v2.0

The part that caught Lukas' attention was the proposal of a clause stipulating that he will consider signing a 3-year professional contract with the club when he turns 16.

It did not force him to sign; all it forced him to do was show up at the negotiation table in good faith.

"I don't think that's a bad idea at all." Lukas was thinking about playing for Eintracht for a while. At this time, he was unaware of the number of super clubs that would try to tempt him away from Frankfurt.

After the discussions, Marco stood up first, with the others following. He shook hands with Richter and Dennis.

"I'm glad we had this conversation. You can expect to hear from us soon." He said as he shook Richter's hands.

"Yes. I will instruct the legal team to start working on the contract. Lukas can join the team with Dennis immediately after July 1st. For now, he can keep training with the U17 or even move to the U19 level." Richter said.

"I think it'll be better if I stay at the U17 for now. It's all gonna be the same training either way, and I'm already used to the players and staff there." Lukas said as he shook Richter's hand.

"Speaking of staff, I guess I have to talk to Coach Sebastian. I hope he doesn't bite my head off," Richter said jokingly.

"You will survive. Seb must have known that he couldn't keep Lukas for long anyway." Marco replied as they walked out of the office.

As they exited the office, Lukas stayed silent.

He didn't need to say anything. He had expected a contract — what he hadn't expected was to be fast-tracked this aggressively. Still, it wasn't something he felt unprepared for.

"In the last life, I never even got close to this level. This time, it's only going to be my starting point."

The drive back to Darmstadt was anything but quiet.

Javi kept asking Lukas how he was feeling every ten minutes, starting a whole new conversation about him playing for the U23s at just 15.

"Luke, when you join the team, you gotta train even harder so there's no bad news."

"Yeah, Dad, I know. I promise I won't stop working hard."

"I doubt TT will let me slack off, anyway."

"I'm so proud of you, Luke. I promise I will attend as many of your games as possible. I'll definitely be there for your first game, though."

"Thanks, Dad."

Javi was much more excited than Lukas. He was now seeing his son, who had been in love with football his whole life, getting a decent shot at being a professional — and couldn't contain his excitement.

"By the way, I have a surprise for you."

"You still haven't told me what it is, Dad," Lukas protested as Javi had told him about this surprise earlier.

"Don't worry, you'll find out soon."

* * *

June 23rd, 2024. On a wide standard football field.

♫ You know you shouldn't throw stones if you live in a glasshouse

And if you got a glass jaw, you should watch your mouth

'Cause I'll break your face

Have your ass runnin', mumblin' to the jake

You goin' against me, dawg, you're makin' a mistake

I'll split ya, leave you lookin' like them Michael Jackson jackets with all them zippers♫

The beats from the music filled the pitch. It felt like the air was playing the music because it was equally as audible no matter what part of the field someone stood.

But there were no actual sound systems in sight.

One man and a bunch of green people were on the field.

The man would receive a pass from a green person at the center line, and was expected to dribble past 4 other green people and score.

The tackles weren't friendly.

They stopped at nothing to bring him down.

Clawing, grabbing, pulling, chopping at his ankles, sliding tackles, and body checks.

But no referee in sight.

It was in the LTC. And Lukas was training his attacking skills, dribbling in particular.

Earlier, he had worked on shooting — first-time finishes, two-touches, headers, outside curlers, and long-range drives.

After what felt like the thousandth attempt—

[Dribbling Task 250/250 Completed

Rewards:

Dribbling +1

Tight Possession +1

Ball Control +1]

Lukas stared at the screen, frustrated as he fell to the floor.

"Only 1 for all of that is very harsh. Don't you think so?"

He had worked tirelessly for about 40 hours at this session. And had spent about 25 of those 40 hours just to complete the dribbling task.

His legs were still feeling the sting from the several nibbles and tackles from the Abstracts during the task.

[*You're lucky you're even getting something. Soon, you might finish a task way harder than this, and not get anything. Enjoy your honeymoon period while you can.*] TT's voice was neither cold nor teasing as it normally was. Instead, he said it like he was just sharing the information, nothing attached.

