[RIVAL RANKINGS, LAP 1 of 30 (71):]

[1st: GD-02, 10 points]

[2nd: GD-01, 7 points]

[3rd: GD-03, 5 points]

[4th: GD-05, 3 points]

[5th: GD-07, 1 points]

[6th: LEO KAITO, 0 points]

---

He had scored nothing. He had spent seventy laps becoming a god of the circuit, and within sixty seconds, a group of ghosts had turned him back into a novice.

’They don’t drive like normal people,’ Leo realized as he braked for Sainte Dévote to start lap seventy-two. ’They drive like fucking lunatics. They don’t have fear to hold them back.’

[That is the lesson, Leo,] Simex replied. [You have mastered the machine. You have mastered the track. Now, you must master the competition. If you cannot beat the ghosts of your own data, you will never survive the monsters on the real grid.]

Leo didn’t answer. He watched the silver rear wing of GD-07 ahead of him. He saw the way it danced through the puddles, perfectly balanced, never missing a centimeter of the apex. It was beautiful. It was terrifying.

And he was going to break it.

He shifted down to third gear, the engine braking pulling the nose of the car into the corner. He felt the ’Rain Mastery’ skill humming in his palms, telling him where the grip was. He saw the ’Danger Sense’ grid flickering on the track, showing him the paths the AI hadn’t blocked yet.

"You’ve been watching me?" Leo whispered, his eyes widening until they felt strained. "Fine. Watch this."

The digital sky over Monaco was no longer just gray. It had turned into a thick, suffocating charcoal that seemed to press down on the roof of the Arcadia car. Rain lashed against the carbon fiber bodywork with the sound of a thousand small drums. Inside the pod, Leo Kaito felt the cold vibration of the simulated world in his very marrow.

He stared at the broadcast summary hovering in the center of his vision. It was a scoreboard of his own inadequacy.

[SIMEX BROADCAST, LAP 1 of 30 (71) REVIEW:]

[GD-02: P1. Gap: 1.4s. Performance: Textbook.]

[GD-01: P2. Aggression: Absolute.]

[Human driver LEO KAITO: P6. Gap: 4.2s. Status: Insufficient.]

The words "Insufficient" and "Average Specialist" stung more than the x500 pain scaling ever could. Leo had spent what felt like years in this iron coffin. He had rebuilt his brain, frame by frame, lap by lap. He had reached a reaction speed that would make a fighter pilot look slow. Yet, the system was telling him he was merely average.

"Average," Leo whispered, his voice a dry rasp. "I didn’t come here to be average."

[Lap 72: Begin.]

The engine roared, a mechanical scream that filled the claustrophobic space of the cockpit. Leo dropped the clutch and the world blurred. He was faster off the line than the previous lap, his fingers dancing across the gear paddles with a rhythm that was becoming second nature. He felt the car hook up, the tires biting through the film of water to find the grit of the tarmac beneath.

He lunged toward Sainte Dévote, late on the brakes, pushing the "Perfect Braking" skill to its absolute limit. He saw the red line on his HUD, the point where a normal driver would have to slow down, and he blew past it by five meters.

The car groaned, the suspension loading up until he thought the struts might snap, but he made the corner.

He emerged in seventh.

By the time he reached the Casino section, GD-04 was already there, occupying the space Leo wanted. He tried to dive inside, but the AI moved with a cold, mathematical certainty.

It didn’t block him with emotion or ego; it simply placed its car where the physics dictated it must be to maintain the lead. Leo had to lift. He lost momentum.

He finished the lap in eighth. Zero points.

"Again," Leo growled.

Lap 73 was a repeat of the frustration. He felt like he was chasing ghosts made of smoke. He managed to hold fifth through the first sector, his hands working the wheel with a frantic, desperate energy.

He was driving with his heart in his throat, every nerve ending screaming with the effort of maintaining a pace that felt like it was tearing the car apart.

He reached the Fairmont Hairpin. He saw the opening. He moved for the inside line, a move he had practiced a thousand times in the solo simulations.

GD-03, the adaptive profile, was already there.

The silver-and-black car didn’t just block him; it seemed to anticipate the exact millisecond Leo’s foot would move from the throttle to the brake. It dove into the gap before the gap had even fully formed. It was as if GD-03 was reading Leo’s mind, or more accurately, reading the data patterns his brain was sending to his hands.

"That bast*rd!" Leo shouted, slamming his hand against the side of the cockpit. "It used my own line against me!"

He finished sixth. Zero points.

Lap 74 was worse. He tried to be clever. He adjusted his braking point at the Hairpin, moving it earlier to bait the AI into a mistake. He wanted to park the car on the apex and force GD-03 to go wide. It was an engineering solution, a tactical sacrifice for a strategic gain.

GD-03 didn’t take the bait. It didn’t even look at the Hairpin. Instead, it stayed wide through the approach and swept around the outside of Leo at Massenet, a high-speed, high-risk maneuver that shouldn’t have worked in the rain.

But the AI didn’t fear the rain. It knew exactly how much grip was left on the outside curb, and it used every millimeter of it.

Leo finished seventh. Zero points.

The Simex broadcast flickered back into life, its tone as cold and indifferent as a coroner’s report.

[SIMEX BROADCAST, LAP 4 of 30 (74) REVIEW:]

[Pattern: Established. GD-02 lead: Insurmountable.]

[Human driver: LEO KAITO. Rank: Last among points scorers. Total: 0.]

[Observed: GD-03 has countered three defensive adjustments in real time.]

[Statistical projection: Finish in last place.]