Chapter 1 He's Really Tired

Zhou Yi was truly exhausted. Although he hadn't shown it too much in front of Sun Pan and Yang Muge, as soon as he finished washing up and lay down on the bed, he quickly fell asleep, even snoring softly, which made it impossible for He Ying to read.

Of course, Zhou Yi didn't know this.

He had already entered dreamland, entering that special "dreamland" that had appeared many times in the past month.

Zhou Yi was even starting to wonder if it was a virtual dream.

Zhou Yi found himself appearing on that familiar training field, surrounded by green trees, blocking the view of the outside. Looking as far as he could, he could see rolling mountains in the distance, with a touch of white on the peaks, which must be snow that never melted.

Standing in front of him was still that short-haired, beautiful woman, looking at him with a smile.

And beside him were his teammates, wearing training vests.

But when Zhou Yi turned to look at them, he was surprised to find that this time their faces were no longer blurred. Instead, they had become the teammates he had seen on the training field during the day. He could easily find his friends Sun Pan and Yang Muge, Guo Nu, who had once wanted to beat him up, and his roommate He Ying.

Except for He Ying, who looked normal, the others seemed a little strange…

Soon Zhou Yi understood. Although these people looked like his teammates, and were quite lifelike, their expressions were rather dull. The reason he thought He Ying was normal was because He Ying usually had a blank, stiff face, so there wasn't much difference from the current He Ying.

On the other hand, Sun Pan, the chatterbox, was very silent and had a dull expression, which made Zhou Yi feel something was wrong.

Just as Zhou Yi was still confused, that familiar female voice sounded again: "Welcome to the world of FIFAoL3 football, Zhou Yi."

"Huh?" Zhou Yi noticed a second thing that was off. He had heard this female voice dozens of times. Every time he dreamed of this training field, he would hear this voice. But it only had the first half of the sentence, not the second half. And the voice was clearly much more lively than before, no longer that cold, emotionless electronic simulation.

"You know my name?" He couldn't help but point to himself and ask the beauty in front of him.

"Of course. How could I not know?"

Unexpectedly, the beauty smiled charmingly and actually answered!

Zhou Yi couldn't help but open his mouth wide. In the dream before, he had tried countless times to communicate with this woman, asking her many questions, saying all sorts of nonsense, but she just kept smiling, without any response.

He didn't expect that this time she could actually answer his questions, and even her expressions were alive!

"Y-you… Uh… How do you know my name?"

"I've been in here," the beauty pointed to her head and said, "for more than a month. Living with you day and night, I even know that you last wet the bed when you were eight years and one hundred and sixty-seven days old. Isn't it normal to know your name?"

"Eight years and one hundred and sixty-seven days?" Zhou Yi was stunned for a moment, then burst into anger. "Don't joke around! How could I still be wetting the bed at that age!"

"Shouldn't you be questioning the specific number of days?" the beauty asked strangely.

"Who would remember that accurately!" Zhou Yi was still furious that the beauty said he was still wetting the bed at eight years old.

"Okay, it wasn't that accurate, but it is true that you were still wetting the bed at eight years old."

"That's a load of bull!" Zhou Yi retorted. "Who said that?!"

"You did," the beauty said, pointing at Zhou Yi.

"Me?" Zhou Yi pointed to himself. "Nonsense! When did I tell you that, in our first conversation?"

"Your memories told me. Once, after you wet the bed, your mother was washing the sheets and complaining that you were already eight years old and still wetting the bed. Perhaps you don't even remember this, but it does exist in your memory, it's just probably hidden deep, or you've consciously forgotten it."

Zhou Yi looked at her suspiciously.

Seeing that Zhou Yi didn't believe her, the beauty continued, "When you were in the first grade of elementary school, you had a crush on someone. But when the other students were joking around, you said in front of your crush, 'I would rather die than like her'…"

Zhou Yi was shocked and quickly raised his hands. "I give up, please stop!"

