A hand reached out from the side, a finger hooking the aluminum tab.
Pop-fizz.
The sharp hiss of escaping carbonation cut through the quiet of the paddock. Justin handed the open can to Roan. "Drink up. At this point, this stuff is basically your life support."
Roan didn't stand on ceremony. He didn't even have the breath to say thank you. He gripped the icy can with both hands as if it were a holy relic, tilting his head back to let the liquid surge down his throat. The massive hit of glucose hit his bloodstream almost instantly; the ringing in his ears and the lightheadedness of a hypoglycemic crash finally began to recede.
"I thought... I could hold it for five laps," Roan rasped, his voice sounding like it had been dragged over gravel.
"Your neck was gone by lap three," a cold voice cut in from the side.
Marcus was sitting in front of a tactical whiteboard, a black marker in hand. He wasn't looking at Roan; he was staring at the telemetry replay on the monitor. "Turn 8. Your perfect G-load trace took a 40% vertical dive here. You lifted. You hesitated."
Marcus's tone was clinical, stripping away any ego. "After that, your line fell apart. If this were an F1 car, a single high-speed corner would hit you with 4 or 5Gs of lateral force. With your current neck strength, your helmet would slam into the cockpit side-padding. You'd black out and find yourself in the barriers before you could blink."
Roan looked at the jagged red line on the screen. He didn't argue. Data was the only truth on the track. In the simulator, he was used to his G29 wheel—even at its max torque of 5Nm, it was a toy he could play with all night. But in a real machine, even a 34-horsepower kart delivered a relentless, soul-crushing 2.5G pull that ravaged his unconditioned frame.
His mind and technique were S-Rank. His body was F-Rank. That was the reality of the physical world.
Marcus turned around, his marker tapping sharply against the whiteboard. "Now that you're conscious, let's talk about the future."
He had already drawn four parallel lines on the board, each representing a different universe of racing.
"Touring Cars. Like WTCR. Roof over your head, high contact, but lower physical load. It's accessible. You could be a champion for a factory team like Lynk & Co."
"Rally. WRC. Man against nature. It's a game for the brave, requiring insane split-second reflexes. You've seen the movies, but the reality is much dirtier and more dangerous."
"Drift. D1GP. It's about style, tire smoke, and car control. Low physical load, high showmanship."
"Formula."
Marcus's marker stopped on the final line—the thinnest, straightest path. "The peak of mechanical engineering. A one-way bridge through F4, F3, and F2, leading to the F1 grid."
He turned, his gaze boring into Roan's. "I've laid out the paths. There are sub-categories, but these are the four pillars. At the top of any of these roads, you're a World Champion. So, Roan. What do you want?"
There was no latency. Before the words had even fully left Marcus's mouth, Roan's finger was pointing at the board.
Formula.
"This one," Roan said. Two words. No fluff.
Marcus had been prepared to explain the lucrative prize pools and realistic advantages of Touring cars, but the words died in his throat. He looked at Roan, gave a slow, deliberate nod, and picked up the eraser.
Scrub-scrub-scrub.
The other three lines vanished, leaving a single, lonely vertical stroke against the white background. It looked less like a path and more like a needle.
"You're sure?" Marcus's voice dropped into a lower register. "This is the hardest road. The highest attrition rate. The highest cost."
He began to write numbers next to the line. Each digit carried a cold, crushing weight.
F4 — $300,000 / Year
F3 — $1,200,000 / Year (European)
F2 — $2,500,000 / Year (International)
F1 — ???
Marcus emphasized every zero with a heavy thud of the marker, like a funeral bell. "These are conservative estimates. In reality, you'll burn through more. Calling it a 'money-pit' is an understatement."
Justin, watching from the side, felt his eyelid twitch. Even for his family, those numbers weren't trivial.
"And money isn't enough," Marcus continued. He drew a pyramid and wrote a single number at the apex: 20.
"F1. Only twenty seats in the entire world. To sit in one, you need the Super License. You can't buy it. You have to earn 40 points over three years. You have to finish in the top three of almost every series you enter. Even the multi-millionaire 'pay drivers' have to grind for those points."
Marcus stepped closer, his shadow looming over Roan. "In Touring cars, you can be a player. If you lose, you try again next year. But Formula? Calling it a bridge is too generous. It's a tightrope. One bad year, one mistake, and the points gap swallows you. You're done. You're competing against thousands of geniuses who have been in karts since they were five years old."
He tapped the bottom of the pyramid. "Thousands here." He slid his finger to the top. "Twenty here."
Marcus tossed the marker into the tray. Clack. "Now. If you want to switch to GT3 or Touring, now is the time. Those are the paths for a 'late-bloomer' rookie."
The paddock went silent. The only sound was the faint hum of the air conditioner. Everyone was looking at Roan, expecting to see a flash of hesitation or the crushing weight of reality in his eyes.
But Roan's expression changed into something Marcus hadn't expected. It wasn't the blind fervor of a shonen protagonist. It was the look of a pro-gamer who had just seen a world-first raid boss. He looked... hungry.
"I know the math. Ten teams. Twenty seats," Roan said, his voice quiet but terrifyingly clear. "If the gate is that narrow, it means there's no room for mediocrity. The value of the seat is absolute."
Marcus was speechless. He had tried to use the crushing reality to ground the boy, but Roan wasn't looking at the 99.9% failure rate. He was focused entirely on the 0.1% chance of ascension.
"The elite don't scare me," Roan said. He was usually shy around adults, but the adrenaline had stripped away his social filter. He looked at the astronomical numbers on the board, his eyes burning with a jagged, cold fire.
"Whether it's a bridge or a tightrope... if someone is in my way, I'll just have to knock them off."