A few minutes had passed since Landen returned from training. His body still felt slightly foreign—like wearing someone else's clothes that had been tailored just close enough to fit. Movement was easier now. Reaction time was improving. The awkwardness that had plagued his first minutes in this new form had mostly faded, replaced by something approaching comfort.
But comfort and capability were different things entirely.
Catching a wisp was another matter.
His first white wisp alone had taken five attempts. Five failures of lunging too early, moving too late, or fumbling.
But eventually, on the fifth try, he caught one.
As Landen placed the wisp into his basket, he looked up at the clock.
"I have one point with only seventeen minutes left," he muttered. "These one pointers aren't going to cut it."
His mind drifted back to before the exam started—to the glowing chart Professor Kael had presented.
|| White: 1 point ||
|| Blue: 2 points ||
|| Red: 3 points ||
|| Rainbow: 10 points ||
He remembered his warning.
"The higher the value, the fewer there are. White wisps will be scattered throughout the course, but if you want a high score, you'll need to keep your eyes open for the others. But, just know—they're worth more for a reason."
Landen narrowed his eyes and started calculating.
"How much harder would it be to catch a blue wisp?"
His mind began to calculate.
If it took him five attempts to earn a single point from a white wisp, then it would take roughly ten attempts to earn two points the same way.
But say, if a blue wisp only took seven attempts, then fourteen attempts would earn him four points. By comparison, sticking with white wisps would take around twenty attempts to reach the same total.
"The blue wisps couldn't be twice as difficult… could they?"
And then there were the red wisps.
Following the same logic, their higher value might make them even more worthwhile.
The whole structure reminded him of something.
Basketball.
Professional basketball back on Earth had gone through its own quiet revolution. For decades, the mid-range jumper had been the bread and butter of the sport—reliable, respectable, difficult enough to feel earned. Then analysts started running the numbers, and the math was brutal in its clarity. Three-point shots were statistically more efficient. Even accounting for the lower conversion rate, the extra point made the risk worthwhile over hundreds of attempts. It wasn't even close.
That discovery had changed everything. Coaches rebuilt offenses around it. Players retrained their instincts. The sport itself shifted toward an optimal strategy that felt counterintuitive until the scoreboard proved otherwise.
Don't take the easy shot. Take the efficient one.
Landen raised both hands, fingers curved around an invisible ball.
"Kobe!" he shouted, releasing the imaginary three-pointer into the air.
He watched the invisible arc—
And caught a flicker of blue in his peripheral vision.
The blue wisp drifting within reach. Its glow was deeper and brighter than the white ones, almost like a flickering sapphire flame.
He did what anyone would do… he lunged at it.
But the instant his fingers came close, the blue wisp vanished.
Landen stumbled forward awkwardly, nearly losing his balance.
Moments later, it reappeared, so he lunged at it again.
The same thing happened.
Disappear.
Reappear.
Again.
And again.
After several failed attempts, Landen slowed down instead of rushing forward. His gamer instincts told him something important.
This wasn't random.
Games always had rules.
Abilities had limits. Cooldowns. Conditions. Patterns.
And if there was a pattern, it could be exploited.
"Alright… let's test this."
He lunged again, deliberately this time—not to catch it, but to trigger the response and start the clock.
The wisp vanished instantly.
"One… two… three…"
He counted under his breath while tracking its last known direction.
"…six… seven."
The blue light reappeared.
Landen's eyes sharpened.
"The invisibility lasted for seven seconds."
He immediately tested it again.
This time, instead of charging recklessly, he carefully observed the moment it reappeared. For about two seconds, the wisp continued floating normally without turning invisible. Only after those two seconds did it activate the skill once more.
Three things became clear.
First, the invisibility lasted exactly seven seconds.
Second, there was a two-second cooldown before it could activate again.
And third, most importantly, once invisible, the wisp couldn't change its trajectory or velocity until it reappeared.
Which meant—
Landen grinned.
"I can predict where it's going to be."
He took off after it immediately, weaving between obstacles while keeping his eyes locked onto its movement.
Ahead, a long hanging rope swayed near the edge of a steep slope.
The moment the wisp approached it, Landen grabbed the rope and swung it hard toward the glowing target. Immediately, the blue wisp vanished.
He counted. "One… two… three…"
As he ran, he mentally traced the invisible line the wisp should be following.
"…five… six…"
He adjusted his footing.
"…seven—Now!"
