BLUE LOCK MAN

Standing in the middle of the panel-lined room, Isagi puzzles over the hologram until the walls form a goal net and the shape projected on the floor begins shrinking around him. He works out that the chamber simulates a striker planted before a keeper, required to score again and again without stepping outside the marked zone. His first attempt is swatted away by the hologram, and he marvels that no ordinary high schooler could stop shots like that. A screen overhead spells out the task: one hundred goals in under ninety minutes to clear the stage, a test built to expose each player's ego in a duel before the net and the necessity of a genuine weapon.

When a panel releases a ball, Isagi reads its speed and path, moves economically to the landing spot, and hammers home a direct shot. He reaches thirty goals within minutes, still seventy short with roughly seventy-two minutes remaining, when extra holograms appear to mimic a crowd of defenders. His next direct attempt fails, and he notes the difficulty has climbed steeply. Watching from the monitoring room, Ego explains the technology to Anri: a microsensor chip inside each ball triggers a physical reaction whenever the hologram registers contact, a system he calls holographic sports technology. Anri frets that the project has run out of money, and Ego snaps at her to be quiet.

Ego frames the stage as a reckoning for everyone who advanced. Where the First Selection let players lean on strong teammates, this trial demands individual ability, and those who depended on others will suffer. The players capable of turning their zero into a one, he says, will use it to sharpen their talent and grow into strikers of a higher order. Back in the chamber, Isagi resolves that this is the moment he evolves.

The Blue Lock Man hologram is revealed as the stage's goalkeeper, and Isagi grasps that he must score one hundred goals in ninety minutes using only his own skill. Added holograms simulating defenders sharply raise the difficulty after he reaches thirty. Ego explains the sensor-driven technology and frames the stage as a filter separating team-dependent players from egoistic ones.

Rendered as Buru Rokku Man, this twenty-two-page chapter opens Volume 6 within the Second Selection Arc and is adapted in Episode 12. It follows Chapter 40 and leads into Chapter 42.