The beauty immediately shut up, just continuing to look at Zhou Yi.

Zhou Yi wiped away his sweat. "Who exactly are you?"

"I'm Chu Ling, the administrator of the FIFAoL3 system."

"Why do you know my memories?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't intentionally read your memories. But since I appeared in your brain, I've automatically become one with your brain, inseparable. So it's not that I intentionally wanted to know, but your brain let me know."

"Appeared in my brain? Become one?" Zhou Yi became more and more confused.

So the short-haired beauty, Chu Ling, explained it to him. Since thirty-three days ago, when she first appeared in Zhou Yi's brain, she quickly became a part of Zhou Yi's brain.

Thirty-three days ago… Zhou Yi carefully calculated and realized that the first time he dreamed of this training field and Chu Ling was thirty-three days ago. That day, he saw the news about this reality show on TV for the first time, and decided to participate, even clashing with his mother and going on a hunger strike to show his determination.

"Then why didn't you talk to me before when I greeted you?"

"Because the system was still in hibernation. Actually, I only gained consciousness two days ago," Chu Ling said.

"Why is that?"

"Because you needed to gain my approval."

"Approval?"

"Yes, you won that final with your own ability, gained my approval, and unlocked the system. So now you can see that your teammates' faces are no longer blurred," Chu Ling pointed to the players next to them who were standing quietly and listening to them without any reaction.

"Speaking of which, what exactly does this system do?" Zhou Yi was now like a curious baby, with ten thousand questions to ask, one after another.

But Chu Ling was a very patient explainer. She explained every question Zhou Yi asked in detail and patiently.

In this question-and-answer session, Zhou Yi gradually understood what the system did and how to use it.

Basically, this system could help Zhou Yi improve his strength, but how exactly would it do that?

He needed to accumulate a lot of experience by doing various trainings with virtual teammates in the virtual training field, and participating in matches to challenge different opponents. The accumulation of this experience would directly affect his brain, allowing him to take away what he learned and accumulated in the training and apply it to real-world football.

In other words, the system couldn't directly give Zhou Yi any immediate special effects, like a *duang* sound and Zhou Yi would be shining with golden light, leveling up.

The effect of the training was subtle, working on Zhou Yi day after day, and it might take some time to see the results. In addition, the training he did in the system would help him in real-world training, improving the effectiveness of real-world training.

Whether it was training for the brain or training for the body, it was effective for Zhou Yi, but the effect of brain training might be better than body training.

Moreover, time in the system was not equal to real time, but much faster than real time. One day in the system was equivalent to one hour in real time. This allowed him to quickly accumulate a lot of experience and do a lot of training and matches.

Normally, a player in the real world would have to wait until he was almost thirty years old to become an experienced veteran.

But here, Zhou Yi might only need two or three years to accumulate a lot of match experience.

Football is a sport that emphasizes body, skill, intelligence, and talent, but it is also a sport that is highly dependent on experience. Players with rich experience and in their physical prime are absolute starters on any team.

And if Zhou Yi could accumulate a lot of rich experience at a young age and become a "veteran," his future would be absolutely limitless.

The magical system couldn't immediately give him a permanent ability enhancement, which didn't disappoint Zhou Yi. On the contrary, when he heard that he could now train with his teammates, he seemed very excited.

Because this was exactly what he wanted most right now.

He knew that physical training was an indispensable stage, but if he really wasn't allowed to train with the team for two whole weeks, he would probably go crazy. And now, because of this system, he had such a good opportunity: he could do physical training in the real world to strengthen his body, and at the same time, he could train with his teammates in the virtual space, perfectly solving the problem that Zhou Yi was worried about.

According to Chu Ling's explanation, the virtual teammates in the virtual training field, despite being emotionless robots, were perfect reflections of the actual abilities of Zhou Yi's teammates in reality, and their data would be adjusted at any time according to the latest performance and status of the real teammates, so that they always matched reality.

In this way, when Zhou Yi trained with these virtual teammates, it would be the same as training with his real teammates, and the effect would be exactly the same.

