The age restriction transformed Alexander’s first long-term plan.
Broad sporting potential could be raised only before a person turned nineteen.
The rule did not care whether the recipient was a stranger, a Tool, a future child, or Alexander himself.
After the deadline, the body’s fundamental ceiling became fixed.
Specialist talents could still be added.
Dream Training could still develop technique, tactics, and experience.
Medicine, coaching, and real work could still help a person approach whatever ceiling already existed.
But the broad ceiling itself could no longer be purchased.
Alexander expanded the explanation until no ambiguity remained.
A twenty-year-old two-star footballer could receive Steel Body, Tactician, and thousands of dream matches.
He might become unusually durable, intelligent, and experienced for his talent level.
He would not acquire the complete physical and technical capacity of a four-star generational player.
A seventeen-year-old could.
That made youth scouting one of the system’s most important strategic functions.
The future empire would not merely search for the best current athletes.
It would identify people before age closed the most powerful intervention.
A disciplined three-star teenager could become four stars, then receive two or three carefully chosen specialists and development no natural academy could match.
Alexander immediately established another restriction of his own.
He would not enhance every moderately promising child who crossed his path.
Points were too valuable, and sporting careers required desire as well as potential.
Granting a reluctant child four-star ability would not create happiness or necessarily create prestige.
Enhancement would follow talent scanning, personality, commitment, and strategic need.
He opened his own age panel.
Date of Birth: 18 August 1962
Broad-Talent Upgrade Window Remaining: 1 year, 3 months, 14 days
Current Football Talent: 5.0 Stars
Further Broad Football Upgrade: Unavailable—Maximum Reached
His main sport was secure.
The system could theoretically grant broad talent in another sport before nineteen.
Basketball, tennis, boxing, golf, athletics, and motorsport all appeared as separate categories.
Alexander considered the fantasy for less than a minute.
He could buy five-star tennis talent and attempt to dominate two global sports.
He could enter athletics and collect Olympic prestige.
He could acquire boxing talent, though the training and competition schedules would clash with football.
The idea appealed to the collector in him and failed the strategist.
A professional football career at the level he intended would consume seasons, travel, recovery, and public identity.
Becoming the greatest athlete in one sport required more than owning the ceiling.
Adding multiple five-star talents would cost hundreds of thousands of points and fragment real-world development.
It would also leave less for Tools, children, and other German champions.
Alexander might later compete in selected sports recreationally or use transferable physical specialists.
Football would remain his personal throne.
Other athletes could rule elsewhere under his structure.
He opened the Tool Module.
Three dark silhouettes stood against a blank field.
Each slot contained expandable conditions, costs, configuration options, and long-term functions.
Tools were not restored human beings.
The system required eligible recently deceased West Germans whose bodies remained sufficiently intact.
It repaired the chosen body and used the deceased person’s memories, legal identity, habits, emotions, and natural personality as a template.
The original person remained dead.
What awakened would be a new system-created Tool wearing the same body and possessing a complete copy of the personality that had once inhabited it.
To the outside world, the continuity would appear perfect.
The Tool would remember its childhood, recognise its family, retain personal preferences, and respond emotionally according to the copied personality.
Unless Alexander deliberately configured otherwise, it would believe itself to be the original person who had miraculously survived.
Beneath that human exterior, its operating structure belonged entirely to the system.
Loyalty to Alexander would be absolute.
System secrecy could not fail.
Direct commands could not be refused.
The Tool could think independently, form relationships, pursue personal interests, argue, advise, and improvise.
Those qualities made it more useful than a mindless puppet.
Once Alexander reached a final decision, however, obedience was automatic.
The Tool would never resent that condition because it had not been imposed upon an independent survivor.
It was part of the Tool from the first moment of consciousness.
The module also provided a private mental channel.
Alexander could communicate with every Tool through the system regardless of physical distance.
The Tool would receive his voice naturally, answer through the same channel, and instinctively understand that the communication could never be exposed.
