[Ding! ]
[Your three-year trial period has ended. ]
[Congratulations, you are now a full Manchester United youth player. ]
[You may draw a trait from the following options. ]
[Lion Heart]
[Lone Ranger ]
[Resilience]
…
What was that?
Tomás rubbed his eyes.
He hadn’t slept.
His limbs felt heavy.
Hallucinating.
The looming graduation from the academy had kept him awake until dawn.
Tomás Eusébio Ferreira was born in Almada, Portugal, just across the river from the stadium lights of Lisbon.
His parents, Nuno Silva Ferreira and Marta Carvalho, treated football as an absolute obsession.
He shared a distant bloodline with the legendary Eusébio—a connection his parents cemented by giving him the icon’s name.
To support him, they sold their house, quit their jobs, and moved to Manchester when he was fourteen.
Through connections and favors, they secured him a spot in Manchester United’s academy.
He managed to stay.
It was the start of a dream, and a nightmare.
Football in England was expensive.
His parents worked grueling hours just to scrape by.
Three years had passed.
Today was his seventeenth birthday.
At seventeen, he aged out of the youth academy.
If he didn’t make the U18 squad, it was all over.
He had been one of the top prospect in Portugal.
Otherwise, his parents wouldn’t have risked everything.
But at Manchester, his talent was average.
He struggled to keep up with the fourteen-year-olds, let alone his own age group.
Of the graduating class, he was the oldest, with the lowest odds of promotion.
Players who missed the U18 cut usually had backup options lined up with other English clubs.
Half his class already had pre-agreements.
Tomás had nothing.
Whenever his parents looked at him with those hopeful, gentle expressions, he forced a smile.
He didn’t have school exams to worry about, but the weight of his family’s sacrifices sat heavy on his chest.
He was losing sleep, and his hairline was already thinning.
He didn’t know how he would look at them if he failed.
In mid-March, Premier League clubs released their academy rejects.
He was about to be one of them.
The lowest tier, the kind managers scrolled past without a second thought.
[Ding!]
[Manchester United’s DNA System Begin….]
[The draw has begun.]
Tomás blinked.
A translucent roulette wheel materialized in his line of sight, spinning rapidly.
It clicked to a halt on a gold box.
[Ding!]
[Congratulations, you have drawn [Lion Heart]]
So, I’m officially losing my mind.
And his reward for a mental break was Lion Heart.
Lion’s Heart.
It sounded like an online personality quiz.
“Tomás! What are you doing? Pass the ball!”
Tomás flinched.
The voice belonged to Marcus Rashford.
One of United’s top prospects, and his closest friend.
An ordinary player didn’t survive the academy without backing.
The quiet exclusions and casual bullying were constants.
For three years, Marcus had acted as a shield, letting Tomás keep his head down and play.
“Sir Alex is watching today. Get your head straight. Pass the ball!” Marcus shifted his weight, waving an arm in impatience.
[Ding!]
[Prodigy Rising Star Marcus Rashford has issued a mission: Pass the ball. Reward: Passing Experience +10, Lion Heart Experience +10. Accept?]
It isn’t a hallucination.
He had spent the last three years reading translated web novels in his dorm, hiding his phone under his pillow so the others wouldn’t find another reason to mock him.
The translucent text floating above the pitch matched exactly what he’d read about.
Tomás swallowed.
He accepted the mission.
His boot connected with the ball, sending a clean, flat pass across the grass.
Rashford took the touch, dribbled past a cone, and fired a shot.
It sailed wide of the post.
“Tomás, what was that? So weak! Put something behind it, yeah? Brother, we’re doing something huge here today. Wake up!”
[Ding!]
[Prodigy Rising Star Marcus Rashford has issued a mission: Give a good pass. Reward: Passing experience +20, Lion Heart experience +20. Accept?]
Rashford complained and handed him another mission in the same breath.
Tomás exhaled slowly.
It was real.
He had a system.
The brain fog lifted.
Rashford stood a few yards away, hands on his hips.
The floating text labeled him a Prodigy Rising Star.
Tomás looked down.
A new panel loaded.
[Name: Tomás Eusébio Ferreira ]
[Occupation: Player ]
[Age: 17 ]
[Trait: Lion Heart LV0 (10/100) ]
[Attributes: Passing: 67 (10/670) | Ball Control: 49 (0/490) | Shots: 56 (0/560) Dead Ball: 50 (0/500) | Heading: 27 (0/270) | Defense: 20 (0/200) Speed: 55 (0/550) | Endurance: 55 (0/550) | Strength: 50 (0/500) | Jump: 53 (0/530) ]
[Overall Score: 48 ]
[Evaluation: A young player with good passing ability. ]
[Recommended position: Midfielder.]
Is this me?
On a standard hundred-point scale, the numbers weren’t entirely hopeless.
The 67 in passing proved he hadn’t wasted the last three years.
He had worked for it.
But his ceiling was low.
For the past year, extra training had yielded zero results.
Now, staring at the empty progress bars next to each stat, he realized the cap was gone.
His effort could translate directly into numbers.
“Tomás!”
Rashford clapped his hands loudly.
The shout drew eyes from the other training drills.
“Axel, I bet the Portuguese kid switches careers next month,” a voice muttered.
Axel Tuanzebe just shrugged.
Tomás’s recent form had been awful.
