After the unusual study session with my new training tutor, the rest of my week passed in a weird routine.

The routine didn't mean easy, as almost every single hour was filled with back-breaking effort.

Every morning, I woke up at five to meet with Coach Juana for special training. Those sessions were intensive as we worked on the same drills again and again, and she focused on fixing my technical deficiencies. Five was already early enough to make even the simplest effort feel grueling. And, Coach Juana had too much to prove to keep those training sessions light.

Not that I complained. I had a lot to prove as well, and I had more important things than just making a new career for myself. I needed to get into the team to get the necessary Intent, and Coach Juana's training worked wonders to help me with that.

After that part came the training with the team, which was hardly any easier. While the group training had allowed me the opportunity to limit my effort if I wished, I didn't want to take the risk. Coach Bill was clearly paying attention, and I didn't want to give him any excuse to limit my playing time. Not only I worked as much as it was manageable during the training, but I stayed in the field after for some voluntary reps.

Every day, I was the last one to leave the field.

I needed to sell my commitment.

After the training finished, I had the classes, though I skipped them to meet with Lauren for chess practice, playing chess for four hours rather than sleeping. The change of pace was beneficial, especially since the Recovery helped me to handle the after-effects of the training without getting a nap.

Of course, chess practice was not just for serious matters, as I managed to convince her to finish every day with another strip of chess, only for her to win every single one of them, only to balk when I was reduced to my underwear. So, just to mess with her, I started to wear tighter and thinner underwear each day, enjoying her monumental blush.

After the chess practice, I went back to my room, and worked on the customized web crawler I coded for myself, focusing on the news, and aggressively working on it to catch anything suspicious.

It was yet to deliver anything useful, and even with the assistance my traits provided, required a lot of effort to reach a useful level, but after that near miss, I decided to make sure I had the information I needed.

There was no guarantee where the next surprise would arrive.

In the same vein, I used several of the user credentials I managed to get from the museum that sourced the mysterious orb to make sure every link between Sunset College and the delivery of the orb was scrubbed of their databases successfully.

Just to make sure, after erasing everything, I even triggered a system crash, ruining all the backups as well, making sure there was no hope of recovery.

Of course, doing so created months of work for the museum employees as they logged everything by hand, but considering the stakes I was playing, it was a fair trade.

From my perspective, of course.

And after those computer sessions, it was time for evening training, which meant it was time for another stadium trip. Once again, I did my best to show off both during the training, and stayed for voluntary practice, staying to make sure I was the last player leaving the stadium.

And when I managed to return to my room, all I was able to do was throw myself into my bed.

Even with the Traits, it was a grueling program.

Fortunately — or unfortunately, from the perspective of having fun — Megan didn't communicate with me any, showing she didn't need any assistance. And while some additional fun to break the monotony would have been fun, I doubted I could handle the chaos her intervention would bring.

I was already busy enough.

Without recovery, allowing me to start every day fresh, I would have probably got injured, or at least, unable to move due to unbearable muscle pain. There was a reason for the schedule of the professional athletes was less intense than mine, and it was certainly not their laziness.

Yet, that intense week wasn't without a reward, I thought as I opened my locker Sunday morning, only to find a new jersey.

Number fifty-two.

But with my name on the back.

As I pulled it on, whispers exploded around me, their gaze bouncing between me and Carter. Understandable, as it was Carter's old number, and now he was wearing number fifty-four.

A shocking declaration considering it was my first game.

"Good work," Carter said as he patted my back, much to the shock of everyone else, but I just nodded, understanding what drove him. I knew that it was him that requested it from Coach Bill in the first place — as forcibly changing player numbers were excessive even for him — to sell the story of his sacrifice to the professional scouts.

That Carter was willing to take a lesser role in their team without ego problems if necessary.

As I put on my jersey and walked toward the center of the room, Coach Spencer walked into the room, followed by the offensive coordinator — one that I didn't even know the name of — and Coach Bill.

"Today, we're fighting for the honor of our school…" Coach Spencer shouted, which marked the beginning of a long speech.

I had to admit, it was a good speech.

This was why it was a pity as it was delivered by our spineless, soft, head coach. Even the offensive players had an indulging expression on their faces, and the defensive players deliberately stayed in the outside circle to reinforce the impression.

"Let's go, Pirates," he finally called.

"Let's go!" the team exclaimed, and we moved to the field.

The team had been experiencing a monumental loss streak, but, interestingly, that didn't prevent the stands from being full, the people shouting and crying the team slogan repeatedly as we walked onto the field.

I expected a lot of Intent to be gained from playing football. It was the whole point of working extremely hard, just to have a chance to wear the uniform.

Yet, it seemed that I underestimated the passion people had for the game. Even before the start, making anything that would get their attention, I could feel the Intent flow getting thicker. Not enough to allow me to channel it to the system, but barely below that limit.

And I didn't even step into the field.

Impressive.

With the relationship between the defensive team and the head coach, it wasn't surprising to see it was the offensive captain that went for the coin flip rather than Carter. They flipped the coin, and our team won the coin toss.

Naturally, our team chose to play the offense first.

"Be ready to go," Thad said to me as he walked closer as gestured to our quarterback, who had overthrown his pass rather badly to avoid a surprise blitz. "Arnie can't handle the pressure properly, and they started with a blitz. It's going to be three-and-out."

Three-and-out, meaning our team would fail to get the ten-yard progression in three attempts, which would force the team to punt.

To the credit of the offense, our starting quarterback Arnie — Arnold — managed to throw a good pass on his third attempt, bringing us to forty yards in our field, and setting up fresh first dawn.

Unfortunately, that seemed to be the limit of his, as three attempts with no return forced our team to punt.

Pity that, as a starter — even as a new one — I wasn't a part of the special teams, making me watch from the corner as our team punted, with a pathetic gain of thirty feet as the punter shanked the ball badly.

"Let's show how the real pirates play the game," Thad growled as he raised his hand. The whole team roared as we walked onto the field, showing that, Carter and I might be the strategic leaders on the field, but neither of us was the emotional leader of the team.

Not that I had a problem with that.

As a tall giant with a good attitude — at least to his teammates, and I doubted the opponent that received one of his painful tackles would agree — and the kind of charm that made everyone like him, he was a good emotional leader.

And, his emotional weight allowed me to focus on the real issue.

Making sure we leave a good impression.

I took a deep breath, trying to ignore the excitement of stepping into the field for the first time in four years.