Training Mode—Final Race!
The opponents were AI uma musume with average stats in the S to SS range.
But for King Halo, whose stats—aside from Stamina—had all been trained to around 1,000 points, they weren't invincible. And AI uma musume had some fatal flaws compared to real racers: they couldn't exceed the strength displayed on their stat panels, and they had virtually zero resistance to interference skills.
If her only goal was clearing Training Mode, learning a few interference skills would undoubtedly be the simplest approach. But that would be meaningless! Training Mode was a training space—trying to cheese your way through during training would never yield the greatest training effect.
King Halo hadn't learned a single interference skill. Even though she had Demon King Ship's experience and could have easily mastered that demonic power, she had resolutely chosen the most orthodox path—defeating the AI with superior raw strength!
It was a foolish approach.
But since she wasn't a prodigy, this was her path to the summit! She was smart enough to know that pure grinding was usually wasted effort—but she was an uma musume with a System. The System's entire purpose was to make experience points visible and tangible, letting her observe her own strength progression at any moment. The most powerful feature of Training Mode was precisely its clear display of the stat panel.
In Training Mode, you could see more than just your stats. Your remaining stamina, your training success rate, how much each training session would boost your stats—all of it was laid bare. It wasn't as simple as direct stat allocation, but this ability to see everything clearly, to know whether your efforts were on the right path—it wasn't inferior to stat allocation at all!
And the strength gained through self-training was more well-rounded! Because during training, even your willpower was being tempered. The more you persevered, the more clearly you could feel yourself growing stronger. Every bit of confusion and self-doubt would be ground to dust along the way.
Training Mode's power needed no further elaboration.
King Halo could say with certainty: Kitasan Black's and Rice Shower's mental states weren't up to par—undoubtedly because they'd cheesed and slacked off in Training Mode! If they had truly persevered through Training Mode, they too would have gained overwhelmingly strong willpower, just like her.
That kind of thing couldn't be obtained through inheritance or sharing. In this regard, the System clearly wasn't the kind of true, complete copying you'd find in clone-trope novels. It had minimized the risks of inheritance and sharing specifically to ensure each of them retained their individuality.
They were themselves, and they would only be themselves.
Their origins might be the same, but from the moment they were born anew, they were entirely new beings. The experiences they inherited were, in the end, other people's power. You could digest it and absorb it, but you had to find your own path. Don't be seduced by that powerful borrowed strength. If you only copied your predecessors' path, then as long as those predecessors were still alive, the imitator could never surpass them!
As a diligent honor student of effort, King Halo had always walked the [correct] path.
After three years of training and racing, even if her opponents were only AI, it was enough to forge anyone into a strong racer.
Right now, King Halo had absolute confidence she'd win this race.
It was certainty.
During her training, she'd come to understand something.
Why had Mejiro McQueen become so strong later on?
McQueen clearly didn't have that kind of terrifying talent. Before her debut, she'd suffered crushing defeats—she hadn't even cleared Training Mode. And yet this same Mejiro McQueen had gone on to become the strongest.
Meanwhile, the newcomers born after her all possessed terrifying talent.
Logically speaking, facing ever-more monstrous newcomers, it wouldn't be surprising if McQueen lost her throne at any moment. But the actual result was the opposite—McQueen's track record grew ever more terrifying. Her strength had now grown so far that merely watching her memories was enough to shatter newcomers' confidence.
So where did this gap come from?
Their starting points were the same, if not even higher than McQueen's. They all had the System's assistance. So why the massive gap?
Was it really just the performance of their ZONE abilities?
King Halo didn't think so.
It absolutely wasn't a skill issue.
ZONE was an extension of one's own possibilities.
If there was a gap in ZONE's performance, that could only prove one thing—there was a decisive gap between them and Mejiro McQueen!
And that gap was perseverance, obsession—a gap in willpower!
Through watching the others' memories, King Halo had noticed something.
Aside from Mejiro McQueen, not a single one of them truly respected victory from the heart.
To them, victory was just a result. They enjoyed racing, enjoyed that thrilling rush of the blood. They desired victory, yes—but they didn't actually place victory above everything else.
Mejiro McQueen never raced without certainty.
Before every race, Mejiro McQueen was certain she would win.
That obsession with victory, that powerful willpower—that was the source of her undefeated record.
By contrast, none of the others had that same conviction.
Knowing their odds were low and yet still issuing the challenge—that courage was commendable, yes, but it was nothing more than a challenger's self-encouragement.
A true strong racer would be certain of her victory before the race even began.
Of course, this was only King Halo's own summary. Whether it was actually true, she didn't care.
Because she was certain this was [correct].
Once you were certain, there was no need to question.
Even if it turned out to be wrong, she would never admit it—because she would make herself right!
For uma musume, grand theories were meaningless.
Verbal debate would yield nothing.
Because regardless of who was right, there was only one result.
Correctness belongs to the victor!
Standing before the starting gate like an unmoving Acala, King Halo opened her eyes. Those crimson irises were unshakably resolute.
Once she received the signal permitting entry, King Halo calmly walked into the gate.
The race began!
King Halo controlled her own pace.
Though she had all-track adaptability, because of her Flash-tier skills, her running style was restricted. If she pushed too far ahead before the race's middle stage, she might miss the timing to activate her Flash skills.
It was undeniably a massive weakness.
Proof of the ceiling of her own talent.
But so what?
Her battle style was already etched into her being. There was no way she would lose this race.
Because it was the final race, there would be one especially powerful opponent among the AI racers.
