The bus drove along the road on a Tuesday morning, heading down to Northern Cintianta for the sporting event at the cultivation center. Saneko stared out of the window with a devilish grin plastered across her face. She twirled a strand of her silver hair around her finger as she thought about the upcoming events. Even though her school was not competing in the actual competition, she had already made up her mind to infiltrate the competition so she could be seen by more people. She could never get too much attention.

Her classmates from the HRS class were also excited to go to the cultivation center. They were the only class going to the center because all of the other students had testing throughout the week. That being said, the center would have a lot of people there who weren't from the school which made Saneko giggle to herself, thinking about how priceless their reactions will be.

The mixed voices of the students filled the bus with constant chatter. Despite Saneko tuning out most of it, she did hear the two people who were in the seat behind her. They were two girls. One was definitely the voice of Cynthia, however Saneko didn't recognize the other voice.

"Did you hear about that guy on the news destroying cities?"

"Yeah. Did they catch him yet?"

"No, but I think the Hero Foundation is going to send out some heroes to try and stop him. The problem is, we don't really know who this guy is."

"Then how are they going to stop him?"

"No clue."

Saneko scoffed to herself and turned around to peer over her seat, staring at the two girls.

"Do you truly fear a wannabe supervillain when I am here? No power can compare to mine!"

The two girls stared at Saneko with deadpan expressions for a few seconds before returning to their conversation as if she wasn't even there.

"Anyway, I'm pretty sure the villain uses fire powers or something."

"I've heard fire powers are some of the first abilities people can cultivate. That doesn't seem like an ability a supervillain would use."

"I know right?"

Saneko muttered to herself and sat back down in her seat, crossing her arms as she went back to staring out of the window. She watched as the trees were passed by as the bus continued moving.

"They can ignore me all they want. Once we arrive at the cultivation center, they will be forced to witness me in all of my glory."

The bus finally pulled up to the cultivation center. It was a massive brick building that had stone pillars at the entrance. Mrs. Gaud stood up from her seat and began exiting the bus.

"Alright everyone. Get in a single file line and exist the bus."

The students did just as she said and began standing up from their seats and walking out of the bus. As Saneko got in line to exit the bus, she continued daydreaming about the upcoming events with her hands in her pockets. Liam was standing behind her and could already tell she was planning something like always, he just didn't know what.

Once they were all outside, Mrs. Gaud pointed at the building and spoke up again.

"We'll go through the back because the front is probably filled with people scanning their tickets."

Cynthia raised her hand and asked a question.

"Do we have tickets?"

"Not individually, but the school already paid for our visit so we don't have to worry about that."

"Oh okay."

Mark and the rest of the student council stood behind everyone else as it was their duty to make sure all of the other students followed the crowd without getting lost. Kal had something on his mind, so he turned to Mark to say something.

"Chloe has been absent for a while now. I'm sure she would have loved watching this."

Allan and Sana also nodded, realizing that she was missing out on a lot of pretty important things, and they didn't even know why.

"Yeah. I wonder where she is."

"Is she sick or something?"

Mark hadn't really thought about it too much, but they were right. Chloe was known for being an honor roll student with perfect attendance at every school she had ever attended. He did have an idea as to why Chloe was missing though.

"I don't think she's sick. I remember one of the last days she attended school. It was the day when Mrs. Gaud let us off early when a beast attacked Cintianta. All of the students left, but I helped rearrange some of the tables that had been knocked over. Well, once I left the room, I saw Chloe enter, and I kinda overheard some of the conversation she had with Mrs. Gaud.

The rest of the student council started looking at each other with confused glances. Sana wasn't the type to play around so she wasn't a fan of suspense.

"Just tell us what you overheard. Don't drag it out."

"Okay geez. I didn't get everything, but I do remember them talking about Saneko."

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All three of them let out a long, "Ooooh." Mark knew they didn't take Saneko seriously, and neither did he, but he was aware of her power at this point a knew that she shouldn't be taken too lightly anymore.

"Maybe Chloe witnessed something we didn't."

The class started walking around the building, and the student council started catching up, still walking behind them. Kal thought about everything Saneko had done, but still couldn't fully accept that it was true.

"Maybe, but Saneko still has no magic power. I know she can do some crazy stuff, but how? The only way humans can gain power is through cultivation, and it doesn't look like she has ever cultivated anything."

"She has horns. As much as I want to think Saneko is a fraud, it's very possible that she isn't even human. Besides, she is most definitely the queen of Dying Star, and is most likely the person who killed that one beast in Brazil."

Mark's words were very convincing. Kal, Allan, and Sana all looked over to see Saneko walking with everyone else. If this was before cultivation was discovered, Saneko would have been treated with much more respect, but in this day and age, while demon horns and silver hair were definitely different, people had convinced themselves the impossible was possible, so they didn't really think too much about it. Regardless, people were definitely started to recognize her now.

Ironically enough, Saneko was too busy thinking about showing off her powers in the cultivation center to even notice that people were talking about her.

As the class entered the main court, they stared in amazement at what they saw. The place was massive, with rows upon rows of seats surrounding a basketball court. The cultivation center played many different sports on different occasions, but today seemed to be a basketball day. There were already tons of people filling up the seats, but the class had a reserved spot for the field trip.

