"Ding, congratulations on obtaining the special skill 'Absolute Footwork,' duration three seconds, uses 2/2."
"Ding, congratulations on obtaining the special skill 'Bullet Time,' duration five seconds, uses 1/1."
After opening the unknown special skill packs, the "ding-ding-ding" sounds rang out, and Little Seven's professional and objective voice announced two special skills, just as expected. This made him eager to try them out.
The first special skill was "Absolute Footwork," a familiar skill. But Lu Ke wasn't disappointed at all; in fact, he was very happy. Back at the rookie training camp, using Absolute Footwork was key to his excellent performance in the practice games and laid the groundwork for his later tryout with the San Francisco 49ers.
To be honest, Lu Ke's pocket movement was still a major problem. At this stage, he was consistently and tirelessly training his footwork for movement and throwing. But in a real game, footwork is only the most basic part of pocket movement. There are many other factors that influence it.
For example, while looking for a passing target, he also needs to be wary of the defensive players' rushing routes, doing two things at once. For another example, after a defensive player gets close, physical confrontations like dodging, holding them off, pushing, and breaking free are crucial. And another example is when the offensive line's pocket is broken. Under pressure, the choice of moving direction, the choice of a pass, and the judgment of the crisis will also affect his footwork.
It would be very difficult for Lu Ke's pocket movement ability to make a significant leap in a short amount of time, but the games were coming week after week with no breaks. Now, getting the "Absolute Footwork" special skill again could be a game-changer if used at the right time.
In today's game, even though Lu Ke was only sacked once, he had to make countless hurried throws, fierce grabs, and powerful collisions. Sometimes it was because of the offensive line's poor defense, but other times it was because of Lu Ke's own bad footwork choices.
After the game, when he got back to the locker room, Lu Ke immediately took an ice bath and had a local massage with the help of the team's doctors and masseuses to relieve the pain. Even so, after the adrenaline from the victory slowly faded, the soreness in his muscles started to creep in, and he could feel a dull ache in his bones.
At least one point from the football experts was correct: Lu Ke's weight was still too low. He didn't have enough basic self-protection ability, let alone the ability to withstand a hit.
This shows that "Absolute Footwork" will not only be a secret weapon in a crucial moment but also a secret key to Lu Ke's self-protection.
Lu Ke clenched his fists and then looked at the second special skill.
"Bullet Time" was an interesting combination of words. "Bullet" represents speed and power, often referring to a pass. "Time" represents control and mastery, but it is related to every part of the game. These two words, when looked at separately, have a clear meaning, but when combined, they become confusing.
As a reporter, Lu Ke had a very strong ability to think creatively. He couldn't help but start imagining things. His thoughts were wild and became more and more outrageous. In the end, they had nothing to do with the words "bullet" and "time." Lu Ke thought of keywords like outer space and black holes, which were completely unreliable.
So, Lu Ke gave up on trying to figure it out himself and opened the skill description, reading it carefully.
"Bullet Time," a term widely used in film technology for commercials, movies, and videos, is also called "time slicing" or "time freezing." It can be simply understood as a slow-motion effect or even a time-stopping effect.
Later, this technology became famous because of the movie series "The Matrix." The slow-motion shot of the main character leaning back to dodge bullets in the movie is a classic. Thus, the term "Bullet Time" came into being.
The effect of this special skill was now clear: to slow down reality by a factor of 1.2!
One point two times! Lu Ke was so surprised that his jaw dropped. This was an incredible, dimension-breaking ability! It was even more terrifying than Absolute Footwork!
Imagine a scene often seen in movies: everyone is still, but the main character is moving through the crowd. If you were to go back to real time, everyone would be walking normally, but the main character would be a blur of light moving through them. Now, was this kind of scene actually happening in reality? That would be like "Harry Potter" and "X-Men" becoming a reality.
Luckily, it was only 1.2 times slower, not ten times slower or time-stopping. If it were, he would be a non-human. He would probably be kidnapped by a mad scientist for dissection before the game was even over. But even at just 1.2 times slower, this skill was still too unbelievable!
To put it in perspective, with reality slowed down by a factor of 1.2 and a duration of five seconds, this means that for every one second of real time, Lu Ke would have 1.2 seconds. A total of five seconds would be six seconds, which is just a little, a very little bit faster than everyone else. This was acceptable; at least it wouldn't be too shocking.
