"Okay," Leon said, a confident smile touching his lips. "Let's go see that suite."

  He slid the heavy, golden key into the lock of the motel's bathroom door. It didn't meet any resistance. The mechanism didn't even click. Instead, the wood seemed to dissolve into a shimmering liquid gold, the space behind the frame stretching and folding like a pressurized lung. Cold, polished obsidian as smooth as gss under his worn sneakers repced the yellowed tile of the room.

  Leon stepped through, and the atmosphere changed instantly. The fresh scent of peaches and vender filled his lungs, repcing the stale, lemon-bleach musk of the motel. Behind him, the door clicked shut with a heavy, final thud. When he turned to look back, the peeling wallpaper of the motel was gone. In its pce stood a massive mahogany portal adorned with silver filigree.

  He had stepped into the High Roller Suite.

  The first thing that hit him wasn't the luxury, but the silence. It was an absolute quiet that felt like it belonged in a vacuum. Then, he saw the view.

  The far wall of the living room was a singur, seamless sheet of gss that looked out into a swirling, celestial nebu. Violet gases bled into deep indigo, punctuated by stars that didn't twinkle so much as pulse like distant heartbeats. This was the "middle of nowhere," a pocket dimension draped in the quiet majesty of a private universe.

  "Goddamn..." Leon whispered, his voice echoing off the vaulted ceilings.

  The suite was gargantuan. Three beds, each rge enough to host a small party and draped in silks that looked more expensive than his entire childhood collection of pristine holographic Pokemon cards were spread across a tiered sleeping area. The kitchen was a minimalist home cook's dream, featuring a matte-bck cabinetry, a marble isnd, and high-end appliances.

  He drifted towards the gym. Unlike his expectations, it was less of a fitting room and more of a sprawling training sanctuary. Reinforced carbon-fiber mats covered the floor, surrounded by high-tech resistance machines, and a dedicated open space where heavy bags hung from metal frames embedded into the floor.

  He looked down at the Command Seal on his hand. "Nyx, come on out."

  With a soft pull on his energy, the crow materialized in the air. Nyx fluttered her wings as she nded on the edge of a marble countertop of the kitchen, tilting her head as she surveyed the nebu outside. She let out a soft, appreciative caw before immediately making herself at home on the back of a plush leather armchair.

  "Yeah," Leon muttered, his legs finally giving out. He colpsed onto a sofa that felt like it was made of clouds and Egyptian cotton. "We can definitely work with this."

  He had food, water, shelter, and a base. The basic tier of Maslow's hierarchy of needs had been solved by one golden key. Now, he needed to make sure he was strong enough to keep it.

  Leon exhaled, a long, heavy breath he felt like he'd been holding since seeing that damned Truck Transformer. He felt focused. Solid. For the first since his arrival in this chaotic universe, the constant hum of anxiety in his chest had been silenced.

  He walked into the kitchen, finding the pantry and fridge stocked with ingredients that looked plucked from a five-star market. He cooked himself a protein-rich, family-size meal of steak and roasted greens, eating in a focused silence alongside Nyx, who devoured a mix of fruits and berries. Afterwards, he showered in a stall with more nozzles than a car wash, the warm water scrubbing away the grime of the Chicago streets.

  Leon colpsed into the rgest bed he'd ever seen, the silk cool against his skin. That night, he didn't have nightmares about Viltrumites or exploding subway trains. He dreamt of a billion Gacha Points falling into his p like golden rain.

  -x-

  Leon woke before sunrise, his internal clock snapping him awake with the efficiency of a soldier. He felt sharp. His mind was clear, and the previous day's exhaustion was a distant memory.

  But before doing anything else, he needed to establish a baseline. He needed to know exactly where he stood in terms of his strength.

  He went to the gym and pulled the switchbde he'd taken from the mugger. He held the weapon in his right hand, closed his eyes, and drew a steady, calcuted stream of energy from his chest. Leon pushed it into the bde, visualizing the energy filling the metaphysical gaps of its structure.

