I hate fundamentals."
[EVERYONE HATES FUNDAMENTALS]
[THAT'S WHY MOST PLAYERS NEVER MASTER THEM]
[THAT'S WHY MOST PLAYERS NEVER BECOME GREAT]
[YOUR CHOICE]
It wasn't really a choice. Ari knew that. The system knew that he knew that.
He picked up the ball and started another set of pounds.
Day 10. Ari's hands had transformed. The soft, uncallused large slender excuse he called hands had changed to large basketballer claws.
Rough patches on his palms and fingertips. His wrists did still throb in pain but they were thick and strong. The ball felt lighter. His fingers had more dexterity, more control.
The shooting work started since day 8.
[QUEST: "FORM DEVELOPMENT"]
Spot shooting (no jump): 100 repetitions
Form shooting (10 feet): 200 repetitions
Free throws: 100 attempts
Mid-range jumpers: 150 attempts
[FOCUS: PROPER MECHANICS]
[NOT MAKES]
[FORM FIRST, RESULTS LATER]
Ari's shooting form was, to put it charitably, a disaster. His elbow pointed out. His release was all wobbly wobblt. Was it going right, left, we couldn't tell.
His follow-through looked like he was waving goodbye. His legs didn't provide enough power, so he was all arms, which meant his shots were flat and short.
The system broke down every single thing wrong with his form:
[ISSUES DETECTED:]
Elbow alignment: 15 degrees off-center
Release point: Inconsistent by 4-7 inches
Follow-through: Incomplete
Leg drive: Insufficient
Balance: Poor
Arc: Too flat
Rotation: Inconsistent
[EVERYTHING IS WRONG]
[LETS FIX THAT]
[ONE THING AT A TIME]
"One thing at a time," Ari repeated breathlessly, positioning for another shot.
[BUT STILL EVERYTHING AT ONCE]
[BECAUSE IT'S ALL CONNECTED]
The system walked him through proper form, piece by piece. Feet shoulder-width apart. Knees bent. Ball positioned correctly in his shooting pocket. Elbow tucked in, aligned with the basket. Smooth upward motion. Release at the apex. Follow-through with the wrist, fingers pointed down like reaching into a cookie jar.
Simple in theory.
Impossible in execution.
Ari shot. The ball clanged off the rim, nowhere close.
[ELBOW: STILL OUT]
[RELEASE: STILL INCONSISTENT]
[FOLLOW-THROUGH: STILL TRASH]
[AGAIN]
Shot. Miss. Clang.
[BETTER]
[ELBOW IMPROVED]
[YOUR RELEASE IS STILL TRASH]
[DO IT AGAIN]
Shot. Miss. Brick.
[YOU THINK TOO MUCH]
[THIS IS NOT CHEMISTRY. YOUR BODY HAS NO RULES. NO TRUE LIMITS. NOT WHEN YOU DESTROY IT AND REBUILD IT TO A PREDATORS]
Ari groaned cleaning his forehead with his already sweaty T-shirt. Flipping the system a middle finger. But to every other sane person it looked like he was flipping the air.
_________[INSULTING ME WON'T GET YOU ON THE TEAM. OR GET YOU THAT GIRL YOU JUST FOLLOWED ON INSTAGRAM.....LOCK IN]
Ari tensed. As much as it annoyed him. The system was right. So so right. If he wanted to go from zero...nah...from a broken collar bone to joining the Yoshimura basketball team. This is what he needed to do. Suffer.
[STOP THINKING]
[JUST SHOOT]
"You just told me to fix everything!"
[YES]
[FIX EVERYTHING]
[BUT DON'T THINK ABOUT IT]
It was maddening. Every time Ari focused on one aspect of his form, another aspect fell apart. Fix his elbow, lose his follow-through. Focus on his release, his balance suffered. Get his balance right, his elbow drifted out again.
But slowly—painfully slowly—things started to click.
Shot number forty-seven: proper form, clean release, smooth follow-through. The ball arced beautifully through the air and... rattled out of the rim.
