The reserve training match began at ten on Thursday, 15 May.
Clouds hung low above Säbener Straße, and overnight rain had softened the pitch.
Pál Csernai did not appear beside the touchline.
Alexander noticed him at an upstairs window in the senior building, half concealed behind glass.
The manager had chosen distance.
That suited Alexander.
An observer who wanted anonymity often watched more honestly.
The established reserve side wore red.
They included older professionals returning from injury, regional-level players, and academy graduates who believed senior football remained one good month away.
Günter Weiss captained them from central midfield.
He shared no relation with Adrian Weiss and reacted badly when one youth player asked.
Alexander’s side wore yellow.
Hartmann had assembled academy players, two trialists, and several reserves who needed minutes in unfamiliar positions.
On paper, red held an advantage everywhere.
Josef Becker gave Alexander one instruction.
“Play centre-forward.”
“Anything else?”
“Show me whether you require anything else.”
The club doctor approved sixty minutes, extendable to seventy-five if Alexander’s response remained normal.
Günter gathered the red team.
“Treat him as any ambitious youth,” he said loudly enough for the yellow side to hear.
The centre-backs interpreted that as permission to be educational.
On Alexander’s first reception, one defender drove a forearm into his back while the other clipped his heel after the pass escaped.
The referee, an academy staff member, allowed play.
Real senior contact differed from the dream in texture.
The simulation had reproduced force, intention, and pain with astonishing precision, but no model contained this exact man’s weight, the soft ground beneath the left boot, or the private resentment produced by a wealthy teenager’s sudden attention.
Alexander stumbled and recovered.
He did not appeal.
The next pass came high.
The first centre-back stepped tight, expecting another attempt to turn.
Alexander cushioned the ball off his chest towards the yellow midfielder and spun into the channel before the defender could transfer his weight.
The return pass was late.
Alexander adjusted, reached it at the corner of the penalty area, and saw the goalkeeper advance.
He chipped with his left foot.
The ball rose barely above the keeper’s glove and dropped beneath the crossbar.
One attack.
One goal.
The reserve bench stopped talking.
Alexander jogged back without celebration.
His pulse remained controlled.
The first real senior-level strike had calibrated dream technique against mud, pressure, and consequence.
Red restarted angrily.
Their quality asserted itself through midfield.
Günter accelerated circulation, pulled yellow out of shape, and created an equaliser with a diagonal pass behind the left-back.
Five minutes later, a trialist lost possession and red scored again.
Yellow trailed 2–1.
Alexander could wait near the box and trust individual superiority to produce another chance.
That would evaluate him as a striker and allow the weaker team to collapse.
He dropped into midfield.
“You were told centre-forward,” the yellow holding player said.
“I am starting there.
We cannot reach it.”
Alexander pointed towards the left winger.
“Stay wide.
Make their full-back choose.”
To the right-back, he said, “Do not overlap until Günter turns his head.”
To the holding midfielder: “Stand on his right passing lane.
He prefers the diagonal when you show him inside.”
The players listened because he spoke during a stoppage and because the scoreboard demanded an answer.
When play resumed, Alexander occupied the space beside Günter rather than directly ahead of him.
The reserve captain followed halfway, uncertain whether abandoning the centre mattered.
Yellow passed through the gap he left. Find the original chapter at g.com.
Alexander received on the half-turn, drew a centre-back, and slipped the ball behind the full-back.
The winger delivered low.
A yellow trialist finished.
Two-all.
Günter confronted Alexander after the restart.
“Who made you coach?”
“The space you left.”
The captain pressed him harder.
Alexander used that aggression.
He moved one way before the pass and another as it travelled.
He played off one touch until Günter began anticipating the release, then turned through the pressure and carried forward.
At the edge of the area, both centre-backs stepped.
Alexander shot between them.
The wet ball skipped before the goalkeeper and entered the lower corner.
Three-two.
By half-time, yellow led 4–2.
Alexander had scored three and created one.
The fourth goal came from his defensive instruction: the holding midfielder blocked Günter’s preferred diagonal, intercepted the forced pass, and released the left winger.
The yellow dressing area buzzed with the disbelief of players discovering a stronger version of themselves.
Alexander drew three simple shapes on the board.
“They will press me with two.
Do not come close to help unless I ask.
The free player is the solution.”
Hartmann watched from the door without interrupting.