"Yes, I understand you, sir. So what other new features does the LTC v2.0 have, besides fewer rewards for more training?"

The LTC had begun upgrading on the day Lukas and Javi signed the official contract with Eintracht Frankfurt.

The update was finally completed that day, and one of its perks was increasing the time Lukas can spend in there in a day from 24 hours to 48 hours.

Another was declassifying the training.

Since the training required to raise each stat would get harder, the sessions changed from a broad classification: 'Attacking Training Sessions', 'Strength Training Sessions', 'Defensive Training Sessions', to more specific names for each stat being trained.

Some stats — like ball control, tight possession, and dribbling —were trained with the same task as they were affected by each other.

[*The final feature of the LTC v2.0 is the skill development category.*]

"Oh, cool, so now I can actually increase my skill proficiency in here?"

Since Lukas had gained two new skills after his match against the U19 team, he had been unable to gain a new skill, nor even train to increase the skill level in the LTC.

He had tried using the skills during his dribbling tasks, but it was like TT didn't even acknowledge it.

[*Yes. Not just that, you will be able to acquire new skills without having to pull them off in a real match first.*]

"Is there a skill shop I can buy them from?"

[*Nope, I never said that. You'll be able to be personally taught a skill.*]

"Who will do the teaching? No offense, but you don't really seem like a great lecturer. You're more like a prison ward treating me like a prisoner."

[*Offense taken. But yeah, I'm not gonna be teaching you shit — not directly at least.*]

"Language, please."

[*Yeah right, says the guy that has been playing the Marshall Mathers LP and Get Rich or Die Trying on repeat all day. Hey, Gemini, define 'hypocrite.'*]

"Fine, I get your point. My bad. What were you saying?"

[*You can now insert an Ego of certain people into an Abstract, and they can train you on their skills.*]

"Wait, so you're saying I can technically receive training from Messi and learn all his skills?"

[*Well, technically, yeah. But would I advise you to do that? Absolutely not.*]

"Why not?"

[*The larger the difference between your current skill-related stat and the corresponding stat level of the Ego, the harder it's going to be to learn from them.*]

"Skill-related stat? What's that?"

[*Every skill is related to a stat. Most dribbling skills, as you can imagine, are related to the dribbling stat. Most shooting skills —shooting stats, et cetera. So if you summon someone with 98 dribbling to teach you a skill they have, you'll technically waste your time.*]

"Well, if it doesn't work, I can just cancel the summon, right?"

[*Yeah, no you can't. Tricked you, right? As you summon an Ego, you will assign a task to it — eg, "Take 'X' skill to 'Y' level of proficiency. You are unable to do any other training until the task assigned to the Ego is completed and they are unsummoned.*]

"Oh, like Mr. Meeseeks."

[*Hmmm, I guess that's a good comparison. You cannot summon more than one Ego at a time, though.*]

"But wait a second, a player might be able to do something, but they might not necessarily be able to teach someone else how to do that same thing."

[*You're not summoning the players, doofus. You are summoning an LTC entity that has the skills of said player. That LTC entity has been conditioned to be the best teacher too.*]

"Oh, the mighty TT has done it again."

[*Ahem. Flattery will get you everywhere. Keep it up.*]

"I've still got about 7 hours left for this session, should I try to summon one?"

[*All your choice. Just remember the terms and conditions I clearly spelled out for you, though*]

"Yeah, yeah.. So, who should I summon? Hmmmm..."

Lukas tapped his fingers on his chin as he considered several players he could pick as his summon for his first skill session.

"Okay, let's go with — "

A/N: HAHAHAHAHA. I've always hated when authors ended chapters in cliffhangers. Now I'm cackling as I write this. "You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become a villain." Truer words have never been spoken.

Missed yesterday's chapter; had a lot on my plate. But I'm gonna try and make up for that soon.

I'll try to write a bunch of chapters so I can have some in stock, but I don't want the quality to fall cause I'm tryna pump words into it — Writer's dilemma.

Love y'all, be safe out there. It's a crazy world.

-Writ.