Chapter 618: Fraudulent Tool

Dai Li had waited so long for this level-up. He had almost forgotten about it.

Dai Li’s physical fitness training center was still in operation and continuously provided him with an endless supply of experience. While he coached the Clippers, the daily training of the players also gave him experience. A total of 82 games in the regular season also gave him experience.

Despite all that, Dai Li still had to wait a while for the level-up. It had taken him years.

The distance to the next level-up was still far away. Dai Li estimated that it would probably be difficult for him to accumulate enough experience for the next rank before he reached the age of 40.

Since it was already certain that it would be a long wait. Dai Li no longer paid any attention to it. Now, he was more expectant of the rewards he would receive for leveling up.

Two items appeared in front of him, as always. On the left was a shiny gold horseshoe, spinning slowly while floating in the air. On the right was a silver gray top, suspended in the air.

“What are these?” Dai Li asked.

“On the left is the Lucky Horseshoe. You should know the meaning behind a horseshoe. It represents luck. It can bless you and your athletes with good luck in a match,” the System answered.

“That sounds very general,” Dai Li said with a frown.

There was a saying: “Luck is also part of a person’s strength.” Although there was no lack of real-life examples of people relying on luck, it was too much like gambling. When the “Lucky Horseshoe” appeared, Dai Li still could not wrap his head around the idea.

The System then began to explain. “What is luck? I don’t think I need to give you an explanation. You should already know. So, why don’t I talk about this Lucky Horseshoe? After you obtain this item, you and your athlete’s luck will slightly increase.”

“Increase by how much? Is there any hard standard? Or perhaps a quantifiable display?” Dai Li asked directly.

“The increase is marginal. That is why I said slightly increased. Most of the time, it won’t be enough to change the outcome of a match. You can disregard it,” the System answered.

“Which means that this Lucky Horseshoe isn’t really useful.” Dai Li looked disgusted.

“Also, the Lucky Horseshoe has a limited passive stat increase and is accompanied by an active skill. After possessing the Lucky Horseshoe, you will obtain the skill called Good Luck Prayer. Using Good Luck Prayer will allow you and your athletes to obtain extremely good luck. The effect’s duration is three minutes,” the System said.

“What does it mean when you say ‘extremely good luck?’” Dai Li continued to ask.

“It is what it sounds like. For example, you leave your house and pick up a dollar, you win the lottery, you get a good weapon in a video game. These are all luck,” the System answered.

“The examples you used have got nothing to do with sports,” Dai Li replied coldly.

“Of course it works in a match. For example, during a key play, if your luck is a little off, the ball won’t go in. If your luck is just slightly better, it will go in,” the System answered in an irritated manner. It then continued in the same tone. “Apart from that, let me repeat again. After using the Prayer skill, you and your athletes will obtain very good luck. The effect’s duration is three minutes.”

“Hold on a minute. You said ‘My athletes and Me?’ Does this mean that this skill can be used on me?” Dai Li suddenly asked.

“Yes. This Prayer skill can not only be used on the players, but it can also be used on you,” the System answered firmly.

Dai Li’s heart leaped in joy. Ever since he obtained the System, he had gained several skills. Those skills, however, could only be used on the athletes. The only thing that could be used on himself was the Copy Card. Now, he finally gained another skill that could be used on himself. The only thing was that Dai Li still did not know how the effect of the skill was.

Giving myself a little luck, huh? Maybe I can really try buying a lottery ticket! Dai Li thought.

Suddenly, Dai Li’s thoughts took a turn. Perhaps this Lucky Horseshoe’s Prayer skill could be used with other items.

My Request Box. When it comes to the results, it’s completely randomized. One can say that it all depends on luck. If I fail to get a good draw or a very good draw, it will be useless to me. If I use the Prayer skill first, then I will have good luck for the next three minutes. Then if I use the Request Box, will I be lucky and obtain an extremely good draw?

The thought flashed through Dai Li’s mind. If the Request Box could be combined and used in conjunction with the Lucky Horseshoe, then every time he used the Request Box, he would make a good draw.

As he thought about that, Dai Li could not wait to play a game to test and see if his ideas could be put into practice.

On the other side, the System began introducing another item, the silver top.

“This is called the Dream Creator Top. The Dream Creator Top can help you construct a dream space. After your athlete enters a dreaming state, you can pull your athlete into the dream space,” the System said.

Dai Li thought about the movie, “Inception.” He then asked, “What’s the use of the dream space?”

“This depends on what you construct in the dream space. If you construct a training ground, the dream space can allow the athletes to train. If you construct a match, then your athletes will be able to play a game in the dream space. It is worth noting that the time ratio to the real world is ten to one. That is to say that if you spend ten hours in the dream space, only one hour will pass in the real world,” the System said slowly.

“Which means that you can even train when you are dreaming! Moreover, training for ten hours in the dream only equals one hour in real life! Oh my God, this thing is a little too fraudulent!”

