The Almighty Cheat

The national record is 10.17 seconds, which has been sealed for five years. If it weren't for Zhang Guan's appearance, this national record might have remained unbroken for twelve years. But now, Zhang Guan has broken this record with a time of 10.16 seconds.

At this moment, the athletes competing on the same field all approached Zhang Guan to congratulate him. This congratulation came from the heart, a respect for the strong and an encouragement for Zhang Guan to break the national record.

A rookie who is only 17 years old, has only trained for two months formally, and even starts off half a beat slower, unexpectedly surpassed the top domestic athletes, breaking the national record. This seems like something out of a fairy tale, happening right before everyone's eyes. At this moment, everyone present knows that the young man before them will become the future of the men's 100-meter event, a rising star.

However, Coach Yu, who was observing from the platform, had a more far-sighted perspective. He saw not only that Zhang Guan broke the national record but also that the entire landscape of the men's 100-meter event in the country was about to undergo a change.

Zhang Guan's 10.16 seconds not only broke the national record for the men's 100 meters but, more importantly, this time falls within 10.21 seconds, which is the qualifying time for the A-standard in the men's 100 meters at the Olympics.

While Chen Jian just ran 10.22 seconds, qualifying for the B-standard, he unfortunately fell just short of the 10.21-second A-standard for the Olympics. Having both an A-standard and a B-standard immediately put the national team in an awkward situation.

Coach Yu could predict that in the near future, the National Athletics Association and even the General Administration of Sport would be embroiled in debate and controversy.

Thinking of this, Coach Yu couldn't help but smile to himself and murmured, 'This time, it seems we've given those guys at the Athletics Association something to do.'

...

The chief referee signed the final result confirmation sheet, and at the same time, Zhang Guan's mind once again received a system prompt.

'Mission complete, breaking the national record, rewarded with 1 skill point.'

Immediately after, another prompt appeared: 'You can earn skill points through specific tasks or by breaking records and earning honors. Different records and honors have different difficulty levels, and accordingly, you can earn different skill points.'

'For example, breaking the national record can earn you 1 skill point, breaking the continental record can earn you 2 skill points, and breaking the world record can earn you 4 skill points. These rewards stack according to the highest standard, and different levels of records are rewarded according to the higher-level standard, without duplicate counting.'

Seeing this, Zhang Guan silently nodded. According to the system, if he breaks the world record, it naturally means breaking the continental and national records as well. However, the system will only reward 4 skill points according to the world record, without separately rewarding the continental or national records. Similarly, breaking the adult record certainly means breaking the youth record, and only the adult record counts.

Skill points are used to learn and upgrade skills, which are divided into active and passive skills. Active skills need to be activated before use, while passive skills do not need activation. Some skills cannot be upgraded, such as this one:

A gray icon appeared in the center of the system, and the skill was named: Quick Reflexes.

'Quick Reflexes: Enhances the speed of response to all stimuli by the body. Explanation: The skill effect fluctuates with factors such as training intensity, age, and condition.'

Looking at this skill description, and considering the system's suggestion, Zhang Guan thought, 'Learning this skill, will it improve my reaction time for starting?' With this thought, Zhang Guan hesitated no further and clicked to learn, spending one skill point he had just acquired on the 'Quick Reflexes' skill.

Unlike the 'Sprint' skill he learned earlier, the 'Quick Reflexes' skill icon, once learned, was white and had a special note of 'not upgradable'.

Zhang Guan pondered silently whether his starting reaction time would indeed improve when he returned home. At this moment, the system once again presented a new dialog box.

'You are already the strongest in the country. The domestic arena cannot satisfy you; it's time to aim for the world.' After the dialog box disappeared from the system, a new task prompt appeared: 'Beginner Task: Participate in an international event and compete with foreign athletes.'

Seeing this new task, Zhang Guan suddenly felt annoyed. There were indeed many international athletics events, but the level of domestic athletics, especially in sprinting, was not high enough. In many international events, they didn't even have the qualifications to compete. He didn't know how long it would take to complete this task.

But then Zhang Guan thought again. This time he participated in the Asian Athletics Championships qualifiers, and he won first place. He should be able to participate, right? The Asian Athletics Championships was, after all, an international event!

With this thought, Zhang Guan's mood eased again.

