006 Blue Lock: System Ten Years Early

"Is Isagi crying?"

Looking at Isagi Yoichi lowering his head on the substitute bench, Shinichi maliciously speculated, but recalling everything that had just happened, he couldn't help clenching his fist.

"No wonder so many people want to take you out. That feeling of being one step behind someone really does feel awful."

He let out a long, stifled breath. Shinichi shook the chaotic thoughts out of his head and began summarizing Isagi Yoichi's actions.

"Use of vision, blind spots, drawing attention..."

Muttering softly, Shinichi even started reenacting it directly on the pitch. First, the team's overall formation moved away from defensive play. Shinichi no longer actively carried the ball, instead acting as a support aircraft, drawing fire for his teammates.

Unfortunately, whether it was because his use of vision was still too immature or because his presence was simply too strong, he was always unable to use other players' bodies as cover to obtain visual blind spots. Every opposing player was staring him down, and the moment he crossed midfield, someone would immediately come in for tight marking.

Of course, this also meant that using his presence to draw attention for his teammates worked a little too well. In the remaining time, Shinichi's teammates actually seized opportunities and scored two more goals.

"Seriously... there's not a shred of reference value."

Shinichi shook his head helplessly and proactively asked to be subbed off.

And it was at the very moment he left the field that a voice he hadn't heard since awakening the system at age five rang in his ears once more.

...

[Ding! Match over. The storyline has officially begun. The 'Skills' option has been unlocked. You have 3 unread messages.]

[Unsettled matches detected. Automatically settling for you.]

[Current settlement period: one year. You have obtained the following rewards.]

[You may choose two traits. Duplicate traits will be automatically fused.]

...

Shinichi widened his eyes.

It wasn't the system's reappearance after years of silence that surprised him. He had known from the start that the system awakening early back then was due to him bugging it out, and he had roughly guessed that once certain conditions were met, it would resume normal operation.

What shocked him most was that the system not only settled things automatically for him, but the settlement rewards actually allowed him to choose two traits!

He felt that although he had performed well this past year, it hadn't been anything outstanding. At most, he'd won a low-level archery competition and, now that he'd started playing football, had just passed the county tournament to qualify for the national competition. He had done more impressive things before, but without exception, he had only ever been allowed to choose one trait reward.

"Is it because in the Blue Lock world, playing football is the main profession, so football settlements give better rewards? Or is it because the story has started and the system has unlocked more functions?"

While thinking, Shinichi opened the reward list. He was practical—take the benefits in hand first, study the rest later.

[Selectable Traits]

[1]Divine Shooter (Blue): Whether it's archery or football, your shooting accuracy is astonishing. Crowned a Divine Shooter, you gain increased precision in all sports that require aiming.

[2]Learning Ability (Blue): From nothing to something, you have twice risen rapidly from zero foundation. Your progress amazes the world. Your learning ability is enhanced—when starting to learn a new field from scratch, your entry speed increases.

[3]Reflexes (Purple): Your terrifying performance left a deep impression in the heart of the chosen one, Isagi Yoichi. Your reflexes have been acknowledged by him. Your reaction speed increases (spirit +8).

[Selectable Skill]

[1]Zone (Gold): In competition, you discovered the key to this legendary domain—so broken that even in edgy sports anime it's considered unfair—by entering your optimal state for short periods. You can actively enter the Zone state. However, the duration depends on your current stamina, attributes, focus, and willpower. Zone will greatly consume stamina, and insufficient physical strength may increase injury risk. (Although this wasn't meant to be an invincible story, you earned this bug fair and square and did pretty well, so consider this your final newbie benefit.)

Seeing this, Shinichi even felt his heartbeat slow by a beat.

What did this mean? The system had always operated mechanically. He'd thought it was completely mindless.

But then again, if it were just an ordinary cheat, fine—but a system like this looked artificial no matter how you saw it. If this were a fantasy world, he'd definitely lie low and bide his time, swearing to break free of the system and whoever was behind it. My fate is mine, not heaven's!

Unfortunately, this was a sports series. No supernatural abilities. Even if someone was controlling him, so what? Wash up and sleep. He'd been reborn anyway—every extra day was a profit. If his past self had been told he'd get this chance, he'd probably kneel on the spot and call them godfather.

What's more, with the great censor god monitoring all worlds, there was no fear of privacy being peeped on.

Shinichi quickly let it go. The rewards stopped here. Naturally, he chose the Zone skill without hesitation. But when choosing traits, he noticed two icons.

One was a lock-shaped icon, and the other was a circular arrow made of two arrows. Having played Teamfight Tactics, Shinichi didn't even need to read the system description to instantly understand what these did—refresh and lock!

But on closer look, there were numbers behind the options: Refresh was 2, Lock was 10. No choice—he still had to read the announcement properly.

