Around 30 minutes ago, in the virtual world.

“This is… amazing!” Lewis exclaimed at the scenery before him. The boy, due to his family circumstances, did not get to experience the signature virtual world of NLS too many times, with his only exposure to it all being confined in the gates of Aoba or the training grounds of the Infinite Prison’s infirmary. As such, when he finally got to see the “real deal”, no matter how shoddy it might be, Lewis couldn’t help but gasp in awe.

Of course, it was not to say that the scenery before him was indeed shoddy, not in the slightest bit. In fact, the humongous mountain before him was more real and more detailed than anything else he’d seen before, perhaps even more real than the real deal itself – Japan’s number one in terms of popularity, Mount Fuji.

“Amazing! Amazing! Amazing! … Cookie… Amazing! ...” Following the boy’s exclamation of glee, a virtual replication of an echo formed… an attempt of it, at least.

“Huh… The echo must be broken,” AIDE, who had appeared by Lewis’ side unbeknownst to the boy, commented. “I should file a complaint to the higher-ups.”

“Yeah…” It took a moment for the boy to register the existence of his partner, and only then did he respond with a shocked jump up in the air. “Whoa! AIDE, when did you get here?”

“I’m commentating on this, remember?” The healthcare robot answered. “Well… technically I’m an assistant to the players, meaning you, while my original data does the commentating. Call me Mini-AIDE.”

Only after the robot mentioned their differences did Lewis notice the smaller size that this “AIDE” was at – a bit over half of its regular size.

“Well, uh, nice to meet you, Mini-AIDE.” Lewis tried to extend a hand, but soon realized that his opposition was a robot without any hands, and so tried to retract his. But before he could do so, a mechanical arm spawned from the mini robot as it responded in kind.

“Likewise, though technically speaking, I still carry AIDE’s data and memory, so treat me as you treat my original.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” the boy nodded, only for his new-but-old partner to interrupt him with its buzzy red eye. “Incoming call…”

Following suit, from the Mini-AIDE’s eye, shone a holographic screen consisting of only a single call button and the option to answer at the bottom. Lewis promptly pushed the button, only for the screen to show his adversary’s face:

“I see you’re getting used to the virtual environment,” Yusei, or rather, his avatar copy, said. “Now pay attention; I shall explain the rules of your first game in the Red-Black Course.”

With the news upon him, the boy immediately shut his mouth and gulped in anxiety.

“The first game is mountain climbing,” continued Yusei. “However, it’s not your regular mountain climbing. For one, we’re climbing Mount Fuji… in its active state.”

Lewis’s eyes twitched as he heard the news, and a cold sweat formed on his forehead. Mount Fuji was originally a volcano that had gone dormant, that knowledge was something that many would know, Japanese or not. Even in their current time, it still hadn’t escaped its inactive state, and so, it remained a very popular tourist attraction, as well as an attraction to climbers all over the world, that much was also true. However, to climb an active volcano, the thought itself was enough for the faint of heart to wet their pants.

And yet, as if it wasn’t enough, the avatar Yusei continued. “Secondly, this mountain climb does not use your innate physical abilities in their entirety. Look to your right.”

Lewis followed the direction, and to his surprise, there was a curved yellow bar floating about next to him. As the boy raised his hand to try touching the bar, he only grasped air.

“Don’t bother,” answered Yusei. “That’s just a visual cue. In your climb, you will be given this stamina bar. Each step you take from the climb will slowly deplete your stamina bar, and the longer step you take, for example, leaping, will take more stamina. Once you’re out of stamina, you won’t be able to hold onto anything and fall off the mountain, resulting in a game over.”

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Lewis tensed his muscles in anxiety. “But… how would we finish if we’re limited by our stamina bars?”

“Of course, there’s a way to recover it,” nodded Yusei. “Throughout the climb, you’ll find protruding platforms that you can rest on. While resting, your stamina bar will automatically recover with time… Oh, and one more thing: your stamina bar is based on your actual physical capabilities, that’s why I said it was not ‘in their entirety’, and not at all’. The first to make it to the top wins. Any other questions?”

The rules seemed clear enough, and so the boy shook his head in response. “No.”