Close. So close.
The release was atrocious was...abnormal. way too high. But it seemed that was his natural inclination. Ari simply shot better the higher he jumped and released the ball.
[WEIRD FORM]
[RESULTS WILL COME]
[NOTE THIS]
[ITS IN YOUR BEST INTEREST TO KEEP THAT EXACT MOTION]
Shot number fifty-eight: swish. Nothing but net.
Ari froze, staring at the basket like it had personally betrayed him. "Did I just—"
[DO NOT CELEBRATE GOTH BOY]
[WE HAVE 142 MORE SHOTS TO GO]
But Ari was smiling anyway. Because that shot had felt right. The mechanics had been correct, his body had moved with coordination.
Even though the form wasn't particularly pretty and abnormally high. The ball had gone through the hoop. Just like he'd imagined it a thousand times while watching film.
His muscles were learning. His brain was connecting. The gap between understanding basketball and doing basketball was closing, millimeter by millimeter.
His parents noticed the change.
"You're enjoying this," his mother said one evening, watching Ari wolf down his third helping of dinner. The training had given him an appetite that was frightening. His mother smiled softly as her eyes went to his food and back to his pale face. "Even though it's clearly exhausting you."
Ari looked up from his rice. "I am_enjunin__it...zit ", he gulped down the food. "Is it that weird?"
"No..and don't speak with food in your mouth" His father lowered his newspaper, studying Ari. "It's good. I haven't seen you this... alive... in years. Not since before you quit in middle school."
"You seem more confident," his mother added. "More focused. But don't let basketball distract you from your studies ok?"
Ari swallowed with a mouth full of rice.
"Ok mom."
They didn't know about the system. Didn't know about the impossible stats and quests floating in Ari's vision. They just saw their son waking up early, training obsessively, coming home exhausted but happy.
"I'm going to make the team," Ari said. It came out more confident than he felt. "I don't know if I'll be a starter, or even get significant playing time, but I'm going to make it."
His parents exchanged one of those wordless telepathic looks.
"We believe you," his mother said softly.
His father just nodded, but there was pride in his eyes.
Day 11: Ball handling and shooting combined. Dribble moves into pull-up jumpers. The system wanted him to practice creating his own shot—a fundamental skill for scorers.
"I can barely control the ball while standing still, and now you want me to—"
[ADAPT]
Ohh like it was that easy.
He tried. Failed. The ball got away from him. He tried again. Failed again. The action meant he had to dribble, maintain control, set his feet, rise into his shot, all while in motion—it was overwhelming. Not to mention no one was pressuring him right now. In a real game he'd have people his height who were way more athletic chasing him down as if the ball was a stolen age old heirloom that belonged to their family.
Though__ the system had been right about fundamentals. All those hours of ball pounds, of figure-8s, of repetitive boring drills—they'd built a foundation. Ari's handles were still not decent enough by any objective standard, but they were his handles. He could feel the ball, anticipate its bounce, maintain some level of control where he wanted it to go.
His shooting form, hammered into his muscle memory through hundreds of repetitions, activated even while moving. Not perfectly—not close to perfectly—it was just there. The proper mechanics tried to assert themselves even as his body struggled with the complexity.
By the end of day 11, he'd made maybe fifteen pull-up jumpers out of a hundred attempts.
[15% SHOOTING PERCENTAGE]
[HISTORICALLY BAD]
[BUT 15% MORE THAN YOU MADE LAST WEEK]
[PROGRESS]
"Fifteen percent is terrible."
[YES]
[BUT IT IS TERRIBLE WITH PROPER FORM]
[WHICH MEANS IT WILL IMPROVE]
[TERRIBLE WITH BAD FORM STAYS TERRIBLE FOREVER]
Day 12, Ari made a decision. He pulled up his stat screen and looked at his skill points: 30.5 points accumulated over days of suffering.
His skill stat glared at him: 8/100.
"System," he said during a water break. "Explain the skill stat. Exactly what it means."
