought your limits were. Now, we start building you back up. Our season doesn't begin with a friendly match against some suburban school. We're starting with a real test."
He tapped a command, and a complex tournament bracket appeared on the screen, filled with the logos of teams I had only ever read about. The snarling wolf of the Oakhaven Elites, the sharp, stylized circuit board of the Silicon Valley Tech-Knights, and a dozen others.
"This," the coach said, his voice laced with a new intensity, "is the Ahmedabad City Rookie Gauntlet. An annual tournament for all first-year high school and pro-league academy players in the district. It's a single-elimination tournament. You lose once, you're out."
A murmur of shock and excitement went through the room. The Rookie Gauntlet wasn't just a high school tournament. It was a showcase. A place where the city's best new talent fought to get noticed by professional scouts.
"The Sentinels haven't made it past the first round of this tournament in five years," Valerius continued, his words cutting through the noise. "We've been a joke. A stepping stone for the real teams. This year, that changes. This isn't just about winning a trophy. This is about sending a message. This is about putting Westwood High back on the map."
His eyes scanned the room, landing on each of us in turn. "This is your new horizon. Your first real challenge as a team."
He brought up our first-round matchup. Our opponent was a team from a well-funded tech academy, the 'Cyber-Titans'. Their logo was a stylized skull made of chrome and circuits. My System immediately began pulling public data on them. As I processed the information, a new notification, one I hadn't seen before, flashed in my vision.
[New Quest Generated: The Rookie Gauntlet]
[Objective: Win the city-level rookie tournament.]
[Rewards: ???]
My breath caught in my throat and my heart hammered against my ribs. In my mind's eye, a brief, vivid image flashed—the roar of a new, bigger crowd, the glint of light off a professional scout's datapad, a path forward that led away from my tiny apartment and the scorn of my classmates. This wasn't just a quest. It was a chance.
The coach dismissed the meeting, but called my name. "Kai. A word."
I walked up to his desk. He looked at the datapad containing my report on Momentum. "Your analysis is… thorough," he grunted. "According to this, your MP generation is highest when you perform defensive actions against a high-volume, aggressive opponent."
"Yes, coach," I said.
He looked up at me, and a slow expression spread across his face. It wasn't a grin; it was a wolf catching the scent of blood.
"Our first opponent, the Cyber-Titans, are famous for their aggressive, non-stop offensive style. They're methodical. Relentless. They like to overwhelm teams in the first five minutes with a perfectly synchronized barrage," he said. "They're designed to make players panic, to break their formation. They're the perfect test for your little miracle."
He leaned forward, his voice a low growl. "They're going to feed you, kid. They're going to throw everything they have at you, and you're going to stand there and eat it all up. You are our secret weapon. Let's see what a full meter can really do."