March was the worst time to slump.
Even top prospects weren’t guaranteed their desired development paths.
He focused, striking the ball clean and hard into Rashford’s path.
Rashford took it on the turn and buried it in the net.
“That’s your level, brother!” Rashford jogged over and slapped his shoulder.
“Keep it up. You’re staying at United, and one day we’ll be legends.”
[Ding!]
[Mission complete. Rashford is very pleased with your pass. Favorability +1.]
Rashford drifted off to join a shooting drill with the forwards.
He had a full arsenal; he didn’t need Tomás to just feed him simple balls all session.
Tomás watched him go.
I wonder if anyone else can trigger a mission.
The prospect of grinding stats made his hands itch.
He needed more missions.
He needed to stay at United.
He needed to earn a real contract.
He was tired of feeding off Rashford’s scraps.
Just once, he wanted to be the in the spotlight.
A United legend.
He knew it was just casual encouragement.
An Englishman’s polite hyperbole.
Rashford didn’t actually believe Tomás would become a legend.
It wasn’t the first time he’d heard the phrase.
But this time, Tomás looked at his stat panel and straightened his shoulders.
Get stronger, point by point.
Tomás jogged toward a group of teammates near the penalty box.
Joe Palmer.
The current main midfielder in academy.
[A young player who has just entered a period of rapid growth. Insufficient favorability to view detailed attributes.]
Palmer was a teammate, but also his direct competition.
Tomás wanted to see his stats, to know exactly who was better.
He moved on down the touchline.
He didn’t notice the older man chewing gum near the edge of the grass.
The man watched Tomás jogging at a slow pace and frowned.
“Are they all this lazy?”
“Don’t worry, boss,” the academy coach beside him replied.
“We won’t be taking any more charity cases after this batch.”
Tomás kept moving, oblivious.
[Sam Smith isn’t happy with his shooting. He needs someone to provide comfortable passes. Maybe you can help him.]
Sam Smith was a sixteen-year-old forward with terrible finishing but decent tackling.
The coaches were trying to convert him to center-back, but Sam refused to give up his spot up top.
He always blamed his bad shots on the service.
“Tomás,” Sam called out.
“Feed me a few?”
[Ding!]
[Young striker Sam Smith has issued a mission: Sharpen his shooting. Reward: Defense experience +20.]
Defense experience?
From a striker?
There was no trait experience either.
The rewards were worse than Rashford’s.
The system likely scaled payouts based on the target’s ability level.
But he couldn’t afford to be picky.
“Yeah, I’m free,” Tomás said.
“To feet or in the air?”
Sam hesitated.
“Just cross it.”
A striker asking for crosses with an open net in front of him.
Tomás didn’t point it out.
He just dropped a ball at his feet and hit a long, looping cross into the box.
Sam met the ball in the air.
He headed it in.
Tomás crossed another, and another.
Sam buried them all, his frustration fading into a grin.
“Good headers,” an academy coach noted from the sideline.
“He’s a decent defender.”
“He wants to be a forward,” another coach muttered.
On the pitch, Sam wiped sweat from his forehead.
“Tomás, those crosses were perfect.”
Tomás usually spent these sessions isolated, just feeding Rashford.
He was known entirely as Rashford’s shadow.
[Ding!]
[Mission complete. Defense experience +20, favorability +1.]
“Can you keep crossing for me?” Sam asked.
“Sure.”
“Thanks, mate.”
Other players noticed the shift.
Tomás, usually dead silent, was suddenly taking requests.
His distribution was sharp—easily the most reliable passing in the squad outside of the top-tier prospects.
No one asked Rashford to serve them balls; a player of his status didn’t do grunt work.
When Rashford passed, it was to showcase his own vision, not to make the striker look good.
Tomás’s passes were tailored to the receiver.
Simple, weighted perfectly, designed to be hit.
It didn’t take long for a line to form.
Tosin Kehinde jogged over.
“Tomás, put one into the channel for me?” He glanced across the pitch at Rashford, used to operating in his shadow.
Dwight McNeil stepped up right behind him.
“I need some reps too, Tomás.”
Tosin frowned, crossing his arms.
Before Dwight and Tosin could start arguing over the service, Sam Smith returned.
“Tomás, a few more?”
Tomás looked at the three of them.
Text notifications began popping up in his vision, stacking one on top of the other.
He accepted all three missions.
“Line up. I’ll rotate.”
Normally, the drills centered entirely on Rashford or Tuanzebe.
Now, a small queue had formed around Tomás.
Across the field, Rashford paused his dribble and frowned at the sudden gathering.
“The kid has a clean pass,” the older man remarked, chewing his gum.
The academy coach shook his head.
“It’s all he has. His physicality and awareness are well below standard. Matches are different from training. He’s peaked.”
Alex Ferguson didn’t reply.
He watched Tomás for a second longer, then shifted his gaze back to Rashford and Tuanzebe.
[Ding!]
[Mission complete. Defense experience +20. ]
[Ding!]
[Mission complete. Dribbling experience +20. ]
[Ding!]
[Mission complete. Passing experience +20, favorability +1.]
Sam and the wingers jogged back to the locker room satisfied.
Tomás stood on the grass, looking at his stat panel.
The numbers were small, but the progress bars were moving.
He watched the thin blue lines inch forward.