Free Web NovelChapter 41: Chapter 36: Points Bonanza
"Congratulations on completing the Official NCAA Game mission..."
"Congratulations on completing the Official NCAA Game mission..."
The chiming notifications were like a symphony heralding his victory, officially marking the end of the first game in Lu Ke’s career as a football quarterback. The cheerful tone was reminiscent of the sound effect from "Super Mario" on the NES—the one that plays after he eats a mushroom and powers up. This meant he could upgrade himself again. This was great news. Fantastic news.
First pass completed: one attribute point. First touchdown completed: one attribute point. Passed for seventy-five yards: one attribute point. Achieved victory: two attribute points. And... completed a touchdown: four—a whole four attribute points.
The missions were tallied one after another, and Lu Ke discovered he had earned a total of nine attribute points! His first touchdown had completed two missions simultaneously; it counted for the "First Touchdown" reward and also stacked with the "Complete a Touchdown" reward. After the tally, he had nine attribute points. A full nine of them!
He had only earned nine attribute points in the last five months of training, but now he had raked in another nine from a single game. Looks like tonight’s celebration was just getting started!
Gleefully, he opened his status panel and once again browsed through his stats.
Although they had won tonight’s game, Lu Ke knew it had been a fluke.
First, they won because of an information imbalance. As a backup quarterback, it was his job to study the opponents’ tactics, but they knew nothing about him. Kevin Price getting injured and leaving the game was a blow to the Brown Bear Team, but it also completely disrupted the Trojans’ game plan.
Second, they won on clutch plays at critical moments. Logan’s short reception had unexpectedly turned into a touchdown. Both Logan and John had caught passes in desperate situations; the slightest deviation would have resulted in an incompletion. Not to mention how he had avoided a sack by the skin of his teeth right before the final pass. If any one of those details had gone wrong, the outcome would have been completely different.
Even so, Lu Ke had pulled out all the stops, laying all his cards on the table with nothing held back. This was the true measure of his abilities. Especially when he looked at his stats, which were still a sea of red, the small flame of pride that had just sparked within him was instantly extinguished. He was confident and ambitious, but not greedy.
’So, how should I allocate these nine attribute points?’
Looking at his passing options, his Short Pass Accuracy and Long Pass Accuracy were already at a decent level, so he didn’t need to worry about them for now. His Mid-range Pass Accuracy, however, was only at sixty-four, a definite weakness. But after tonight’s game experience, Lu Ke was more aware than ever that as a quarterback, he had to learn to protect himself. Facing the relentless onslaught of the other team’s defense, just knowing how to pass wasn’t enough to win.
His eyes fell on his Running Pass stat. Sixty-six. ’Still not high enough.’
Malik Jackson had pushed him to his absolute limit today. Setting aside the lucky final pass, during the earlier offensive drives, Lu Ke had been like a punching bag, getting knocked around relentlessly. Even now, his bones ached from the memory of those violent impacts. Every hit, every potential block and tackle, had a huge effect on his passing accuracy—
even with his Long Pass Accuracy at eighty-one, his final throw had still been off target.
So, his Running Pass score had to be increased. Without hesitation, Lu Ke decisively dumped four points into Running Pass. After a DING, the skill finally broke seventy! It crossed the passing threshold into "Good" territory. The quantitative increase triggered a qualitative leap—a fundamental improvement.
If he could, Lu Ke would have dumped all his attribute points into Running Pass. But there were too many other holes to plug. What little reason he had left forced him to look away and examine the other sub-stats below.
Fake Pass Action: 45
Ball Protection Ability: 59
Observation Field of View: 50
Ball-Carrying Run: 59
Evasion Ability: 59
Blocking Ability: 53 freewēbnoveℓ.com
Dribbling Ability: 53
Illusionary Ability: 53
Among these stats, Fake Pass Action was mainly for executing tactics like play-action (faking a run to pass) or faking a pass to run. It could also be used to deceive defenders with a pump fake before changing the passing route. The other seven stats were all related to things like footwork, observation, judgment, physicality, and the ability to dodge and escape.
They were all failing grades across the board. In truth, for any professional quarterback, these stats were all crucial. A passing grade was the bare minimum. In the professional leagues, even a backup should have an average of around seventy in these areas. Lu Ke’s scores were simply abysmal.
