"You guys practice after school, right?" Kai asked.

"Yep, we sure do," Lars gave a thumbs up. "Every day, all day!"

"Huh. So, hm..." Kai's eyes shifted from side to side as she was trying to weave the right words. "I was thinking............”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe I should... Well, maybe I should join you too."

"You wanna join da special training?" Lars flashed his teeth. "No problem! The more, the marrier, right?"

"It's fine by me," Yuel said. "But, there is one condition: Lars and I will be playing Bot. We use our after-school practice for these roles, seeing as we barely get to play them at the club."

"Huh, well," Kai crossed her arms. Well shoot, that was a direct blow to her motivation. She was the team's Carry, so she had to practice that role as much as possible. No matter how much Yuel and Lars were going to beg, she won't surrender the most important role to them.

With that said, she clearly needed more practice. The 3v3 against the high-schooler showed she still had glaring issues to work on. Namely, her inability to cooperate with her teammates. It was embarrassing to admit, but her teamwork was stuck at Silver rank.

Actually, it should be at least Gold rank. Kai forced herself to believe that. But, she didn’t sound very convincing even inside her own head. Well, with her experience, it was no wonder her teamwork skills barely developed.

After playing with so many disappointing teammates online, it became second nature for her to handle everything herself. In fact, even this very club was filled with a bunch of useless scrubs in the past two years. Those guys made it in only because they somehow reached a decent rank by the time they applied to the club, but that only bloated their egos and made them think they were some hot shit. Spoiler: they weren’t.

Thankfully, all of them graduated by now, and the club was left with mostly decent players. Even though it was to jab Vincent about things and complain about his performance, Vincent was actually a decent player. And so was Ben, if they ignore the unfortunate circumstances that made him regularly miss club activities.

Luke was the only questionable player due to his memeing, but he was also a solid player at his core. The skill was definitely somewhere deep down there, buried under a pile of memes and bad jokes. Probably.

With these players in the club, Kai developed a little faith in her teammates over the past year. But, it was far from enough. When push came to shove, she forgot about her allies and placed all the work on her own shoulders.

It reminded her of how these pesky team projects at school always went down. Kai always made sure to recruit only serious teammates whom she trusted to handle the work. Yet, she always somehow found herself doing 90% of the project by herself. That was plain dumb.

With that said, deep down, she actually didn't mind it much. After all, the more control she had over the project, the easier it was to guarantee a high grade. There’s no way she could entrust the quality of the project to others. She needed as much control as possible to not get screwed by a bad grade.

For the better and the worse, the same mentality carried over to Classmancers. In order to secure victory, she didn't mind taking a larger load upon herself. Doing so gave her more control over the development of the match, as well as guaranteed that whoever handled the most important task was a capable player. Namely, her.

That's why she insisted to play Carry. It was in charge of the most important task in the game: carrying the team to victory. Without a strong Carry, the team was bound to get stuck no matter how well everybody else played. She has suffered through enough Carry teammates who were suicidal dumbasses. The stupidity of these guys cost the game to the entire team. So dumb.

So, Kai had to play Carry. She was the only one she could blindly trust to get the job done. She wasn't a flawless player by any means, but she knew her worth. Kai could handle most adversaries, no question about it.

And yes, she could totally also handle that high schooler Sorcerer she fought the other day. She only lost because of the terrible matchup, nothing more. The next time they meet, she'll mop the floor with his stoic face!

Ignoring all of this, Yuel set an ultimatum: Kai had to surrender the Carry role to Lars if she wanted to join their after-school practice. That was hard to swallow. Or, maybe it was actually a fitting starting point for her personal special training?

After all, the thing she had to practice above anything else was her ability to trust her teammates and how to safely share some of the burdens with them. By surrendering the Carry role to Lars, it meant she had to trust the guy to carry the team. It’ll be a frustrating environment for her to play in, but in a good way. It’ll make her more used to this irritating feeling and maybe she’ll actually grow to trust others with that critical role.

Besides, with those two guys, it should be easier to develop trust. Kai highly valued Vincent, Ben, and even Luke. But, her faith in them was nothing compared to the one she held in Yuel and Lars.

These two were on a completely different level, they meant business. They didn't come here to play around and have some good laughs with the others. No, they joined the club with one goal only: to win at any cost. Their thirst for victory was potentially even greater than Kai's.

Therefore, Kai could trust them to do their best in any given situation. At least, she thought she trusted them. In truth, the match against the high schoolers begged for different.

Once things started going south against the high schoolers, Kai gave up on Yuel. The guy wasn’t coming up with any decisive solutions, so how could Kai keep believing in him? In addition, she was also disappointed by how hard the enemy Carry pushed Lars around. If it were Kai playing Carry, she'd whoop that guy’s ass.

So, as both her teammates were underperforming, Kai decided to take matters into her own hands. That's how she came up with that dumb idea of diving head-first against the Sorcerer. But, it was futile. She couldn’t achieve anything by herself there. She required the help fo her teammates.

Unfortunately, Classmancers wasn’t like those team projects at school. Her only “enemy” when it came to school projects was her time and motivation. As long as she pushed herself to get stuff done, she passed with flying colors.

On the other hand, Classmancers was a competitive game in which Kai will constantly face increasingly stronger opponents. No matter how good she becomes, she couldn’t win 1v5. This was a team game and every teammate had a role they had to fulfill. Kai couldn't, and shouldn’t, do everything herself.