Zero point two seconds might not sound like much. It sounds like a flash that happens too quickly to even utter a syllable. But in a real game, this could be the difference between "in the nick of time"!
Of course, all of these were just Lu Ke's assumptions and guesses. The actual situation still needed to be tested in a game. The only regret was that the special skills didn't have a test function. Otherwise, Lu Ke would test the effect in practice first before using it in a game. But a person can't be too greedy.
"Absolute Footwork," two uses; "Bullet Time," one use.
The former was fine. Even if he used the skill, it wouldn't be obvious in real life. It could easily be understood as a sudden burst of adrenaline in that play, and his skill level increased. But the latter was too insane. A simple mistake could disrupt the balance of reality, so he only had one chance to use it.
The first regular season game had only just ended in the afternoon, but Lu Ke was already eagerly thinking about how he should use the two special skills in the second regular season game.
Lu Ke's appearance in the first game was as a "surprise player." He won by surprise, and the Seattle Seahawks' offense was weak at scoring, so they didn't put much pressure on the score. The intensity of the game wasn't even as high as the game against the Trojans. But this was the NFL, a highly professional league. After one game, Lu Ke would become the subject of everyone's research. After the surprise effect was gone, Lu Ke would have to show more skill and ability.
Winning is a good thing, but if he could keep winning, that would be even better.
Improving one's own ability is always the iron rule of the world of competitive sports. So, after getting the hidden attribute and two special skills, Lu Ke opened the two quarterback training skill packs.
The first quarterback training skill pack was also a familiar one. The reward for the second special mission at the rookie training camp was the same skill pack—basic training for a quarterback's footwork, but the training exercises were a little different this time.
**"Complete the following training:
Pole weaving, 20 sets, eight round trips per set.
Parallelogram diagonal running, 20 sets, four round trips per set.
Ladder lateral and vertical movement, 20 sets, four round trips per set.
Sandbag hitting, 20 sets, 12 times per set.
Knee ball squeezes, 10 sets, eight round trips per set.
Training rewards: Pushing ability +1, evasiveness +1, fake movement ability +1."**
Even though it was also basic footwork training, this time it had a clear focus: physical confrontation ability and small-scale movement ability.
For example, the last exercise, knee ball squeezes. This is an exercise mainly for quarterbacks and running backs.
In the exercise, a player squeezes a bouncy ball between their knees. The bouncy ball is of a different size depending on the player's body size, but the largest is only the size of a tennis ball. Then, the player must complete a cone weave in a small area. The condition is that the bouncy ball cannot fall down. If it does, that round trip doesn't count.
This exercise is effective for a player's footwork adjustment, body control, and muscle flexibility. It looks simple, but every time you do it, it's enough to make a player drenched in sweat. It feels like a big guy dancing the Ribbon Dance with a needle.
It was precisely because of this that the final reward of the skill pack was also different, focusing on pushing ability, evasiveness, and fake movement ability.
It was clear that Lu Ke's footwork still hadn't reached an acceptable level, which was the system's top priority when creating the training pack.
The second quarterback training skill pack was... a little strange. Lu Ke really didn't know how to describe it.
**"Complete the following training:
Bench press 225 pounds (102 kg), three sets, 15 reps per set.
Squats with 225 pounds of weight, three sets, 15 reps per set.
Pec deck with 225 pounds of weight, three sets, 25 reps per set.
Sit-ups with 35 pounds of weight, three sets, 15 reps per set.
Pull-ups with 30 pounds of weight, three sets, 15 reps per set.
Planks with 35 pounds of weight, three sets, 60 seconds per set.
Dumbbell rows, 20 pounds, three sets, 30 seconds per set.
High cable rows, three sets, 30 seconds per set.
Dips, three sets, 25 reps per set.
Left-handed dumbbell curls, 112 pounds, three sets, 25 reps per set.
Right-handed dumbbell curls, 112 pounds, three sets, 25 reps per set.
Training rewards: Strength +3, Explosiveness +1."**
With just a quick glance, Lu Ke felt like he was going to spit blood. There were so many training exercises, and almost every single one of them required weight.
Among them, the bench press was a standard exercise in the rookie training camp. The bench press of 225 pounds was the official standard weight to test a player's strength level. However, quarterbacks and wide receivers were exempt from the test.
But now, the system's quarterback skill training pack was blatantly asking Lu Ke to do the training. The answer was already clear: if this "beanpole" didn't get his act together, things would be bad.
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