Chapter 54: Skill Chart
"You got yourself a girlfriend?" Vanti asked with a weird look when Hiro arrived at the meeting place for the school's soccer team.
Since each and every student had their own interests, Hiro eventually handed out cash allowances for the students to spend while he spent the last two days enjoying himself.
Vanti hadn't expected that a local brunette would tag along behind Hiro when they met today.
Hiro shrugged. "Not a girlfriend, more like a local friend with benefits…"
Vanti quickly jumped forward, covered Hiro's mouth, and pulled him aside. "Don't say that stuff in front of other people, you idiot! Men want face, women want face too! Sigh…"
Vanti then began to educate Hiro on the ways of the world in hushed whispers.
Basically, even if it's a fantasy bubble—if it looks beautiful—don't pop it. It's enough that the two people involved know that it's just a fantasy, but it's not necessary to advertise it.
Hiro felt a little embarrassed and laughed to cover it up, readily agreeing.
Then, Vanti turned over to the beautiful brunette and introduced himself, "Sister-in-law, you can call me Vee, but my name is Vanti."
She chuckled and covered her mouth, her eyes rippling as she responded, "Jessica, but you can call me Jessie, just like my friends do."
Vanti was about to say something when the other nine starting players, the substitute players, and the benched players arrived one by one.
They entered through the school's front gate, most of them having one thing in common.
They either had one or two girls leaning against their bodies, laughing and chatting along.
Vanti felt lost for a moment.
What happened to integrity? What happened to morality? How come everyone has girls fawning all over them? Was I the only one who spent his money on gaming workshops?!
What was difficult for Vanti to understand was the fact that even Marcus, the errand boy, had a blue-haired beauty strung to his arm.
Hiro also noticed this, and he was tempted to scan her body for treasures because this was truly something unexpected, but he decided against it.
It wasn't easy to get this far with the mindset of an ordinary high-school student, and he wasn't about to let this experience slip away due to a moment of curiosity.
Soon, the teachers arrived.
They were the coach, Teacher Aiya, and a local teacher who happened to be the coach's assistant.
"I see that everyone is here," he checked the time on his watch while smiling. "This match will be broadcast on the internal channel of the Sports Committee of the Provincial Educational Department, I hope everyone will do their best."
"On the what?!"
"There will be a live broadcast?!"
"This my first time hearing about this, will this affect our grades?"
"Haha, my university scholarship is in sight!"
…
The reactions of the crowd were mixed, but confusion was the prevalent sentiment among the students.
Forget the students, even Teacher Aiya was a little surprised.
Looking around, Hiro noticed that Vanti had a faint smile; it was the common "As expected," expression.
"You knew about this?" Hiro asked in a hushed tone. Stay with m_vl_em_p_yr
"Of course," Vanti replied smugly. "How can I mess up on such an opportunity? I had to pull some strings and call in some favors, or else this pie would have landed on Group A's lap."
He then patted Hrio's shoulder. "You don't have to thank me, brother. Just introduce me to a cute local friend later, I feel like I'm the only one missing out."
Hiro wasn't even paying attention to Vanti's stupid request, his mind was calculating how much fame he could get from this soccer match.
His social media would explode, and he would get a ton of friends and followers on iMessage newsfeed.
Forget that loads of achievement points he could get his hands on, how many of Mr. Popular's chain missions would be completed in one go?
Forget it, I'll just go all out! Hiro's eyes shone brilliantly as he excused himself to make a phone call.
…
Sciatis Holdings Limited, Chief Executive Office.
Seated behind the desk while no less than twenty holographic screens shuttled back and forth in front of her, Arabella's fingers were like a blurred image while tapping away on five holographic keyboards.
Her mind was in a state of absolute focus as she reviewed the statistics of the companies that signed a cooperation agreement with them.
Then, a notification of an incoming high-priority call caught her eye, and after confirming the identity of the caller, she immediately answered while simultaneously putting everything else aside.
"Master? You want to sponsor the broadcast of a high-school soccer match? Broadcast directly on Seeker's Legend internal channel? Alright, alright, I understand."
