Next morning 09:00 AM.
Felix was eating breakfast in his kitchen while having the SG website hologram in front of him.
"Queen please input those keywords in the search bar; Bronze, Silver, Milky Way Galaxy, Hover Car Death Race game." He requested while sipping coffee from a mug.
A few moments later, the official website page of SG was replaced by a small list that had 6 games.
Felix viewed those games and clicked on the one that's about to start 5 days later, which was the one he was at.
Immediately after doing so, the public details of the game that were open for everyone were displayed before him. Felix ignored obvious details that he already saw yesterday and focused on the players' list.
// Players List:
> Fire Torch_1544: Bronze mid-tier Wins 1 / Losses 6. (For more details click on the name)
> Magnificent Scent_544: Silver, low-tier, Wins 3 / Losses 4. (For more details click on the name)
> Holy Trinity_ 774: Unranked, Wins 0/ Losses 3. (For more details click on the name)
> Absolute Vision: Silver, mid-tier, Wins 5 / Losses 3. (For more details click on the name)
> Unpaid Landlord_6996: Unranked, Wins 0 / Losses 0. (For more details click on the name)
> Echo Wave_ 3478: Bronze low-tier Wins 0 / Losses 4. (For more details click on the name)
>...
>...
> Mighty Monka_4555: Unranked, wins 0 / losses 2. (For more details click on the name)//
Felix found his name buried in the middle of the list and clicked on it. Immediately after, he was transferred to his profile that was open for everyone. After seeing that everything was the same as yesterday he nodded in satisfaction.
One could never be too paranoid in such cases that were tied to life and death situations. So Felix had to double-check to ease his mind.
"Might as well scout for those that can be a threat in the game."
Felix glanced at the time and found that it was still early to head to the training center, so he decided to mark the players that might turn to be variables.
Although this game had most players in bronze rank or unranked newbies like Felix, he still had to be careful when dealing with them. One of them might just be a beast in driving and lucked out on this game.
Just as expected, his scouting turned to be successful after finding out a contender, who went by the name EasyWind_1664 had a victory in a vehicle racing format before.
"Hmm, even though the game is not the same, but still I better have my guard against him."
Felix closed the holographic screen and cleaned the dishes for his breakfast. Despite not needing to eat or clean the dishes in the UVR, he still preferred doing so, as it gives a better sense of realism.
20 minutes later, he changed into his practice outfit and drove towards the training center.
...
Felix stood in the corner of the elevator indifferently while next to him was surprisingly Nora. She kept sneaking peeks at him each couple of seconds with crimson cheeks.
Becky, who was in the elevator with them, kept looking back and forth between Felix and Nora with a finger resting on her lips.
'Did something happen during last night's date? I need to find out! My gossipy senses are tingling!!' She thought to herself as she continued to stare at those two.
Abruptly, she walked from her corner and stood in front of Felix. She raised her head slightly, staring at his eyes, and offered a beautiful smile.
"What's your name handsome?" She asked.
Felix lowered his head and smiled politely at this short busty girl. "Felix, nice to meet you sister."
Becky offered her light-tanned hand for a handshake and introduced herself warmly, "I am Becky Meliford, nice to meet you as well."
Felix shook her hand and nodded politely. Nora peeked at their interaction and felt quite uncomfortable about it.
But she could only bury that feeling and act disinterestedly toward them by suspiciously playing with her hair and looking at the elevator ceiling.
Becky glimpsed at her actions speechlessly. 'Girl, can you step up your act a bit? You are embarrassing yourself.'
Meanwhile, Felix never bothered to even give Nora a glance. He treated her just like air in the elevator. He was dead serious about what he told her on their date.
A few moments later, they reached the 22th floor and stepped inside.
"See you later Becky." Felix waved his hand with a mild smile and walked ahead of them towards his room.
Becky chased after him quickly and touched his bracelet. She then went back to Nora, who was staring daggers at her for some reason.
Felix heard the notification that a new ID had been added to his UVR Chat contacts and continued walking towards his room unbothered.
Now was not the time to flirt around, but to focus on his upcoming game. Felix must ace those next 4 placement games to be placed straightaway in peak silver tier.
If not he would take a huge amount of time to climb from bronze to silver than gold since there was a two months break period after each game.
This rule had been added the moment the participation became a public affair. Simply because, there were millions of new players joining the games each day, and without this kind of limitation, the platform would destroy itself after not being able to handle the players' spamming games every single day.
The Queen with her behemoth processing power would still fail to handle all of this data at the same time. Plus, the games would flood the platform confusing the spectators on which one was good to watch. Most importantly the Alliance didn't have an infinite number of prizes to reward that massive number!
Therefore this rule was a must, to keep the stability of the platform. Heck, as we speak, The SGA rules committee was looking for a way to increase the duration without offending the hardcore players, who try to climb the ranking ladder as fast as they could.
...
After a couple of hours, Felix had successfully modified his room to have a racing track within the Solaria planet environment.
The entire room turned into a furnace with a heat surpassing 58°C, due to the three suns above the room!
Felix replicated exactly everything that the Solaria Planet was known for in his racing track, ranging from massive suns, cracked land, and deep canyons to deserts and even volcanoes.
He did so because the game details only mentioned the planet and not the exact environment. So he had to improvise and mix everything together to have a complete exercise.
Felix wiped his sweaty palms with a towel and entered his car that seemed more like an oven in this hellish heat.
"AW! AW!"
The moment he sat on the leather seat, he yelped in pain and jumped outside the car with smoke rising from his ass.
"F*ck, my ass would be cooked before the game even starts."
Irritated, he snapped his finger quickly and the burnt marks on his ass cheeks were healed. After doing so, he reopened the customization interface and clicked on the interior of his car.
Then he pressed on the standard leather seats and replaced them with heat-absorbing ones. But he did not stop there, as he felt the inside of the car was too stuffy. Thus, he upgraded the air conditioner of the car to ease breathing inside a little.
"Alright, those minor modifications will probably pass through the rebalancing checkup easily." He said casually while pressing on >save<.
Instantly, the car interior seats were changed to icy blue leather seats. Felix sat on them and his ass was greeted with a coolness that eased his tense expression.
He then closed the door and activated the upgraded air conditioner that did not fail his expectations, as the stuffy atmosphere in the car was replaced with warmness.
"Ah, such a bliss." Felix exhaled in comfort while wearing the seat belt on.
After double-checking everything, he nodded his head in satisfaction and ignited the engine.
Momentary after, the car hovered slightly above the ground without letting a single sound. After all, The hovercar was relying on anti-gravity technology to fly, instead of using multiple thrusters at the bottom to uplift it. There were only two thrusters, and they were at the back of the car responsible for its acceleration.
That being said, the car could only reach a max of 100 meters above the ground. Any higher and the anti-gravity technology would turn null, forcing the car to drop down into its rightful range.
Felix clutched the steering wheel that resembled an airplane yoke and pulled it slightly towards him. The hovercar responded simultaneously and uplifted itself higher. Felix smirked while pushing the accelerator to the limit.
Whoosh!
The sound of wind could be heard as Felix's hovercar sped away, leaving only a cloud of brownish dust behind him.