American Football: King of the Bay Area

Ever since Lu Ke played his first football game—no, that’s not right. It should be ever since Lu Ke tried out for the school’s football team, his fundamental physical attributes like weight, build, muscle endurance, and explosive power had always been called into question. He looked like a candle in the wind—tall and lanky, swaying precariously, as if he could snap in half at any moment.

Although being a quarterback definitely wasn’t a position where heavier was better, sufficient weight and bulk could help a quarterback avoid more injuries and mistakes during collisions and confrontations. As for physical gifts like muscle endurance and explosive power, those were relevant to every single aspect of the game.

A year ago, Lu Ke’s vitals were 6’4” and 172 pounds; now, they were 6’4” and 187 pounds.

A height-to-weight ratio like that would struggle to gain an advantage even in the head-to-head confrontations of a basketball game; in a far more intense and brutal sport like football, it was a complete disadvantage. Gaining weight and building muscle had always been the goals of Lu Ke’s daily training.

However, due to his constitution, Lu Ke’s progress in gaining weight was always slow and arduous. In the year since he’d gotten the system, he had trained relentlessly for three hundred and sixty-five days without a single day of slacking off. At the same time, he followed a diet designed to build muscle—he was so sick of chicken breast he wanted to puke, and he had to close his eyes just to choke down protein powder. Yet, the results were still disappointing.

The most striking contrast was Logan Newman. His training intensity was only half of Lu Ke’s, and their diets were nearly identical, but the weight Logan gained in just three short months took Lu Ke a full year to achieve. Comparison truly is the thief of joy.

The game against the Seattle Seahawks was not only Lu Ke’s first official NFL game, but it was also the first time in his professional career that he’d played a full game. Five touchdowns and a sweeping victory looked glorious, but only Lu Ke knew that his stamina had reached its absolute limit, nearly depleted. The after-effects of the intense physical contest would probably require another massage tomorrow to ease.

Physical attributes, physical attributes, physical attributes. They were Lu Ke’s weakness before, they were still his weakness now, and for the foreseeable future, that fundamental situation wasn’t going to change.

Now, the system finally couldn’t stand it anymore and rewarded Lu Ke with a chance to enhance himself. And so... ’Ta-da!’ a strength training package appeared. This was clearly a Quarterback Training Package, yet it included strength training. Of all the positions on a football team, quarterback was the one that needed strength training the least, but now Lu Ke had to complete it.

’Thankfully, this is a Skill Training Package, and it’s just a one-time thing. Once it’s done, it’s over. If it were part of the daily training...’ Lu Ke couldn’t help but shiver at the mere thought.

Glancing over all the training items again, Lu Ke truly felt that the road ahead was long and winding. There were no shortcuts to becoming a top-tier quarterback.

’But why is the training reward ”Strength +3, Explosive Power +1”?’

Lu Ke’s first instinct was to complain. ’All this grueling strength training for a measly three points in strength?’ But his attention then shifted to the other item. ”Qi, I don’t remember seeing an ’Explosive Power’ option on the Attribute Panel?”

”Just like the Willpower option, the system will continuously update the basic Attribute Panel at the appropriate times,” Qi’s voice chimed in, concisely and clearly explaining the situation.

As Qi explained, Lu Ke found the ’Explosive Power’ stat on his Attribute Panel. He hadn’t noticed it earlier when he was checking his Hidden Attributes. He only now saw that it had appeared between ’Acceleration’ and ’Agility,’ as one of the basic physical attributes.

Sixty-eight. Lu Ke’s Explosive Power was sixty-eight.

A score like that wasn’t high, but it wasn’t low either—it was average, and lower than he’d expected. Lu Ke had thought his explosive power would be a bit more outstanding, like the burst of power when throwing the ball, or the burst of speed just before getting sacked. But on second thought, sixty-eight was a reasonable score. His reaction time was indeed good, but his muscle’s explosive power was merely adequate.

’This means there’s another stat I need to spend my basic attribute points on. Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?’

After opening the Hidden Attributes, the Special Skill Package, and the Quarterback Training Package, and taking stock of all the rewards from his special mission, Lu Ke calmed down. His eyes fell upon the fifteen basic attribute points he had earned from today’s game. How should he allocate them?

Logically, he should still focus on his quarterback skills. For example, his Mid-range Pass Accuracy was still only sixty-five, and even his Short Pass Accuracy was just seventy. Both had plenty of room for growth.

Then there were other related stats like Running Pass and Pocket Footwork, all of them starving for points. His ball protection ability, surprisingly, was only at fifty-nine, which meant he had a high chance of fumbling the ball when facing a sack. It was sheer luck that he hadn’t fumbled today, despite facing such a ferocious pass rush.

He had always followed this point allocation strategy: step by step, strengthening his specialized quarterback skills, making his strengths stand out even more to earn more room to perform on the field. However, after the first week’s game, Lu Ke felt he had to use some of his basic attribute points on his physical attributes.

