Chapter 4: Baptism by Fire
"King Edward VII Park's south gate faces the Marquis of Pombal Square—a nexus of five major arteries and a key metro stop in Lisbon."
Two blocks east of the circular plaza, down Duke of Loulé Street, stood D. José Apartments—Rony's team-assigned dorm.
As he fumbled for his keys at the door, it swung open from within.
"Ronny! Where've you been all day?"
The voice belonged to José Semedo, a hulking Cape Verdean teen with skin like polished ebony.
Ronny shrugged. "Just training alone in the park."
Semedo smirked. Of course. Everyone knew Ronny's obsession—the kid once got kicked out of the gym at 2 AM by security.
But as they brushed past each other, Ronny's nose wrinkled.
"José… that cologne could stun a bull. Where are you off to?"
"Hugo's hooking us up with some smokeshow girls." Semedo flashed pearly whites. "Why not join us? You're the pretty boy here—quit pining over that Madeira girl."
Ronny rolled his eyes. "Pass."
"You'll change your mind once you taste the good life," Semedo called as Rony vanished inside.
The Call
The dorm reeked of Axe body spray. Ronny dialed a familiar number.
"Leonel Pontes speaking."
"It's Ronny."
"SANTO DEUS! You never call! Still my greatest protégé!" The youth coach's voice crackled with pride.
Ronny cut to the chase. "Need your expertise. How do you fix… flawed fundamentals in a 16-year-old?"
Silence. Then—
"Muscle memory's set by then. Unless…" Pontes hesitated. "This 'friend' of yours—he's not in our academy?"
"Met him yesterday."
"You really made a FRIEND?!" Pontes whooped. "Wait—he trains like you?"
"Worse."
"Madre de Deus. Fine. I'll email drills by dawn. But Ronny—this'll hurt."
Ronny grinned, recalling Su Dong's taunt:
"You've ever seen Lisbon at 5 AM?"
"I've seen 2 AM," he muttered.
The Grind Never Sleeps
Meanwhile, in his own dorm, Su Dong maxed out his potential of stats:
Technique: 99
Finishing: 99
Speed: 99
Strength: 99
27,000 King Points vaporized.
Worth it.
As a Virgo, the symmetry soothed his soul.
Dawn Patrol
4:55 AM. Edward VII Park.
Ronny arrived lugging agility ladders, cones, hurdle bars—tools of torture borrowed from Pontes' playbook.
Su Dong eyed the arsenal.
"Regret's still an option." Ronny teased
"Says the guy who folds like origami under pressure," Su Dong shot back, grabbing the gear.
They marched to the 7v7 pitch—no more kiddie 3v3s.
"These drills? From Leonel Pontes himself," Rony bragged as he set up. "Best youth developer in Portugal. Trains 10-to-15-year-olds."
He paused to deliver the kill-shot :
"Your basics? On par with his U10s."
Su Dong's retort died in his throat.
Because Rony wasn't wrong.
Baptism by Fire
The first drill was footwork through agility ladders—each misstep punctuated by Rony's bark:
"Toes UP! Not flat!"
"Small steps! You're stomping like a drunk giraffe!"
Next: dribbling through cones—
"Inside foot ONLY! No street-ball garbage!"
By sunrise, Su Dong's calves screamed. His jersey clung like a second skin.
Rony tossed him a water bottle. "Tomorrow: first touch and weight transfer."
Su Dong chugged, then smirked. "Aren't you afraid I'll surpass you?"
"In your dreams, amigo."
But as they walked off, Ronny stole a glance at his new friend.
Try your best kid...
Chapter 5: Weaklings Never Understand Champions
Leonel Pontes' training regimen consisted of the most fundamental drills—so monotonous they required gamification even for ten-year-olds.
For someone Su Dong's age? Pure torture.
Changing ingrained habits was agony. As the saying goes: "If a man can quit smoking, imagine how ruthless his heart must be." But altering muscle memory from years of playing? That made quitting cigarettes look easy. Pontes himself doubted it was possible.
Yet over the following weeks, Su Dong proved his mettle. He showed Ronny this wasn't empty bravado—he genuinely wanted to transform himself.
He executed Pontes' driest drills with religious precision. Not just meeting expectations, but exceeding them. Mornings and afternoons were reserved for 1v1 battles with Rony to farm King Points, but the bulk of his day belonged to those soul-crushing fundamentals.
At first, Ronny watched skeptically. Soon, he found himself awestruck as Su Dong doubled—sometimes tripled—the prescribed workload without complaint. Where others (including Ronny himself) might've cracked, this Chinese teen kept grinding.
With this mentality, Ronny thought, if he doesn't make it pro, there's no justice in football.
What he didn't know - Su Dong's secret weapon—the System. With all six attributes' potential maxed at 99, his mission now was unlocking that latent power through training. Pontes' regimen was the perfect key.
The early days were brutal. Bad habits from China's amateurish youth system made every correction excruciating. Progress crawled. But remembering his parents selling possessions to fund his European dream, Su Dong endured.
By week three, breakthroughs came. Attributes climbed steadily. Drills that once left him gasping became manageable. Rony, now fully invested, consulted Pontes weekly to tweak the program.
"He's already defied expectations," Pontes mused over the phone. "Now I wonder—how far can he go?"
No one knew. Not even Ronny, who still dominated their 1v1s effortlessly. But having this benchmark only fueled Su Dong's fire.
Mid-July arrived.
Europe's preseason was in full swing—except at semi-pro Portugal Sporting Club. Their "first team" players had day jobs; the youth squad resembled a rec league. So Su Dong kept training solo at Edward VII Park under Rony's watch.
Their 5 AM meetings became ritual—until the day Rony didn't show.
As Su Dong puzzled over his absence, a broad-shouldered Cape Verdean teen materialized.
"You're Su Dong?"
The stranger observed his drills before sauntering onto the pitch.
"José Semedo. Rony's teammate." His grin was disarming. "Family emergency—flew home last night. Asked me to tell you he'll be gone a few days."
Relieved yet unsettled, Su Dong pressed: "Is he... really good on your team?"
Semedo's eyebrows shot up. "Wait—you don't know?"
"Only that he's insanely skilled."
Chuckling, Semedo deflected: "Let's just say three guys fight over who's our best. He's one." Then, eyeing the ball: "Fancy a match?"
The showdown revealed stark contrasts.
Where Rony danced past defenders with finesse, Semedo bulldozed through with brute force. Each duel awarded only 100 King Points—half Rony's yield—but still invaluable.
As they collapsed exhausted at dusk, Semedo voiced the question haunting him:
"Why keep chasing this? You started too late. The odds—"
Su Dong cut him off with a taunt "That's why weaklings never understand champions."
Cue Round 2.