The 5 Basic

After going to the house of Aria, he met her at the backyard of their house.

I found her playing a basketball in their own backyard, there is a ring and a little girl dribbling and shooting the ball.

When I walked towards her, I clapped my hand

*clap* clap*

"That's amazing nice shot."

"Ehehe, thanks I guess? What are you doing here?" Aria ask.

"Well, that's...you see, I was trying to ask you to train me in basketball"

"Is that so?..wait did you get taller or something?What happened to you, I swear your not this tall yesterday."

"Thats....I hit my growth spurt or something." Belial said while having a silly smile on his face while scratching his head. "Then can I ask you to guide me on training my basketball."

"Um... that's a little difficult maybe." Aria looked at her childhood friend with complex gaze. 'Didn't you hate basketball? And here I was always trying to convince you to play with me.'

"Oh come on, please I'll do anything I need to improve."

"Wait, let me think... How about a deal? But I don't need anything for now, maybe I'll ask you in the future."

"Yare yare, if that's what you want then that's what you'll get. A deal it is." 'She won't ask something unreasonable aren't she? Oh well its in the future, I'll just do her a favor when the time comes' Belial though in his mind.

Aria first need to learn about the knowledge of basketball of Belial before teaching him how to play the basics of the game.

"Belial, tell me....What exactly do you know about basketball?" Aria asked.

Belial though about the question for a while before answering.

"It's a game that is played between two teams which consist of 5 player each, Their main objective is scoring a goal by throwing a ball through the hoop."

"Each ball within the three-pointer line is awarded with 2 points while the balls from outside the three-pointer line are awarded with 3 points instead"

"There are also the free throws awarded in the case of a foul and each free throw is awarded with 1 point each"

Aria nodded in satisfaction. She then continued speaking.

"So far, you know about the scoring system of the game but you have yet to learn the rules. I will cover the rules at a later date but for now, I will teach you the 5 basics in basketball"

Belial's concentration spiked when he heard this.

In his past life, Belial was never able to do any physical sports so he spent most of his time researching online and learning new things. Whether it was a new language or information, he would learn them all.

Of course, he had come across the 5 basics of basketball before. In fact, he knew about them deeply but just never had the chance to practice it.

The 5 basic skills of basketball;

Dribbling

Passing

Shooting

Rebounding

Defense

In every game, these 5 skills would always come into play no matter what. As such, if a player wanted to excel in the game, they must first and foremost solidify their basics.

In this world, Belial was certain that these 5 basics would surely be taught to students even in elementary school so that when it was time for them to advance to middle school or even high school, they would already have a firm foundation in their basics.

However, Belial had yet to learn any of these 5 basics and he was already 10 years old!

This gave Belial a serious disadvantage against the other players his age. Although Belial was knowledgeable about the 5 basics, he had never actually practiced them so he only had a rough idea of what it was about.

Knowledge and experience were both separate aspects in one gameplay. While Belial was knowledgeable about it, he seriously lacked experience which could be his shortcoming.

Thus, Aria decided to train Belial up as much as he could for now.

Holding the basketball in his hand, Aria looked at Belial with an expressionless face.

"While all of the 5 basics have their own uses, the most important basic will be dribbling"

"Even if you could score a three-pointer or even a dunk, it doesn't matter if your dribbling is bad. Bad dribbling makes it easier for a steal to occur and can easily turn the game around if your opponent has a high steal and shooting percentage"

"Another important thing is that bad dribbling will also make for bad passes. If your teammate takes time to adapt to your bad passes, the opponent can easily steal the ball and make a quick counter"

As Aria continued explaining, Belial listened intently as well.

Even though it was just the basics of basics, all of it was equally important.

In a game, there were too many factors that could affect the outcome so eliminating even one factor could make the game take a turn for the better.

"Today, we will be focusing solely on dribbling. After demonstrating the movements to you a few times, you will have to practice it on your own until night"

"This is for you to get used to the rhythm and to let your muscles slowly adapt to the motion but don't worry about making any mistakes because I will be here to point them out", his childhood friend said grinning.

Belial felt his vision spinning as he doubted whether he heard his childhood friend's words correctly.

Practice until night?

What the hell was this? Why does everyone seem to want to torture me?

First that damned system(because of quest) and now you, Aria! Where was the love between childhood friends?!

And what get the muscles used to it? He would surely die before his muscles got used to it at all.

However, looking at his child hood friend's smile which resembled the smile of devil, Belial knew that he was in a deadlock.

Gritting his teeth, Belial made his decision.

The path to the strongest had to start somewhere and all those big stars surely would have had a rocky start as well.

This can only be considered breaking the back before climbing the mountain.

So, steeling himself, Belial prepared his heart for the next few hours of gruesome training..

"Time to grind, like a fucking no life" I said while cracking my neck.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

While Belial was training with his childhood friend, the yankee Takamoto and his goons came back along with Aoki and Goto to get some revenge but unbeknownst to them it was a fruitless effort of waiting, they didn't know that Belial was getting prepared to get stronger.

(A/N: "This is heavily cop— *cough cough* this is heavily inspired in the novel "I belong to the court" which is this novel was based on,")