“Good. Then I’ll give you five minutes to prepare. We’ll start as soon as the timer goes to zero.”

The call was stopped there, and replacing the original screen was a countdown of a similar fashion, and true to Yusei’s words, it started from five minutes. In reality, there was no reason to delay the game for five minutes. This was a preprogrammed move from the real Yusei to buy him as much time as possible without being too overly suspicious. As such, it proved to be an advantage for his opponent.

“Well, looks like you’re in luck,” the Mini-AIDE commented. “Time to do what you do best, kid. Analyze the hell out of this game.”

Lewis replied with a simple nod and closed his eyes, remembering his training one week ago.

“What is ‘Skill’, exactly?” The boy asked.

“I’ll explain with an example,” AIDE answered, typing a few commands in the air. As the words left its speakers, a baseball spawned, as well as a mechanical arm. Using the arm, the robot tossed the ball towards the boy:

“Here, catch.”

Lewis caught the ball with ease, but the action only confused him more. “I don’t get it,” the boy exclaimed.

“Another one.”

Following his words, another ball was thrown at him. Lewis caught this one with ease, too, even using the same hand holding the first ball.

“Now juggle them,” AIDE ordered.

“O…kay,” Lewis was hesitant but followed through, nonetheless. With only two balls, he was able to juggle with no issue.

“And another.”

A third ball was thrown towards Lewis. The boy, unfazed by the situation, caught the ball and immediately juggled all three, not for a moment stopping his current motion.

A fourth came. And a fifth. And a sixth…

Soon enough, the boy was already juggling ten baseballs, and he had only gone faster with each ball thrown at him.

“See what I mean?” AIDE squinted its electronic vision.

“This? But this is just hand-eye coordination,” Lewis argued. “Anyone can do this, given enough practice.”

“Exactly,” nodded the robot. “That’s ‘Skill’ in essence – hand-eye and foot-eye coordination… or at least, its physical representation.”

“What do you mean?”

“Think of it this way: you know with Strength, Speed, and Smart, you can guess right away what they represent, right?”

“Of course,” nodded Lewis.

“That’s because ultimately, they only have one facet to represent: either physical for Strength and Speed, or mental for Smart. Skill, on the other hand, has two.”

“Two?”

“A physical side, represented by hand-eye and foot-eye coordination… and a mental side, represented by what you’d call ‘game sense’,” AIDE answered. “You told me once about your games in Aoba, didn’t you? Wouldn’t you say that they were the best proof of your ‘Skill’?”

“… Now that you mentioned it…” Lewis pondered about his old exploits. In the ABC game with Yusei, and the game afterwards too, he didn’t know the rules of either of them, but he was still able to formulate a winning strategy for each of them. And for the former, even on that inhuman stage, he was still able to follow Yusei just enough to give them the win. Lewis had always chalked that up to him learning and trying, but now, if that was indeed his world-class talent…

“How can I train it? My ‘Skill’, I mean,” the boy asked, his body practically shaking with excitement.

“Two ways, of course. Sharpen your coordination by doing activities that would boost them like juggling, for instance, and feed your brain with all the game knowledge in the world, to develop your game sense to another level.”

Opening his eyes once more, Lewis mumbled:

“Trust the ‘intuition’ I’ve built up… with my game sense, the path to victory is…”

The boy tried to jump up, fixing his gaze to the stamina bar on his right. It was depleted a moderate amount after the jump. From that motion, Lewis switched to a sprint, still keeping an eye on his bar. True to his predictions, the bar was lowered a smaller amount from before. Slowing down to transition into a walk, his bar stopped completely and was gradually refilling with each step he took.

“Got it,” Lewis concluded. “Sprinting and jumping both deplete stamina, but walking doesn’t, meaning that I can take my walking speed as a base. This means that if I go slow enough, I should theoretically not waste any stamina, or rather, minimal stamina with climbing, but it exchanges speed for consistency. Meanwhile…”

Eyeing the mountain, Lewis continued. “Looks like it has… three… no, at least seven rock formations that I could use as a rest stop…”

After a second, the boy snapped his fingers with confidence, just in time for the timer to tick down to its final ten seconds.

“Got it. This game is mine.”