Casual Clowns had only a few days before their flight to Poland.
"Master, can we meet in the game?" Jake asked through the phone.
"Yes," Ingrid replied.
While Jake's teammates could study and improve themselves by watching the tournament and studying higher-level players, Jake was an archer. There was only a single person he could learn from: Grin Grid.
She wasn't known to be a social player, so there were too few videos about her. Most of them also showcased her finishing off others with her archery, making it more difficult for Jake to learn from them.
He didn't even bother digging through the forums to find more about her.
Instead, a better idea popped into Jake's mind.
He'd study himself.
'This is infuriating,' Jake thought as he stared at himself fighting against the alliance. His Drunk Self could use skills well and even perform the high-level trick of taking items from the inventory without opening the game system. He had so much variety in his moves that Jake grew angry at himself.
'He's doing everything I've thought of but didn't put any practice in. He's such a crazy bastard!' Jake cursed at himself, not caring whether someone would judge him for that.
It was a complicated thing, even to him.
He couldn't remember much from that battle, but the video started helping him clear those foggy memories.
'I can't blame myself... I learned a lot this way and found a path to my style. Still makes me pissed,' Jake argued with himself as he tried to reason with his feelings.
What confused him the most was that he never expected things to turn out this way.
He explained about his way of unlocking his potential. If even Viktor believed that Jake had a key to unlock his talent, then Jake had no reason to doubt him.
Ingrid seemed to agree with Viktor's judgment.
"There's a skill gap between you and your drunk self. I don't think there's much difference in personalities," Ingrid said as she raised a cup of tea to her lips.
Jake stared at her with a 'You serious?' expression.
"I agree that I like whistles! All archers do! I can stand by calling them the melody of my soul, but my drunk self is so affectionate with others that it's unbearable! Shouting love, lovely, crescendo, sonata, dear, etcetera... and he's so crazy! I can't wrap my head around that! There's a canyon between him and me!" Jake refused to accept that there was a little difference between sober and drunk him.
Ingrid took it with a smile. "You're speaking as though you've never made any crazy decisions. Perhaps the issue is that you don't believe in your talent, and you put more credibility in your hard work?"
"..." Jake stared at her.
"Your drunk self knows how hard you've worked for. He believes in both hard work and talent. He has embraced the confidence and craziness, with the love and affection being a side flaw of being drunk. Your side flaw is causing you to cross a line more often than not, but it's not at the level you should be concerned about." Ingrid said.
Jake looked down, looking at the cup of tea.
After a few minutes, he said, "I thought I had a beast within myself to devour... but maybe I just lack confidence?"
"What you believe in is the most important. If you think you have to defeat your talent, do it. All paths lead to the same finish line. You can't tame yourself in a few days, so you should work on what your drunk self revealed to the world. The Feather Step and The Inventory Trick should be the first concepts you master. Besides that, you have unlocked Vision in your drunk self.
Is there no notification about it in your game system?"
"Vision? What's the Vision?" Jake asked.
Ingrid calmly explained. "Vision is the highest evolution of The Perception Skill. At the highest levels, those visions take various forms. Yours have already taken a form. A form of the humanoid wolf."