Danny stared at the digital screen’s message with contentment as he let go of the steering wheel and the pedal at the same time. He grinned. He felt like he had achieved something truly great. He had, in a way.

  “Time to try out this new skill,” Danny said. “Hold on!” Danny had just realized something. “This is a nitro skill. Does that mean I’m gonna have to buy some nitro first?”

  “Not necessarily,” Cane answered. “When you are on the private track, you have access to something called Hollow Nitro. It emulates the effects of the game’s nitro.”

  Then the nitro bar on the windshield displayed about five transparent rectangular bars in it with thick lines.

  “You should know that the effects of Hollow Nitro are not as powerful as the colored nitro. This only exists for training purposes,” Cane finished.

  “It’s still better than what I got, which is no nitro. Speaking of…” Danny said, “Any luck finding the price of the nitro? You said you were on it.”

  “That task has been completed,” Cane answered. “I shall now list the prices of the different colored nitro. The red nitro costs 5 drive coins. The yellow nitro costs twenty-five drive coins, and the blue nitro costs thirty-five drive coins.”

  Danny whistled. “Like I thought. Quite a penny,” Danny remarked. “Well, at least I have enough for the red nitro.”

  “Positive thinking is necessary for success. My data says so,” Cane said.

  “Sure,” Danny said, unconvinced. Cane started the process of transforming the track from the infinite track to the long, no-walled basic race track.

  “Would you like to try out your new skill?” Cane asked.

  “Yeah. Can’t let my earlier excitement go to waste now, can I?” Danny answered.

  Danny moved Full Burst to the skill box placed at the bottom of the windshield. Now it was the second skill Danny could use after Beginner’s Edge. Only three skill spaces.

  “Full Burst!” Danny called out. The digital screen appeared with a message.

  Skill Full Burst can only be used when the vehicle is accelerating.

  “Oh? Yeah… I guess that makes sense,” Danny said, scratching the back of his head in embarrassment.

  He stepped on the pedal, and the car zoomed at a great speed. Danny called out the skill once more. “Full Burst!”

  As he did, the transparent bars in the nitro quickly disappeared, and the exhaust pipes produced massive flames that launched the car forward at a tremendous speed far greater than Danny had ever experienced.

  Danny wasn’t ready for the impact. He landed back on the seat and struggled to keep his hands on the steering wheel. But strangely, despite the sudden surprise that was so terrifying, Danny had a huge grin on his face.

  “This… is… AWESOME!!!” Danny exclaimed. But just as he was enjoying the thrill of going faster than he had ever done before, his muscle car’s speed began to slowly decelerate, and was about to crash into the dead zone.

  “Beginner’s Edge!” Danny quickly called out his first acquired skill and was able to make his vehicle cleanly drift away from the dead zone. He then stomped his foot on the brakes.

  He was panting. He felt a mixture of excitement and fear. His heart beat rapidly, and he was panting heavily. “Is this an adrenaline rush? I kind of like it.” Danny’s grin grew even wider.

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  “Well done, Danny. You used two skills consecutively and with great timing. You’re improving,” Cane said.

  “You think so?” Danny asked, still panting heavily. “Well, thanks. You think this will be enough for me to win tomorrow’s race?”

  “There are many factors that will determine the outcome of your race, but if you use these skills wisely, then your chances are favorable,” Cane said.

  Danny began to chuckle. “Yes! Yes! YESSSSS!” Danny exclaimed repeatedly. “Finally, things are finally looking up for me.”

  “However…” Cane said, disrupting Danny’s celebration. “I believe more practice is needed. You haven’t yet truly made full use of both your acquired skills.”

  Danny considered Cane’s words and realized he was right. He was a little quick to use Full Burst. The exact speed he was going mattered. Maybe he should try using it again when he was moving at a faster speed.

  He looked at the skill in the skillbox. There was a timer under it for thirty minutes. He sighed. “Yeah… figures such a powerful skill would have a large cooldown time. So… what do I do until thirty minutes pass?” Danny asked.

  “That should be obvious. Practice your drifts,” Cane said. Danny immediately did as Cane suggested. He sped the car through the basic race track and practiced Beginner’s Edge. He didn’t call out the skill automatically—at least not at first.

  He followed the steps of drifting the game had shown him when he first learned Beginner’s Edge, and surprisingly, he was performing it very well.

  It seemed that after dozens of tries performing the skill, he had somewhat mastered it. The timing and speed of his vehicle had gotten a lot better. Although he wasn’t perfect, he called the Beginner’s Edge skill when he was one hundred percent sure he was going to crash into the dead zone.

  His drifting wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough. It was a combination of his manual skills and the skill he could call automatically. Danny smiled softly, seeing how much he had improved in such a short amount of time. His smile got bigger when he realized the timer for the skill Full Burst was over.

  He decided to accelerate his vehicle a little faster before using Full Burst. When the speedometer on his windshield showed he was going more than half of the vehicle’s max speed, he decided to use it.

  “Full Burst!” Danny called out. As he did, he felt that same jolt of moving at a tremendous speed in a sudden burst, only this time it was more intensified. In a second, the vehicle was quickly approaching the dead zone, and Danny knew for a fact that there was no way he could drift away in time, so he decided to activate the drift skill automatically.

  “Beginner’s Edge!” The vehicle was zooming at a great speed and was moments away from entering the dead zone, but as soon as Danny called out Beginner’s Edge, the vehicle managed to drift away from it—but not completely.

  The vehicle did manage to turn away from the dead zone at the last second, but the force from Full Burst had made the muscle car tip over. Now Danny’s muscle car was in a state where half of its body was in the air and the other half was on the track.

  Danny feared the car would tip over into the crash zone, but luckily for him, the car landed on all fours on the track, causing him to jolt up.

  “That was… a rush,” Danny said, his heart beating rapidly. It was only a game, but what he was experiencing felt so real. He suddenly remembered why he wanted to be an overdrive racer in the first place.

  “It seems it was,” Cane said. “I am impressed by your sudden improvements in racing. I believe you now have a good chance of winning your first race.”

  “Nice,” Danny said.

  “It is ‘nice.’ Would you like to purchase nitro for tomorrow’s race? If yes, you will have to do it in the main server,” Cane said.

  “Sure, let’s go,” Danny answered. Danny used his digital screen to navigate to the void and to the main server. He was now in the city of neon lights filled with all overdrive racers.

  Cane brought up the digital screen and navigated to the map. Just like before, Cane filtered the map for Danny to find a building where he could schedule a race. Cane did the same for Danny to find Nitro.

  It was represented as a battery with a lightning symbol on the building. Danny walked over to where the map was directing him and found a small shop with no one attending it.

  He walked over to the shop, and when he got close enough, his digital screen popped up with the price of all three nitros. Below was the red nitro. It cost five drive coins, just like Cane said. Luckily—or unluckily—for him, that was all he had.

  He selected the option to buy the red nitro, and the digital screen displayed a message.

  Purchase of red nitro successful.

  The digital screen then navigated to a page displaying the amount he had just bought. As Danny looked at it, his eyes widened out of disbelief.

  “This… this can’t be right,” Danny said.

  “What seems to be the problem, Danny?” Cane asked.

  “One lousy bar! That’s all I get!?” Danny exclaimed. In the nitro Danny had just purchased, there was a container where the nitro was placed. Only one displayed a red bar while the others were empty.