  Reinforcement.

  The bde didn't outwardly change—there was no magical glow or humming sound like in the anime—but he sensed the shift. The object felt heavier in a way, more "certain" of its existence. It had been reinforced past its physical limits. Humming in thought, he walked over to a heavy steel support beam along the wall.

  He swiped the bde in a casual arc. The switchbde cut a deep, clean groove into the beam, shearing through the structural steel like it was warm butter. The edge remained perfectly sharp, not even a microscopic burr appearing on the metal.

  A whistle of appreciation escaped Leon's lips. "I could probably cut into a bank's vault with this."

  He turned his attention to his own body. He applied the same amount of energy to his arm, feeling the skin, muscle, and bone saturate with power. Stepping up to the steel beam once more, he struck it at full power.

  The room echoed with a loud, metallic cng. His blow created a fist-sized dent in the pilr, and a crater three feet wide spider-webbed out across the reinforced floor instantly.

  Leon pulled his hand back, checking his knuckles. But he was neither injured nor in pain, the recoil he expected absent from his arm.

  "Damn…" Leon looked at his fist in wonder. "This is insane! What if I…?"

  The standard reinforcement was solid, but he wanted to find the ceiling. He stepped back from the steel beam and reinforced his arm as much as possible. He poured energy into it, pushing past "safe" levels.

  It helped that Leon instinctively felt the limitations—the point where the biological "container" of his arm would start to reject the energy.

  Within seconds, he felt his energy take a noticeable dip and stopped. Power filled his arm to the brim, shimmering with heat. He dropped into a low, stable stance and threw a normal punch at the gym floor.

  The impact was an explosion of force that vibrated through the entire suite. The reinforced flooring directly under his fist gave way, the carbon-fiber mats rupturing ground. A crater at least five times his length instantly formed, and the concrete beneath the mats was pulverized into fine rubble.

  "Shi-"

  Leon jumped away before he could lose his footing as the floor groaned. Landing a fair distance away, he watched with bated breath. When he was sure the ground wouldn't form into a hole that would suck him into the empty space outside, a deep sigh of relief escaped his lips.

  That was too close for comfort! I almost killed myself there.

  He observed the damage he caused more closely. Despite the impact he took and the sheer destruction he'd caused, his arm felt normal. There was no internal hemorrhaging or shattered bones.

  I could level a building with this kind of strength, he mused. Does this mean if I max out Reinforcement on entire body, I can make myself bulletproof? Even making myself bulletproof to pistol rounds would be enough to matter.

  If he was any close to correct, he wouldn't need to fear the street-level heavy hitters like Titan as much. Maybe a maxed Reinforcement could even shrug off assault rifles or snipers.

  The only issue was the cost. Maxing out one arm alone had taken around five seconds and what felt like 10% of his energy reserves. Applying that to his entire body and his gear simultaneously could leave him "empty" in the middle of a fight, unable to use his abilities.

  I'll have to learn how to apply it more efficiently, he decided. Just reinforcing my clothes and the mask to the max should give me a suit of bulletproof armor. It would mean only applying ordinary Reinforcement on my body, but I would still be more than powerful enough to handle ordinary crooks.

  His musings brought a smile to his face.

  It looks like I can start farming the groups of criminals in the city for points soon.

  He wouldn't oppose the chance to buy more Ptinum Tickets or even a few Diamonds. Now that he knew what kind of rewards were in each tier of rarity, he wanted even more.

  More points. More tickets. More power.

  "I'll have to wait until the damage I made is repaired before using this area," he noted, looking at the pulverized floor. "That's a bummer. But this is just the beginning. I've got loads of training ahead of me."

  -x-

  The next ten days became the product of his singur obsession.

  His mornings were dedicated to raw physical conditioning. He spent it in the gym, his Kure-enhanced body responding to the stimulus with terrifying speed. He pushed until his muscles screamed, then flipped the switch of Fight Mode. The surge of adrenaline and hormones allowed him to bypass the brain's safety governors.

