Chapter 53 Only the Beginning

Chen Yingxiong declared that he would double-kill Inter Milan next season, to which Mourinho responded: "He can try if he has the ability! But right now, I don't want to focus on this topic."

Then he stopped talking about the topic.

Chen Yingxiong also stopped discussing it. He and Mourinho had made an agreement, and now they were just waiting for the next season to arrive.

For Napoli, the more important significance of defeating Inter Milan was definitely not the post-match war of words, but that they surpassed Genoa with this victory, rising to fourth place, a ranking that would allow them to qualify for the Champions League qualifying round next season.

As long as they could maintain this ranking in the next five league rounds, this season would still be successful for them, and quite successful at that.

The day after the game, many Naples media outlets, in addition to reporting on the war of words between Chen Yingxiong and Mourinho, devoted more space to reports on the league standings.

The Champions League has a huge appeal for the Neapolitans. During Maradona's time at Napoli, the team also participated in the Champions League, but their performance was not satisfactory. Their peak in European competition was only the UEFA Cup title.

The Champions League is an honor that even Maradona didn't have.

This explains why the Neapolitans are so excited about being able to play in the Champions League next season.

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The next day during training, Mazzarri told his players before training: "This is just the beginning, don't think you can be happy just like that. Let me tell you, if we can't hold on to this position by the end of the season, the happier we are now, the more likely we are to become a laughingstock later! So, guys, from now on, train hard!"

In fact, the players were also very clear that temporarily ranking fourth in the league was meaningless, and it would all be in vain if they couldn't maintain this ranking until the end of the season.

Chen Yingxiong was naturally full of fighting spirit, not only because he could participate in the Champions League next season, but also because he could do tasks!

Since he entered the Italian league, the task system had suddenly added many tasks. This was different from Russia.

Chen Yingxiong discovered that this upgrade system itself seemed to be upgrading as well, just like going from one expansion pack to another. In Russia, the task system was more about randomly issuing tasks, triggered by him personally.

But since coming to Italy, many tasks had been added at once. Many of these tasks were long-term goals, always there, and as long as they could be completed, they could get rewards. If you couldn't complete them, they would always be there.

For example, the "Conquer the Apennines" series of tasks was divided into several small tasks, including winning the Serie A Golden Boot, winning the Italian Serie A championship, winning the Serie A Best Player, the Serie A Best Foreign Player Award... and other awards.

You must collect enough championship trophies and increase your reputation to a certain level to complete the "Conquer the Apennines" series of tasks.

Now Chen Yingxiong's reputation had changed from an unknown person to a little famous, but the distance to the next level was still very far. Chen Yingxiong didn't care much about this reputation, anyway, as he continued to score goals, win victories, and win championships, his reputation would naturally increase. Moreover, he had long discovered that even if it was the same goal, the reputation gained in different events was completely different. In the low-level Russian Premier League, the reputation gained for a goal was about ten points, while a goal in the UEFA Cup was completely different, thirty points a goal. In today's Serie A league, it was twenty-five points a goal. Chen Yingxiong didn't know how many points a goal would be worth in the Champions League, but he felt that it must be higher than the reputation in the UEFA Cup.

In addition, scoring a hat-trick, a poker (four goals), etc., could also greatly increase reputation.

In addition to "Conquer the Apennines," there was also a slightly smaller task, but the difficulty was not much smaller than "Conquer the Apennines." That was... "Conquer Naples."

Unlike the "Conquer the Apennines" series of tasks, this was a single task, but the difficulty was very high, because to complete this task and get the reward, Chen Yingxiong needed to get 95% of the local Naples fans' support... This was really too difficult for Chen Yingxiong. Even if all the neutral fans were counted, it would not exceed 50%. To gain the support of 95% of the fans, he would need to gain the support of those fans who were not so mild-mannered, but hardcore.

This was not easy.

Completing various tasks had generous rewards, such as rewarding a lot of experience and reputation. Moreover, Chen Yingxiong discovered that some tasks also rewarded... training instance upgrades!

This was something Chen Yingxiong had only recently discovered. In some special tasks, if you completed the task, you could get special rewards.

For example, in the game against AC Milan, after he completed the task of going one-on-one with Maldini and scoring a goal, he found that when he entered the training instance, he could put Maldini in the training teammates, becoming his virtual teammate. Looking at Maldini wearing a Napoli jersey, Chen Yingxiong was not used to it, and this Maldini was not forty years old, but both his appearance and physical functions were in the state of twenty-seven years old!