They started walking up the stairs to get to their reserved row, and as they did, Mark walked up to Mrs. Gaud and tapped her shoulder, getting her attention.

"I never asked, but is this going to be a professional game?"

"Yes. The Cintianta home team is going to playing today."

Mark nodded. The world had become so accustom to beast attacks that, even though some of the city was destroyed, the other parts of the city would casually play in sporting events like it was nothing.

They arrived at the bleachers and began taking their seats. Saneko sat in the row behind them so they wouldn't notice when she sneaked away to join the competition. She still didn't know a thing about basketball, and knew even less about basketball with cultivation rules. This wouldn't stop her though.

Mrs. Gaud stared down the row of students. It was quite loud in the court as people were talking to each other everywhere, but she spoke loud enough for them to hear her.

"Remember, everyone, we’re here to observe, so no wandering off."

"Yes ma'am."

Saneko snorted to herself. Like she was going to follow that rule.

After a while, the teams finally entered and everyone in the audience, aside from Saneko, began to cheer. The announcer spoke through the speakers, explaining the rules of the game for everyone.

"Welcome to the cultivation center of Cintianta. In this basketball game, the rules of cultivation can be used to your advantage. Any form of magic is on the table as long as it doesn't destroy the ball, the hoop, or injure anyone. That's all. It's a simple game. Now begin!"

The announcer assumed everyone at least knew how to play normal basketball, so he didn't say anything about the rules of the actual game itself. Seemingly being the only person who didn't know how to play the game left Saneko with an angry feeling. She felt like the announcer was belittling her personally.

"Is he trying to pick a fight with me or something?"

As the game began, the sound of both cheering and the echoing of the players' footsteps against the squeaky floor bounced off of the walls. One of the players wasted no time, and started to use wind magic to blow the ball upwards so no one could block it. Cynthia pointed down and was practically jumping in her seat in excitement.

"THAT GUY USED WIND MAGIC!"

She loved wind magic, and rarely saw people use it, so this was a big deal for her. The other students didn't really care as much, but they still cheered, finding the events very entertaining. Saneko, on the other hand, could not care less. She looked down on all of the players, seeing their abilities as completely useless.

"Pssh. Amateurs."

Even though the game had just started, she couldn't believe how boring it was to her. She glanced around, making sure no one was watching her too closely. The teacher was busy chatting with another student about the game, and the rest of the class was far too engrossed in the match to be paying attention.

"THIS IS MY CHANCE!"

Saneko was feeling giddy again and slid out of her seat and made her way down the bleachers, moving with her casual confidence. Reaching the edge of the stands, she hopped over the barrier and looked back up to see the countless people in the audience. All of these people would soon be looking at her, and she couldn't help but let out a childish giggle at that fact.

She waited for an opportunity to jump into the game, and that didn't take too long. One of the players shot the ball towards the hoop and the audience held their breaths to see if he would make it in. This was it, this was the moment. With a burst of speed that no normal human could match, she shot out onto the court. The crowd gasped in surprise as Saneko intercepted the ball mid-flight, snatching it out of the air with ease. The players froze, staring at her in shock. For a second, the entire stadium was silent, everyone was too stunned to react.

When Saneko landed on the ground, she turned to the hoop and shot the ball towards it. She completely missed the hoop and the ball broke through the ceiling of the stadium, leaving a gaping hole in the roof. She may not have made it, but she did something cool in her opinion. She remembered how well the kids reacted to her doing stuff like this, so she proudly put her hands on her hips and waited for the applause, assuming adults would react the same.

Then, chaos erupted.

"Hey, who is that?!"

"Get her off the court!"

The crowd was in an uproar.

The HRS class leaned forward, not sure if their eyes were playing tricks on them or not. Mark's expression darkened once he realized that there was no denying it, that was Saneko.

"SHE'S RUINING EVERYTHING AGAIN!"

Mrs. Gaud started yelling as loud as she could to get Saneko's attention.

"GET UP HERE RIGHT NOW!"

But Saneko wasn’t listening. She was too busy grinning like a maniac. Sure, they were mad, but any publicity was good publicity. She finally realized this. And besides, she thought that they would eventually respect her if she kept going, and so, she did. She grabbed another ball and turned to one of the players in a taunting manner.

The announcer spoke up once again through the speakers.

"It seems as if a young woman has entered the court and is trying to take over the game. Could we please remove her?"

The player Saneko was taunting grimaced at her behavior and tried to snatch the ball back, but she quickly pulled the ball away. The player's rage was now even more visible than before. He swatted at the ball again, but she simply moved the ball away again.

The crowd began booing, but all she could here was people acknowledging her. At this point, all of the players from both teams began trying to take the ball from Saneko, but no matter how hard they tried, she would sidestep all of them by simply stepping to the side every time someone came at her. The ball seemed to be glued to her hands. No matter how hard the players tried to take it from her, they just couldn't. She was using less than a trillionth of her speed, yet not a single person could reach her, not even by amplifying their own speed with magic. Her movements evaded them every single time with ease.

She still didn't know how to play basketball and didn't feel comfortable shooting the ball anymore, so she was just running around, evading the players, but it felt like her moment in the limelight regardless.