  While it was less effective than Removal, he didn't want to break his body. This allowed him to push his muscles even more, but at a safer level than the Kure cn technique.

  Besides, finally having access to to healthy, nutrient-dense food was doing wonders for his physical development. His frame filled out, his shoulders broadened, and the "softness" of his old life was scorched away with each day that passed.

  He trained his Removal daily. He started the week at a stable 75%, but by day five, he hit a stable 80%. To test the output, he'd reinforce a heavy bag until it was as tough as a steel pilr, then hit it with Removal-boosted strikes. The bags would groan under the assault, the sound of the impacts echoing like gunshots through the suite.

  When one finally split, he simply dragged a fresh one from the storage closet and kept going.

  In his downtime, he continued learning to fill in his cking martial arts. The suite's internet became his mastercss, and this was where the martial talent from Kure and the boost from Brand of Tzeentch began truly showing their value.

  Leon spent hours hunched over high-resolution footage of world-css MMA matches, observing and deconstructing them at ridiculous speeds. Every shift in a fighter's center of gravity, the subtle telegraph of a lead shoulder before a jab, and the precise moment a wrestler's hips dropped to strike an opening felt like a nguage he suddenly spoke fluently.

  On top of seeing the "what", he grasped the mechanical "why" behind each movement.

  He understood that the whip-like snap of a Taekwondo roundhouse wasn't just about the leg, but the explosive, half-second rotation of the standing foot that acted as a pivot for the entire body's mass. He saw how sticking close during a clinch in Muay Thai functioned as a method to prevent the opponent from gaining the leverage needed for a knee strike.

  His shadowboxing was an evolving, fluid dance, integrating the skills of the greatest fighters he'd seen. By the tenth day, the multiple distinct styles—boxing, muay thai, taekwondo, wrestling, and more—had bled into a single, semi-cohesive system of calcuted violence. It felt as natural as breathing.

  However, a pragmatic part of him knew he wouldn't truly know how skilled he was until he faced a real opponent. Shadowboxing and heavy bags didn't hit back.

  His nights were dedicated to the "Gambit" project. He wanted to use Detonation with a focus on inconspicuous ammo. A deck of cards meant fifty-two individual demolition charges that could be carried in a pocket. He could even carry two or three decks if needed.

  Leon sat in the High Roller lounge with several decks, learning the exact weight and texture of the cardstock. He practiced shuffles until they were silent and seamless, his fingers moving with a magician's dexterity. He flicked his wrist hundreds of times, practicing the "snap" required to pin a card into a cardboard box from across the room with extreme precision.

  The sleight of hand became a meditation of sorts. Cards began feeling like extensions of his own fingers.

  However, he knew he couldn't train everything in the suite. Earthbending required a proper training ground.

  On the third day, Leon put on a set of clean clothes from his wardrobe and stepped out into Chicago. He took the train to a spot he knew in the industrial outskirts—a graveyard of rusted shipping containers and colpsed factories where prying eyes were non-existent.

  He found an empty lot behind an abandoned refinery, a pce where the concrete was already cracked and the dirt was packed hard.

  Leon stood in the center of the yard and didn't hesitate. He reached out with his intent and gripped the earth around him. The earth responded like an eager friend, and within minutes, the movements felt natural.

  Within his first hour of practice, he realized that the ground wasn't a separate entity. It was just an element waiting for a directive. He stomped, and a three-ton sb of asphalt lurched upward, forming a jagged wall. He swiped his fist, and the wall formed into a dozen sharpened spikes that unched themselves through a rusted shipping container, punching through the metal like it was paper.

  He practiced "skating" on sbs of stone, using his footwork to maintain perfect bance as he propelled himself across the lot at high speeds. It was a crude form of high-speed mobility, but it worked.

  Then Leon added the cards.

  He took a card from his deck, holding it between his index and middle finger as he reinforced it. He injected energy into the card's body, charging it with energy before he flicked it. Glowing white, the card cut through the air like a shuriken, sailing thirty feet in less than a second.