Chen Yingxiong suffered a lot from this young version of Maldini in training. He had fought Maldini for three hundred rounds for several nights, and he couldn't take advantage of it once. Not only in terms of technical experience, but even his own body, which he was so proud of, couldn't get any benefits from Maldini.

Only then did he know how powerful a legendary defender really was. It turned out that Maldini was so terrifying when he was young!

In fact, what he didn't know was... this was a Maldini that had been strengthened by the virtual instance, not a Maldini that was exactly the same as in reality. That's why Chen Yingxiong felt that this Maldini was particularly powerful, completely beyond his understanding.

Because he didn't know this, Chen Yingxiong sighed at Maldini's youthful freakishness while desperately trying to defeat this freakish Maldini.

He was just like that, the stronger the opponent, the more energetic he became.

This was just a virtual version of Maldini. In the "Conquer Naples" task, in addition to the generous experience and reputation rewards, there was also an extra reward, which was... an epic Maradona would appear in Chen Yingxiong's optional teammates!

But Chen Yingxiong was not particularly excited. He was thinking that he was an offensive player, and so was Maradona. What could he learn from training with Maradona? He couldn't possibly go one-on-one with Maradona and ask Maradona to defend him, right? The King of Football was not good at defending...

However, Chen Yingxiong thought to himself that it would be nice if he could gather all those legendary stars... Just think about it, what kind of people would be training with him in the instance at that time?

Maradona, Maldini, Zidane, Ronaldo, Beckham... These people are all his teammates. Training with these masters will definitely allow him to learn more and gain greater improvement, right?

Now there was only one Maldini, and he had already suffered a lot, forcing him to hone his footwork, understand tactics, and learn to use his body more rationally, instead of just relying on brute force to travel north and south...

Through these things, Chen Yingxiong discovered that the training instance was far more complex and awesome than he had imagined. He used to think that it was just to allow him to have a few more hours of training time than others, providing a venue and virtual teammates in the instance so that he could continue training at night and on holidays, and gain improvement. To put it bluntly, it was just a little more time than others.

But now it seemed that it was far more than that. This upgrade system itself was constantly upgrading, evolving, developing, and improving. New features were constantly being launched...

Not only could he train longer than others here, but he could also get higher quality training—training with Maldini was like that. Now no one could train with Maldini in his prime, because Maldini was already forty years old, and he himself was far from his prime...

This made Chen Yingxiong full of expectations for this upgrade system. Who knew what new things he would see with each "expansion pack upgrade"?

He, who liked to play online games, was immersed in it and enjoyed it immensely.

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While Chen Yingxiong was desperately improving himself in the instance, Napoli was also desperately grabbing points in the domestic league, wanting to maintain its fourth place in the league.

In the thirty-fourth round, Napoli defeated Siena 2:1 away. Chen Yingxiong did not score, but he contributed an assist.

Genoa defeated Sampdoria 3:1 at home. The difference between the two sides was only two points, biting very tightly. If Napoli was not careful, they might fall from fourth place.

This two-point gap also allowed Genoa to always see hope. They did not give up chasing, ensuring that they could win while waiting for Napoli to be unable to withstand the pressure of being the leader and make mistakes. Just like they did in the beginning.

They didn't believe that Napoli wouldn't make mistakes!

In the thirty-fifth round of the league, Napoli was another away game. They defeated Lecce 1:0. Chen Yingxiong still didn't score. But with him there, the team played very easily, and only scored one goal because the whole team was unlucky.

Genoa also won 1:0 away, against Atalanta.

These two teams were really going at it.

It was estimated that they would not be able to tell the winner until the last round of the league.

At the same time, after the end of the thirty-fifth round, the suspense of this season's Serie A championship was solved. The league title went to Inter Milan. The arrogant Mourinho really led the team to become the king of Serie A this season—he really had the capital to be arrogant!

In this way, many people began to seriously look forward to the agreement between Chen Yingxiong and Mourinho.

Next season, Inter Milan would still be the defending champion, and the league champion for four consecutive seasons. Could Chen Yingxiong really double-kill them?

Was he just saying it off the cuff, or did he really intend to do so?