No spoken explanation of the system would be required.
The requirement unsettled Alexander less than the abstract description might have suggested.
Every filled slot would still begin with a death.
He would not cause one.
The system confirmed that it neither engineered eligible accidents nor encouraged harm.
The Candidate Locator merely identified bodies and personality templates that had already crossed the medical threshold required for Tool creation.
Alexander’s choice would not return the deceased person.
It would create something new from what remained.
Refusing left the original death unchanged.
Accepting produced a loyal Tool capable of carrying that person’s identity into the future.
That removed the moral contradiction.
Alexander was not saving someone and then forcing loyalty upon them.
The person had already died.
The system was constructing an asset that looked, remembered, and felt like them.
How that Tool lived afterward remained Alexander’s decision.
He established several operating principles.
No unnecessary destruction of valuable Tools.
No careless damage to their public identities or outside relationships.
Fair wealth, meaningful assignments, and private lives sufficient to keep them effective.
Freedom to advise, disagree, develop friendships, and build families.
Absolute secrecy concerning the system and hidden empire.
Direct commands final once Alexander made his decision.
The principles did not restrict his authority.
They ensured that he used expensive, potentially century-long assets intelligently.
A Tool with a stable life, respected public identity, and genuine personal motivation would perform better than one treated as disposable machinery.
He selected Candidate Locator.
Cost: 2,000 Sports Prestige Points
Function: Detect eligible bodies and personality templates during the Tool-instantiation window and display relevant suitability information.
Purchase?
Alexander confirmed.
Balance: 691,584
A map of West Germany opened.
No markers appeared.
The absence relieved him.
He did not need a stranger to die merely because he was eager to test a function.
Instead, he assigned roles to the empty slots.
The first would be a goalkeeper.
Five-star talent made Alexander capable of deciding attacks, but football remained a team sport.
A system-enhanced goalkeeper could erase the random errors that destroyed tournament runs.
The ideal template would be under nineteen, naturally suited to the position, and temperamentally comfortable receiving less public attention than a prolific forward.
The second would be a central midfielder.
Alexander wanted a partner capable of reading his movement early and delivering the ball before opponents adjusted.
Eagle Eye, Tactician, and Steel Body would create a player whose value exceeded raw dribbling or scoring statistics.
The third would begin the wider sporting programme.
Basketball offered the strongest early possibility.
One four-star player could transform West German interest, generate international prestige, and later become an executive inside a global basketball network.
Tennis was another option, but individual development could be handled without a Tool if a suitable young athlete emerged.
Additional slots cost 100,000 points.
The price prevented Alexander from filling the world with loyal executives immediately.
Even after purchasing a slot, he would need to pay for the Tool’s talent upgrade, specialists, and Dream Training.
Three was enough for the first years.
The public lives of those three Tools required as much care as their private loyalty.
A Tool could not simply appear beside him with perfect ability and no believable history.
The chosen identity would already possess school records, neighbours, family ties, medical files, and whatever unfinished obligations death had interrupted.
If the Tool entered elite sport, journalists would eventually investigate childhood coaches, local clubs, and previous performances.
Alexander would therefore build from what already existed.
Enhancement could explain a late leap only when ordinary observers could attribute it to recovery, maturation, specialised coaching, or a positional change.
That consideration strengthened his preference for a goalkeeper as the first football Tool.
Goalkeepers developed later, received fewer touches by which scouts could reconstruct an old ceiling, and could transform through technique and confidence without every improvement looking impossible.
A seventeen-year-old keeper with good height and neglected fundamentals could plausibly become exceptional after surviving a serious accident and entering a better environment.
A formerly clumsy forward who began dribbling like Cruyff overnight would invite more dangerous questions.
The slots were not disposable appointments either.
A Tool might remain active for seventy more years.
Alexander was selecting future directors, guardians of family secrets, and public figures whose children might grow up beside his own.
