Tonight, though, the track had been brutal. He’d lost a race to a glitch. Jax had been insufferable. The leather felt like it was suffocating him, even through a screen.
And it felt more real than any race he had ever won.
He’d never worn it in public. The thought of Jax’s snort, of his crew’s “Dude, what are you, a wizard?” made the pixels feel like lead.
The scholar avatar gestured to the log. “We were just discussing the concept of ‘kaizen’—continuous improvement. Not the racing kind. The soul kind. Care to join?”
The grove was lush, purple-leaved trees swaying in a digital breeze. And there were others here. Two avatars sat on a mossy log: one in a flowing gown of autumn leaves, another in simple, scholarly robes.