On the football field of Fulham Preparatory Primary School, Bruce was sweating profusely.
He had sandbags strapped to his ankles and was practicing dribbling through poles with added weight.
"Faster, faster!!" Savic clapped from the sidelines, clearly unhappy with Bruce's slow dribbling pace.
"Take a few minutes to rest."
After completing three sets of weighted dribbling through the cones, Savic finally allowed him to pause.
"After you recover, do three more sets without weights. Alternating between weighted and unweighted drills will improve your overall ball control."
…
After the ball-feel drills ended, they moved on to ball control training — both with and without the ball — followed by reaction drills where Bruce had to instantly respond to the coach's commands.
Finally, the main session of the day began.
It was a comprehensive combined exercise: first jumping over obstacles on one foot, then alternating left and right foot hops over cones, then dribbling forward, changing direction quickly to cut past the cones, and finishing the sequence with a shot on goal.
"You've made a lot of progress in the last two years at Crystal Palace. I feel like more of your talent is gradually being uncovered."
By the end of training, Bruce was exhausted, but Savic was very satisfied with his performance.
After thanking Savic, Bruce quickly got into Kate's car, which had come to pick him up.
"How are you feeling?" Kate asked as soon as he got in.
"Very tired."
He gave a short reply, then leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes.
He wasn't actually resting his mind; instead, he entered the talent system to check whether the day's training had shown results.
Soon, he saw a notification that pleased him — the fusion rate of his talent card had increased by 2 percentage points, reaching 23%. His technical attribute had also improved by 1 point, now sitting at 58.
"As expected, training accelerates card fusion… and boosts other attributes too."
Bruce was secretly delighted, and his confidence in the talent system grew even further.
※※※
For the next two weeks or so, aside from routine breaks, he basically trained with Lukasavich nonstop, and his card fusion level continued to rise accordingly.
On July 11, he took another break — this time at Savage's house — to rest and watch TV.
"Bruce, who do you think will win the championship tonight?" A boy around ten years old ran over and asked Bruce.
"Ivan, I think it will be Spain." Bruce replied, reaching out to pat the boy's head — but the kid quickly leaned back out of reach.
"I'm not a little kid anymore, don't touch my head." After dodging Bruce's hand, the boy continued, "But my dad and I think the Netherlands will win. They've been runners-up so many times already."
Today was the day of the South Africa World Cup Final. Bruce didn't train – he came to Savic's house to watch the match together instead.
The little boy was Savic's son, Ivan Savic.
"Little Ivan, football doesn't work like that. Just because a team has a lot of runner-up finishes, that doesn't magically turn into a championship." Bruce said, pretending to lecture the boy.
"Really? You always finish second? That's such bad luck."
"Hey, getting runner-up still takes strength. Look at England — they might not even get second place anymore."
"You're right. Same with Serbia."
The two continued chatting as they waited for the World Cup final to start.
Lukasavić is Serbian. He played in the Yugoslav league in his early years. Later, when the Yugoslav Wars broke out, he moved to England to continue playing football and escape the war. After a few years in England, he retired, married a Serbian woman, and settled down there.
Because of that, although the Savic family now holds British citizenship, in every aspect they still consider themselves Serbian. Even young Ivan often says that if he becomes a professional player in the future, he wants to represent Serbia's national team.
This kind of situation is actually very common in Europe, so the Savic family is not unique.
One of the reasons Bruce caught Savic's attention was because of his Chinese background and his recent move from China to England — culturally, Chinese and Serbian families share many similar values.
At 7:30 pm UK time, the 2010 South Africa World Cup final finally kicked off.
Since neither of the finalists had ever won the World Cup before, everyone knew the match would definitely crown a new world champion. The intensity was insane — fourteen yellow cards were shown, the most in any World Cup final.
Throughout the match, the Netherlands wasted too many chances. And then, as if it was fate, in the 116th minute of extra time, Fàbregas slipped the ball to Iniesta, who scored the winning goal. Just like that, the Dutch once again carried the "uncrowned kings" label, while the Matadors rose to the top of the world.
Even though the final ended only 1–0, Ivan Jr. was incredibly excited — because the match was nowhere near boring.
After the match, he was still hyped, dragging Bruce along and saying:
"Iniesta was so cool! That was the winning goal in a World Cup final! Just thinking about it makes my heart jump. I still can't understand how he stayed so calm and aimed that shot. I honestly feel like he's going to win the Ballon d'Or this year!"
Then he looked at Bruce and added:
"Bruce, will you one day be like Iniesta — scoring the winning goal in a World Cup final?"
He paused, then corrected himself:
"Actually, it doesn't have to be the World Cup final. The Champions League final would be fine too. Any big final works. You can do what Iniesta did… right?"
"By the way, do you want to play for England in the future?"
Little Ivan fired off questions without even waiting for answers — it felt like he was talking to himself more than to Bruce.
But that last one actually made Bruce pause.
Who would he represent in the future? England? China? Even Scotland?
Honestly… he had never seriously thought about it before.
But one thing he could rule out immediately: China.
There was no football environment there. Playing for China would only limit his development and waste his potential.
※※※
After the World Cup final, Bruce returned to training.
During this period, he noticed a problem: as his card fusion level increased, his technical stats were improving rapidly — but his physical stats were barely moving.
At the moment, his fusion with the Joaquin card had gone from 21% to 35%. His technical attribute had increased from 57 to 63.
But his physical attribute was still only 59 — just a 1-point increase.
He wanted to unlock the cards further… but his low physical stat of 59 was now holding him back.
For the first row of blue cards—aside from the introductory first card—the basic requirement to light up the rest is that all three attributes must exceed 60. There is also an extra requirement: the fusion percentage of the previously lit cards must be at least 33%.
Bruce met every requirement except for his physical attribute.
But this kind of growth can't be rushed. All he could do was wait.
That day, he returned home after training as usual and saw that Old John had already come back.
"Bruce, I've convinced the club. They're willing to make an offer to Crystal Palace. You just need to wait—soon you'll be playing in Dundee!" Old John was clearly thrilled.
"Kate, I'm counting on you to handle the transfer paperwork for me."
He didn't have an agent. His affairs were handled by his mother, Kate. She studied law at university and now works at a law firm in London—so handling this kind of legal matter was no problem for her.
After taking a shower and listening to Old John talk endlessly about how great Dundee United was, Bruce went back to his room to rest.
Lying on his bed, he re-entered the system. His eyes immediately locked onto the three numbers below the card frame:
64, 60, 73.
His physical attribute had finally gone up—reaching 60.
Without hesitation, he lit up the second blue card.
Crescent Moon Knife (Beckham)