022 Blue Lock: System Ten Years Early

While Isagi Yoichi was searching for his own path to becoming stronger, Shinichi had also quietly fallen asleep. As his consciousness continued to sink, he once again arrived at this familiar field.

"Same old rules, draw once first." Shinichi rubbed his hands together. Even though he had plenty of points, as a player with a hoarding habit, he was always reluctant to spend lavishly. He only spent 100 points a day to do a single ten-pull to test the waters.

However, he didn't know whether the first draw had been a beginner's bonus, but in the following days he never drew any meaningful trait again. He didn't even see a flash of purple light. Temporarily switching to learn something else didn't make much sense either, so he simply didn't summon any new heroic spirits.

[Ding! Congratulations, you have obtained the following temporary traits. Please choose one to save]

[Genius (Blue)]

[Far-Sightedness (White)]

[Mediocre (Blue)]

[Short-Tempered (White)]

[Ear-Wiggling Divine Art (Blue)]

[Left-Handed (Blue)]

[Devour (Gold)]

[Copying Eyes (Gold)]

[Wildness (Blue)]

[First Step (Blue)]

"Nice—ah!"

The sudden appearance of golden light triggered a joyful exclamation, but the flashes that followed immediately caused that joy to sour.

"Why! I didn't get anything after so many pulls before, and now when it finally comes, they all come together. I can only choose one—no!"

Shinichi knelt on the ground, staring up at the sky and letting out a long sigh. Only after a long while did he free himself from this conflicted mood.

"Sigh, let's analyze first. No need to talk about the two gold ones—just looking at their names, they're absolutely powerful. The last two blue traits are also pretty good. Wildness should be an ability from Kuroko's Basketball, letting you gain the wild traits of corresponding animals based on playstyle and personality to boost strength.

"And the full version of Wildness should have great potential too. The final strength of the trait should depend entirely on the user. Its low rank here is probably because I only drew it at blue rank, not because its upper limit is low."

Shinichi wore a pained expression. If this had appeared back when he was drawing nothing but blue skies and white clouds, he would have chosen it without hesitation. You could even say this was a hidden jackpot that surpassed rank evaluation. What a pity…

And the last one, First Step (Blue), was the same case. This thing could be considered an absolutely universal trait in the vast majority of sports. At the same rank, it might not be weaker than any of his traits except Genius. Unfortunately, because of the rank, it could only be passed over.

"Then that leaves just two."

Shinichi focused his attention on the two entries radiating enchanting golden light. Each of them was an obviously overpowered, monstrous ability at first glance.

"Copying Eyes…"

This one was the easiest to evaluate. The ability was written directly into the name, and it could be said to be the standard configuration when sports anime depict top-tier geniuses.

Just seeing this name made countless figures appear in Shinichi's mind—all famous characters from anime: Ryōta Kise from Kuroko's Basketball, Niou from The Prince of Tennis, and Reo from Blue Lock, who hadn't awakened yet.

What's more, this system's mechanism of guiding summons through traits meant that any heroic spirit possessing this trait could potentially be summoned. So among sports anime, do all those other geniuses really lack the ability to copy others' skills?

Echizen Ryoma once used his teammates' special techniques; Akashi, who possessed the Emperor Eye, might not necessarily be able to copy the skills of other members of the Generation of Miracles, but reproducing the abilities of some ordinary characters would be effortless.

So the reason these characters, who also bore the title of genius, didn't show copying abilities was more likely that they wanted to walk their own path and disdained copying. That meant this trait wasn't just powerful on the surface—its upper limit was extremely high as well.

"But…"

Shinichi took a deep breath. That trait with only one word in its name, offering almost no useful information besides its rank, was like a black hole, tightly gripping his gaze. Fingers that couldn't reach the speed of light naturally couldn't escape the pull of that "black hole" either…

[You have selected the trait — Devour (Gold). Do you wish to use this trait as a holy relic to summon a heroic spirit]

"Ah, I picked it…"

Shinichi shouted with a bit of a headache. Clearly, Copying Eyes should have been the safest choice. After all, this system didn't just hand you whatever you picked. Even after training with Kobe for so long, he still hadn't managed to obtain Focused Gaze.

And without exception, those with copying abilities were all geniuses. Though there were exceptions, most of them had strong teaching abilities. Akashi trained more than one "Phantom Sixth Man," and Tezuka, as a team leader, also had great teaching talent.

But those with Devour abilities—every single one of them was unhinged. There were hardly any normal people, and they basically acted on instinct. What could they possibly teach? Who knew, by giving up Copying Eyes and choosing this, he might end up summoning someone useless who caused trouble all day.

"But this is Blue Lock after all. Just seeing the word 'Devour' should be enough, right? There's no reason not to take it."

"Besides, the guys with copying abilities in anime all ended up as stepping stones anyway. What you copy isn't truly your own. Devouring others and digesting their talents to make them your own is what really improves you. Yeah, that's it."

Shinichi could only comfort himself like this, doing his best to find excuses for his choice, while casually tossing the newly acquired, golden glass-bead-like trait into the summoning magic circle.

The summoning circle slowly lit up. The trait orb gradually disintegrated within the radiance, dispersing into brilliant golden particles. As the particles were absorbed by the circle, a dazzling pillar of light shimmering with gold shot up into the sky.

'The effects of gold traits really are flashier than purple ones.'

Shinichi complained silently, squinting as he tried to make out the figure walking out of the pillar of light.

"Wearing sportswear? At least he's an athlete… That looks like… a basketball uniform? Why basketball again? Gray-silver hair… Devour… I really summoned a troublesome guy."

"Oh my, really now. You actually get to have such a great place all to yourself. I'm so jealous."

The slovenly young man casually dug in his ear, staring at Shinichi with malice.

"I really want to plunder everything you have!"

"Haizaki Shogo… Why did I summon something like you?"

Shinichi pressed his temples with a headache. The first time he summoned that ice-tea lunatic, it was already a pain—every time he was summoned, he demanded a one-on-one duel, forcing Shinichi to come in just to draw first before summoning. And now this one too…

"Oh, right!"

A flash of inspiration struck Shinichi. He clenched his right fist and struck it into his left palm.

"How did I not think of this?"

With a flash of light, purple-gold battle robes shone across the field.

"How about you two fight each other first? We'll talk after that."