While the protection from the Offensive Line could help a quarterback avoid direct confrontations, and a quarterback’s defensive reads and on-field command could maximize the Offensive Line’s effectiveness, the Offensive Line wasn’t omnipotent. Pockets inevitably collapse. Moreover, the level of competition in the NFL was on a completely different plane than in the NCAA. He needed to keep up.

More importantly, physical attributes weren’t just about confrontation ability; they were also about endurance.

Once the regular season started, it was one game after another, week after week. The intensity was the same, or even higher, like a raging storm with no room to breathe. The intensity of the first week’s game had already been overwhelming. As the season progressed, every player would face a dual test of body and mind, and Lu Ke would be no exception.

Considering Alex Smith and Colin Kaepernick were watching him like hawks, Lu Ke needed to deliver a top-tier performance every single week. His physical endurance was therefore something he couldn’t afford to ignore.

So, without any hesitation or second-guessing, Lu Ke made his decision on the spot. His gaze fell upon his basic attributes, and he decided to change his point allocation strategy for the week.

Among his overall measured attributes, Physical Attributes was at sixty-four, and Spiritual Quality was at eighty-three. The specific sub-stats were as follows:

Tactical Awareness: 70

Willpower: 80

Speed: 67

Strength: 49

Acceleration: 63

Explosive Power: 68

Agility: 71

Jumping: 49

In truth, Lu Ke had been pondering a question for a while: what exactly was the relationship between the two overall attributes, Physical Attributes and Spiritual Quality, and their respective sub-stats?

For example, if he dumped all his points into Physical Attributes and maxed it out at one hundred, would all the individual sub-stats increase accordingly? Or, conversely, if he stacked points into the individual sub-stats, would the overall Physical Attributes score also increase correspondingly?

However, Lu Ke had never had enough basic attribute points on hand, and there were far too many areas that needed shoring up, leaving him no room to experiment. So, he could only speculate. But today was different. Lu Ke needed to improve his physical attributes, and he also needed to prepare for the long season ahead.

With fifteen basic attribute points, he could conduct a small preliminary experiment to confirm some of his theories.

First, Lu Ke added eight basic attribute points to Strength, and forty-nine instantly became fifty-seven. The reason he didn’t push it all the way to the passing mark was that he was factoring in the points from the strength training package. After completing the training tomorrow, his Strength attribute would reach sixty—a massive breakthrough.

Second, Lu Ke added one basic attribute point to Explosive Power, turning sixty-eight into sixty-nine. Combined with the point from tomorrow’s strength training package, this brand-new attribute would cross the seventy-point threshold, giving his on-field reaction ability a qualitative leap.

Finally, looking at the six remaining basic attribute points, Lu Ke gritted his teeth and dumped them all into Physical Attributes in one go. DING, DING, DING... After six consecutive chimes, sixty-four transformed into seventy.

Before Lu Ke could study it further, he could feel his blood starting to churn and his skin growing slightly hot. It felt as if he were in a sauna, with heat surging in from all directions.

At first, Lu Ke thought it was just a psychological effect—’that spending six basic attribute points had to have some kind of reaction’—so he chalked it up to his own expectations. But then, he felt a clear wave of nausea rise from his stomach, as if someone had brutally punched him a dozen times. The aching, bitter, churning sensation was almost unbearable.

Before his brain could even process it, Lu Ke started to dry heave. The feeling was absolutely awful. All the soreness, numbness, stiffness, and discomfort he felt after the game today—all the body’s negative energy—surged up in one wave after another. He felt like a punching bag being wailed on by three people at once; even his bones seemed to groan in protest.

The entire process lasted for nearly thirty seconds, and then, in an instant, it was all gone, receding like the tide. WHOOSH. If not for his clothes being soaked with sweat, Lu Ke would have almost thought those thirty seconds were just a dreamlike illusion.

’Why did that happen?’

’Could it be that dumping six basic attribute points into the Physical Attributes option all at once caused a monumental qualitative change, which in turn triggered a physical reaction in real life?’ After all, he had only ever added points one by one before, so the feeling wasn’t obvious. This time, however, it was a fundamental and direct enhancement, so it made sense that his body’s reaction would be more intense. It was almost like he’d just undergone surgery.

Slumped in his chair, panting heavily, Lu Ke waited for the fatigue in his body to gradually subside. He was surprised to find that the negative after-effects from today’s game seemed to have lessened slightly. For now, though, he couldn’t be sure if it was a psychological illusion or a real change. He would only know for sure after tomorrow’s cool-down training.

Afterward, Lu Ke’s gaze fell back on his attribute list, now that he was done allocating points. It looked like nothing had changed, yet it also felt like something had. Lu Ke studied it carefully, then began to wonder, ’What were my exact stats before I added the points? And what specific details have changed?’