From Skid Row to Superstardom: An Idol System Novel

"Seriously, you lost your voice?"

[Yes]

Ari wrote on the little white board he now carried around with an unamused expression.

Well, rather than losing his voice, it was currently so hoarse that he sounded like a demon, so he was undergoing the familiar voice recovery treatment, which included lots of honey tea, gargling with salt water every couple of hours, and refraining from speaking at all.

Once they were finished with the sound check, he planned on sleeping in a practice room using the time dilation candle until it burned out.

By his calculations, since he didn't have to sing, his voice would have recovered enough to rap even if it was a bit husky.

And despite the inconvenience of not having his voice, he was quite satisfied with the current state of his stat points, which he had truly suffered for the past couple of days to bring up to par.

[Ariel Matisse]

[Age: 18]

[Vocals: A+]

[Dance: C (C+ with Otterly adorable tracksuit)]

[Visual: A]

[Rap: C-]

[Charm: A]

[Skills: JukeBox(A), Picky Listener (B), Pen Pal (C)]

[Surprise Missions: I think I'm Better Than You! It's Not Bragging, It's Not Pride, It's Confidence!]

[Current Rewards: 2 Stat Points]

[Items: Bi-lingual Blue Diamond Earrings (Left Earring - Korean), Otterly Adorable Tracksuit]

Through a brutal practice schedule and forcefully harassing Levi for rap tutoring, his rap stat had naturally increased to a C- on its own, and he had completed the repeat missions of singing a song over 10000 times and rapping a song over 1000 times.

If he had at least another week and a bit more Time Dilation Candle, he could have gained more stat points, but as it stood, he was satisfied that his Rap Stat would be a solid C for performance day.

It certainly wasn't the best, especially compared to his vocal stat, but he wouldn't be the worst person on the team either, which was what mattered, especially since, for some reason, he couldn't use the JukeBox tokens on his own rap portion of the song.

To be honest, Ari was quite anxious, and he just hoped that his rank wouldn't drop too much, as his performance might disappoint people.

As he was thinking about how to squeeze out at least one more stat point, an annoying voice broke him out of his reverie.

"I can't believe you lost your voice right as we're about to perform. You're really trying to screw my brother over, aren't you? "

Ari looked up to see Minjun cozied up with his twin brother, Minho, as they followed the staff to the stage located on Malibu Beach, where they would be performing.

"That's so irresponsible of you, you know. Don't bring my bro down. He's been working hard."

And I haven't?

Since he couldn't say anything to Minho, who wasn't on his team, the punishment had to go to the one who was.

Ari stared at Minjun before scribbling on the whiteboard and giving him a bright smile.

[Wow!]

[↑ Energy ↑]

[Practice tonight?]

[Min 3 hours.]

After quickly reading the supposedly innocent words, Minjun's face became even paler as a look of fear came over his face.

"No! I swear, practice with you is cursed! We run the song over hundreds of times, but each time I stare at the clock, only 30 minutes have passed. It's like I'm in a cursed time loop! I'm sick of it! I need to go to a priest and get cleansed."

[U Sure?]

[It'll be fun ^_^]

[Practice makes perfect.]

[Let's practice since you have so much energy.]

"I'm sure! Minho, shut up. Let's just go, he's crazy!"

As the Korean boy grabbed his twin and ran away, Ari laughed in amusement.

"What kind of torture did you put them through? He seems so scared." Jamie asked curiously.

[Nt.]

[Practice.]

[stopped b4 mid + naps]

"Then why are they complaining? That's so early. Most days, you went to bed at like 4 am, right? Ben and I always saw you on the way to the gym."

At Jamie's thoroughly confused expression, Vishal wanted to speak up and explain that although Ari said they were released before midnight, for some reason the 3-4 hour practice felt like it dragged on for much longer than that, but then, remembering that Jamie would also practice for hours on end, either singing, composing, or playing his guitar past midnight and would still wake up to go to the gym at 4 am, he snapped his mouth shut and saved his energy before he got roped into another practice session.

Maybe he was getting old.

Only Carlos understood his pain.

Ari thoroughly enjoyed the walk in the beachy area as he smelt the salty air and felt the slightly cold breeze on his face.

As always, the ocean was the best.

After walking for about 20 minutes, they finally arrived in the area behind the large stage, which was hugely different than the one they had performed on at the cultural festival.

It actually looked like something real musicians would perform, rather than contestants like themselves.

In fact, it was on an entirely different level than anything shown before, and he briefly wondered how the show could afford it before shrugging.

It was none of his business what they spent their money on, as long as they paid him what they owed him, which meant he needed to be more proactive in requesting payment from the production team.

Putting that to the back of his mind, Ari glanced at the numerous trailers set up in the back as well as the large number of people running around.

Some of them were clearly staff members, while others seemed like up-and-coming musical artists around his age who would be performing and even had camera crews following them, just like the Pop Star Academy crew did.

Ari glanced around them curiously, wishing for a second that he was alone so he could take a look at their stats.

"Oh wow, that's VINYL and Nebu1a. I didn't know they would be here." Jamie said as he excitedly pointed to 2 separate groups of boys with very different vibes.

One group consisted of five boys dressed in black three-piece suits, despite being in a beach area. In contrast, the other group consisted of seven boys dressed in monochromatic casual clothing, which created a rainbow effect.

[Who?]