Zhou Yi was also concerned about safety issues. After all, suddenly having this thing in his brain always made him feel that his brain was no longer the original factory version, but a modified, added-on compatible machine. He was worried that the two would not be compatible, causing a conflict, and then… he would explode and die.

To this, Chu Ling explained, "You don't have to worry about that. Actually, the system only starts working after you fall asleep. This is to avoid conflicting with the normal functioning of your brain. Because during sleep, although the brain is still working, not all areas are active. I will use the dormant part of your brain to work, to build this world."

Chu Ling continued to explain, "This will not affect your brain in any way, because for humans, the cerebral cortex in charge of perception and movement does not account for most of the entire cerebral cortex. These parts account for a very small proportion, and a larger part is the non-perceptual, non-motor area. Because these areas cannot be awakened by electrical stimulation, they are called the 'silent cortex.' This is not to say that these cortexes are not being used. They have always been working, leading the more advanced functions that humans possess—language and abstract thinking. When you sleep, those silent cortexes may be more active…"

"Of course, don't worry that you won't sleep well because of this, that won't happen. Because sleep doesn't mean the brain shuts down, otherwise you'd be dead. Sleep is just a part of the brain resting, the neuron connections are broken, and information cannot be transmitted. And another part of the brain is still working while awake. Sleepwalking is a good example, you can see both awake and sleep states at the same time. So your brain is supposed to continue working while you sleep, it's just that the system makes this part of the work more efficient and more targeted…"

"So you will feel like you are dreaming. From this perspective, you are indeed dreaming, because dreaming is also proof that your brain is working. It's just that the brain used to work randomly, so your dreams were also random and hard to remember. But now, after strengthening the state of your brain working during sleep, the situation is different…"

Chu Ling was eloquent, chattering on and on, while Zhou Yi looked dazed. The topic had completely entered a deep world he didn't know. He felt like he was constantly falling down in a dark space, but he didn't know when it would end.

So he decisively interrupted Chu Ling's科普 (kēpǔ, popular science): "Just tell me the result."

"The result is that this system is safe and efficient, green and organic, with absolutely no toxic side effects," Chu Ling said in a nutshell.

"This advertising slogan is quite smooth…" Zhou Yi complained.

"You're welcome, I learned it all from watching commercials with you," Chu Ling said modestly, indicating that the credit was half hers and half Zhou Yi's.

Zhou Yi then realized that he and Chu Ling were actually two manifestations of himself. Any information he received in real life would be received by Chu Ling at the same time.

One body with two personalities… He even had to use two hands at once, it seemed a little schizophrenic?

But fortunately, Zhou Yi's thinking had always been known for being active and unrestrained, otherwise, how could he have so many hobbies that lasted for three minutes? So Zhou Yi didn't care about this and wouldn't be bothered by it.

Since he had never been bothered by why he could form a flat bird's-eye view in his mind just by looking at the situation on the field, why should he be bothered by this system?

He was more concerned about training now. He couldn't wait to start training in the system immediately.

"No problem. Do you want to do individual training or team training?" Chu Ling asked.

"Of course, it's team training! Joint practice! What's the point of individual training?" Zhou Yi said confidently.

Chu Ling hesitated, but she didn't stop Zhou Yi. Instead, she helped Zhou Yi enter the team practice mode. Those teammates who were originally standing motionless beside Zhou Yi like mannequin models also began to move.

Zhou Yi set his position to the striker, which he was most familiar with and wanted to play the most, and began attacking training with the whole team. This was also the set of training that the team did on the training field during the day.

Before he started training, Chu Ling told Zhou Yi that she didn't need to stay on the sidelines all the time. It would take up more brain resources to maintain her presence, so she would disappear directly. But if Zhou Yi needed her, he could call her out by saying her name.

Zhou Yi waved his hand, indicating that he understood, and said goodbye to her at the same time. Then, he enthusiastically began his first joint practice.