After accepting the new task, the system flashed another message: 'Skill Panel Unlocked.'

A skill prompt symbol appeared in the system, and Zhang Guan immediately clicked on it, only to find various skill icons neatly arranged inside. On the left were active skills, on the right were passive skills, and there was one skill icon lit up on each side, namely 'Sprint' and 'Quick Reflexes,' while the rest of the skills were all gray.

'So many skills, let's see what they all are.' Zhang Guan immediately scrolled down from the 'Sprint' skill.

'Bend Sprint, increase speed inside bends. Learning requirements: Master Sprint.'

Zhang Guan immediately looked at another skill:

'Lateral Sprint Jump, increase lateral distance after sprint jump. Learning requirements: Master Sprint, Master Jump.'

'Stride, improve stride ability and technique.'

'Single-foot Jump, improve single-foot jumping ability and technique.'

'Dribble, improve dribbling ability and technique.'

'Rapid Change of Direction, improve the ability and technique to suddenly change direction at high speed. Learning requirements: Master Sprint, Passive Skills: Strengthening, Passive Skills: Body Coordination, Passive Skills: Strong Knees...'

'Free Kick, improve free kick ability and technique, learning requirements: Master Kicking.'

'Swimming Stroke, improve efficiency of bilateral arm swimming strokes. Learning requirements: Master Swimming Skills.'

...

Zhang Guan glanced roughly at these skills, covering almost all sports disciplines, including track and field, soccer, basketball, swimming, gymnastics, boxing, shooting, and so on. Zhang Guan even saw skills related to racing, like 'High-Speed Driving Techniques,' and esports, like 'Increasing APM Hand Speed.'

And the more complex the sport, the more related skills there were. For example, each track and field specialty only required learning one or two skills, such as the 100-meter sprint only requiring the 'Sprint' skill, but basketball required dozens of related skills.

Zhang Guan sighed, 'It's really a mixed bag. So many sports, so many skills, I'm afraid I'll never finish learning them all in my lifetime!'

Then Zhang Guan looked at the skill panel on the right, where there were passive skills that could be used without activation.

'Strengthening, increase bodily strength. Explanation: Developmental skill.'

'Fitness, increase bodily endurance. Explanation: Developmental skill.'

'Body Flexibility, increase bodily flexibility. Explanation: Skill effect fluctuates with time, intensity of physical training, age, height, weight, and other factors.'

...

There were far fewer passive skills than active skills, and their main effects were to improve various physical qualities. Most of the skill effects were subject to fluctuating factors.

'It looks so complicated. But from the skill descriptions, some passive skills complement active skills. For example, to learn the active skill 'Rapid Change of Direction,' you must also learn the passive skill 'Strong Knees,' because rapid changes of direction put a lot of strain on the knees, so you must rely on the 'Strong Knees' skill to increase the strength of the knee joints.' Zhang Guan had already discovered that many skills in the system complemented each other and had mutual assistance effects.

...

The subsequent award ceremony was very simple. This selection match didn't even have medals; they just gave out a red certificate to the champion.

As the champion certificate was handed to Zhang Guan, a prompt from the system appeared:

'Obtained the honor of National Champion, rewarded with 1 skill point.'

Zhang Guan immediately understood that this was the method mentioned earlier by the system to earn skill points through honors.

However, Zhang Guan didn't immediately use up this precious skill point. He felt that this system needed further research, so he wasn't in a hurry to use this skill point.

Zhang Guan broke the national record, and later, the National Athletics Association would separately award him a certificate and a bonus. Zhang Guan didn't have high hopes for the official bonus; official bonuses had always been pitifully small, far less generous than some advertising sponsors.

As for the media reporters present, they did not give an in-depth report on this new national 100-meter record, just a simple introduction. One reason was that the scale of the competition was not large, lacking attractiveness to the media. Secondly, the men's 100-meter event had been weak for many years and had not achieved any results internationally. A time of 10.16 seconds was not particularly outstanding even in Asia; naturally, there was a lack of focus.

But for the provincial athletics team where Zhang Guan belonged, breaking the 100-meter national record was excellent news. The propaganda personnel of the provincial sports association had already written a long news release and sent it to major newspapers. When the newspapers were printed, Zhang Guan was still on the return train.