Chapter 22:

Ace continued to make his way through the school, finally arriving at the area where the videogame club was located. It was a large building, and he went directly to the reception where a senior was sitting down, he asked what he had to do to join, and she responded that all he had to do was fill out a sign-up sheet. He would then be notified a week later and given the id that he would have to use to go into the building. He smiled and sat down to fill out the form. It was simple, it asked for full name, rank of homeroom, what games he was currently playing, what games he was going to play in the future, and his ranking for each one. Then finally, the last question asked whether he played games for recreation, or in a more professional manner, he marked the latter.

He handed the form and headed into the building, there were various wings but he headed directly for the Rainbow Six Siege one. The game would come out in a few days but there seemed to be a lot of excitement over it, and this school was now different. He headed inside. Once he did, he was overtaken by the smell of sweat, Cheetos and energy drinks. It was all pretty grimy, but since he had no plans on playing here, it was fine by him, he had no plans of touching those keyboards or mice. As soon as he headed in, he noticed a crowd of people around one large screen, that seemed to be showing one of the previous semi-pro matches. Various organisations had already made teams out of various beta players and were now in the process of playing against each other in order to get as good as possible, in preparation for the coming tournaments that would be hosted throughout the year.

He walked silently behind the crowd and saw the match they were watching, it was one that had happened two days ago and Ace had already watched it, one of the players was especially good, way above any other player. He observed the reactions of everyone in the crowd, some seemed to be interested in the match while he spotted others that seemed to have already watched it. Soon, the match finished and everyone dispersed, but not before they noticed Ace.

"Hey, fresh meat! What's up?", a boy shouted across the room, drawing almost everyone's attention.

"I wish to join the club, and I was just looking around to see if you had any teams with open vacancies.", Ace said in a polite manner, he assumed they had no idea who he was, but that was fine by him.

"As a matter of a fact, we do, but why should you get a spot?", the boy asked with disdain

"I am interested in the game, and I don't think I will be very bad."

"Ok then! You play the Beta?"

"No."

"Ahahaha! So why exactly would you think you would get a spot if you have not even played the game?"

"Hmmm, now that you say it, it does seem quite unfair, tell you what, the game is coming out in a few days after it does, give me a week, and then I will play with you guys, then, we will see as to whether I am good enough for the team or not", Ace proposed a solution to the problem, a favourable one for him, considering he had already memorised every map and call out, he had not played the Beta because by the time it had started, he was still getting ahold of the reigns of his life. He could have gotten in if he so wished, but it was fine, he practised his aim in CSGO, and memorised all the information he could. Tournaments would begin at least three months after game release, as people got accustomed to the full version, and teams were fully fleshed out. Therefore, he surmised, that it would probably not be worth it to owe his grandmother a favour just for something that would have no real impact, he would still have three months to get good, and with his abilities and capabilities, that would be more than enough.

"Ok then.", the boy said with a smile, "let's do that! But we will not do it for free, you are a freshman, so you won't have any points now, but three hundred thousand will do.", at this, the boy drew an ugly grin across his face and the crowd laughed.

"No, it's ok, we can do 10 points right now.", Ace said and grinned lightly

The boy stared surprised at this and the crowd instantly shut up, it was his second day, so it should be near impossible to get any points all things considered, and even then, 10 points! It should be known that the average sophomore had about 100 points, the goal of most students was to gain about 100 points every year, they would finish school in a good enough ranking they would be able to go to any university they desired. Therefore, ten points as an immense amount of wealth, Ace had found out this morning, and it made him even more curious to find out who the boy that had lent him twenty was. He knew that the only reason the bet with the fighter was made was because the guy was assured of victory. This meant that Ace had a large enough capital to make any bets he wished against most sophomores.

The boy clearly hesitated at this, but finally receded, "Bah, there is no point, if you are good enough you might be able to get a spot in the team, and if you are not, we will have wasted our time."

Aced laughed internally, he assumed something like this would happen, these people were probably not ranked very high, so ten points would be a massive sum of wealth for them. Therefore, they would rather have no gains than risk such losses.

"Ok, have a nice day, see you then.", Ace waved in a friendly manner and walked back out of the building. The fresh air hit him like a punch to the gut, the change in temperature and smell assaulted his nostrils and along with the change in ambience and lighting, made him slightly dizzy.

He went back home, excited to go back to playing games, most other students would probably be studying like crazy, attempting to stay ahead, but Ace just sat down in front of his computer, and loaded into what would assuredly be the last game of the night. Yeah right.