"You're not really keeping up with music groups, are you? Tsk tsk." Jamie gave him a judgmental look, and Ari slammed his elbow into his side.

Obviously not.

He literally started this music thing a couple of months ago, having been a casual listener and participant beforehand.

[N.]

"You really need to start looking into these things and keeping track of them. Especially if you debut and become the group leader or a music producer. You have to know the trends and keep up with them."

Absolutely not.

He planned to coast along as a member and occasionally assist with song production while leaving the bulk of the work to Jamie.

[Ldr - 🚫]

[Asst. prod 2 u ✅]

[W?]

"They're Korean boy groups that debuted last year. They self-produce, so I was interested."

[m g?]

"It's not bad. They have a few decent songs. I'll recommend you some later since the composition is interesting." Jamie replied casually.

[k]

As he and Jamie walked past the two groups, Jamie happily waved and said hello, and Ari nodded before looking away.

"How arrogant."

A low voice muttered in Korean as he walked by, and Ari simply laughed before shaking his head.

The reason he had assigned a language to one of the earrings was firstly because he would be going to Korea, and secondly, because some of the Korean contestants always switched from English to Korean whenever he walked by.

As someone who frequently cursed at people in French when he was upset and didn't want someone to understand his complaints, he understood the sentiment, he didn't like it happening to him, and the results were actually quite….

Funny.

They had been very, very funny, and it only cemented his thoughts that there were only a few contestants he actually liked in this entire program and that the production team could go to hell for constantly pitting people against each other.

"What's funny?"

[N.]

"Hmm." Jamie glanced back at the two groups who had left before shrugging.

They quickly walked to the gathering area, which was under a tent, and found not only the Pop Star Academy contestants but also several other groups standing around and chatting.

Since he couldn't exactly participate in any conversations, Ari grabbed his own things from Jamie, found an empty section of seats and sofas that weren't being used, and made himself comfortable with the tablet.

Currently, in his very limited free time, he was trying to learn how to read Korean, as he felt uncomfortable understanding it without a proper grasp of what was actually being said.

He had several moments of peace and was even completing a worksheet before a vaguely familiar voice interrupted him.

"You're in our seats."

Feeling as if this was a familiar situation, Ari first glanced around the sofa to make sure there wasn't a name tag he had missed before glancing at the other empty seats, and then at the group that Jamie had called Nebu1a before pointing to the side.

In other words, he was telling them to find another chair, as this one was already taken.

He met the eyes of the man in the center, whom he assumed was the leader, and raised his brow.

"We were going to sit there."

So?

What does that have to do with me?

Go sit somewhere else.

"Problem?" Levi's sharp voice broke the one-sided tension as he slid onto the sofa beside Ari and arrogantly spread his legs and arms, taking up the entire empty space and looking as if he dared them to say something about it.

The Nebu1a group took one look at Levi's unsmiling face, which looked even sharper than usual due to the dark blue hair and eyebrows that made his icy blue eyes look even paler, and turned away.

"They're really cocky for contestants who don't even know if they'll debut yet. Where's the respect for their seniors?"

"Shh… this isn't Korea. The culture is different."

"It's fine, they're westerners who don't understand. The hat-wearing one is even doing homework that daycare kids do, and got it wrong. Isn't that pathetic?"

As the one with a blue outfit who was talking nonsense turned to look back at him, Ari wrote the only curse word he knew in Korean and flipped him off to emphasize the point incase he drew the hangul wrong.

As the boy's eyes widened in surprise before turning red from anger, Ari quickly erased the whiteboard and pretended that he hadn't done anything while Levi laughed silently off to the side.

"Throwing rocks and hiding your hand?"

[He called me pathetic first.]

"You started understanding Korean when?"

[With Magic.]

"Alright! Gather up, gather up!" Before Levi could say anything else, a loud voice interrupted them.

Ari looked up to see a fat man wearing a headset and a staff shirt with a clipboard in his hand.

"We have a lot to get through today, so no time to waste. Here's the order for the sound check. Team Nebu1a, you're up first, then the first batch of Pop Star Academy kids will go. You have 15 minutes for sound check and stage adjustments, after which you will leave immediately for the next team. Team TV Off, Team Rainfall, Team Daisies, you three are up first. Let's get moving. Chop chop!"

At the brisk order, Ari gathered up with the rest of his team and followed the staff members to the back of the stage. Climbing on top of the stage and looking out at the empty area, which would theoretically be filled with people tomorrow, Ari enjoyed the momentary peace that was here while the people around him chattered.

"How many people did they say were coming?"

"About 3-4 thousand, but it will get more crowded later in the day, so we're lucky."

"I'm going to throw up."

[Don't.]

Ari quickly moved away from Jamie who's eyes were basically spinning from nerves, while staring curiously at what the stage staff were doing and measuring the size of the stage with his eyes.

By the looks of things, they would be getting hand mics, which weren't his favorite, and they would have to work on spacing, but at this point, beggars can't be choosers, and Mathew had prepared choreography modifications just in case.

They had to work with what they had.

Team Nebu1a was quickly kitted up, and the rest of the contestants either moved off to the side or stepped down.

Ari chose to step down so he could see the performance from the audience's point of view, and as he moved, the passing member of Team Nebu1a, whom he had flipped off earlier, smirked at him before whispering.

"Watch how a real musician performs our own song that we poured our heart and soul into, not just covers."

Blinking at the boys' back, Ari shrugged before preparing to watch their performance.