Chapter 161 "Do You Really Want to Become Stronger Faster?"

"Do you really want to become stronger faster?" Chen Hero hadn't expected Yesenin to not shake his head and refuse this time, or spout nonsense like, "You can become stronger just by continuing like this."

However, Chen Hero wasn't surprised by his sudden rhetorical question. He said, "What nonsense! Didn't you see how I looked at the Luzhniki Stadium?"

"But that means you'll have to pay more sweat and effort, and your body will have to endure greater pressure. And… it's possible that you might get injured in the process, your body might collapse, and you might have to completely withdraw from professional football, unable to continue playing… Even so, are you willing?"

Chen Hero was stunned for a moment. "That exaggerated?"

"No, not at all exaggerated. To succeed, you have to pay a price that ordinary people can hardly imagine. I think not taking your life is already being polite. Do you know that there's a guy named Guo Nu who set a punishment for his protagonist that he would die if he failed?"

Chen Hero had no idea who Guo Nu was, so he shook his head.

"So, if you want to succeed, if you want to become a true hero, if you want to defeat those who laugh at you, then you have to… pay these prices, take the risk of being seriously injured, take the risk of your body collapsing, take the risk of completely withdrawing from professional football, unable to continue playing, and move forward. Did you think it was so easy to be a hero? Just get a few talents and you can dominate the field, sweep away your opponents, and slap the media in the face?"

Yesenin took a step forward with each sentence he spoke. When he finally walked up to Chen Hero, Chen Hero was surprised to find that Yesenin seemed to be as tall as he was, and the aura emanating from his whole body was different from before…

Was it an illusion?

"You think injuries, physical collapse, and early retirement from professional football are exaggerated? Then look back, at those people, those predecessors of yours, what they've experienced… Look back."

Yesenin pointed behind Chen Hero.

Chen Hero really looked back… and then he was startled!

Behind him, the empty stadium had suddenly turned into a stadium with stands, fans, and players in a match… He could hear the huge uproar, and even the commentator's voice…

In front of him, two teams were engaged in a fierce battle. One side was wearing Lazio's sky-blue jerseys, and the other was wearing Inter Milan's black and blue striped shirts. In front of the goal, a player wearing the Inter Milan black and blue striped number 9 jersey was making a pendulum-like feint. Just then, he suddenly lost all momentum, collapsed to the ground, and howled in pain, clutching his knee.

The San Siro suddenly lost all its noise and fell into dead silence.

"Oh! Oh! Oh… God! Ronaldo! Ronaldo is injured! This is his first game back after being injured for four months, but he… has fallen again! Look at his painful expression… his career is over…"

The commentator's voice gradually faded until it disappeared completely, and the screen changed with it.

A player wearing a Brescia blue and white jersey stood on the sidelines, raising his hands to bid farewell to the fans in the stadium, as the fans in the stands shouted loudly.

"Roberto Baggio has finally retired… In fact, I thought he was going to retire as early as 1984. He insisted on playing for twenty years with an injured leg, and it's really admirable that he was able to get this far. In a match between Vicenza and Rimini on May 3, 1984, he was tackled and injured, tearing the meniscus and anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee. His wound required two hundred and twenty stitches in that surgery…"

The sound faded again, and the screen gradually changed.

At a crowded press conference, the dashing man in the horizontal striped casual t-shirt spread out his hands: "A very simple sentence, I have decided to say goodbye to football…"

Suddenly, the flashes went off, and in the white light, there seemed to be a glimmer in the corner of this man's eye…

Yesenin's voice rang out behind Chen Hero: "Ronaldo, Roberto Baggio, Marco van Basten, Michael Owen, Sebastian Deisler… How many players have had their careers affected by injuries? How many players have decided to leave the football field early because of injuries? They are all talented, but because of injuries, they had to say goodbye to football, or they could never reach the level they should have reached in their lifetime. Is that exaggerated? No, this is something that happens every day in the world of football, but you can see the experiences of those famous stars. Who cares about the departure of those ant-like nobodies?"

"When Pele played, the crude style of defense was rampant, and he was repeatedly knocked to the ground by his opponents. Because of injuries, he even missed the 1962 and 1966 World Cups due to injuries. But he is the King of Football, and the number he chose has become the number pursued by countless players now. When Maradona played for Barcelona, he was tackled by Andoni Goikoetxea of Athletic Bilbao, breaking his leg. This serious injury later led him to leave Barcelona and transfer to Napoli. But he created his own dynasty in Napoli, and he became the King of Football in history, on par with Pele."

"Some people have not withstood the test, and some people have withstood the test. This is football, Hero. If you want to become the one-in-a-million hero you talk about, you must withstand such a test. So, that kind of price is actually very normal."