[SKILL STAT REPRESENTS:]
The text expanded into detailed categories:
[BALL HANDLING: CONTROL, CREATIVITY, YOUR GENERAL ABILITY TO CONTROL THAT ORANGE ROUND RUBBER OBJECT]
[FOOTWORK: BALANCE, PIVOTING, MOVEMENT EFFICIENCY]
[BODY CONTROL: COORDINATION, SPATIAL AWARENESS]
[TECHNIQUE EXECUTION: ABILITY TO PERFORM MOVES CORRECTLY]
[HIGH SKILL== KYRIE IRVING, SHAI GILGEOUS-ALEXANDER]
[PLAYERS WHO MAKE DIFFICULT LOOK EASY]
[PLAYERS WHO CAN EXECUTE THEIR VISION]
[PLAYERS WHO FLOW WITH BOTH HANDS. LIKE WATER BENDING FROM AVATAR]
[LOW SKILL = YOU]
[PLAYERS WHO UNDERSTAND WHAT TO DO]
[BUT CANNOT DO IT PROPERLY. THE ROUND OBJECT DOSENT OBEY THEM. THEY JUST FLOAT AROUND WITH IT]
[CURRENT SKILL: 10/100]
[TIS TIS TIS]
Ari read it out loud, his voice getting quieter with each line. "Ball handling, footwork, body control, technique execution." He looked at his hands—callused now, stronger, but still limited by his abysmal skill stat. "Everything a scorer needs."
[CORRECT]
[YOUR IQ IS 72/100]
[YOU UNDERSTAND BASKETBALL BETTER THAN MOST TEENAGE BOYS]
[BUT UNDERSTANDING ≠ EXECUTION]
[SKILL IS THE BRIDGE]
[BETWEEN KNOWING AND DOING]
Ari looked at his skill points: 30.5. He looked at his skill stat: 8/100. The cost to upgrade: 3 points per +1.
Simple math: he could afford ten upgrades. Ten points of skill improvement.
"I'm spending all of it," Ari said. "All 30 points on skill."
[CONFIRM PURCHASE?]
[30 SKILL POINTS → SKILL STAT]
[COST: 30 POINTS]
[REMAINING: 0.5 POINTS]
[WARNING: THIS WILL LEAVE YOU WITH ALMOST NO POINTS]
[NO SAFETY NET]
[ALL-IN ON ONE STAT]
"I know what I'm doing."
[DO YOU?]
"The tryouts are in two days. Two days. I don't have time to be balanced. I need to be good at something. My IQ is already decent. My conditioning is acceptable now. But my skill—my actual ability to play basketball—is garbage. If I can't move the basketball, then I can't play the basketball."
There was a pause. The system seemed to be considering.
[RISKY]
[BUT___EXCITING]]
[CONFIRM PURCHASE]
"Confirmed," Ari said in a deep breath.
[PROCESSING...]
[SKILL POINTS ALLOCATED]
[CURRENT SKILL: 18/100]
[UPDATING MOTOR PATTERNS...]
[INTEGRATING MUSCLE MEMORY...]
[ENHANCING NEURAL PATHWAYS...]
The sensation was different from the healing or the muscle recovery. This felt like... rewiring. Like his brain and body were having a conversation they'd never had before, establishing connections that hadn't existed moments ago.
Ari picked up the basketball, and immediately something felt different.
The ball in his hands—it felt right. Not perfect, natural and just right. His fingers found the grooves instinctively. The weight distribution made sense. When he bounced it experimentally, his hand automatically adjusted to the return angle.
"Whoaaaaa."
He tried a crossover. His body executed it—not smoothly, not beautifully, but executed it. The ball went from right hand to left without bouncing off his foot. A week ago, that same move would have been a disaster. Now it was merely awkward.
[SKILL: 18/100]
[STILL TERRIBLE]
[BUT LESS TERRIBLE]
[SIGNIFICANTLY LESS TERRIBLE]
[YOU CAN NOW EXECUTE BASIC MOVES]
[WITH COMPETENCY]
[REVOLUTIONARY]
Ari started dribbling, moving around the court. His handles were manageable but they certainly not bad. He could feel the ball, could control it with intention rather than hope.
