"The rings move at variable speeds to simulate a player's changing gait in a real match," Captain Pasqual explained, his voice low as the Fiorentina squad watched the mechanical frenzy. "And the backward tilt? That's the defender's shadow. It hides the target, forcing the passer to rely on instinct and timing rather than sight."
"Captain," Cuadrado whispered, his eyes wide. "How do you even know about Level Five? You said only one man has beaten this in thirty years. Who was it?"
Pasqual had worn the Viola shirt for a decade; he was the club's living library. He looked at the machine with a mix of reverence and haunting memory.
"I was a rookie when I arrived ten years ago. Back then, they stopped using Level Five because it destroyed the confidence of the senior players. It became a myth—something people thought was just a broken setting."
He paused, glancing at the retired numbers in the distance. "As for who beat it? It isn't hard to guess. The greatest playmaker in our history. The man who fed Batistuta with his eyes closed. Manuel Rui Costa."
The name rippled through the group like a prayer. Rui Costa—the Portuguese maestro who had later turned AC Milan into a Champions League juggernaut alongside Pirlo.
"My old captain, Di Livio, played with him," Pasqual continued. "He used to say that the gap between a pro and an amateur is wide, but the gap between a pro and Rui Costa was a canyon. If I remember the record correctly... Rui Costa hit 22 out of 30. He finished the drill in ninety seconds."
"22?" Badelj gasped. "On that setting? That's god-tier."
The players turned their eyes back to Renzo Uzumaki. The sympathy in the group was palpable. This wasn't a trial anymore; it was a public execution of a sixteen-year-old's career.
"Cuadrado, look what you've done," Badelj hissed. "The kid is going to be traumatized."
"I didn't know the machine did that!" Cuadrado defended himself weakly.
Even the veteran Joaquín chimed in, his voice stern. "Listen up. When he misses—and he will miss—nobody laughs. The kid has balls just for standing there. If I hear one snicker, you're running ten extra kilometers today."
Montella, feeling a pang of guilt, stepped toward Ren. "Ren, listen. Nobody expects you to—"
"Coach," Ren interrupted, his eyes fixed on the ball machine. "You can start the feed now."
Montella froze. He looked at Daniel, who merely shrugged with a 'let him learn' gesture. The coach sighed and pressed the ignition.
The machine hissed. A ball zipped across the grass every two seconds. The drill allowed for the player to trap the ball, settle it, and then pick their moment. But Renzo Uzumaki didn't wait.
Bang!
As the first ball reached him, Ren didn't trap it. He met it with a crisp, first-time strike using the inside of his boot.
"A one-touch pass?" Pasqual whispered.
The ball streaked across the turf, threaded the needle of the ten-meter hoop mid-acceleration, and whistled through the center.
"He hit it!"
Bang!!
The second ball. Another one-touch strike. It pierced the fifteen-meter hoop just as it tilted backward.
Bang!!!
The third ball. Twenty meters. The hardest target on the pitch. The ball didn't just go through; it stayed perfectly centered, not even grazing the sensor.
The training ground fell into a deathly silence, punctuated only by the rhythmic bang of Ren's boot and the mechanical whir of the targets.
Montella's mouth hung open. As the "Little Aeroplane" of Roma, he had played with Totti. He had seen the elite. But what he was witnessing now was a sensory overhaul.
Hit. Hit. Hit.
The players stopped rooting for him to hit it. They were now waiting, breathless, for him to finally miss. The air was thick with the realization that they weren't watching a lucky streak. They were watching a masterclass.
The ball machine let out a final hiss as the thirtieth ball was spent.
The digital scoreboard flickered, then displayed the final tally in glowing red: 29 / 30. Beside the number, a flashing gold text appeared: [NEW RECORD]
The silence was total. The Fiorentina players looked at the screen, then at the sixteen-year-old boy who wasn't even out of breath, and finally at each other.
In that moment, the same thought echoed through every mind on the pitch:
Is this kid even human?