Rise of a Football God

7th December, 2024, on a Saturday…

2 youthful men energetically jogged through the streets of Fulham, the long legs of the black one easily eating yards of space with every step that he took.

Despite his long strides, the springy steps of the energetic young Englishman beside him enabled him to keep up as they jogged.

Sweat dripped down their faces, giving more credibility to their efforts.

Despite the fact that they were currently jogging through half of Fulham, the black one of the 2 youthful men had a big smile on his face as not breathless yet, with his headset covering his ears, he engaged in a conversation.

"What? He asked if you were single?" Sam chuckled. "Well, what was your reply? Hope you gave him the right answer".

"You bet I did".

"Tell me, tell me exactly how you said it". He chuckled again.

There was brief silence from the other side of the phone, then mischievously, the feminine voice continued. "I'm sorry Josh, I have a lovely boyfriend so I'll have to decline, I can't give you my number for no reason".

Sam burst out laughing on hearing that.

Despite his loud laughter, his lungs were not overstressed as effortlessly, he kept on jogging with an even look of joy on his face.

Beside him, Emile Smith Rowe could not help but pay attention to his friend. Seeing the joy on Sam's face as he jogged and engaged in a conversation with who he knew, Smith could not help but sigh. "Lovers". He muttered, shaking his head.

In recent days, while they engaged in their daily ritual as Sam liked to call it, jogging through the streets of Fulham, this became Sam's new side hobby.

While jogging, he was almost always on the call with Kayla, his girlfriend.

At first, it was weird but now, Smith had no choice but to be used to it.

But this was not what Emile Smith Rowe really paid attention to though.

As they jogged, this Englishman could not help but glance at his friend again. 'What luck or genes does he have to have such an engine of a lung?'

'Is this how Chelsea players then used to feel around N'golo Kante?'

It was already more than a month since he became close friends with Sam and they started doing their daily ritual together, but Emile Smith Rowe never failed to be amazed at the lung capacity of his friend and colleague.

Sam had the lung capacity of a literal beast.

Smith already felt like this for a long time but recently, when Sam started mixing talking with Kayla into his daily ritual, he was even more amazed. 'He's still talking flawlessly despite such a long time?'

'Come on man!' Smith Rowe coughed blood; he felt like crying.

'Damn, I wish I was your brother and I inherited the same genes as you!'

Knowing that this was only wishful thinking though, Smith Rowe had no choice but to focus on controlling his breathing, trying his best to keep up with the young Nigerian while Sam continued like he was just taking a walk around the park.

Sam's effortless outlook while jogging was a result of his sheer stamina and also a result of consistency.

Sam was forced into his daily ritual of jogging and working out every day over a year ago when he first got his system at the eve of the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar. With time though, he learned to love the daily ritual.

At first, jogging for so many kilometers felt like a big chore to him as he always ended up breathless and exhausted.

The use of the physical conditioning elixir was what helped him.

But these days, after doing it for over a year, his body already adapted to the stress so much that he completed all the quests in his daily system quest without breaking much of a sweat.

These days, it really felt like a walk in the park.

This convenience gave Sam the luxury of not consuming all his physical conditioning elixirs immediately, storing some for future purposes.

These days, Sam kept them for grueling matches when exhaustion starts seeping in, reducing the level of all the players. While other players have no choice but to succumb to exhaustion, with a physical conditioning elixir, Sam had the choice of actually recovering mid-game.

No other professional football player in the world not called Samuel Moses was capable of this, not even the legendary Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi.

He also used them for extra training sessions that he organized for himself and his friend. With these extra training sessions, Sam could dedicate his time towards mastering specific aspects of his game.

In recent weeks, his main focus was on shooting. He focused on improving his penalty kick and freekick taking abilities.

By the end of his daily system quest that morning, Sam's effort for weeks was finally rewarded as his system lit up with a new notification.

~----~

[You have completed System Daily Quest: Mentality Monster!]

[You have been rewarded with a low-grade physical conditioning elixir!]

…

[Your efforts in training have borne fruit, you have broken a skill bottleneck!]

[You have unlocked basic mastery level of the football skill: Basic penalty technique!]

[You have unlocked basic mastery level of the football skill: Basic freekick technique!]

~----~

For some time now, Sam had been expecting this breakthrough having been paying attention to his progress, but he never expected that the eventual breakthrough would come outside of training, during his jogging sessions instead.

'Hehe, it's a welcome breakthrough anytime, any day'. He grinned.

With the twin breakthroughs, his owned football skill tab in his system finally changed, now looking like this.

~----~

[Owned Football Skills:]

[Passive skill: Stalwart]

[Active skills:]

[Basic mastery level: Body feint; Power shot; step overs; roulette; knuckle shot; overhead kick; rainbow flick; trivela shot, basic penalty technique, basic freekick technique]

[Intermediate mastery level: Elastico, Cruyff turn; La croqueta]

[Advanced mastery level: Spatial awareness]

… Find adventures on empire

[Legendary Inheritance: Spatial Awareness]

[Legendary Inheritance: Elastico]

…

The changes didn't stop at that either as after a while of staying stagnant, with both his penalty taking and freekick taking technique suddenly improving, his shooting attribute finally increased again by a figure of +1.

His attributes now looked like this.

…

Player Attributes:

*Pace: 81

*Shot: 80

*Pass: 80

*Dribbling: 78

*Defending: 38

*Physicality: 76

*Stamina: 84

Overall Rating: 82

~----~

Noting these changes, Sam felt like he was just injected by a shot of adrenaline as he felt his motivation levels for Fulham's next game rise even higher.

He could not wait to try his improved skills on the football pitch.

With that, he and his friend finally separated, going their separate ways in preparation for today's training session.

As professional football players playing for a professional club in England, there was little time of rest for them since training can take place any day of the week, including Saturdays and Sundays.

They only had rests on Sundays if the timeline for their next game was still far away, and the only other source of rest was if their coach felt generous and gave it as a bonanza to reward his players.

…

Fulham's next game in the premier league was going to be another season-deciding game since they would be taking on last season's 1st runner up, Arsenal in a top of the table clash.

The whole world watched; they could not wait to see how they would perform against another heavyweight of the modern premier league.

Personally for the Fulham players, the buildup to the game was grueling as expected as they gave their all in preparation for the clash against Arsenal.

Time moved fast and in no time, D-day was here.

It was 8th December, 2024, a Sunday…