Suitability therefore meant more than athletic measurements.
He needed judgement under pressure, emotional stability, and the ability to offer useful disagreement without ever obstructing a final command.
The Locator’s blank map was not an inconvenience.
It was a warning to prepare before fate offered a body and personality worth using.
Alexander switched to the Bloodline Module.
Most functions remained dormant until he had biological children.
The visible summary confirmed that every child would possess at least three-star potential in a strongest compatible sport, with higher levels appearing by defined probabilities.
Descendants would retain free personalities but could not knowingly destroy the bloodline or expose its deepest secrets to enemies.
Alexander closed the module.
He wanted many children eventually—enough to establish branches across sport, entertainment, and business—but not at seventeen.
He would begin deliberately after twenty-five, when his career, structures, and household could support them without turning motherhood into chaos.
The long view sharpened the immediate one.
His descendants would inherit advantage.
They should inherit an example worthy of it.
Alexander returned to the specialist shop and selected Steel Body.
The confirmation panel provided a stronger warning than the other menu descriptions.
Five-Star Steel Body Integration
Cost: 80,000
Expected Effects: Exceptional bone strength, joint stability, tendon and ligament resilience, contact tolerance, training capacity, and career longevity.
Temporary Integration Effects: Deep musculoskeletal pain, elevated temperature, involuntary muscle contraction.
Medical Risk: System-protected; external observers may detect unexplained but non-pathological changes.
Confirm?
He checked the room.
Helena had gone to speak with a hospital administrator.
A nurse would return within minutes.
Alexander remained connected to cardiac monitoring.
The circumstances were nearly perfect.
He confirmed.
The balance fell to 611,584.
For three seconds, nothing happened.
Then every bone in his body began to burn.
Alexander clenched the sheet before a sound escaped.
The sensation was not random agony.
It travelled through structural lines: ankles into shins, knees into hips, wrists into elbows, shoulders into spine.
Old micro-imbalances he had never known existed became points of pressure and release.
Muscles contracted around joints as the system strengthened the connections beneath them.
His teeth locked.
The monitor accelerated.
Alexander could have cancelled only before purchase.
The transaction was now permanent, and he would not have reversed it if given the choice.
The pain peaked after seven minutes.
At the tenth, it faded.
He released the sheet and found deep creases where his fingers had gripped.
The door opened.
Helena entered with a nurse, saw the sweat across his face, and moved immediately.
“What happened?”
Alexander answered with the safest truth.
“Something changed.”
The nurse reached for the call button as the system displayed the completed purchase.
Steel Body: 5.0 Stars
Integration Complete
Alexander lay beneath the approaching medical examination and felt the indestructible foundation of his career settle into place.
Dr Weber arrived quickly enough to believe the monitor rather than Alexander’s attempt at calm.
He checked the heart rhythm, blood pressure, temperature, and response to movement.
The readings showed stress but no cardiac emergency.
Alexander described a sudden deep ache across multiple joints and muscles, followed by rapid relief.
“Electrical injuries can produce delayed spasms,” the doctor said.
He sounded unconvinced by his own explanation.
“Is anything damaged?” Helena asked.
“Not that I can detect.”
Dr Weber examined Alexander’s wrists and elbows.
There was no swelling, tenderness, or restricted range.
The pulse remained strong.
He ordered additional blood work and another electrocardiogram.
Alexander cooperated without performing unusual feats.
Steel Body did not feel like armour wrapped around him.
The limbs remained flesh, skin, and bone.
The difference appeared when force passed through them.
Each joint felt seated correctly.
The faint instability that had existed in his left ankle was gone.
His knees tracked naturally when he raised and lowered them.
The body had become difficult to damage through ordinary sporting stress.
Not invulnerable to vehicles, bullets, or deliberate supernatural force.
Protected against the tackles, awkward landings, repetitive loads, and overtraining that destroyed athletic careers.
That was enough.
