He dropped his bag on the sideline—black, understated, the thing that looked like quality without screaming money. Inside was his training kit: compression shirt, performance shorts, shoes that had cost more than some people's rent but were designed to look like regular high-end athletic gear rather than "billionaire's nephew" gear.

Only he knew how expensive it all was.

Everyone else just saw a guy who took care of his equipment.

Good enough.

The spectators—about twenty of them scattered across mismatched lawn chairs, overturned crates, and one truly ancient bleacher that looked like it remembered segregation—perked up at the commotion.

"Yo, is that him?"

"The Paradise kid?"

"He ain't from Paradise, look at him. Paradise kids don't take taxis to this side of town."

"I'm telling you, I saw him get out of a Mercedes last week—"

"That was a taxi, dumbass. A black taxi. Not everything black and shiny is a Mercedes."

Phei let the speculation wash over him. Let them wonder. Let them theorize about where the tall, purple-eyed stranger came from and why he kept showing up to play pickup basketball in a neighborhood that didn't even have a Starbucks.

The truth was simpler and more complicated than any of their guesses.

He needed this.

Not the basketball—though that was part of it. The System had given him knowledge, sure. Twenty percent of the sixty percent; a professional-level skill downloaded directly into his brain like the world's most specific software update. But knowledge without practice was just trivia. Just facts rattling around in his skull with nowhere to go.

The knowledge had everything.

Every technique. Every footwork pattern. Every micro-adjustment that separated good players from great ones. It was all there, sitting in his mind like a library he'd memorized but never visited.

But his body?

His body was still rusted. Still clumsy. Still carrying seventeen years of being too afraid to take up space, too trained to flinch instead of fight, too used to failure to remember what success felt like.

The training was the bleach.

The solvent that would strip away the rust, the fear, the weakness.

And these guys—these normal, friendly, oblivious guys—were the only ones who let him do it without questions.

Four days of real games against real opponents—that was what washed the rust away. That was what forced his muscles to stop betraying the 20% knowledge in his head. Every sprint, every pivot, every contested shot was his body learning to trust what his brain already knew.

Attuning.

That was the word.

He was attuning his body to the skills 20% skills after mastering the first 10%. Letting the physical catch up to the mental. And with his ever-growing strength from the System's stat boosts, the process was accelerating faster than it had any right to—like a teenager who'd discovered steroids and decided moderation was for losers.

He wasn't just good anymore.

He was ready.

Good enough to bench one of the Academy's starting players. Good enough to take a spot on the first lineup and not embarrass himself. Good enough to walk onto that polished Paradise court and make people wonder where the hell this version of Phei Maxton had been hiding—probably under a rock labeled "charity case" while they used it for target practice.

But not yet.

First, he had to finish what he'd started here.

"Aight, aight." DeShawn was doing his captain thing, gathering the team for what he probably thought was a motivational speech. "Listen up, gentlemen. We got Pretty Boy... Our Ringer. That mean we actually got a chance today."

"Gee," Phei said dryly. "Thanks for the confidence. Really feeling the love."

"I'm dead serious, bruh! Before you showed up, we was oh-and-six against these clowns."

"Oh-and-seven," Max corrected, appearing at Phei's elbow with the casual energy of someone who'd already decided today was a "spiritual reasons" day for post defense—again.

"Oh-and-seven," DeShawn amended without shame, like a man who'd accepted his team's losing streak as a personality trait. "Point is, you our secret weapon. Our ace in the hole. Our—"

"Your ringer," Phei finished, voice flat enough to skate on.

"Exactly!" DeShawn beamed like Phei had just said something profound instead of mildly insulting. "So here's the plan: we pass to you, you do that thing where you make the ball go in the hoop, we win. Simple."

"That's... that's not a plan. That's just describing basketball."

"Best plan we ever had," Max said solemnly, nodding like a man who'd achieved enlightenment through chronic mediocrity.

The team erupted in laughter—real laughter, the kind that didn't come with a side of humiliation or a hidden knife.

Phei looked at his team—his team, Christ, when had that happened?—and felt something warm and unfamiliar settle in his chest.

This was stupid. These guys who could be nobodies in the place he came from. This court was a joke. This whole situation was so far beneath what his life had become that Sierra would probably laugh herself unconscious if she found out he spent his afternoons here, sweating with regular humans instead of conquering her again.

But they wanted him.

Not his money. Not his connections. Not whatever power the System was building in him like a nuclear reactor with daddy issues.

Just him. The tall guy who showed up and made the ball go in the hoop.

And he wanted them too.

"Fine," Phei said, fighting the smile that wanted to break across his face. "But if we win, Max buys drinks."

"What? Nah, nah, nah—my spiritual advisor specifically said I shouldn't spend money on Tuesdays. Bad energy. Mercury in retrograde. You know how it is."

"It's Thursday, Max."

"...My spiritual advisor also said I got bad memory."

The team howled.

Phei let himself laugh with them—real, ugly, unfiltered laughter that felt like coughing up something poisonous he'd been swallowing for years.

The other team started their own huddle, shooting glances at Phei with the kind of competitive hunger that had nothing to do with Paradise politics and everything to do with the pure, simple desire to win.

No blackmail. No legacies. No hidden agendas.

Just basketball.

Pure.

Clean.

The way it should be.

Phei stretched his arms. Rolled his shoulders. Felt the 20% knowledge settle into his muscles like water finding its level—no resistance anymore, no rust, just clean potential waiting to be unleashed.

Four days ago, he'd been a guy with skills trapped in a body that didn't know how to use them with an actual team apart from the self-practice at the academy court.

Now?

Now he was a weapon someone had finally finished sharpening.

Let's see what this body can really do.

The whistle blew.

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