He drove to the basket, planted his feet and the he rose for a jump shot. His body remembered the form drills, the hundreds of repetitions. The mechanics activated automatically. The ball left his hands with proper rotation, proper arc.
Swish.
Ari landed, staring at the basket. "I made it."
[ONE BASKET]
He shot again. Miss. Shot again. Make. Again. Make. Again. Miss.
Three out of five. Sixty percent from mid-range.
"I'm shooting sixty percent," He confirmed joyfully.
[SMALL SAMPLE SIZE]
[BUT YES]
[YOU'RE SHOOTING LIKE SOMEONE WHO HAS BASIC SKILLS]
[BECAUSE YOU'RE SOMEONE WHO HAS BASIC SKILLS]
Ari ran through the drills again, and everything was different. The ball pounds that had destroyed his hands—still difficult, but manageable. His hands kept up. The figure-8s that had seemed impossible—he could do them now. Slowly, with concentration, but he could do them.
The pull-up jumpers that had been a 15% proposition—he ran through twenty attempts and made eleven.
Fifty-five percent.
"This is insane," Ari breathed. "I just... I just improved more in ten seconds than in twelve days of training."
[THE GEAR SAYS NO]
[YOU IMPROVED IN TEN SECONDS]
[BECAUSE OF TWELVE DAYS OF TRAINING]
[THE SKILL POINTS ENHANCED WHAT YOU BUILT]
[THEY DIDN'T CREATE IT FROM NOTHING]
[ALL THOSE FUNDAMENTALS YOU PRACTICED]
[ALL THAT MUSCLE MEMORY YOU DEVELOPED]
[THE SKILLPOINTS ACCELERATED IT]
[OPTIMIZED IT]
[BUT THE FOUNDATION WAS YOURS]
___[AND ALWAYS WILL BE]
Ari looked at his hands—new strong hands.
The foundation. The effort was always his.
The system was right. The skill points had amplified his training, not replaced it. The hours of suffering, the repetition, the fundamentals—all of it had mattered. " I can do it ", he said clenching his fist with a new found resolve.
He smiled and kept shooting.
Day 13: Everything clicked.
Ari arrived at the court at dawn, ball in hand, body sore but functional, mind focused. Tomorrow was school. The day after that—tryouts.
[DAYS UNTIL DRAFT TRYOUTS: 2]
[FINAL ASSESSMENT AVAILABLE]
[DISPLAY CURRENT STATS?]
"Show me."
[TORU ARI - CURRENT STATUS]
[PHYSICAL STATS:]
[POWER: 25/100] (+2)
[STAMINA: 40/100] (+9)
[VERTICAL: 21/100] (+3)
[SPEED: 38/100] (+3)
[BASKETBALL STATS:]
[SHOOTING: 23/100] (+11)
[DEFENSE: 18/100] (+3)
[ATHLETICISM: 28/100] (+6)
[IQ: 72/100] (+5)
[PASSING: 31/100] (+3)
[SKILL: 18/100] (+10)
[ANALYSIS:]
[STAMINA: ACCEPTABLE FOR HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL]
[SKILL: FUNCTIONAL BUT LIMITED]
[SHOOTING: BELOW AVERAGE BUT IMPROVING]
[IQ: ABOVE AVERAGE]
[OVERALL ASSESSMENT:]
[YOU WENT FROM "HOPELESS" TO "MAYBE NOT HOPELESS"]
[NONE OF THIS ASSESSMENT MATTERS THOUGH. TOMORROW. YOU DELIVER]
Ari read the stats three times. He'd improved every single category. Some marginally, some significantly. His scoring had nearly doubled from 12 to 23. His skill had more than doubled from 8 to 18.
He was still, by any objective measure, not good. A scoring stat of 23 meant he was below average even for high school. A skill stat of 18 meant he could execute basics but nothing fancy.