I feel like thinking about all this crap drains all my energy. Kai sighed. She has been reflecting on all of these things since yesterday night. It even kept her up at night.

The defeat they suffered at the hands of the high schoolers was just THAT frustrating. Especially, since most of it was Kai’s fault. If only she didn't charge in like an idiot...

All that hard thinking led her to today, to her request to join Yuel and Lars in their after-school training. Kai had to develop solid trust in their abilities and learn to rely on them even during the most desperate of times. Anything less than that won’t fly on the competitive scene.

"Okay, have it your way," Kai said. "Lars can play Carry. But, if you make us lose games, I'm taking over."

"Deal," Lars nodded.

"Hoho? What is this I spy with my little eye?" Vincent waltzed into the conversation. "You three are planning to go on some special training? Are you going to master the ultimate technique that'll let us win the regionals!?"

"I just need some more high-level practice, that's all," Kai said. "These guys are Challenger and I'm Diamond V, so if we queue together we're going to play against higher rank players. It’s way better than these random matches we get when we queue together. Our ranks are all over the place."

"Oh, I see, I see. Other than Yuel and Lars, the rest of the members are like commoners compared to your majesty."

"You all just gotta grind more, dammit," Kai gave everybody a look, then returned to face Vincent. "Especially you. The heck you're still stuck in Platinum for?"

"Hmm,” Vincent gave the question serious thought. “I suspect this is the fault of my dark energy."

"Your what?"

"The game system must be sensing my all-consuming dark knowledge! It knows I'm the Arbiter of Talents, the one who can judge the skills of players at a single glance. However, such a sinful existence can’t be permitted. After all, it's the system's job to gauge player skill and match them."

"Can you give us the short version of your bullshit?"

"In other words! The system won't let me go any further because it doesn't want this competition! The world is not yet ready to be judged by moi!"

"Dunno what you're smoking but you better get off that shit," Kai narrowed her eyes. "Anyway, there's no 'special training'. I just want to practice more on a high level."

"I see, I see," Vincent nodded. "In that case, perhaps I shall join you as well. I wouldn't mind getting my feet wet in some top-level gameplay."

"I'm not sure my place can handle four people," Yuel frowned. His room was definitely out of the question. They could use the living room, but his mom scolded him before for not leaving it tidy afterward. Still, this was a great chance to level up the team. He couldn't be the one standing in way of this opportunity.

"Eh, I can probably make it work," Yuel said. "I'll be playing Support, though."

"Of course, of course,” Vincent nodded. “Take it. The role is all yours. You have inherited the right to it from birth. Just give me Top and I'm a happy man."

"What about the rest?" Yuel struck while the iron was hot. "If enough people want to stay and practice, maybe we should just extend our practice hours in the clubroom?"

"Oh, what a brilliant idea!" Vincent typed furiously on his tablet. "Stratus suffers a devastating defeat at the hands of representatives from Gordon High, but their fighting spirit burns ever stronger! They extend their training hours and undergo special training, for the sake of winning the rematch and taking the regionals by storm!"

"More practice?" Luke made a face. "Sounds like a pain. This ain't a job, ya know? We're just middle schoolers. We gotta live and stuff."

As always, such a hard worker. Yuel narrowed his eyes and questioned the next person with his silent gaze.

"Um, I'm fine with more practice," Ben answered timidly. "I have to make up for all the practice I missed, so..."

Then just stop missing practice. Yuel ranted internally. It has already been weeks since the year started, yet Ben's special circumstances remained a mystery. The only saving grace was the fact Ben seemed genuinely serious about the game and wanted to improve, so Yuel let it slide (for the most part).

"Stay longer after school?" Nia twisted her lips. "Hmm, I don't exactly hurry home, so ok. But, only if I get a one hour nap somewhere in there."

"Sure," Yuel narrowed his eyes. How much can this girl sleep? She takes a brief nap every two or so matches.

"And so, it’s decided!" Vincent announced loudly. "The majority of the club wants extra special training! Therefore, we shall stay in the club from morning to midnight! Even skip classes for it!"

"Skip school? Heck yeah!" Lars pumped a fist. "I'mma camp over here, yo!"

"We're not skipping anything," Kai struck down the silly suggestion. "But, it really seems like most of us are fine with extending training hours."

"Why you giving me that look?" Luke averted his eyes and scratched his head. "I’m not trying to be the villain, you know. Practice is slavery, and I'm not one to promote slavery."

"Whatever floats your boat," Kai shrugged. "I won't force anybody to stay overtime. If you want to stay, you stay. If you don't, you don't. Deal?"

"Hell yeah,” Luke regained his vigor. “Democracy, baby!"

With that, it was decided the club will practice longer. Yuel also wanted the club to start practicing every single day, but that'd probably be overkill for most of them.

They began the intense training regime by staying one extra hour compared to before, then gradually pumped it up to three hours. With three training days a week, this increase amounted to nine extra weekly hours in total. Not too shabby.

Though, for Nia, this amount reduced to six hours a week at best. The girl wasn't joking about taking a nap in the afternoon. Whenever the time approached three o’clock, she knocked herself in an instant, like a machine that ran out of batteries. Hopefully, this won't become a problem if the team has to play matches at this hour...

That aside, the upgraded training regime visibly improved the team’s overall skill level. If they keep this up, they’ll be ready to take on anybody at the regionals!