He had five attribute points left. After some thought, Lu Ke chose to spread them out. These stats were all more or less interconnected, so he needed to raise the average, rather than focusing on a single specialized skill as he did with his passing.
In the end, he added one point each to Ball-Carrying Run and Evasion Ability, at least pulling them out of failing territory. Then he dumped the remaining three points into Observation Field of View, raising it from fifty to a slightly less pathetic fifty-three.
Observation Field of View, as a stat, could be understood as a quarterback’s ability to read the entire field. It wasn’t just about knowing the positions of his own offensive players, but also about anticipating the opponent’s defensive scheme and reacting sharply to how the play developed.
Lu Ke’s score of only fifty in this area was truly abysmal.
The reason was actually simple. In both high school and college, teams relied less on complex tactics and more on raw talent. This was why the no-huddle offense could be so devastating—if you found the right rhythm and the chemistry clicked, the offense would flow effortlessly. In tonight’s game, Lu Ke had relied entirely on Logan and John as his targets, with support from Marcus, to pull off that game-winning drive. There had been no grand strategy to speak of; it was all down to their chemistry and individual abilities.
Lu Ke had always relied on his height—six-foot-four—to give him a commanding view of the field. But tonight’s game was a wake-up call. On that final pass, his misjudgment of the receiver’s route and his misread of the defenders had nearly caused the whole play to fall apart.
The Offensive Line can’t hold back the defense forever; two to four seconds is the standard window of protection. The longer the quarterback holds the ball, the more pressure the Offensive Line is under, the higher the risk of the play being blown up, and the greater the danger of the quarterback being tackled or sacked.
He needed sharper judgment and the ability to command the entire field. That was why Lu Ke had chosen to upgrade his Observation Field of View, raising it from fifty to fifty-three. He ignored the other failing stats for now, gambling his precious attribute points here. Even though seventy was still a long way off, he needed this stat to reach a passing grade as soon as possible.
Nine attribute points had seemed like a huge haul, but in the blink of an eye, Lu Ke had already burned through them. Looking at his stat sheet again, it was still a sea of red, almost as if nothing had changed in the past five months. He couldn’t help but rub his forehead. ’I need more games. And I need more training.’
"Qi, are there any special missions that just give me a hundred points in a stat?" Lu Ke couldn’t resist joking.
Lu Ke hadn’t expected a response—it was just a random joke. But then Qi’s voice echoed in his mind. "There are." Lu Ke froze, his eyes going wide. "Find a new host. Or get a new body."
"..." Lu Ke was speechless for a second before a smile spread across his face. "When did you unlock your sarcasm skill? And max it out, apparently? How come I didn’t know? Fess up, did you steal my attribute points to do it?"
This time, it was Qi’s turn to go silent. Lu Ke grinned but tried to hide it by pursing his lips, not wanting to seem too smug. Then he heard Qi’s icy voice once more. "You are aware that I can directly access the signals in your central nervous system, correct? That feeling of glee is impossible to hide."
Though the voice was cold, the snark was becoming more and more obvious. freeweɓnovel.cѳm
Lu Ke was no longer flustered like he had been at first. After all, he and Qi had been living together in his head for five months. "Qi, be honest. When I watch... certain R-rated ’action’ movies, are you peeking?"
Silence. And more silence.
Lu Ke didn’t mind. He put on a look of dramatic regret. "Ah, the kids grow up and start going down the wrong path. It’s so hard being a parent. Don’t you know how to close your ’eyes’? Or... were you looking forward to it?" Even though he couldn’t see it, Lu Ke could perfectly picture the system rolling its eyes. The thought alone made him laugh.
"Bambi, what’s with that sleazy grin? You score a date with that hottie from earlier?" A sudden voice boomed through the locker room. Lu Ke turned to see his teammates walking in, fresh from the showers and laughing loudly. The first one was Marcus.
Marcus’s words immediately sent the others into a frenzy of good-natured teasing. Someone even started dancing around, chanting joyfully, "Bambi’s got a girlfriend! Bambi’s got a girlfriend!"
This was an unfamiliar scene. Or rather, the routine was familiar, but Lu Ke had never been at the center of it. In the past, when the guys were joking around, the backup and practice squad players were always a little quiet on the sidelines—marginalized, unable to truly fit in. The starters were a different world. But tonight, in just one game, Lu Ke had become one of them.
