After waking up, Bruce, who was starving, devoured a big meal. Then, pretending to be nonchalant, he chatted casually with his family. Together, they watched the last match of the Round of 16 in this year's World Cup—the Iberian derby between Spain and Portugal. Naturally, Spain eliminated Portugal 1-0 without any doubt.
Seeing that it was almost time, Bruce returned to his room to sleep.
Lying on his bed, Bruce accessed the system once again. The process went smoothly—unlike before, when it had been long and tedious. This time, he entered the system with just a thought.
The hidden system within Bruce's body was called the Talent System of Cloned Players (incomplete). He had learned about it automatically the first time he entered it, and it was the only useful information he currently possessed.
The system's display panel resembled a clean, pristine sky—completely blank. But with a thought from Bruce, other elements appeared on the panel: four sets of arranged squares.
The top row had only one square, and its edges were gold.
The second row had two square positions, each with red edges.
The third row had four squares, their edges purple.
The fourth row had six squares, outlined in blue.
Based on his experience playing games in his previous life, Bruce was fairly certain that the top position was the best, so he focused his attention there.
"Golden King-level talent card, lost and cannot be viewed."
There was no ding or dong notification, no cold metallic sound. Instead, the message was transmitted directly into Bruce's mind, unlike anything he had read about in the novels of his previous life.
Upon closer inspection, Bruce noticed that the center of the gold square was gray, likely indicating something lost. The three rows of squares below it, however, were milky white, suggesting that they were likely intact.
He checked the three rows below and received different responses from the consciousnesses.
"Red Near-King of Football Talent Card — activation conditions not met. Cannot be viewed at this time." This was the reply from the second row.
"The Purple-Gold Ball Star-Level Talent Card — activation requirements not met. Cannot be viewed at this time." This was the response from the third row.
"Blue Common Ball Star-Level Talent Card — can activate the first one. Confirm whether to proceed." In the fourth row, Bruce finally received a slightly more promising reply.
However, Bruce did not choose to activate the card. He knew nothing about the system and didn't think it was wise to rush into lighting up a card. He wanted to know exactly what the conditions for activation were, as mentioned earlier.
The moment he thought that, three numbers appeared below the four rows of boxes:
57, 58, 73.
Bruce still didn't know what the three numbers meant, so he sent another thought to the system: "It would be great if there were a user manual or a beginner's guide."
Almost immediately, all the patterns on the system panel transformed into tiny tadpoles, swimming and darting around, turning the entire panel into a chaotic mess. Fortunately, after a few seconds, the tadpoles reformed into orderly patterns, which revealed themselves as the user instructions.
Finally having what he wanted most, Bruce began reading the instructions carefully, line by line.
※※※
After going through the manual, he finally gained a basic understanding of the system.
It was supposed to be a piece of futuristic technology designed for clone soccer players—but somehow, inexplicably, it had ended up possessing him.
This system clones the talents of star players and stores them in the form of cards. Users can acquire one or more of these talents by inserting the corresponding cards into the appropriate slots to activate them.
However, talent cards are not plug-and-play. After inserting a card, the user still needs to adapt to the talent through training and competition. Additionally, the degree of integration of a talent card depends on the user's overall physical condition.
Generally, a talent card can achieve 100% fusion only with the original player it was cloned from. In other words, if there is a Cristiano Ronaldo talent card, only Cristiano Ronaldo himself can reach full fusion; for anyone else, achieving 100% fusion is nearly impossible.
According to the instructions, talent cards can be swapped out. Users can equip different cards based on their needs, but this must be done before the card is activated. Once a card is activated, it cannot be changed.
The talent system currently possessed by Bruce is considered a semi-finished product. There is no accompanying card book or instructions on how to change the cards. As a result, the talent cards in each slot are already fixed, leaving him with no room to choose.
Fortunately, besides the golden King of Football card, he already had a complete set of cards equipped in the card frame. Otherwise, if Bruce had obtained this system without any talent cards, it would have been practically useless.
What Bruce can do now is activate the talent cards one by one according to the system's requirements and try to fuse talents as much as possible.
The three sets of data displayed below the card frame represent Bruce's comprehensive attribute values as measured by the system. The first shows the overall technical attributes, the second shows the overall physical attributes, and the third shows the overall mental attributes.
In other words, the system calculates that Bruce's current body has a combined technical attribute of 57, a combined physical attribute of 58, and a combined mental attribute of 73.
If the system were complete, you would be able to view the values of various sub-attributes under each comprehensive attribute. For example: under technical attributes, you could see passing, stopping, dribbling, shooting, and so on; under physical attributes, you could check speed, agility, balance, jumping, endurance, etc.; and under mental attributes, you could view leadership, aggression, willpower, concentration, and more.
However, the system is currently incomplete and can only display the combined value of the three main attributes.
In the system settings, to activate the cards in each row:
Blue cards (first row): All three comprehensive attributes must exceed 60.
Purple cards (second row): All three attributes must exceed 70.
Red cards (third row): All three attributes must exceed 80.
Gold cards (fourth row): All three attributes must exceed 90.
To lower the entry barrier, however, the first card in the first row only requires one overall attribute to be over 60, while the other two must exceed 50.
Furthermore, there are additional prerequisites for activating subsequent cards in each row of talent cards.
For instance, to unlock the following cards in the first row, the previously activated cards must have a fusion rate of at least 33%, meaning at least one-third of their fusion progress must be complete.
For the first card in the second row, beyond meeting the basic attribute requirements, all cards in the first row must be activated, and their fusion rates must reach at least 40%. The same principle applies to higher rows: the higher the level of the card, the stricter the activation requirements.