Landen exploded forward, diving through the air like a football player intercepting a pass.
For a split second, his hand had nothing in it.
Then—
The blue wisp reappeared directly in his palm.
Its sapphire light flickered wildly as momentum carried both of them to the ground.
Landen rolled across the dirt before finally coming to a stop.
He lay on the ground with his arm stretched out and stared at the glowing blue flame trapped in his grasp.
A huge grin spread across his face.
"I did it." He sighed in relief.
As he celebrated in his mind, a red wisp casually drifted across his view.
"Now I'm ready to shoot for threes."
Landen immediately went to work testing the red wisps. Unlike before, he didn't rush in blindly trying to catch it. Now he treated the course like a puzzle.
The red wisp moved faster than the blue ones, darting through the air with sharp, erratic motions, almost like it knew it was being hunted.
"Let's see what you do."
He lunged at it, but unlike the blue wisp, it didn't disappear. Instead, it split into two. One was a fake copy that eventually vanished, while the real wisp continued flying away.
"So it creates a decoy," he muttered, slowing down. "Interesting."
Landen chased it again and swung at it. This time, rather than splitting into two, a red cloud of dust shot out into his face.
"Ah!"
Landen stumbled backward, blinking rapidly.
It didn't hurt, but it did distort his vision for a few seconds.
By the time his sight recovered, the red wisp was already long gone.
"A second defense mechanism."
He immediately started chasing it again.
Over and over, he tested the wisp's reactions.
Sometimes it splits into two.
Sometimes it released the blinding dust.
Sometimes it did both.
But the more he observed, the more patterns began revealing themselves.
Landen's breathing grew heavier as he sprinted through the course, but his eyes became sharper with every attempt.
To anyone watching, it probably looked like he was failing repeatedly. Missing lunges. Running in circles. Getting tricked over and over again.
But inside his head, he was collecting data.
Then, after another failed attempt, the pattern finally clicked into place.
Landen's eyes widened slightly.
"I understand how you work now."
Once again, Landen took off after the red wisp.
It weaved in and out through the obstacle course with frantic, unpredictable movements.
Landen spotted balls on the ground and quickly scooped up two.
"Now!"
He hurled the first ball at it.
The moment it left his hand, his mind accelerated, making everything around him appear to slow down significantly.
Here it comes—
Before the ball hit, the wisp activated its first skill.
—the decoy.
Landen's mind computed the situation.
The real wisp turns forty-five degrees away from the original path, while the clone splits off in the exact opposite direction, creating a glowing "Y" shape. The clone lasts for two seconds before disappearing, and I have a two-second window to do something before it can use it again.
He stopped.
But which one is it?
His eyes quickly darted back and forth.
The fake copy always moved slightly faster than the real one.
He pointed. "There!"
He threw the second ball at a wall in front of it, which bounced back to the face of the wisp.
The moment he threw the ball, he had sprinted around behind the wisp's escape route.
The wisp will rocket in the opposite direction like a launched projectile.
The wisp reacted to the ball with its second skill.
The cloud dust explosion.
The red flame shot backward at full speed—
Straight into his waiting hand.
"Gotcha."
Then a grin slowly spread across his face.
He had done it.
After spending the next several minutes gathering blue and red wisps, Landen finally slowed down to catch his breath.
The difference between before and now was enormous.
At first, every wisp felt impossible to catch. Now, their movements were readable… predictable. This made the game an easy task.
One blue wisp after another vanished into his basket.
Then red wisps followed shortly after.
Landen glanced down at the collection of glowing lights inside his basket and couldn't help smiling.
"I'm actually catching up…"
Then he looked up toward the massive clock overhead.
"Only five minutes left."
But as Landen stared at the clock, something else caught his eye.
Far above the obstacles floated a faint multicolored glow.
His eyes widened.
"The rainbow wisp…"
Five minutes wasn't much, not enough to repeat the process of testing and learning a new wisp. On top of that, the rainbow wisp was definitely going to be more difficult.
He did the math, so he knew he had a solid score. The smart play would be to keep grinding with what he knew worked and stay efficient. Don't gamble.
But suddenly a voice came from directly ahead of him. "Impressive…"
Landen turned sharply.
Standing a few meters in front of him was a figure wearing the number 56. The white-haired boy. His icy blue eyes briefly shifted toward Landen's basket before turning upward toward the rainbow wisp.
Something in 56's expression shifted.
Then he smiled. "Let's see who can catch it first."