The nurses drew blood and left.
Helena remained beside the bed with crossed arms.
“You knew something would happen.”
Alexander chose his words carefully.
“I felt the heat building before it became painful.”
“That is not what I mean.
You looked as though you were waiting.”
“I was trying not to frighten you.”
“You failed.”
“I noticed.”
He did not attempt a larger lie.
Helena’s suspicion lacked a supernatural destination.
She would assume he had minimised symptoms or performed private exercises against instructions.
“No more surprises tonight,” she said.
Alexander looked at the specialist list.
“I will try.”
It was not a promise.
He waited until Helena left for dinner at Margarethe’s insistence and the latest tests returned without alarming results.
A nurse settled into the station outside.
The room became quiet.
Alexander selected Cat Reflexes at five stars.
Cost: 80,000
Balance After Purchase: 531,584
The integration differed from Steel Body.
There was little pain.
Instead, the room seemed to sharpen around him.
His inner ear adjusted.
The tiny movements required to balance against the mattress became visible to his awareness.
When he raised one hand, the elbow travelled along the most efficient path without wandering.
He tossed the rubber test ball gently towards the wall.
It rebounded at an imperfect angle.
His left hand caught it without reaching twice.
He tried again, looking towards the door.
Peripheral movement registered the ball’s return.
His right hand intercepted it beside his shoulder.
The specialist did not slow time.
It allowed his nervous system to process and answer movement with almost no wasted delay.
On a football pitch, that meant recovering after a stumble, changing direction under contact, adjusting to deflections, and controlling a body moving faster than opponents could predict.
He selected Eagle Eye at four and a half stars.
Cost: 40,000
Balance: 491,584
The edges of his visual field became meaningful.
Alexander looked at the clock while remaining aware of the window, the water glass, the gap beneath the door, and the nurse’s shadow crossing outside.
He could not read text behind his head or see through walls.
The talent expanded processing, not anatomy.
Movement announced itself early.
On a pitch, he would recognise a full-back beginning a run before turning his head fully.
A defender’s weight shift would enter awareness while his focus remained on the ball.
Tactician at four and a half stars followed.
Cost: 40,000
Balance: 451,584
No immediate physical sensation appeared.
Then patterns emerged in ordinary things.
The timing of the nurses’ rounds.
The way Helena’s chair had been placed to see both him and the corridor.
The order in which Dr Weber asked questions to separate neurological symptoms from cardiac ones.
Tactician did not grant secret information.
It organised observed information into probable structures, decisions, and consequences.
Combined with Eagle Eye, it would allow Alexander to see more and understand it sooner.
Steel Mind at four stars cost 15,000.
The talent settled like cool pressure behind his forehead.
Fear did not disappear.
Emotion remained.
The memory of dying still carried weight.
What changed was his relationship with it.
Thoughts stopped colliding.
He could hold the system, family, football, and business plans in separate mental spaces without allowing one to blur the rest.
Pressure became something to allocate.
Finally, Perfect Recovery at four stars cost another 15,000.
Warmth spread through his organs and muscles, less intense than Steel Body.
His breathing deepened.
The residual fatigue from walking the corridor began fading.
The bruised ache from the electrical accident remained but seemed to enter a clear process of repair.
The system displayed the complete account.
Opening Balance: 693,584
Tool Candidate Locator: –2,000
Steel Body 5.0: –80,000
Cat Reflexes 5.0: –80,000
Eagle Eye 4.5: –40,000
Tactician 4.5: –40,000
Steel Mind 4.0: –15,000
Perfect Recovery 4.0: –15,000
Current Balance: 421,584
Alexander had spent 272,000 points, including the locator.
The number might have purchased more than two additional five-star broad sporting talents.
Instead, it had removed the structural, perceptual, and mental weaknesses surrounding his own free five-star football ceiling.
He evaluated the decision again.
Correct.
The temptation to continue remained.