As Dai Li lamented, he could not help but start counting in his mind. If a person slept for eight hours a day, that meant that the total training time in the dream space was 80 hours. One year has 365 days. That meant a total training duration of 29,200 hours. In reality, an athlete could only accumulate around 30,000 hours of training volume in ten years. This Dream Creator Top could create almost 30,000 hours of dream space in one single year. If it were used for training, it was the equivalent of ten years.

For athletes, the saying ‘One minute of performance on stage requires ten years of practice off the stage’ applies. A 100m sprint athlete trained monotonously every day for decades just for those ten seconds in the arena. From this point of view, the core of the career of an athlete was daily training. As for the result of competitions or matches, they are actually the effects of their daily training. That is why training is the most important thing for athletes.

Based on this calculation, the Dream Creator Top might just be the most imbalanced and fraudulent item I have. As the saying goes, ‘Diligence makes up for want of ability.’ Even for the players with average talent, if they had ten times the amount of training time, they could still become exceptional athletes.

In the next second, Dai Li suddenly realized a problem. He quickly asked, “That’s not right, sports require activities that strengthen the body. Regardless of the sports in question, at the end of the day, the body is needed to support the activity. How can training in a dream improve the status of the body?”

“Have you heard that dreaming can strengthen the body?” The System asked.

“I know that sleeping more will help with muscle gain, but I never heard that sleeping more would strengthen the body,” Dai Li answered honestly.

“Then isn’t that your answer? Training in dreams can’t be applied to the body,” the System answered.

Dai Li’s expression turned gloomy instantly. “Sports activities always involves the body. If the dream space training isn’t effective on the athlete’s body, then athletes also won’t be able to become taller, faster, and stronger through training in their dreams. Then isn’t this dream training completely useless! I initially thought that I’ve obtained a fraudulent God item. In the end, it’s just a piece of useless junk.”

“Dream space training certainly cannot directly affect the body, but it can be used to help athletes accumulate experience. If an athlete, for example, completed 10,000 basketball shots, the technical experience and conclusion he obtained from these 10,000 shots belong to him and only him,” the System answered.

“So it’s like that.” Dai Li suddenly understood how to use the Dream Creator Top.

This item was fairly limited when it came to sports that relied more on the physical body like track and field, swimming, and weightlifting because dream space training could not increase the capability of the physical body.

For sports that required more technical skills or experience, the Dream Creator Top was very useful.

Skills and technique in sports are the accumulation of training experience and sporting talent. Sporting talent is based on genetics, no one can change that. Training experience, however, is gained later in life. Through daily training, athletes slowly accumulate experience and the accumulated experience transforms into proficiency in a particular skill. As proficiency increases, the skill or technique also gets better.

Take for example shooting a basketball. A beginner does not even know why he was missing his shots when he starts practicing shooting. After more practice and as his experience accumulates, he gradually learns the reason for each of his missed shots. It was either a lack of control in terms of power or shooting at a wrong angle.

Continued practice leads to knowing how to adjust the power and angle so that the ball will go inside the basket. With enough practice, one will generally be able to tell if the ball is going in or not as soon as the ball leaves the hands. One can even adjust the power and angle of the shot at the last moment. These were all the accumulation of experience.

After all, practice makes perfect!

This was the use of the Dream Creator Top. Although training within a dream cannot bring about any improvements to the body, it provided an accumulation of experience. Experience would only increase and never decrease. These types of experience accumulation would transform into skills and, as a result, increase the overall level of the athlete.

Then, the System continued. “I also mentioned just now that the dream space that you construct can be a training ground or a game.”

“I understand. You mean to say that if I were to construct a game and let players participate, he would be able to gain practical game experience for an entire game.” Dai Li’s ability to deduce things was still pretty good.

To construct a game and allow athletes to gain practical match experience within a dream was meaningful, especially for the younger athletes.

There were 82 games in the regular season of the NBA. A rookie who was ranked highly might be able to play all 82 games, but rookies whose rankings were lower might find it tough to get off the bench. They would be satisfied if they could even get some time on the court. If they could not get on the court during when coaches pulled good players from the game, then they had no hope of gaining any match experience. Similarly, the NBA also had players whose talents weren’t that high but managed to earn their place in the NBA through a wealth of match experience.

As long as it was a sport that involved intense physical competition, practical match experience was important. No matter how physically splendid a player was or how exceptional his techniques were, if he did not have any match experience, he would still not be a very useful newbie. On the contrary, some older veteran athletes whose physical traits had deteriorated could no longer run fast or jump high but, due to their wealth of experience, they were still the ones the coaches relied on.

The Dream Creator Top could create a match. This could help athletes supplement their weakness of lacking practical match experience.

Dai Li calculated in his mind. Based on an eight-hour sleep schedule, the athlete would be in his dream for 800 hours. A basketball match lasted 48 minutes. 800 hours equaled 16.7 basketball games. A football match was 90 minutes, so 800 hours equaled 8.9 football matches.

Take the Spanish La Liga as an example. There are 38 matches in a season. Based on this, an eight-hour sleep would equal nine games. That would be enough for a player to accumulate enough experience for one-quarter of an entire season.