But he wasn't hopeless anymore.
"One more day of training," Ari said. "What should I focus on?"
[INTEGRATION]
The system presented a final quest:
[QUEST: "THE GAME"]
[SIMULATE GAME SCENARIOS]
[PRACTICE UNDER PRESSURE]
[NO PERFECT CONDITIONS]
[NO STANDING STILL]
[PLAY BASKETBALL]
So Ari played.
He imagined defenders, drove against them. Practiced his hesitation moves, his pull-ups, his finishes at the rim. He worked on catch-and-shoot situations, running off imaginary screens. He practiced defensive slides, closeouts, everything the system had drilled into him.
His form wasn't perfect. His execution was inconsistent. But it was there. The basketball player he'd imagined himself being for three years was finally, barely, starting to exist in reality.
By mid-afternoon, his father arrived at the park—becoming a regular occurrence now.
"Your mother sent food," Hideaki said, holding up a bag. "She's convinced you're not eating enough."
"I'm eating constantly."
"You're also training constantly." His father sat on the bench, watching Ari shoot. "The tryouts are a day after tomorrow."
"I know."
"Are you ready?"
Ari caught the ball, held it. Was he ready? His stats said maybe. His skills said barely. But Ari knew.
"I'm as ready as I'm going to be."
His father nodded slowly. "You've changed. These two weeks. You're grown."
"Grown how?"
"More focused. You move differently now—more purposeful. Like you know what you're capable of." Hideaki paused. "I'm proud of you. Whether you make the team or not. The effort you've put in—that matters."
Ari felt his throat tighten. "Thanks, Dad."
They sat in comfortable silence, Ari shooting, his father watching. Some how his father's presence made Ari shoot with even more focus. Though it was his father. On the day of the tryouts he was sure there would be tons of people watching. The whole school maybe.
The afternoon sun is painting everything gold.
That evening, Ari lay in bed, staring at his ceiling, too wired to sleep.
Tomorrow was school. His first day at Yoshimura High School—the prestigious academy, the basketball powerhouse, the place where he'd either prove himself or become a cautionary tale.
And the day after that: Draft Tryouts.
Two hundred students. Thirty spots. One chance.
[NERVOUS?]
The system's text appeared in the darkness.
"Terrified."
[GOOD]
[FEAR MEANS YOU CARE]
[YOUR UNDERSTANDING IS ADVANCED]
[YOUR WORK ETHIC IS EXCEPTIONAL]
[YOUR IMPROVEMENT RATE IS UNPRECEDENTED]
[YOU'RE NOT THE BEST]
[NOT EVEN CLOSE]
[BUT YOU'RE NOT THE WORST ANYMORE]
[THAT'S SOMETHING]
"Is it enough?"
[WE'LL FIND OUT]
[MANDATORY QUEST: 9 HOUR PLUS SLEEP]
[TOMORROW IS SCHOOL]
"Raise it up to eleven hours", he yawned and stretched out his long heavy limbs,"I could sleep for days right now."
Ari smiled in the darkness. The system was terrible at motivational speeches, but somehow, it worked.
He closed his eyes, his muscles aching pleasantly, his hands callused and competent, his mind focused on what came next.
Yoshimura High School.
Draft Tryouts.
The beginning of everything. Or the beginning of the end.
[TORU ARI]
[HEIGHT: 6'6" / 198 CM]
[WEIGHT: 76 KG]
[POSITION: POWER FORWARD → WING/SCORER]
[PHYSICAL:]
[POWER: 25/100]
[STAMINA: 40/100]
[VERTICAL: 21/100]
[SPEED: 38/100]
[BASKETBALL:]
[SHOOTING: 23/100]
[DEFENSE: 18/100]
[ATHLETICISM: 28/100]
[IQ: 72/100]
[PASSING: 31/100]
[SKILL: 18/100]
[SKILL POINTS: 0.5]
[TRAINING DAYS: 13]
[HOURS TRAINED: 87]
[SHOTS TAKEN: 3,847]
[INHUMAN]