Chapter 110:

Ace stared at the boy, then just walked away, he had achieved his goal of meeting some fellow competitors, and he had to say that he was expecting it.

In his school, people had been trained in the art of relations and communications since before they could even walk. In this Tournament, you could find people from all over the world, the main requirement was to be smart and/or good at puzzles. This meant that some of these people would have detestable characters, or would not have been 'taught' the same things Ace and some of the people in his circle had been. Ace knew he lived in a bubble, which was one of the reasons as to why he wished to travel so much.

He was the first one to admit that his perspective on things was skewed, and he was working to correct that. However, these kinds of people did not help. He had done some research when he got home, and had found them to be the twin heirs of a large chain of good stores. This could explain the deep-rooted arrogance he saw in their gazes, but while the girl portrayed herself as the older daughter she was, and a more polite and seemingly 'caring' young woman, the boy was a cockroach, unable to look at anyone he considered 'below' him, which was ironic considering who Ace was.

Regardless, Ace paid them no heed, he would not let his expectations lower for a few bad seeds. Once he finished his tour of the museum, he asked some locals in perfect German as to where the best places for eating were. He could eat in the hotel, but he wanted to use his German in a real setting, and also eat some of the local foods. He ended up being led to a small restaurant that seemed to be nearly full. However, unlike most of the places he had found, where he could clearly hear the tourists, only German was within his radar.

'Interesting…', he thought, 'Was it because they thought I was from the country and just visiting the city or something? Well, regardless, the food here is probably great, so all the learning of languages has paid off.'

***

The lunch was fantastic, and Ace laughed once he came up to his room, entering only to find Edward sat in front of a TV, where he was currently watching a chess match and gorging junk food.

'Well, he certainly did not seem the type, although I guess the Cheetos dust should have been a big clue.', Ace thought, and went into his room, closing the door in order to limit the noise Edward was making cheering the two players on.

He laid on his bed, and picked up his laptop, answering a few business emails, and then spent some time answering messages from fans. It was a bit of a hassle, but he tried to do it as much as he could, even if he did miss quite a few of them, which considering how many he received was a miracle in and out of himself.

He had a program that would answer them for him, but it was currently disabled for a few days as Alfred was working on a way to optimise it, and make it more responsive. Of course, Alfred could always do it himself, but Ace preferred him to have all his operating power on the tasks he set for him, and not on answering the countless messages he received every day.

***

"Good morning to you all, if you are here, it is because you have made it to the second round, which will begin today. I hope you enjoyed yourself, and I hope you are ready, things only get harder from here…", the man kept talking for a while, and once he stopped, people raced to their rooms, they now knew from past experience that every minute was gold, and most of the people that were there now would have figured out a way to get the box open before the time actually began. Out of all the people that had begun, only slightly over 300 participants were left, which was honestly quite crazy, if this number of people got dropped at every round, only Ace would be left by the end of the week.

'Well, this is a welcome surprise.', Ace thought, while looking at the content of the box, it was a tablet where one could see some grid puzzles that got subsequently harder. Grid puzzles were easy for him to solve, since all the information was given in one place, and his brain could process it extremely fast without worry. He completed the five puzzles he had to do within 40 minutes, even faster than yesterday. Once the light lit up for all of them, he walked out of the room. These puzzles had been harder than yesterday's by quite a bit in fact, but it was simply that his freakish brain could solve the type of puzzle he was given much faster.

He got to the lobby, and went to have some food, slightly peckish from the 40 minutes of work. He ordered a mixed bowl of fresh fruit, and ate it while drawing something he had dreamt of some time ago. He did not have many nightmares anymore, but recently, he had had a pretty crazy one. He saw as the white shadow granted him his enhanced body, but then, a black shadow, a silhouette of darkness, pulled as if he was covered by a blanket, and then, the Ace of his dreams seemed to realize that all of it had just been part of his wishful thinking.

That night, he woke up sweating quite a bit from the intense barrage of emotions his mind had placed itself under, and even after a workout and a shower, he was still slightly shaken up, not that it showed on his face.

As he drew the image of his dream, which he could, funnily enough, recall to the forefront of his thoughts with perfection, almost as if it had been glued there, and all he had to do to find it was lift the flap, he noticed a few people working on some of the tables. From their faces, they were quite distraught, and seemed to be communicating with each other, trying to find a solution for the problem one of them had written on a piece of paper.

'So, some people are already helping each other, fair enough, I guess, if it allows them to get through to the next round.', Ace knew that for some people, participating at this tournament could mean a solid job or scholarship in the future, not something people could secure by most means. Therefore, even if they knew they would not win, they would still try to get as far as they could, since it could solvent their future.

The day was again quite interesting, he went out before lunch, and spent the whole day talking to locals and eating amazing food, even going so far as going out with a group of girls and boys his age or slightly older than him. They took him dancing and to a cinema, since they knew he had perfect German. He then spent pretty much half the night talking with them, for whatever reason, they did not have school the next day, and most of them seemed happy enough to stay up late with their friends, talking about random stuff. They asked him all sorts of things, just like he did. And by 3 in the morning, when he finally came back to the hotel, still speaking with them on a group chat they had invited him to join, they had agreed to meet again before he left.

'These were exactly the kinds of people I was hoping to meet, they were extremely nice, and they showed me a lot of cool spots, I might have to bring my skateboard next time. Plus, they also taught me a bunch of new slang words they used.' The words were usually part of obscure references, that only people in the group would get, but Ace soaked them up regardless, committing them to memory as quickly as he could.

The whole group seemed to also have fantastic Englishenglish, and most were planning on studying in either England or America, from what they had told Ace. However, it was late at night, at almost four in the morning, where Ace was still on his phone, talking to them, when one of the boys in the group, Luddy, as they called him, sent a clip. It showed Ace playing games, and Luddy himself had circled in red the number of people watching him. From there, Ace pretty much spent the whole night explaining to them the fact that he was a celebrity.

One girl in the group had actually recognised him beforehand, but had not wanted to say anything. Effectively, she had been following him on I-Gram for a while now, which made Ace laugh, and thank her for attempting to keep his secret. Luddy was roasted after that, since people thought that Ace would not go out with them anymore. It was all solved once Ace asked them when they would be free next.

***

'Well, that was certainly a new experience, luckily for me, I don't get too tired, and I can still sleep today if I feel tired.

As Ace thought, nothing new was said, except for the fact that he wanted to congratulate those who had made it, the people Ace had seen helping each other in the lounge room had not.

This time, Ae had actually taken a full hour to finish the puzzles. They were pretty hard, and some trivia was needed to solve them, so Ace had to do some research. Regardless, third day in, and Ace had not actually used up any of the actual time, finishing before the boxes were officially unlocked.