"So that's how it is. During settlement, I can only choose one trait from all available traits, but traits that aren't solidified and don't appear as options are converted into points and stored in the system. And my points are—"

"Points? What a lousy name for points! Even without unlocking it, you still stored the points for me? You're more considerate than my mom. When my mom saves envelopes for me, she ends up not knowing where she put them."

Shinichi subconsciously complained. After a brief hesitation, he chose Reflexes (Purple), then locked Divine Shooter (Blue). As for Learning Ability (Blue), it overlapped somewhat with the Genius trait.

And its effect was more limited. If this were a year ago, he might still have hesitated, but now he was basically certain that at least until the story ended, he'd keep playing football instead of dabbling in everything like before. In that case, this trait was honestly a bit of a waste.

Moreover, he still had no clear concept of how difficult points were to obtain, so naturally he wasn't planning to waste them.

After choosing the rewards, Shinichi opened the system messages.

First, after the system resumed normal operation, he could no longer choose settlement times on his own. Instead, the system would settle automatically based on the story. Shinichi estimated that from now on, it would probably sync with the elimination stages inside Blue Lock, settling once per stage.

Second was the opening of the points system. Unfortunately, the system's standard shop only contained injury recovery medicine and auxiliary training items. Not only were there no outrageously expensive but godlike items like in typical system shops, attributes couldn't be upgraded with points, and there wasn't even a stamina recovery potion. It was clearly not going to give Shinichi any assistance during matches.

But that did fit the system's piss-poor personality: if you want to get stronger, perform yourself. Shinichi wouldn't deny that he was cheating, but he knew that from the very beginning, all his traits were obtained by earning the system's recognition from a blank slate with no bonuses at all.

Even as someone reborn, gaining the system's recognition was far from easy. After all, even now, with his attributes stacked and such great on-field performance, the settlement only produced a single purple trait. Even though he'd scored countless goals this year, the Divine Shooter trait that appeared was only Blue quality. That alone showed how hard it had been back then to obtain the Blue-quality Genius trait with no bonuses at all.

That said, Shinichi still felt it was a pity. Otherwise, if he dumped all the points he'd saved over ten years into attributes, he'd dare go challenge Noel Noa one-on-one tomorrow.

Of course, correspondingly, the system opened a Training Camp system. It could be used by paying points. The Training Camp could only be entered during deep sleep, costing 1 point per 8 hours.

At first glance, this didn't seem like much—just an extra 8 hours of training every day, right? Blue Lock might be drawn over a long time, but the actual time span wasn't that large. From entry to later stages, it was only a matter of days.

But the most important part was actually the sentence that followed: Only abilities used and recognized within the Training Camp would be solidified into skills, and once solidified into skills, they would also gain additional effects.

This meant that the Training Camp system would be his only way to obtain skills in the future aside from system settlements. Not to mention that the system stated that points could be provided, and the Training Camp had other functions available—but those would have to wait until tonight for him to personally experience.

The final message was the system's classification of attributes.

According to the system, without considering skills and traits, an average attribute of 70–80 was a mixed second- to third-rate level. 80–90 barely counted as first-rate. 90–95 was the true top tier. 95–100 was the peak of humanity.

Generally speaking, that was the limit. Many times, even the undisputed number one of an entire era in a given sport might not have a single attribute reaching 100.

But there were always monsters with non-human talent who could break the norm. These people were no longer confined to being the best of an era, but instead expanded their sights to the entire river of time. Leaving behind such feats, they not only unquestionably suppressed a generation, but also became the greatest in all of history—instilling awe in later generations, making people believe they were impossible to surpass, and ultimately becoming true legends!

Like Bolt—his explosive speed was a terrifying 106 points! You had to know that according to the system's classification, after 100 points, it took 10 points of regular attributes to increase by just 1 point! In other words, even if Shinichi later trained his speed to 100, Bolt would still be equivalent to having 6 more purple traits than him in that single attribute—possibly even more.

After all, the purple trait Shinichi obtained this time only added 8 attribute points. A +10 attribute Mamba Body might already be considered top-tier within purple quality. That alone showed just how terrifying the realm beyond 100 truly was.

...

Shinichi fell backward onto the bed, lying flat. His long, slender hand lifted to block the light radiating from the ceiling lamp, then clenched into a fist with force!

"Legend, huh? Seriously. I clearly just came here to have fun. Kicking around casually is fine too. I've earned more than enough money anyway. If you've transmigrated, you should enjoy life properly—I even want to experience the joy of capitalism."

"I was clearly thinking that..."

Shinichi's raised hand slapped down, covering his own eyes.

"But getting me this fired up—aren't you just making me... want to try reaching for that legendary throne above all beings as well?!"

Between his fingers, the pitch-black eyes of Shinichi flickered with something even he himself hadn't noticed—

A flame called ambition.