Chapter 2: The Architecture of a Predator
The walk back from the Cruyff Court was different than the walk there.
Hours earlier, Luuk's 183-centimeter frame had felt like an anchor, a collection of heavy bones and uncoordinated muscles that didn't know how to occupy space. Now, as he moved through the narrow, wind-swept streets of Amsterdam, he felt light. It wasn't just the Hyper-Recovery flushing the lactic acid from his thighs; it was a fundamental shift in his center of gravity.
The Nagi Seishiro synchronization had fundamentally remapped his nervous system. He walked with a lazy, liquid grace, his shoulders relaxed, his silver-gray eyes scanning the environment with a clarity that felt almost painful.
Every few seconds, the blue translucent pane would flicker in his peripheral vision, updating his vitals like a high-end medical monitor.
[Current Condition: Post-Exertion Recovery Phase]
[Neural Load: 82% — Warning: Mental fatigue may accumulate faster than physical repair.]
[Recommended Intake: 1,200 Calories (High Protein/Medium Glycemic Carbohydrates)]
"Nagi... Isagi..." Luuk whispered the names into the biting wind.
They weren't Dutch. They didn't belong to the legends his father talked about—Cruyff, Van Basten, Bergkamp. They sounded like echoes from a different world, ghosts of a talent so concentrated that even their names carried a weight of authority.
He didn't know who they were, but he felt the "God-Trap" humming in his marrow. It was an instinctual certainty that if a ball was fired at him from a cannon, he could kill its momentum with a single touch. It was a terrifying, beautiful power.
When he reached the apartment, the smell of stale tobacco and old wood greeted him. His father wasn't home; the docks never let a man go early.
Luuk went straight to the kitchen. He didn't reach for the bread his father had left. Instead, he looked at the Status Screen, which was now overlaying a "Nutritional Blueprint" over the sparse contents of the fridge.
[Optimal Selection: Eggs (3), Spinach, Greek Yogurt]
[Note: To maximize 'Hyper-Recovery' effectiveness, nutrient timing is critical. Consume within 14 minutes.]
Luuk moved with a newfound precision. There was no wasted motion as he cracked the eggs into a pan. His hands, which used to feel clumsy when doing anything other than sports, were steady. He was optimizing. He wasn't just eating; he was fueling a machine that was being rebuilt from the inside out.
As he ate, he pulled up the Status Report again, staring at the numbers that defined his existence.
--- [DETAILED ANALYSIS] ---
Agility: 50/100 (Up from 48)
Acceleration: 59/100 (Up from 58)
Balance: 95/100 (Synced)
[Developer's Note: The 100/100 Ball Control is currently bottlenecked by your Physicality. Your brain can conceive the 'God-Trap,' but your 60 Stamina will cause your form to collapse after 20 minutes of high-intensity play.]
"Twenty minutes," Luuk muttered, his grip tightening on his fork. "In a ninety-minute game, I'm a god for twenty minutes and a ghost for seventy."
It was a cold realization. The Utrecht scouts hadn't been entirely wrong—his body was the problem. They just didn't realize that the problem was now solvable.
He finished his meal and headed to the small, cramped bathroom. He stripped off his sweat-soaked shirt and stared at himself in the cracked mirror. At fifteen, he was lean, his muscles corded like a distance runner's. His midnight black hair was plastered to his forehead, and his silver-gray eyes seemed to have lost their "dull coin" quality. They were sharper now, like polished steel.
He looked at the "Hyper-Recovery" prompt on the screen.
[Initiate Evening Recovery Protocol?]
[Requires: 45 Minutes of Guided Proprioceptive Stretching & Cryo-Therapy (Cold Shower)]
Luuk didn't hesitate. He stepped into the shower and turned the handle to the absolute coldest setting.
The water hit him like a thousand needles of ice. Normally, he would have gasped, his muscles tensing in shock. But as the water ran down, the Screen began to pulse. It showed him a 3D wireframe of his own muscular system, highlighting the micro-tears in his quads and the inflammation in his ankles from the morning's plyometrics.
[Calibrating Neural Flush...]
He stayed under the freezing spray for ten minutes. It was agonizing, but he welcomed the pain. He could feel the "Bio-Grind" at work. Under the guidance of the Screen, he performed specific, minute movements—tilting his neck, rotating his ankles, tensing and releasing his core—to ensure the blood flow was perfectly directed to the areas of most damage.
By the time he stepped out and dried himself, he didn't feel like a boy who had just done four hours of "suicide sprints." He felt fresh. He felt dangerous.
He spent the next hour on the floor of his bedroom, following the "Guided Proprioceptive Stretching." The Screen showed him Nagi's silhouette—a ghost of a player with impossible flexibility. Luuk mirrored the poses, forcing his body into deep, eccentric stretches that should have been impossible for a "stiff" teenager.
[Neural Path Refresh: 40%... 70%... 100%]
[Agility Progress: 50.1 / 100]
The progress was agonizingly slow now. He had gained two points in a single morning, but now the decimal points were crawling. The "Exponential Difficulty" warning wasn't a joke. To get from 50 to 60, he wouldn't just need to work hard; he would need to suffer.
Luuk lay on his back, staring at the ceiling as the sun began to set over the Amsterdam rooftops.
"I need a place to test this," he whispered. "Not a cage. A real pitch. With real players."
He wasn't ready for a pro trial yet—not with 60 Stamina. He needed to build the engine first. But he also needed to see how the "God-Trap" worked against an opponent who was trying to break him.
Suddenly, he remembered the "Friday Night Lights" at the West-Park pitches. It was a semi-pro environment—older guys, ex-academy players, and street ballers playing for pride and small cash bets. It was brutal, physical, and fast.
If he could survive there, he could survive anywhere.
[New Training Environment Identified: West-Park Sessions]
[Calculated Risk: High]
[Potential Growth Rate: 2.5x Standard Solo Training]
Luuk closed his eyes, his heart rate slowing as the Sleep Optimization protocol began to kick in. He didn't dream of his birthday or the money his father gave him.
He dreamed of a ball falling from the stratosphere, and the sound of silence as it touched his boot.