Becker asked, “You are allowing him to conduct?”
“Would you like me to make them worse?”
Across the corridor, Günter told his team the match had become eleven against one.
He meant that removing Alexander would remove yellow’s structure.
The phrase also described red’s second-half mistake.
Three players began tracking Alexander whenever he entered midfield.
They hit him early, blocked short passes, and tried to deny every turn.
The attention reduced his touches.
It also abandoned the rest of the pitch.
In the fifty-first minute, Alexander checked towards the ball and dragged a centre-back with him.
He let the pass run without touching it.
The yellow striker collected behind and scored.
Assist without contact.
In the fifty-sixth, Alexander moved right, drawing Günter and a full-back.
He returned a first-time diagonal to the left winger, who crossed for another goal.
In the sixty-first, red stopped following.
Alexander received in space and struck from twenty-five metres.
The shot curved beyond the goalkeeper.
Four personal goals.
The score reached 7–2.
The club doctor checked him during a brief stoppage.
His heart rhythm remained normal.
Recovery was excellent.
“Five more minutes,” the doctor said.
Alexander nodded.
Günter shoved his shoulder while they waited.
The contact was intended to establish that the senior player could still move the child.
Alexander’s feet stayed planted.
Steel Body absorbed the force through aligned joints.
He did not shove back.
“Who do you think you are?” Günter asked.
Alexander looked towards the pitch, not the upstairs window.
“The reason your defenders stopped arguing with each other and started arguing about me.”
Günter’s jaw tightened.
“Use that on the ball,” Alexander added.
Play resumed.
Red launched one final attack through their captain.
Alexander had studied the preferred angle all match.
He curved his run, closed the diagonal, and forced Günter into the central pass the yellow midfielder had been told to expect. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
Interception.
Alexander turned.
Three red defenders sprinted towards him.
He carried for two touches, waited until they compressed, and released the right winger alone.
The winger scored.
Four goals.
Four created chances directly converted, though the staff would debate whether the dummy counted as an assist under their informal notation.
Eight-two.
The referee ended the match.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Josef Becker had stopped writing after the seventh goal.
Hartmann stood with both hands in his coat pockets and an expression close to vindication.
Upstairs, Csernai had left the window.
Alexander walked towards the touchline.
The doctor checked him again.
Sweat darkened his shirt and real fatigue sat in his legs, but Perfect Recovery was already smoothing the worst of it.
He had not needed an impossible motor.
Efficient movement and control of tempo had reduced the number of wasted sprints.
“Tomorrow,” a voice said.
Pál Csernai stood beside the exit from the pitch.
He was shorter than the authority surrounding him and wore a dark coat against the damp.
His face gave no praise.
“Nine o’clock,” the manager continued.
“My office.”
Alexander nodded.
“Training kit?”
“Bring it.”
Csernai walked away.
The reserve players watched him go, then looked at Alexander with a different kind of resentment.
Before the match, he had been a family experiment.
After it, he was a threat to actual minutes, contracts, and careers.
Günter approached while Hartmann was occupied.
“This does not make you first team.”
“No.”
“One match does not make you anything.”
“It made the manager ask for tomorrow.”
The captain had no answer.
Alexander entered the dressing room with the yellow side.
His teammates were replaying goals, laughing about instructions they had initially ignored, and asking whether he had known the score would become absurd.
He had not.
Dream Training offered solutions, not fixed outcomes.
A mistimed tackle, poor finish, or altered choice could have changed the match.
The victory belonged to decisions made in this version of events.
That made it more satisfying than any simulated triumph.
For the first time since waking, Alexander had played a complete real match against adults.
The body held.
The technique transferred.
The tactics accelerated teammates who had never trained with him.
One upstairs witness had seen enough.
The fair door was no longer closed.
In the car, Alexander checked the hidden panel.
Real-World Calibration: 97%
Current Ability Expression: 97
Post-Match Condition: Healthy fatigue; no injury
Perfect Recovery Estimate: Full training readiness by morning
The final three percent had not represented missing knowledge.
It had represented uncertainty between simulation and a real opponent whose choices mattered.
After one match, the system no longer marked that uncertainty as significant.
Alexander closed the panel and let his legs ache normally during the drive.
Recovery would erase the soreness.
Memory would preserve what the soreness proved.
**Author’s Note** Thank you for reading **The Shadow Kaiser**.
The story will continue updating here every two days.