S03 Practice Room.
"Bang!" A deafening crack!
Jax kicked the wall right next to Charlotte. "What are you, some kind of animal? "
"How many times do I have to tell you! This is a stop! This is an accent on the beat! You're not doing some folk dance here!"
Jax completely lost it.
He had never seen anyone who such a slow learner.
In daily life, Charlotte moved perfectly fine, like a smart robot, but the moment she started dancing, she was full of a mess of mistakes.
Emily, standing nearby, considerately offered him some water. "Jax, don't be angry… Charlotte just has a poor foundation, she's trying really hard…"
"Trying hard?" Jax angrily swatted the water away. "Trying hard to mess up? At this level, she still expects to do the center position? She's insulting the stage!"
Rachel stood nearby, glued to the wall, not daring to breathe, and even the usually talkative Olivia was uncharacteristically silent.
Charlotte stood still, her T-shirt soaked with sweat, her chest was heaving.
Her brain fully registered every instruction Jax gave, but her body just wasn't cooperate, completely failin to keep up.
"Everyone take a break!" Jax announced in frustration, turning to walk towards the adjacent S04 practice room.
Emily immediately rushed over. "Charlotte, don't lose heart. I'll teach you again…"
"That's okay." Charlotte stubbornly shook her head, forcing a strained smile. "You go practice. I can manage."
Charlotte kept trying desperately to get her arms and legs to work together.
Even after the last trainee had left, Charlotte still wouldn't quit.
Clumsily, her left foot tripped over her right, and she tumbled to the floor.
Charlotte lay on the ground and seized the opportunity to close her eyes for a moment.
"520," she let her guard down, her inner voice chillingly cold, "I am so fed up with this 'trash' body."
[Host, please calm down.]
[Would you like to spend 30 Otome Points to get 'Motion Capture' and 'Optimal Path' analysis?]
Otome Points?
That's right. She remembered designing a cheat code specifically for 520 to help players pass through easily—the Skill Shop!
With enough points, she could exchange them for corresponding skills, though using the skills came with certain side effects.
Otome Points could only be earned through professional performance metrics like high scores, mentor approval, completion of high-difficulty tasks, and increases in popularity or reputation (voting, positive trending topics, etc.).
"Query Otome Points."
Charlotte saw the history log provided by 520 flash in her mind, and satisfied with the gleaming 80 points, she completed the transaction through 520.
She pulled out her phone, and played Jax's demonstration video.
[Scanning target video: Mentor Jax · Demo.]
Charlotte closed her eyes.
In her mind, Jax's dance moves were no longer art, but three-dimensional dynamic models made up of thousands of data points.
[Analyzing… Target move: Spin Break.]
[Deconstruction: Left arm at 35 degrees. Wrist pronated 10 degrees. Core engaged simultaneously, driving the right leg…]
[ERROR! Original muscle memory incorrect!]
[Calculating 'Optimal Path'… Bypassing incorrect muscle groups, activating 'Core Compensation' protocol…]
Charlotte was essentially using code to force-rewrite the dance sequence into a program.
"Buzz—"
She opened her eyes, a stream of blue data seemed to flow across her pupils.
Her body swayed according to the mental deconstruction.
Every angle, every force, every pause was an exact replica of Jax's Demo video.
She moved like a perfectly calibrated robot, frantically repeating the 'code.'
She had to engrave this sequence into the muscle memory of this body before the performance.
11 PM. Starlight Building.
Jax, on his way home, impulsively told his driver to turn around.
He had been irritated all day.
Annoyed by Charlotte's face, the face of a dead weight who kept trying to bite off more than she could chew.
Even more annoyed that her eyes remained calm even after he'd absolutely ripped into her.
When the elevator reached the practice room floor, he found the entire floor dimly lit.
"Hah, she gave up after all," he scoffed to himself, ready to close the elevator door.
Just then, his peripheral vision caught a faint glow emanating from the S03 practice room around the corner.
He frowned and strode over.
The door was alightly open. He peered through the gap and saw a sight he would never forget.
Charlotte was practicing the dance choreography from earlier, but without music.
Instead of humming the melody, she was speaking cold time stamps: "3.1 seconds, arm up. 3.3 seconds, torso twist. 3.5 seconds, freeze."
She was like a robot executing the most precise of commands.
After perfectly analyzing the entire dance sequence, she turned on the music.
Boom!
Jax's pupils widened violently!
She danced the Dance Break he'd been screaming at her about all day.
She… perfectly replicated his choreography.
No, it was worse than perfect.
His dance had soul and arrogance.
Charlotte's dance was soulless, devoid of even a shred of emotion.
But every single movement was 'absolutely standard,' as if measured with a ruler.
It was an inhuman precision!
Jax felt the hair on his body stand up.
What kind of monster had this woman turned herself into just to win?
"Stop!" Before he even realized what he was doing, Jax reacted abruptly.
He shoved the door open, forcibly interrupting Charlotte's terrifying dance of data.
The "program" halted. Charlotte spun around violently. Due to the momentary sensory overload, her vision went black, and her body fell backward.
[Warning! Talent Points -30! Physical Load reached 95%! Host must rest immediately!]
She didn't hit the ground; she fell into Jax's furious, lemon-scented arms.
Jax caught her instantly. Her skin was astonishingly hot to the touch, and a sheet of cold sweat covered her forehead, and her arm was still twitching slightly, uncontrollably.
After a moment, Jax looked at her face, which was gradually regaining color, and his anger flared. "Are you… trying to die?"
"Practicing," Charlotte gasped weakly, her eyes still stubbornly defiant.
"That's not practice! That's self-harm!" Her answer only made Jax angrier.
He violently dragged her over to the mirror.
"Idiot! Who told you to dance with your brain! Dance is alive!"
Without waiting for Charlotte to react, one of his hands strongly gripped her wrist from behind. His other hand, warm, pressed against her waist.
Their bodies were molded together.
"Look closely!" he roared, his voice exploding in her ear. "Here! Use the waist! Use your core to drive your limbs! Not your data!"
He forcefully guided her through the movements.
Her back rising and falling with his every breath.
In that moment, the data streams vanished. In their place was Jax's powerful heartbeat, which she felt reverberating through her back.
[Ding! Detected intense emotional fluctuation in Capture Target Jax! Affection unlocked, Affection +30%, Capture Progress 35%!]
A faint smile curved Charlotte's lips. 35%? He really was a tsundere little puppy.
As the song ended, Jax suddenly realized how intimate their position was.
He released her abruptly, stepping back as if shocked by electricity, his earlobes flushed crimson.
"Stu—stupid!" He turned away, trying to sound aggressive, not daring to look at her smiling eyes. "Practicing this late, do you want to pass out on my turf?"
Charlotte leaned against the mirror, her smile weak but bright. "Then, Jax, are you willing to take pity on this silly student and help me?"
Jax stopped short.
He threw a bottle of water at her, his teeth gritted, and looked back fiercely. "Forget about sleeping tonight! Right here, I'm going to teach you what 'soul' is!"