Five-star Ambidexterity would provide equal control of both sides.
Predator Instinct would sharpen finishing movement.
Aerial Dominion would turn his height into unmatched power.
Big-Match Aura would improve performance under the highest pressure.
He could afford several.
He purchased none.
Dream Training would develop his weak foot, finishing, and match experience close to the five-star football ceiling.
Specialists could later add the final impossible layer after tournament rewards replenished his balance.
Buying everything now would turn scarcity into a future problem.
The six chosen specialists formed a closed structure rather than a collection of attractive labels.
Steel Body protected the frame.
Perfect Recovery restored what training depleted.
Cat Reflexes converted perception into movement.
Eagle Eye widened the information he could collect.
Tactician interpreted that information.
Steel Mind prevented pressure or fatigue from corrupting the decision.
Each covered a weakness the others could not.
Together, they supported every position he might play and every phase of a long career.
Ambidexterity, finishing instinct, and aerial dominance were narrower.
Valuable, certainly, but football training could approach those outcomes.
No amount of ordinary repetition could make ligaments five-star resilient or enlarge the conscious processing of peripheral motion to the same degree.
The correct order was to purchase what practice could never supply, then use impossible practice time for everything practice could.
Alexander also checked how the dream would handle historical differences.
The system could reproduce leather and synthetic balls from any selected year, pitches ranging from winter mud to modern immaculate grass, old offside interpretations, back-pass rules, and refereeing standards.
It could place him inside a 1980 pressing structure in one block and a 2010 positional game in the next.
The knowledge would not force real teammates to execute future systems, but it would teach him which principles survived every era.
He added one medical constraint to the curriculum.
The session could map skill into his present nervous system, but it could not conceal reckless real-world exertion.
After waking, he would calibrate privately, return to training at a medically believable pace, and let coaches discover improvement in stages measured by days rather than minutes.
The body was ready.
The story explaining the body still needed discipline.
Alexander opened the Dream Training schedule.
Legendary access for one major sleep session cost 20,000 points.
The session would remain active for one continuous natural sleep period, with the multiplier applied to every hour actually slept.
He selected an initial curriculum.
Technical foundation across both feet.
First touch under every direction and pressure.
Passing, striking, dribbling, and heading.
Movement mechanics.
Tactical systems from 1980 through 2020.
Full matches against elite youth, senior, and historic peak teams.
Set pieces.
Penalties.
Media pressure.
Leadership and communication.
Opponent preparation for Bayern’s remaining league fixtures and Euro 1980.
The system estimated that eight thousand hours could take every learnable attribute to or near its current maximum if Alexander trained efficiently.
That was the user’s true advantage.
Not years reduced to weeks.
Years reduced to one night.
He did not activate the session yet.
Natural sleep would trigger it automatically once purchased, and Konrad was expected before evening visiting hours ended.
The negotiation required an ordinary conscious mind, not one returning from a subjective year of training.
Alexander tested the combined specialists using the rubber ball.
He threw it harder against the wall.
The rebound struck the edge of a cabinet and changed direction.
His eyes registered the deflection.
Tactician predicted the new line.
Cat Reflexes moved his body.
Steel Body stabilised the catch as his shoulder reached awkwardly.
The ball stopped in his palm.
Alexander stared at it.
He had not begun football training.
He already possessed a foundation no natural athlete could build.
The nurse entered and noticed him sitting upright.
“You are supposed to rest.”
“I am.”
She looked at the ball in his hand.
“Rest usually contains less throwing.”
Alexander placed it on the cabinet.
“Then I have finished.”
The nurse checked his readings and left after another warning.
He lay back and closed the system menu.
The specialists were permanent.
The balance was protected.
His body and mind were ready.
Only one human test remained before the Legendary night.
Konrad Adler would arrive expecting to evaluate an impulsive grandson who had asked for twenty million marks after nearly dying.
Alexander intended to leave him wondering when the boy had learned to negotiate.