He’d leveled up and gained 10 free attribute points.
He needed to think carefully about how to use them.
His current attributes were as follows:
[Strength: 87.
Speed: 78.
Stamina: 90.
Spirit/Mental: 96.
Offense: Contested Layup 60, Uncontested Layup 75, Post Moves 53.
Shooting: Close Range 66, Mid-Range 54, Three-Point 45.
Ball Handling: Dribbling 60, Passing 67.
Defense: Lateral Quickness 62, Steals 54, Blocks 60, Rebounds 65.]
He didn’t need to improve Stamina or Strength anymore.
If Maki was the strongest guard in the country, then Aizen was right up there with the best too.
His eyes fixed on his mid-range and long-distance shooting.
He’d mastered plenty of shooting forms, but he was lacking accuracy—he couldn’t knock down shots consistently and keep the pressure on his opponents.
He wanted to bump up his mid-range and long-distance shooting, but seeing his Speed at 78 made him itch to improve that too.
‘I’ll put two points in Speed—80 looks nicer.’
With that, he added 2 points to Speed, bringing it to 80.
Then he put 6 points into Mid-Range Shooting, bringing it to 60.
Finally, he put the last 2 points into Lateral Quickness.
He could tell that Shirogane Kozo placed great importance on team defense—he’d specifically mentioned Aizen and Murasakibara when they were leaving.
That meant he intended to build Aizen and Murasakibara into Teiko’s interior and exterior defensive anchors.
Under those circumstances, improving Lateral Quickness was absolutely necessary.
After allocating his attribute points, his new stat sheet looked like this:
[Strength: 87.
Speed: 80.
Stamina: 90.
Spirit/Mental: 96.
Offense: Contested Layup 60, Uncontested Layup 75, Post Moves 53.
Shooting: Close Range 66, Mid-Range 60, Three-Point 45.
Ball Handling: Dribbling 60, Passing 67.
Defense: Lateral Quickness 64, Steals 54, Blocks 60, Rebounds 65.]
Overall, the improvement might not have been particularly noticeable.
For him right now, 10 attribute points were far from enough—he had too many areas that needed upgrading.
This guy had a bit of an OCD streak—the only reason he’d only put 2 points into Speed was so he could dump a full batch into it next level and hit 90 all at once.
The next afternoon, everyone gathered at the basketball club.
Nijimura Shuzo picked up the freshly printed youth sports newspaper and flipped to the junior high section.
But when he saw the biggest photo on that page, everyone was stunned.
Today’s junior high section wasn’t dominated by Nijimura Shuzo or Maki Shinichi.
It was Aizen!
The photo showed him chasing down Maki from behind and pinning the ball to the backboard.
The bold black headline read: “Once-in-50-Years Basketball Genius—From Complete Novice to Defeating Emperor Maki in Just One Month!”
Even Aizen himself hadn’t expected this.
Seeing his own photo in the newspaper for the first time—he had to admit it gave him a real sense of accomplishment.
Nijimura Shuzo took a deep breath and started reading the article aloud.
“Aizen—a name you’ve probably never heard before.”
“But I believe that very soon, this name will shake the entire Japanese basketball world.”
“In yesterday’s game against Kainan University Affiliated Junior High, Aizen came off the bench for Teiko when the team was trailing by 18 points in a huge deficit—”
“In one quarter, he held ‘Emperor’ Maki Shinichi to just 1-for-6 shooting and led Teiko to erase that 18-point deficit in a single quarter.”
“We know very little about Aizen’s background.
All we know is that he’s a first-year at Teiko Junior High, only 13 years old.”
“Why have we never heard of a basketball genius like this before?
Is it because he’s an international student?”
“No—through our relentless efforts and extensive inquiries, we discovered that before picking up a basketball, Aizen was a bona fide judo prodigy.
He won the national judo championship three consecutive years in 4th, 5th, and 6th grade.”
“Through an interview with Teiko’s head coach, Mr.
Shirogane Kozo, we learned that Aizen only decided to switch to basketball a week after the semester started—meaning he’s only been playing basketball for one short month.”
“However, Coach Shirogane recalled his first meeting with Aizen: ‘At the time, he showed up at the basketball club in his judo uniform, and our members thought he was here to cause trouble—we almost had a physical confrontation.
But he told us he wanted to join the basketball club, that he wanted to play basketball.
At that point, he was already a 5th Dan black belt and one of the core members of the judo club.
My assistant coach told him to give up that unrealistic idea and not waste his judo talent.
But the moment I saw him, I knew he was a basketball genius.
His eyes were full of love for the game.
Without any hesitation, I approved him for Teiko’s first string.'”
This article was practically a full-page puff piece on Aizen.
Clearly, his performance in shutting down Maki had left a deep impression on the reporters.
But for Nijimura Shuzo and the other Teiko club members, the real highlight was that final paragraph.
“Man, our coach is kind of shameless, isn’t he?”
“Yeah, he actually had the nerve to say he saw Aizen’s talent at first glance.”
“Well, to be fair, the coach did see Aizen’s talent—just the judo kind.”
“Ah, well, Coach was a former national team player, after all.”
Everyone discussed it for a while and ended up at a loss for words.
Damn it—Aizen had stolen all the spotlight!
As they complained and grumbled, one of the first-string bench players suddenly burst out laughing.
“What are you laughing about, Itabashi?
Did you not see that none of us even got our names in the paper?” someone said enviously.
“Sorry, I’m jealous of Aizen too.” Itabashi scratched his head.
“But even though I’m jealous, even though I’d love to be in the spotlight like him…
when I think about getting to play alongside him, I can’t help but laugh!”
When those words came out, many of the third-year bench players fell silent.
Yeah.
This was their final year of junior high.
They weren’t starters, so they didn’t get much playing time anyway.
They weren’t fighting for starting spots like the starters were.
More than starting, they just wanted to win a national championship in their last year of junior high.
Even if it was just as a bench player.
And Aizen was exactly the kind of genius who could help the team win it all.
“Having said that, I can’t have a first-year carrying us to a championship—as an upperclassman, I’d be too embarrassed.
Come on, let’s go train.
I don’t want to get ridiculed by Aizen the way Takasago did.”
“Exactly.
Let’s train.
We can’t let the championship slip away again this year.”
“Yeah!
Training, training!”
Suddenly everyone was pumped, shouting about training like they’d been injected with adrenaline.
Nijimura Shuzo smiled, but then realized he didn’t see the two loudest troublemakers.
He asked, “By the way, where are Aizen and Aomine?”
“Them?” Momoi Satsuki said with exasperation.
“They got called to the principal’s office for a lecture.”
“Huh?
Why?”
“It’s all about who gets to the basketball club first.
At first they were just timing the bell.
But now they’re skipping class before school even ends—can you believe it?”