Chapter 125:

Once the boy left, Ace turned to his friends, who were talking to each other in the table. Sophie smirked at him, "What a bad person, stealing his future...", she shook her head in mock disappointment, and the others laughed, while Ace said, "So, what was it you enjoyed taking part in? Maybe I should...".

"No! I beg for forgiveness kind sir.", Amy laughed, and Igor just looked at them quizzically, until Amy explained things to him, "Ace is just good at anything he does.", Igor nodded as if understanding.

"So, any of you actually looking forward to something here? I mean, this is gonna get boring quick, and I would rather not waste my time...", Amy said, and the others all nodded.

"Yeah, I wonder what the true goal of this was...", Ace said.

They talked for about a minute before a group of older people came, Ace recognised them to be some of the participants in the hand to hand competitions. They nodded at everyone at the table, but then addressed Amy: "Hello Amy congratulations on your success, how is your sister doing?", he smiled kindly, an so did Amy, "Quite well thank you. I am sure she will soon attend a tournament or another. I heard you guys were quite successful, I am happy for you.", she said, and the boy smiled, while the others also thanked her.

"Well, just let her know that I am looking forward to sparring with her again, it has been a while, and I have improved quite a bit.", he said one last goodbye, and then promptly walked back to talk with some other people, the rest of the group dissipating as well, but each going to do their own thing.

"What was that? All the main guys came to meet you?", Sophie asked.

"They know my sister, she used to take parts in a lot of tournaments before, usually as an unaffiliated participant. All the older members have fought her once or twice, and they have all lost.", she said, quite clearly proud of her sister's accomplishments and the respect they created, respect she could reap the rewards off.

"And now?", Ace asked, "She does not take part in them anymore?"

"Nah, she says she would much rather focus on her own thing now, plus, for the most part, they are not a big challenge to beat.", she clarified, and Igor nodded.

"I understand, my sister is the same, she used to be the Russian wrestling champion. Now, she just likes wrestling bears, and some of the better men, she beats everyone else way too easily.", he spoke in a tranquil manner, as if it was the basic thing.

"Ok, I wanna meet that chick.", Sophie said, and they laughed.

'True, what is the deal with her, Igor speaks of her as if she was a goddess. I am genuinely curious to meet her. It should be quite an entertaining experience.', Ace thought.

***

"Finally home, that actually was both better yet worse than I expected.", Ace said to himself.

'Some interesting characters were there, and there was definitely some poaching going on with certain students. Muliple groups and clubs even approached me, which I guess makes some sense, considering some videos of me have been shared.', throughout the year, multiple videos of Ace performing various impressive feats in various sports have made it so that various clubs want him to join them.

They saw his talent, and understood what having him in their corner could mean, and well, if it did not work out, they would not loose too much.

He had gotten multiple invitations, but he was not too keen on accepting any of them as of yet, due to the time that would have to be spent on them and the things he would be obliged to do. It was the same dilemma he had been faced with at the start of the year, and because of how happy he was now, he was not planning on disturbing that peace and happiness any time soon.

***

"Well guys, this is certainly anticlimactic.", Ace was currently streaming, and he had just beaten a rhythm game on its hardest song on its hardest setting. It had been recommended as part of a new segment on his channel. His stream would have to recommend to him some mechanically dificult games, and he would have a certain amount of time to get good at them.

He usually took the more original choices, which usually included more unknown games. It also served as a way to discover potentially good games, for both him and his audience.

He had been playing this game for about 40 minutes. Supposedly, this was a song that only about 2 percent of players could play after more than one thousand hours. His chat, especially those that new firsthand hie hard the song really was, where pretty much going crazy. Someone even asked him to try and set up a camera on his mouse and keyboard, and doing it again.

Ace agreed, and five minutes later, he was ready to play it again, this time with a high definition camera that would be able to show his movements.

He then played, to the various reactions form his chat. Once he ended, the viewers simply typed in: [CLIP] over and over, which Ace found funny for some reason.

He played a few more games, before efinisjing the day's stream with some song requests.

***

"Hello Ace.", his grandmother's voice sounded out.

"Hey, how are you?", Ace said.

"Good thank you, I wanted to speak to you about a business opportunity that came up.", she said, her tone clear and calculated.

"Okkkk, is this about my streaming channel?", Ace asked, confused as to the whole thing.

"Exactly, a friend asked me is you could promote his instrument brand, he would, of course, provide you with some gear...", she began, but Ace cut her off.

"No. You know my rules, if he wants it, then he sends me an email, and I buy his stuff, if it's good, I will talk about it, if it is bad, I will talk about it. You should know better than anyone, Samantha, I cannot be bought.", his cutting tone and the use of her first name, drove the point home.

"Look, he is a friend and...", she began again.

"No, I have told you before, and you should know I hate to do this, but I have to adhere to my own rules, otherwise, how could they ever trust me? Tell him to send me an email, and we will talk. I will do that much for him, but it will be up to him whether his product is good or not whenever I buy it. And he should know, regardless of whether it is good or bad, the viewers will know about it.", with this, Ace ended the call, breathing hard after what had just transpired.