Josh and Cindy had received information from the school about the club members addresses. They currently had just arrived in the small town.

"So who do you think we should go see first?" Cindy asked.

"let's not waste any time, let go see this Ashley first. I want to spend the most time with her and the place sounds interesting." Josh replied

After following their sat nav and driving around town, they had finally arrived just outside Daiki's dojo. When entering the dojo, they could instantly hear the sound of multiple people chanting.

"1, 2, 3 Huh"

"Again!" A loud man's voice said.

"1, 2, 3, huh!"

"Wow, that's rare?" Cindy said looking at all the students training. "Most Dojos are pretty empty these days but this one seems to be thriving."

There were around 20 students who were busy practising kendo just outside the actual training hall. It was a nice day and Daiki liked to train outside when he could. Daiki had just spotted the reporters and immediately told the students to continue practising as he went to greet the two.

"How can I help; we currently have a big promotion going on for summer lessons if you're interested?"

"Thank you for the offer but we're here to speak about your daughter," Josh replied.

Daiki then invited them inside the dojo where the three of them sat on the floor across a table. Josh had informed Daiki why they were here visiting today and Daiki started to laugh.

"Ha, Ha, Ha I'm sorry I thought you two were looking to join the kendo club, Ashley will be home any second now you're free to stay here and wait for her."

Josh took a sip from the tea Daiki had prepared for him while Cindy had taken out her laptop to write notes in.

"Well if you don't mind, can we ask you some questions?"

"Sure, go ahead."

"We noticed that Ashley hasn't been playing the game for very long, most kids these days play games from a young age. Do you know why she suddenly started playing the game?"

"That would be because of the boy called Novis, I suppose I never did get to thank him for everything he's done for me. It's because of him that this dojo is thriving and my daughter is as happy as she has ever been."

Josh had seen that one of the team members on the Montem Team was called Novis but nothing about him stood out, Josh was wondering if Daiki was speaking about the same person or not.

"What do you mean by that?" Cindy asked.

"You see, one day the boy came to my dojo asking if Ashley could play a game with him. Of course, Ashley was my sweetheart but she was also my best student ever, she had no time to play games but he proved to me he was special and made my little girl so famous that I get students every day asking to join the dojo."

Just then Ashley came busting through the Dojo doors.

"Sorry I'm late dad, these people from Tick media should be arriving any second now."

Ashley paused midsentence as she saw her father was already sitting down talking to two people in formal clothes. They had to be from Tick. Ashley quickly made her father leave as she was worried he might have said something embarrassing. Now Ashley was alone with the two members from Tick.

Josh asked Ashley simple questions such as how long had she been playing the game and whether she thought her Kendo had really helped her in the game. The answers they got were expected but Ashley kept bringing up the name of this Novis person during the conversation.

Before Josh and Cindy left, they had one more question to ask.

"Your father already told me about when Novis asked you to join the club but what I want to ask is how you and Novis first met?"

Ashley's face started to go bright red as her memories started to come back.

"I actually saw Novis had just beaten up a bunch of adults in an alleyway, I thought he was bullying them and suddenly attacked him. Turns out he was actually protecting someone."

Josh and Cindy said their goodbyes and headed back to their car to head to the next destination.

"So what do you think, is she everything you thought she would be?" Cindy asked.

"More so, she has the background of a star as well. She studied Kendo her whole life and suddenly started playing VSW. She had a dad that was dead set against her playing the game but found out it was very beneficial to her. This is the kind of thing Esports needs right now. Esports is extremely popular but has always had trouble enticing the older generation and she could be the star that takes us out of this."

Although Josh didn't say anything yet, he was also slowly starting to gain an interest in this Novis person as well.

While Cindy was driving to his next destination Josh rewatched the matches between Montem and the other schools once again to see if he could spot anything.

But nothing particular seemed to stand out. In fact, the only thing that did stand out to him was how little screen time Novis actually got in the game. It was amazing how a person could avoid the camera so much.

This led Josh down another path as he started to search up Novis's game ID instead, called ProNovis. Josh had just started to watch the game and noticed that Novis was playing as the warrior Heros puer.

A warrior who was widely discredited as being one of the worst warriors in the game for having no skills. Now, why would he choose to play this warrior? Josh thought. Before Josh could begin to watch the video though, they had already arrived at their next destination.

"Were here," Cindy said.

"Huh wait are sure we're at the right address?" Josh said as he looked at the building they had stopped just outside.

"Yeah, that's what it says, black tree orphanage."