LGHTNOVELBOOK Chapter 5: Now You Know How It Feels... (3)
The following day, Monday, October 11th, 20XX, Leon woke up as the first rays of sunlight barely pierced through the curtains of his hotel room. The clock read 5:00 a.m. It would be too early for most people to get out of bed. However, this was routine for Leon. He stretched briefly before getting up, lacing his sneakers, and heading to the hotel's fitness center for his daily workout.
An hour and a half later, drenched in sweat and feeling the satisfying burn of exertion, Leon returned to his room. He grabbed a towel, kicked off his sneakers, and headed to the bathroom to shower. As he let the warm water cascade over him, Leon opened his holographic interface—a personal screen visible only to him. Everybody in District 10 has one and unless they voluntarily show it to other people, nobody else can see their interface.
With a flick of his fingers, he navigated to his attribute screen. Three glowing bars appeared before him: Agility, Strength, and Stamina. All three were sitting firmly at the High, just shy of breaking into Elite.
Seeing that, he sighed. 'Man, it's been stuck like this for weeks.' He thought, closing the interface.
Leon couldn't help but feel a twinge of frustration. He knew how rare it was to even reach the High level; most players would kill to get where he was. But pushing past that barrier to Elite? That was a different beast altogether. Each level followed a percentile upgrade format, and the gap between High and Elite felt like an endless chasm.
Each of the three attributes is divided into four levels: low, mid, High, and elite. If an individual's agility attribute is low, that means he can run 100 meters in something like 10 seconds. All of Leon's attributes are at the High level. So, he could run 100 meters in 3 seconds. His reflexes would be so fast that they bordered inhuman (Elite is the inhuman level). That's why he doesn't aim for the head most of the time since in the military most individuals have High-level attributes and can react fast enough to dodge with their heads. However, moving your whole body out of the way while getting shot is way harder. Also, with his strength and Constitution attributes, he can respectively lift to 500 kilograms of weight and tank about 8 small-caliber bullets or 4 large bullets before being on his side.
Although he was satisfied with his current level, he knew that if he could get better, making it in the city would be much easier. There are a lot of people with attributes at the High level in this city, so he was not that special.
Shaking his head, Leon dismissed the screen. 'Patience. It'll come.' He thought.
After that, he stepped out of the shower, dried himself off, and threw on a casual outfit: a fitted black t-shirt, jeans, and clean sneakers before heading to the restaurant as his stomach growled, reminding him of his next priority.
The hotel's restaurant was on the ground floor, a spacious and modern area with a breakfast buffet that catered to a wide range of tastes. As Leon walked in, the smell of freshly brewed coffee and sizzling bacon greeted him.
However, he felt kind of strange as he walked into the restaurant. The energy in the room shifted slightly. He caught the glances out of the corner of his eye—some furtive, some bold, and others tinged with jealousy. Whispers filled the air, though most quickly hushed when he looked their way. Leon had no idea what was going on, but he stayed sharp. 'Better safe than sorry in this city.'
Ignoring the looks, Leon made his way to the buffet. The spread was impressive, as always. He filled his plate before grabbing a cup of coffee and heading to a quiet corner, keeping his back to the wall so he could watch the room.
As he dug into his breakfast, he opened his holographic panel. The familiar interface sprang to life with four icons: Personal Info, Inventory, Angel's News, and Twitter. The last one was greyed out since he didn't have a Twitter account yet. His eyes lingered on the Angel's News icon for a moment before tapping it. The interface shifted to display a new panel filled with videos.
Angel's News was a weekly news station that posted every Monday at 6 a.m. sharp. The Angels pulled together the most entertaining moments from the previous week, adding their signature editing and commentary. The videos will showcase every entertaining thing that happened in the city during the past weeks. It's a staple of District 10's culture, and everyone watched the news—literally everyone old enough to understand.
Leon sipped his coffee as he scrolled and tried to see how many videos were posted this week. The editing on the thumbnails was amazing, as usual, but his heart skipped a beat when he spotted himself in the thumbnail of not just one but two videos. Nearly choking on his drink, he clicked the first one.
The first one is the most-watched video almost every week as it is a compilation of small clips. Almost everybody involved in the streets can see themselves in this video as it is a compilation of multiple small videos. So, most people look forward to it, waiting to see if they will appear on it and get some sort of fame.
As he watched that video, he finally saw himself and it was the last clip shown in the video. It showed the scene where the Chamberlain guy aimed a gun at their car, forcing them all to duck. The Angels had amplified the part when Leon muttered "Hell no" before he hopped out of the car and opened fire, making him the star of the moment. The footage then cut to him ordering Perro to flat-back the two Chamberlain members as he walked back to the car. "Of course, they had to make me the protagonist," Leon groaned internally. Although he wasn't against becoming famous, since he would involve himself in the sale of guns, he didn't want to be in the limelight this early. However, the Angels made him seem like some sort of big homie.
It wouldn't be that bad if it was only that. However, the second video was entirely for their shootout against Chamberlain. It was Titled "Now You Know How It Feels!!!" It chronicled everything: the shots fired at their car, the high-speed chase, the confrontation at the gas station, and their triumphant 4v7 shootout. The Angels didn't hold back, highlighting every dramatic moment with slow-motion shots and commentary. Chamberlain was notorious for being bullies in the city, rarely taking losses—especially not on this scale. The video's 15 million views in just an hour said it all; people had watched it over and over, turning it into an instant sensation.
As he went into the comment section of the video, Leon could see a lot of people asking who they were. However, most people were clowning Chamberlain as nobody liked them in the city.
Closing the interface, Leon leaned back in his chair, exhaling deeply. 'So that's why everyone's staring.' He thought, shaking his head. He and his brothers—along with Perro—had become overnight celebrities in District 10. The stares of awe and jealousy made sense now to him.
He pulled out his iPhone to check his messages. As expected, it was blowing up.
The first message was from Diamond, sarcastically teasing him about his newfound fame. "Telling me to be safe when we first met? Smh, I should've been the one to tell you that!" Leon smirked and responded with a side-eye emoji. Her reply came almost instantly: a string of laughing emojis.
Another message was from the girl he'd bought ice cream for, asking if he was okay. He sent her a quick reassurance before moving on.
Kane's message was next: "We're famous, gang." He wrote, making Leon chuckle and fire back a joking response before moving on to the next message.
Finally, there was Victor's message. Unlike the others, his tone was more serious: "Come to my house ASAP." A quick glance revealed two missed calls from Victor as well, both from earlier that morning. Leon had missed them because he'd silenced his phone before going to bed and forgot to take that off after waking up.
Finishing his coffee, Leon stood and stretched. Whatever Victor needed to talk about, was urgent. He thanked some of the workers in the restaurants before going back to his room and changing into a hoodie before getting back down to the reception.