Then, in the NBA, even if a player was the absolute best on the team, he would play, at most, 40 minutes per game. 800 minutes meant 20 games, it was also around a quarter of the entire season.

Based on this calculation, if a player were to sleep eight hours a day. In just four days, the dream space would be able to create an entire Spanish La Liga season or a regular NBA season. The players would be able to accumulate an entire season’s worth of match experience.

Based on this calculation, I only need 40 days to turn a newbie into a veteran with a decade of match experience! No one’s mom had to worry about them not playing in a match anymore. Come to me for a year and I’ll make you play until you want to puke!

…

The playoff season began. The first opponents of the Clippers were the Denver Nuggets.

At the beginning of the season, the Nuggets’ performance stole the spotlight. They were once ranked first. As the season progressed, however, the traditionally strong teams gradually regained their form and the results of the Nuggets gradually deteriorated. In the end, the Nuggets managed to make it into the playoffs in the highly competitive Western Conference, merely relying on their win-loss advantage.

It was the first place in the Western Conference versus the eighth place of the Western Conference. There would be no suspense. After all, miracles did not happen for them every day.

Moreover, the Nuggets were a relatively young team. This was the first time in six years that they had made it into the playoffs. Their main objective was to allow their starters to accumulate playoff match experience. They did not dream about winning through some miracle

Faced with an opponent like this, the path for the Clippers became that much easier. They swept the floor with their opponents as they won four to nothing without any suspense. The players also did not expend that much energy. They quickly made it through and waited for the next round of the playoffs at their home turf.

In the second round of the playoffs, the Clippers faced the New Orleans Pelicans.

In the past two years, the Pelicans had performed decently in the regular season. The team also constantly strengthened itself in the hope of achieving something. When it came to the playoff, the Pelicans still failed to obtain any exceptional results.

Players exhaust their patience easily when a team fails to achieve a breakthrough for a long time and the Pelicans faced this problem. At the beginning of the season, they lost two star players. It was a good thing the head coach of the Pelicans was excellent and coached the team successfully, leading the Pelicans team into the playoff season. They even made it to the second round.

This Pelican team did not have the strength to challenge the championship title. Their head coach and players also knew this. With their lineup, making the second round of the playoffs was already considered an achievement. If they wanted to go further in the playoffs, the team needed to strengthen itself through reinforcements in the next season.

Because they had already completed their task, the Pelicans team lost their ambition. They treated the matches less seriously and did not pay a lot of attention in winning or losing. Since they did not have “Fight till death” determination, they also did not have any intention of causing an upset.

Often, an objective determined the achievement.

Take a random company for example. The annual sales revenue is 100 million dollars. If the company reached the target in the first ten months, then in the following two months, a worker would have less motivation. There would definitely be people who would approach things with a “Three days of fishing and two days of net-drying,” mentality. They would take it easy until the end of the year.

In contrast, if, by the last month, the annual sales task were almost complete, everyone in the company would put in the extra effort and think up various ways to complete the sales target.

The Pelicans were like this. During the last month of the regular season, they put in everything they had and made it to the playoffs. Now, since their season target had already been achieved, the players let out a sigh of relief and were no longer persistent about victory.

The Pelicans lost their motivational target, which made things easier for the Clippers. Faced with an opponent that did not desire the championship, victory became easy. They repeated a sweep of four to zero and the Clippers made it into the Western Conference final.

The other team that made it into the Western Conference final was the Golden State Warriors. Their advancement, however, had been far tougher.

The Warriors had faced the Pistons in the first round.

The Pistons were a team that set their sights on winning the championship. To achieve their target, the management team of the Pistons did a lot of things: trades, scouting, and high-income contract renewals. They would do something big during practically every off-season. Almost every season, the lineup of the Pistons would change.

In terms of strength, the Pistons were considered a strong team, but they were definitely not amongst the best. Still, everyone knew that the Pistons was a tough opponent. In a round of games against the Pistons, even if they won, they would exhaust a lot of strength.

The Pistons’ target was to become the grand champion!

A team that set their target on winning the championship like the Pistons would always be very persistent during the playoffs. Even though they were the seventh-ranked team in the Western Conference, they would go all out and create a difficult encounter for their opponents.

After the Warriors got past the Pistons, they met with the Rockets.

The Rockets were yet another team with their sights on winning the championship. The difference with the Pistons was that they really did have the pedigree to challenge for the championship.

The two teams clashed and the Warriors narrowly broke through after seven hard-fought battles. The Warriors had completely exhausted themselves and had key players injured.

The Rockets finally lost in terms of stamina. The Rockets were stubborn and maintained they’re eight-man rotation system, resulting in the Rockets collapsing suddenly in the seventh match. It was similar to sudden death.

After all, it was the playoffs. The intensity of the games was that much greater. An eight-man rotation system was insufficient in dealing with a round that consisted of seven games.

The Western Conference final would be a clash between the Clippers and the Warriors. The first and second place of the Western Conference. A clash between the old and the young superstars. It was a clash that fans loved.