"Choosing this path does not mean that you will definitely succeed, because there are still many, many tests along the way. This is not a comfortable and pleasant journey, but a road full of traps, thorns, dangers, and various forks. In fact, if you don't choose this path, just work hard like you are now, you can also become a world-class star, upgrade slowly, step by step, and the risk is much smaller…"

Chen Hero suddenly interrupted Yesenin's words: "Who wants to be world-class? I want to be the strongest in the world!"

"So you're choosing to take this dangerous path?"

Chen Hero spread out his hands: "Is there any other path to choose?"

Yesenin smiled: "No."

"Then that's it. Tell me what to do."

Yesenin snapped his fingers.

Chen Hero found that the environment he was in had changed. The training ground was still the training ground, but the training ground was no longer empty, but full of his teammates…

"This is…" Chen Hero was confused. Did he time travel?

"Train, Hero! If you want to improve yourself, improve yourself faster, you need to spend more time doing more intense training." Yesenin's voice rang out, and he looked around, finding Yesenin standing behind him.

"What's going on?"

"Simply put, a training instance. You will get more training opportunities here, and… it is training with confrontation and meaning, not the kind of training where you take a football and shoot at the goal by yourself. Everything you consume here will be perfectly reflected in reality. Now it's…" Yesenin looked at his watch. "Three o'clock in the afternoon. When you finish training for two hours and quit, you will find that the time in reality has also reached five o'clock in the afternoon. You consumed physical strength in the training, and when you quit the training, you will find that you are exhausted. By the same token, you were injured in training…"

"I'll also be injured in reality?" Chen Hero asked.

"That's right. Since you can get improved here by training, there's no reason why you should only get the benefits and not the disadvantages, right? So you can both get improved here and get injured here."

Chen Hero was listening to Yesenin explain it to him when he heard Assistant Coach Potter's roar: "What are you dawdling about? Chen Hero! Come over and train!"

Chen Hero turned around to run, but as soon as he took a step, he staggered… almost falling to the ground!

"What's going on?" Chen Hero only felt that his legs were as heavy as lead, extremely heavy. And not just his legs, his arms, his shoulders, his whole body… was very heavy!

"Did you think it was just as simple as letting you practice for a few more hours? You're doing weight training now!"

"Damn…" Chen Hero shouted. "That's too ruthless, right?"

"A man has to be ruthless to himself," Yesenin said.

"Your sister! You're the one being ruthless to me!"

"What I mean is that you have to be ruthless to yourself." Yesenin waved his hand: "Go ahead, be careful if you dawdle any longer, the assistant coach will give you trouble. Your interpersonal relationships in reality will also be perfectly reproduced here. Also, you can quit at any time, just tell me. I'll be right here." Yesenin pointed to the place under his feet.

Chen Hero glared at Yesenin, took heavy steps, and ran towards the training ground.

Just running onto the training ground, he felt that he was already starting to pant… This weight load was not light.

To complete the training under such circumstances, even some daily training would be enough to make him feel strenuous, not to mention… in fact, all the training here was designed specifically for Chen Hero.

What he had to do today was the ability to shoot in confrontation.

When the football was passed over, he didn't even swing his leg, and the football was poked away… because his legs were too heavy.

"What are you doing? Hero? Your movements are too slow!" Potter's roar rang out.

"It's not my fault, it's because… I'm wearing weights!" Chen Hero wanted to defend himself.

But he found that Potter didn't respond to his words at all, just said to himself: "Concentrate! When you see the football being passed over, you have to judge the landing point in advance, and then react quickly! This is in the penalty area, you don't have much time to adjust, don't be slow!"

Chen Hero thought to himself, it seems that these characters are just program settings after all, it is impossible for them to respond to all his actions… But that's fine, so as to avoid a lot of unnecessary trouble. He should just focus on training.

Throughout the training process, Potter kept roaring at him. Fortunately, Denisov, Anyukov, and Kerzhakov could still comfort him, otherwise he would really be depressed to death.

Everything here was exactly the same as outside, Chen Hero even felt that Yesenin had copied the real training outside and directly moved it to this virtual space. It didn't feel very real, but… this was real!

Chen Hero only lasted for half an hour before he was completely exhausted. Although he didn't say he wanted to quit even if he died, Yesenin still decisively ended the training.

In the blink of an eye, Chen Hero found himself lying on the training ground he was on before entering the instance. Except for Yesenin, it was empty all around. Where were his teammates and that assistant coach Potter who was always roaring…

He really felt exhausted, and he didn't even have the strength to speak.

Yesenin squatted down.

"How was the first experience?" he asked.

Chen Hero opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Then Yesenin focused his attention on his slightly raised right hand.

Four fingers slowly curled up, and in the end only one middle finger remained.