Ultimate Dragon System: Grinding my way to the Top-Chapter 172: my fire power

Here's your scene expanded to ~1200 words, keeping your exact opening and closing lines:

After the fight, Jelo had had enough. He decided to call it a day and move on to the next part of his training — improving his firepower.

Originally, he had planned to play one more match. But after losing to Iron Fist, his morale was completely gone. The defeat lingered in his mind, making it impossible to focus on another fight. Instead, he logged off and decided to spend the rest of his time strengthening his abilities.

As he got up, he glanced to his right where Mira had been sitting earlier.

She wasn't there anymore.

She must have finished already, he thought. Probably went to do something else.

Jelo left the room and headed toward the academy's cafeteria, where students usually gathered to eat and relax. He hoped to find Atlas, Ken, or anyone who could help him with his training.

But when he arrived, the cafeteria was missing the faces he was looking for.

He lingered near the entrance for a moment, scanning the rows of tables. A few students he didn't recognize were eating quietly. Two others were huddled over a holographic display, running match analysis. No Atlas. No Ken. Nobody useful.

After waiting for a bit and scanning the room one last time, he sighed and left.

His next stop was the academy yard.

If Atlas wasn't in the cafeteria, there was a good chance he would be there training.

The yard was wide and open, its surface worn flat from years of constant sparring. A handful of students were spread across it — one working on footwork drills in the far corner, two others circling each other in a light spar near the center. The air smelled faintly of energy discharge and dust, the usual scent of a place where people came to push themselves.

Jelo walked through it slowly, turning his head from one side to the other.

However, when Jelo reached the yard, Atlas was nowhere to be seen.

He stood there for a moment, arms at his sides, running through his options. He could wait. He could go back to the terminals and grind out another match, even if his head wasn't in it. Or he could wander around a little longer and hope someone turned up.

None of those felt like good choices.

What Jelo didn't know was that Mira had noticed him earlier. She had seen him looking around, clearly searching for someone. His expression told her something was off.

She had been sitting on one of the low benches along the yard's edge, reviewing some notes on her tablet. She'd spotted him the moment he walked in — the way he moved, slow and scanning, gave him away immediately. He wasn't here to train. He was here to find someone.

Who is he looking for? she wondered.

She watched him make his way across the yard, pausing at certain spots like he expected someone to materialize out of thin air. He checked near the sparring area. He checked near the equipment racks. He even glanced toward the far corridor that led back into the academy's main building, as if Atlas might suddenly appear from that direction.

After watching him wander around the yard for a while, Mira finally decided to step in.

She set her tablet down, stood up, and walked up behind him.

"Jelo."

He stopped.

"What are you looking for?"

"I'm looking for Atlas, Ken, or just anyone who can be useful to me right now," Jelo said.

Mira frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Well… I've been trying to work on my fire powers, but I'm not seeing any real improvement. I know my fire ability could become one of my strongest points if I master it properly."

He said it plainly, without any particular frustration in his voice, as if he were simply stating a fact he'd already accepted. The fire was there. It was real. He just hadn't figured out how to make it work the way he needed it to.

As he finished speaking, Mira's expression suddenly changed. She looked annoyed.

"Wait a minute," she said, folding her arms. "You've been running around looking for someone to help you… and I wasn't even an option?"

Jelo blinked. "What?"

"Where exactly was I supposed to come in?" Mira continued. "Why didn't you come to me first? Aren't we supposed to help each other when we need it?"

There was a sharpness to her voice, but underneath it, the complaint was genuine. She wasn't offended for no reason.

"Well… I would have come to you," Jelo said carefully, "but I didn't really think you were the right person to train me."

Mira stared at him for a moment before shaking her head.

"Don't be dumb," she said, lightly slapping him on the shoulder. "I never said I had to be the one training you."

Jelo looked confused.

"What I can do," Mira continued, "is help you think."

She gestured toward the academy buildings.

"If you want to improve your firepower, the smartest thing to do is find someone who also has fire abilities and already knows how to use them well."

"For example, there's a guy in Class 2 who has fire powers. He's a C-Class, which means he already understands how to control his abilities and fight with them properly."

Jelo listened carefully. A C-Class with fire abilities. That meant the person had already cleared the early stages — already moved past the part where fire was unpredictable, hard to shape, exhausting to sustain. They would know things that couldn't be learned from a textbook or figured out through blind repetition. Things that came from actually living with the ability and refining it match after match.

"We could go talk to him," Mira said. "He might show you a few techniques or explain some things that will help you use your fire powers better."

She shrugged.

"That's the kind of help I'm talking about. I handle the thinking part — because clearly you're too dumb to think of it yourself."

She gave him another quick slap on the shoulder.

Jelo didn't react. He knew Mira wasn't trying to insult him. That was just how she spoke. The slap was practically affectionate by her standards.

And honestly… it was a great idea.

Why didn't I think of that? he wondered.

He had been so focused on sparring and raw practice that he hadn't stopped to ask a more basic question: who else out there already had what he was trying to build? Meeting someone who had the same fire ability would definitely help. That person would understand how fire behaved at a deeper level — how to control it without burning through your stamina, how to redirect it mid-motion, how to make it feel like a natural extension of your body rather than a separate force you were constantly wrestling with.

Originally, Jelo thought he would just figure things out by sparring with Atlas or training with Ken.

But this…

This seemed like a much better option.

"Alright," Jelo said finally. "Let's go find him."​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​