This opponent wouldn't have weaker stats than her, and her skill configuration was extravagant.
Even a slacker like Kita-chan had been able to beat this opponent easily, but in reality this opponent's strength wasn't low—even in Story Mode she would be a formidable existence.
Kita-chan's talent was simply too strong, so she'd felt no pressure.
But from the moment she'd learned about this opponent, King Halo had been accumulating her strength.
She knew she didn't have Kita-chan's kind of talent, nor Rice Shower's luck of awakening ZONE right at birth. Her own situation was actually very similar to Mejiro McQueen's at the start.
Even with the inherited skills, she couldn't master them on the first try. She needed to re-practice them and turn them into her own skills.
Admittedly, this was still much easier than what McQueen had gone through—but her body's innate talent was below McQueen's.
Don't bring up how noble this body's inherited bloodline was. Don't say the real-horse [King Halo] hadn't lost because of poor talent.
Uma musume strength wasn't unpredictable the way real-horse strength was. Real horses could perform poorly because a jockey couldn't handle the horse, but with uma musume, there weren't so many unpredictable factors.
If an uma musume lost, there was only one reason: she was too weak!
Therefore, the uma musume known as Wang Heilou was genuinely a weakling of middling talent.
In the backstory, even her world-class uma musume mother hadn't believed in her talent.
Because of her talent's limits, she couldn't, like Kitasan Black and the others, fully convert her inherited power into her own.
She needed her own path to victory!
In the race, King Halo had many chances to break through, but she ignored them all.
She waited until the late-middle stage before switching to the outer lane and launching her charge toward the front.
Before the turn, a dazzling rainbow light flashed.
The explosive power she unleashed in that instant was astonishing.
In an instant, she completed a charge from the back of the pack. King Halo's explosive power continued to climb.
Though she hadn't mastered Overload Mode or Flow, the explosive power King Halo unleashed approaching the final stretch didn't fall short of those abilities.
"This is my running style!"
The AI uma musume also began to surge before the final stretch, but by then they could no longer catch King Halo.
Unlike Kita-chan, who'd looked down on her own skill pool, King Halo had spent enormous amounts of time mastering the Flash skills in her own skill pool. Because even with their limitations, Flash skills were in a tier of their own!
They might fall short in functionality compared to others' Flash skills, but that didn't diminish the skills' raw power.
System-produced skills weren't like the game, where unbalanced designs could exist.
Flash skills, after all, were sublimations drawn from a low-level world—the crystallized lifetime learning of uma musume!
That was precisely why Flash was so beautiful!
How could anyone look down on something like that?
Only those who truly understood a skill could unleash its true effect!
Kids like Kitasan Black simply didn't know the true meaning contained within these skills.
"From here, I'll ascend together with [your] soul!"
Crossing the finish line, King Halo pressed her hand to her chest and carefully felt the other instinct within this body.
Uma musume were the reborn souls of real horses. Within this body also dwelt the soul of [King Halo].
That was the body's instinct.
Faced with that alien urge, one could control it with reason, or conquer it with willpower. Neither approach was wrong.
But King Halo's choice was to accept it.
Because that was also herself.
Only by accepting this instinct could she become a complete King Halo!
After the Winner's Stage, the System displayed the Training Mode completion notification.
King Halo returned to the System Space.
Though she had truly lived in Training Mode for over three years, very little time had actually passed in reality.
It was as if she'd just finished playing a round of an uma musume training game.
"I'm back."
King Halo reined in her aura and greeted McQueen and the others.
"Welcome back."
Rice Shower responded instinctively.
Mejiro McQueen nodded, looking at King Halo with appreciation.
King Halo's strength was still far below hers, but McQueen could sense something in King Halo that matched what was within herself.
This newcomer would definitely become very strong in the future.
McQueen was filled with anticipation.
Kitasan Black looked at King Halo. Even though she was the senior here, she felt for a moment as if she were the junior standing before King Halo.
Could this be the original's influence? she wondered in confusion.
Gold Ship narrowed her eyes.
What's going on with this one? Her strength isn't even that high, so why can I sense danger from her?
King Halo's stat panel actually wasn't that impressive.
In her first year of Training Mode, her stat growth had been fast. But by the second year, that growth had slowed.
The reason was simple: Training Mode wasn't direct stat allocation. It only enhanced training efficiency.
So without talent, the higher your stats climbed, the harder it became to push them further—and the more time it took.
And starting in her second year, King Halo had split her attention to learn skills, which meant less time training her stats.
So the stats King Halo brought out of Training Mode weren't particularly high:
Speed 1200 (SS) Stamina 1000 (S) Power 1100 (S+) Guts 1200 (SS) Wisdom 1200 (SS)
These were King Halo's stats.
Not weak by any means—but in front of this group, not much to look at.
After all, the rest of their stats were all maxed out at SS.
Gold Ship, Rice Shower, and Mejiro McQueen were even on the verge of breaking past the 1,200-point cap.
1,200 was the stat cap, yes—but nobody had ever said that cap couldn't be broken. If Rice Shower unleashed [Fusion] and fell fully into her Overlord state, she might have already broken that ceiling long ago.
After all, [Fusion] really was absurdly powerful.
So King Halo's stats, among them, really weren't much to look at.
And judging by the escalating difficulty of the Story Mode worlds, the world King Halo would next face was guaranteed to be tougher.
In Kitasan Black's Story world, the prodigies' debut stats had already averaged in the A to S range.
One could imagine—the challenge King Halo would face would absolutely not be low.
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