The next morning came with the soft gold of sunrise filtering through the stadium gates, but Atlas was already awake, already moving and having planned out his next couple days.
There was still one week before the qualifiers to join Team Gan Gan Galaxy, and that left him only seven days before he had to battle people who'd been battling their whole lives.
While he was certain he was already one of the stronger people in the series at this current point, he needed to train more and more, as he definitely wouldn't beat Gingka or Ryuga in his current inexperienced state.
He couldn't stroll in with only a cool cloak, glowing hair, and a single dramatic moment of Blader Spirit and expect to conquer the world stage, and he didn't want to be a fraud like Masamume, losing all the time in the World Championship.
He needed more, more strength, more control, more understanding. More everything. And he needed it fast.
He slipped into the center of the stadium again, the battered floor still dusted with fragments of stone from Jupiter's little performance yesterday. The air was crisp, biting lightly against his skin, waking up muscles that still hummed with the memory of that Blader Spirit surge.
He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and let the silence settle into him. No distractions today.
His Plan for the day was simple: TRAIN!
He'd train all day, wanting to absolutely master the basics of battling with his Jupiter, and become someone who was worth of standing on the qualifier stage.
He didn't want to spend all that time hyping himself up only to fall flat and embarrass himself when it mattered most, and he didn't want to just get carried by his bey.
The plan came together naturally in his head: physical conditioning in the mornings, because a Blader needed strength, stability, balance; Bey control through the afternoons, sharpening the instinctive link he and Jupiter had discovered; meditation in the evenings, strengthening his mind and spirit until drawing on that lavender power felt as natural as breathing.
And so with his plan in mind, day one began. He ran, harder and longer than he expected to in this reincarnated body.
He was on the Saitama Grind!
Only without wanting his hair to fall out. After all, his hair definitely made him more handsome. He liked Saitama, but he didn't want to be a baldy.
His legs burned within minutes, and sweat rolled down the side of his face as he sprinted the stadium perimeter, his lungs screaming for relief.
Several laps later, when his legs trembled, he slowed and forced himself into a steady rhythm of push-ups, then sit-ups, then planks that made his core feel like it was melting.
Every strain, every ache reminded him: this body had never battled. It had never trained. It had never faced anything like what he knew was coming.
Of course, he didn't do this all at once back to back. He took mini-breaks, drank water, listened to music and made sure not to kill himself from overwork.
By midday, sweat-soaked and exhausted, he moved into Bey training.
He drew Jupiter from his coat with a quiet reverence. The metal gleamed under the sun, warm as though it remembered his hands. When he slotted it into the launcher, it clicked with the same eager precision as the day before.
Three.
Two.
One.
"Let it rip!"
And every time, Jupiter responded instantly, effortlessly, reading his intentions before he finished thinking them.
It moved like an extension of his own body, tracing tight circles when he focused, dashing forward with lethal speed when he sharpened his gaze, shifting into complex defensive rotations when he breathed deeply and let intuition guide him.
Sometimes he practiced control without speaking, just directing with thought alone. Other times he spoke commands aloud, training consistency, feeling the resonance vibrate through his chest as Jupiter reacted.
He pushed himself harder as the days went by. Pushed Jupiter harder too, thought as a Bey Mechanic, he made sure to clean his beloved Bey every day to keep it in pristine condition.
As the days passed, he'd set up makeshift obstacles, leftover rubble, thick slabs of broken concrete, scavenged wooden planks.
Jupiter tore through them with speed and precision that made him grin with wild pride. Every shattered stone, every clean arc, every perfectly executed maneuver told him the same thing:
This bond is real. And it's terrifyingly strong.
At sunset each day, he meditated, legs crossed at the stadium's center, Jupiter resting in his palms. The lavender warmth pulsed softly beneath his skin, rising more easily with each session.
He learned to breathe into the glow, coaxing it, guiding it, controlling it until it no longer exploded outward blindly, it flowed within him instead.
Sometimes he'd open his eyes and see the faint shimmer around him, not blazing like before, but soft, controlled, like the heartbeat of power waiting for his signal.
The exhaustion was greatly lessened, and Jupiter had formed an even closer bond with him throughout all of this, truly becoming his perfect partner.
The stadium floor bore the scars of their progress: grooves carved deep into the metal, pulverized stone scattered everywhere, scorch-like marks where Jupiter's friction left faint trails of heat.
By day six, Atlas's body was different, stronger and more balanced. His movements were sharper; his breathing, steady; his stance, grounded. The awkwardness of a previously sedentary life had melted away, replaced by something earned and honed.
And by day seven…
Atlas stood in the stadium as the sun climbed into the sky, stretching slowly as the morning breeze brushed over him, carrying the scent of dust and metal.
He looked at his hands, scarred lightly from gripping his launcher, faint calluses forming. He looked at Jupiter, gleaming with an almost proud aura. He looked at the stadium, transformed by a week of relentless effort.
He had grown. Not just a little. Comprehensively.
His strength.
His balance.
His stamina.
His intuition.
His Bey control.
His Blader Spirit.
Everything had sharpened, refined like steel folded over and over again. Atlas slipped Jupiter into his launcher for a final practice shot. He didn't even count down this time.
"Let it rip."
Jupiter burst forward like a comet, slicing through the stadium with a confidence that matched his own. Atlas felt the spirit energy hum softly beneath his skin, lavender sparks flickering faintly around his fingertips, completely under his command.
No wild surges.
No overwhelming flare.
Just controlled strength.
He smiled, slow and certain.
"Yeah," he whispered. "I'm ready."
***
On the day of Qualifying, Atlas found himself inside one of the stadiums which hosted qualifying battles, listening in as Blader DJ explained the rules while he stood around, next to Thousands of other Bladers, all of whom looked eager to battle and prove themselves.
Hundreds of circular Bey Stadiums littered the arena, awaiting Bladers to battle within them, but they all waited patiently as he explained the rules one last time.
- Winning because of a Sleep Out ( enemy Bey loses stamina and stops spinning ) earns 1 Point!
- Winning because of a Stadium Out ( knocking enemy Bey out of the stadium ) earns 2 Points!
- Battle as much as possible, the 4 Bladers with the most points move on to the next phase of Qualifiers.
"Now let's get this party started. Here we go,"
THREE
TWO
ONE..
LET IT RIPPPPP!