Soon, a server-wide announcement was made on the Seeker's Legend game.
Those who tune in to watch the live broadcast will earn a 40% reduction cost on all expenditures in the game for a week.
The game would also provide a portal for the top 5 players of the game, leading directly to their social media profiles.
Then, Arabella called the Committee of Sports and donated 5 million international credits in the name of the S-gear Technology Department, rewarding a million to each of the top three players in the match and leaving the rest in the hands of the committee.
In less than fifteen minutes, the entire stage was set, and all that was left was for the broadcast to start.
…
Perhaps only Hiro understood the magnitude of the upcoming match, hence why he was so focused while waiting in the locker rooms prepared for the visiting team.
He sat alone in a corner, his brain working overdrive to bring out all the professional soccer skills in his mind, enhancing them with his muscle memory from the professional combat skills.
"Maybe we shouldn't have let him know that this match will be going live?" Vanti whispered to Marcus, who was holding a bucket of ice and canned soda.
Marcus thought for a moment, took out a small ice cube and tossed it in his mouth, and chewed on it for a while.
Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!
Swallowing the cold ice, Marcus shrugged helplessly and said, "Look at him, he looks like he's about to give it his 9,000%; I don't see what's the problem."
Vanti touched his chin.
"The problem is, if he's too outstanding, I'd feel like I prepared all of this and stood out to gain nothing! People won't say 'Look at those two! A perfect assist and perfect scoring!' They will only think that this dude is good while my role is inconsequential… They'd think that anyone could replace me! This is not good…"
"Indeed that's not good," Marcus nodded his head seriously and sighed. "But you're venting your heart out to the wrong person, I don't have such worries. I can securely occupy this errand boy seat uncontested."
Vanti stared blankly for a moment. Then, he shook his head and went to another corner, his expression sharpening to a point where it was a splitting image of Hiro's.
Slowly, this caused a ripple effect and the once cozy and relaxed atmosphere tensed up.
Thud!
In another corner, Kenshin also sat down with his chin on his joined knuckles, elbows on his knees, and his eyes narrowed sharply.
Soon, there was no more chatter and banter in the room, and all of a sudden, Marcus felt out of place.
Not to be ostracized, he also found a place to sit, his gaze burning holes into the ice bucket, a solemn expression in his eyes as he found something to distract himself.
When the coach walked in while dragging the blackboard to revise the game plan, he almost got a fright from the cold and gloomy atmosphere in the room.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Everyone's gaze shifted to the coach.
He gulped, feeling as though thin steel needles were about to puncture his skin.
Before he could talk, Hiro stood up and like a gust of wind, he grabbed the chalk and the blackboard before pulling it to the center of the room.
Then, he got his hands on the coach's terminal and pulled out all the data on the students and their respective analyses.
The information provided by the system was all-inclusive—it's just that Hiro focused all his attention on the most lucrative position in the field.
However, now he needed to study the capabilities of all his teammates to draw the perfect balance and game plan.
With that in mind, he tweaked the blackboard and operated the hologram projection feature before connecting it to the terminal.
Then, he sorted out the files of the students with Ei's help, projecting an individual, all-inclusive skill tree for each student.
Everyone stared blankly at the chart that popped out of nowhere.
[Skill Tree: Ball Skills, Passing, Shooting, Defense, Physical, Mental, Goalkeeper.]
[Ball Skills]: Ball Control, Dribbling.
[Passing]: Crossing, Short Pass, Long Pass.
[Shooting]: Heading, Shot Power, Finishing, Long Shots, Curve, Free Kicks Acc, Penalties, Volleys.
[Defense]: Marking, Slide Tackle, Stand Tackle.
[Physical]: Acceleration, Stamina, Strength, Balance, Sprint Speed, Agility, Jumping.
[Mental]: Aggression, Reactions, Att. Position, Interceptions, Vision, Composure.
[Goalkeeper]: GK Positioning, GK Diving, GK Handling, GK Kicking, GK Reflexes.
…
Then, Hiro's hands blurred as each student's profile was assigned a different chart with different statistics, stunning them even more.