  The moment it touched a pile of scrap metal, Leon triggered the release.

  The explosion was a localized burst of kinetic force that sent a spray of jagged steel in every direction. Detonation plus Reinforcement blew his mind when he saw that. It was a demolition charge in the palm of his hand more plentiful than the bullets inside an assault rifle's magazine.

  Halfway through his third day of training, the synergy was already seamless. A favorite combo of Leon's was "The Hailstorm", kicking two sbs of earth toward a target and immediately throwing a charged card at each rock mid-flight. The resulting explosion turned the boulders into a shrapnel cloud of stone and kinetic force.

  It was a fatal move, and Leon knew it. But in a world of Viltrumites, "overkill" was just "adequate preparation."

  By the end of his ten days of training, Earthbending had reached the point where he could throw a volley of human-sized boulders in one breath or shift a patch of stone into fine powder to create a pitfall. Launching himself into the air using a pilr of earth had become his preferred method of travel across the training lot.

  Metalbending, Lavabending, and Seismic Sense were still out of his reach. He could feel the "tug" of earth within the metals, but he cked the precision to isote it. He knew the theory for Seismic Sense—using vibrations like sonar—but his feet weren't sensitive enough yet. Or maybe his "spiritual connection" with the earth wasn't adequate yet.

  He didn't mind. He was already a powerhouse compared to the kid who had been hit by a truck.

  On the tenth night, Leon stood in the center of the High Roller Suite gym, staring at his reflection in the mirror wall.

  Despite the retively short amount of time, the differences couldn't be starker. His body was noticeably more sculpted, every muscle group defined and functional. He had even grown an inch taller, allowing to break the six-foot height barrier he thought he'd never reach.

  His posture changed the most. He now held himself with confidence in himself and his ability to battle the dangers in the city.

  He closed his eyes and pushed his energy outward. He focused on his senses, applying a delicate, precise yer of Reinforcement to his eyes and ears.

  The room sharpened with an obvious, profound crity. He could see the microscopic texture of the marble across the room. He could hear the faint, rhythmic ticking of a clock three rooms away and the soft rustle of Nyx's feathers in the lounge.

  He cut the power, and the world returned to its "normal" dullness.

  No issues with that so far. Nearly made myself blind and deaf when I first tried that. I didn't realize how delicate the eyes and eardrums actually are.

  At this time, he judged himself to be a proficient earthbender. He could apply Reinforcement to himself and his gear as naturally as breathing. He was an expert of Detonation, capable of turning a deck of cards into volley of high-powered grenades. Finally, he had the martial foundation of an inexperienced pro and the physical prowess of a low-tier superhuman.

  He went to the mirror and pulled the featureless white mask from his subspace. Pressing it to his face, it suctioned on like a second skin. He could see through it perfectly, but to anyone else, his face was a bnk canvas.

  Leon checked his outfit once more.

  A sharp, charcoal-bck dress shirt yered under a deep purple waistcoat with a long, split-back tailcoat silhouette covered his upper body. The ensemble was accessorized with matching purple leather gloves, a dark tie secured by a gold clip, and a prominent silver watch on the left wrist. This sophisticated, formal look was completed with tailored bck trousers and a simple bck belt

  The Wardrobe of Mending only had "fancy clothes", leaving him without much of a choice but to wear expensive-looking outfits like this. But he had to admit the fit was amazing.

  The only negative was his hair. He had shaved the stubble that formed, but his head of wavy bck hair had grown much too long for his liking, reaching the base of his neck. Luckily for him, learning how to tie it into a bun only took one video tutorial and a minute of time.

  Need to get a haircut soon. Not really a fan of long hair.

  Leon took a deep breath and exhaled. His goal for tonight was to hit the nearest gang hideout Nyx and him could find.

  "Time to test the results of my training," he said, his voice muffled but firm. Nyx was already waiting for him outside the building. Midnight approached, making it the optimal time to do some vigintism.

  Leon walked to the mahogany door, the High Roller key in his hand.

  His point farming started now.