CHAPTER 89: TRIAL OF CONVERGENCE! (10)

Ren watched the enemy teams fall apart and smiled. Everything was going exactly like he’d planned during all those hours of secret scouting.

The arena had been helping the enemy teams fight against Elena’s math-based strategy.

But now that Elena’s team was fighting unpredictably, that same help was actually hurting the enemies.

It was like the arena was a computer program that only knew how to help with one type of fighting, and when faced with something completely different, it got confused and made things worse.

"The arena stopped helping our enemies," he said to himself, watching from his hidden position. "Now they’re all fighting like separate teams instead of working together."

From his concealed vantage point, Ren could see the northern team’s precise formations beginning to stumble.

Their military coordination had depended on predictable enemy movements, but Elena’s team was no longer moving in patterns they could analyze.

Their perfect tactical responses were becoming liabilities when there was nothing predictable to respond to.

They had no choice but to focus on trying to acquire fragments instead of sabotaging.

The eastern team was arguing loudly near a cluster of blue-tinged rocks. Ren smiled grimly—he knew exactly what would happen if they stayed there much longer.

During his reconnaissance, he’d discovered that those rocks amplified emotional magic, making arguments turn into actual conflicts.

Sure enough, their heated discussion was escalating into visible hostility between team members.

While everyone else had focused on the obvious parts of the arena like bridges and islands, Ren had noticed weird things that didn’t make sense.

Like how there was one section of water that glowed faintly purple when fragments fell nearby—and fragments that landed in that purple glow lasted twice as long before dissolving.

His scientist mind was showing its full worth at this moment. The slightest clue was rapidly calculated and deduced with his mind.

It was exhilarating.

Most importantly, he’d found what he called "echo spots"—places where if you spoke loudly, your voice would magically carry to specific other locations across the arena.

During his reconnaissance, he’d mapped out which echo spots connected to which areas. It hadn’t been easy, but he could somewhat deduce the average location each echo spot connected to.

That was already enough.

"Lyra!" he called out from behind a rock formation, knowing his voice would reach the echo spot near where she was positioned.

"Tell everyone to gather toward the glowing waterfall section on the left. Fragments will last longer there. This is our chance to accumulate fragments!"

Lyra heard his voice seemingly come from nowhere, realized it was arena magic carrying his words, and used her Oracle communication to pass the information to the team.

Elena’s team shifted toward the purple-glowing water without questioning the guidance.

Within moments, they were collecting fragments that maintained their magical integrity far longer than normal.

Where other teams’ fragments dissolved after exactly five minutes, theirs lasted nearly eight!

The difference was already becoming apparent. While enemy teams scrambled frantically to deliver fragments before they dissolved, Elena’s team could take their time, plan better routes, and even help injured teammates without losing points.

Finally, the Starfall began, and instead of the massive fight they expected, the enemy teams looked completely lost and disorganized.

Ren watched the southern team attempt to form their traditional defensive formation near what looked like a perfectly normal stone platform.

They had no idea that the stones beneath their feet were pressure-sensitive and would trigger a localized gravity well if too many people stood there at once.

"Three... two... one..." Ren counted quietly.

The gravity well activated, suddenly making movement extremely difficult for the entire southern team.

They found themselves moving in slow motion while their enemies maintained normal speed. Their carefully planned formation became a liability as they struggled against the unexpected environmental effect.

"Lyra!" he called through another echo spot. "Tell Elena to lead the northern team toward those purple crystals. Their coordinated spells will backfire if they fight there!"

This was another discovery from his scouting—certain crystal formations in the arena didn’t just look pretty.

They had defensive properties that turned coordinated magical attacks into chaotic spray patterns. The more organized an attack was, the more wildly it would scatter.

The northern team, famous for their precise magical coordination, walked directly into Ren’s trap.

When they launched their signature synchronized lightning barrage, instead of devastating Elena’s team, the crystals turned their organized attack into random electrical discharges that struck their own members.

Elena watched in amazement as their most dangerous opponents essentially defeated themselves. "How did we know to avoid that area?" she asked.

Lyra, following Ren’s guidance, replied smoothly, "The Oracle spirits warned me about unstable magical fields."

But Ren was already moving toward his next objective.

Instead of trying to guess where fragments would fall like Elena’s old strategy, Ren was guiding his team to the weird spots where fragments behaved differently.

When he led them to the purple-glowing water, their collected fragments lasted longer. When he steered enemies toward the crystal formations, their spells became unreliable.

"We’re collecting way more fragments than we should be able to," Lyra reported to the team, amazed. "It’s like we keep finding the perfect spots by accident."

But it wasn’t accident—it was preparation. While the Amethyst sisters had spent their time calculating mathematical formulas, Ren had been testing every unusual feature of the arena.

Each weird discovery was like finding a secret weapon that only his team knew how to use.

Lyra watched her team work and couldn’t believe how well everything was going.

She thought they had given up on planning and were just winging it, but really, Ren was following the most detailed plan of the entire trial.

The difference was visible in how their team moved compared to their enemies.

Other teams were fighting against the arena, struggling with unexpected obstacles and environmental hazards.

Their team flowed around dangers and exploited advantages as if they had a map to hidden treasures.

"How do we keep ending up in exactly the right places?" Elena asked, confused but impressed.

As the Starfall continued, a pattern became clear to anyone watching carefully. Elena’s team wasn’t just lucky—they were operating with information that nobody else possessed.

Every move they made seemed to exploit some hidden advantage or avoid some invisible danger.

The second Starfall ended with Elena’s team collecting most of the fragments while their enemies barely got any.

They were winning again, and their points were back up to almost enough for victory.

But more than just winning, they had demonstrated something profound. While other teams grew more desperate and disorganized as the trial continued, Elena’s team was actually getting more effective.

Their knowledge of the arena’s hidden properties was turning chaos into opportunity.

"The Stellar Recursion Protocol works," Ren announced when he was close enough to speak to the team normally, satisfied that his combination of secret arena knowledge and unpredictable fighting had completely defeated the arena’s attempts to stop them.

Elena looked at her tired but happy team and realized that everything she thought she knew about strategy was wrong.

They weren’t succeeding despite abandoning mathematical precision—they were succeeding because they had replaced it with something more practical.

"How did you figure all this out?" she asked quietly when Ren materialized near their regrouping position.

Ren’s answer was simple but deep: "I spent my time differently than everyone else. While other disruptors were busy monitoring the movements of the other teams, I was testing every weird thing I noticed. Purple water, echo spots, crystal formations, pressure-sensitive stones—I treated each one like a potential advantage."

He gestured toward the various environmental features around them. "The Constellation Web failed because it assumed the arena followed predictable rules. But the arena’s real rules are scattered everywhere in small, weird details that most people ignore."

Elena nodded slowly, finally understanding that Ren hadn’t just been better at adapting—he had been gathering practical advantages while everyone else pursued theoretical perfection.

"You stay in charge," she said officially. "Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it."

As they prepared for the final phase of the trial, Elena realized that she was witnessing a completely different approach to problem-solving. Instead of trying to solve the arena like a puzzle, Ren had treated it like a place to explore and understand through direct experience.

The results spoke for themselves. They were winning not through superior power or perfect coordination, but through superior knowledge of how their environment actually worked.

For the first time since the trial started, Elena was learning something that would be useful far beyond this single competition.

When she looked at Ren once again, his figure seemed to be magnified greatly in her eyes. His calm demeanor and dashing silver hair and eyes almost made him seem ethereal.

For the first time in her life, she felt her heart ripple for a man...

’Maybe, the family’s decision might not be so bad after all...’ she thought with a small smile.

If it was this man, then she might consider it...