Chapter 1 Though Chen Hero's First Training Instance Was a Grueling Experience

Although Chen Hero's first experience in the training instance was extraordinarily brutal, leaving him without even the strength to speak, he was happy nonetheless, because his experience points soared!

Yesenin told him after he recovered that the training instance not only improved his own abilities, but also increased the speed of experience accumulation exponentially.

Originally, he needed 90,000 experience points to level up from Level 5 to Level 6. He had already gained one-third of that, leaving two-thirds, or 60,000 experience points.

But half an hour of training in the instance gave him 6,000 experience points! An average of 200 points per minute!

He knew that he used to get only 3,000 experience points after hanging up for three hours...

Yesenin didn't lie to him. This was indeed a faster way to become stronger than before.

It just required a lot, lot more hard work.

Chen Hero spent half an hour tossing and turning before falling asleep until the next morning. When he woke up, he was still sore all over. It was as if he had been beaten up, and everything hurt.

He finally understood what the sentence "all reactions in the instance can be fed back to reality" meant.

His physical condition would naturally affect his normal training.

So his condition was not very good during the morning training session.

However, one thing surprised Chen Hero—the weight-bearing practice mode in the instance was gone. The weight he had endured in the instance was completely absent here. Without such constraints, he felt much lighter than he did in the instance.

The result of this was…

Chen Hero kicked the ball, and it slammed into the goalpost. After a crisp clang, the goalkeeper Malafeev grinned as he looked at the slightly vibrating goal frame—if the ball had hit him in the face, it probably would have caused a nosebleed...

Chen Hero swung his leg in the air and found that it felt much lighter than before. It was now difficult to control his strength...

But... why should I control my strength? Chen Hero thought.

Strength is my advantage. Why should I control my own advantage?

Chen Hero had already figured out what he would level up first.

"Heavy Cannon"—to maximize his shooting power!

Having only a header as a scoring weapon was too weak. If he also had a long shot that could hit the target from a hundred paces away, he could catch his opponents off guard. In the penalty area, he would be an aerial threat, and outside the penalty area, he would transform into a battleship, bombarding the goal with heavy artillery, unstoppable and invincible!

Just thinking about this gave Chen Hero the motivation to level up.

Therefore, no matter how hard or tiring the instance training mode was, he would grit his teeth and persevere in order to level up as soon as possible!

He didn't have much time left...

Tekke had already started to resume training. Although he had not yet practiced with the team, Chen Hero believed that his return was only a matter of time. If he couldn't make changes before Tekke returned, it would take a lot of luck to turn things around.

Advocaat would obviously trust the experienced Tekke more than him, with his prominent strengths and equally prominent weaknesses.

"Hey, Hero, do you want to go out and have some fun tonight?" After training, Denisov came over. He saw that Chen Hero's condition in training today was not very good, and he was afraid that the game that day had hit him hard, so he suggested going out to play and relax, which might make him feel better.

But Chen Hero shook his head and refused: "Thank you, Tuanzhang (regiment commander). But I don't have time recently..."

"Ah? What's the matter?"

Chen Hero certainly wouldn't tell Denisov that he had an awesome training system and leveling system, and that he wanted to seize the time to grind in the instance to gain experience and level up, then come back and beat his opponents. He made an excuse: "My language teacher is leaving, and I want to take advantage of his presence to learn more Russian."

"I think your Russian is already very good..."

"I don't think it's nearly enough!"

Since Chen Hero didn't want to go, Denisov couldn't do anything about it, so he had to go find the other two members of the group.

Chen Hero didn't even do extra training. As soon as training ended, he ran back to his dormitory.

Advocaat watched Chen Hero's performance today. His condition was not good during training, and he didn't arrange extra training for himself after training.

Did he give up on himself?

If that were the case, then he would have to give up on him.

A player without ambition can't succeed...

But what a pity, such outstanding talent...

In fact, after performing poorly in the game against Moscow Spartak, there was indeed a lot of criticism in the media, and Chen Hero's guess was correct. However, this time the criticism seemed very reasonable and well-founded, making it impossible to refute.

It was no longer like the first time, when they exaggerated something about him going to nightclubs and were slapped in the face by Chen Hero.

The media all held the view that Chen Hero's characteristics were too singular and prominent, making it easy to be studied and understood.

He had only appeared three times and was able to score five goals, which only showed that his opponents at the time didn't know enough about him and were caught off guard. Once he became famous, more opponents would pay attention to him, study him, and try to stop him.

In fact, this was indeed the case. After the game between Zenit and Moscow Spartak, Spartak's coach Vladimir Fedotov said when talking about how they contained the previously unstoppable Chen Hero: "...In the last round of the league, although Wings of the Soviets scored three goals by Hero, their tactical changes in the second half inspired me..."

Now it seemed that the hat-trick against Wings of the Soviets was both a good thing and a bad thing, but this was a test that was bound to come sooner or later. If Chen Hero couldn't pass this test, he would only have so much potential in his life.

The media didn't understand why Chen Hero's characteristics were so prominent and singular, and many media outlets even made such pessimistic conclusions about Chen Hero—"...Chen Hero's physical fitness is very outstanding, but apart from headers, his other abilities are very average. It is now very difficult to improve these abilities. I think he will become a shooting star, shining brightly when he streaks across the sky, but will quickly fade into obscurity..."

Chen Hero saw all the criticisms of him in the media and kept them in his heart. But he didn't respond, just gritted his teeth and trained, trained, and trained again, desperately enduring the huge weight-bearing pressure in the instance, increasing the training time day by day.

Just to be able to level up sooner, level up faster.

And then... slap the faces of those who say he is a shooting star today!

You guys just gloat, take advantage of the time when I'm buried in leveling up, seize the time to gloat. When I come out again, we will settle the accounts one by one! Clearly!

"Buried in leveling up."

These four words perfectly summarized what Chen Hero had been doing during this period.

He gave up the opportunity to go out to eat, drink, and have fun with Denisov and the others, gave up all amateur activities, and the new Dell laptop he had bought not long ago was only used to check the leveling status and nothing else.

Except for eating and sleeping, all his time was spent training. If his body could handle it, he really wanted to train all night long.

Just to be able to level up sooner and get a new "ultimate weapon" sooner.

Thanks to his efforts, in less than a week, he had successfully crossed the threshold of Level 6.

Yesenin was very surprised by his achievements.

He never thought that a human could level up so quickly, especially under the torment of the instance training mode. The energy and firm belief contained in Chen Hero's body shocked him.

When Chen Hero was gritting his teeth and insisting on practicing in the instance, he heard Yesenin say: "Hero, you leveled up."

This sentence was like a "school bell," instantly causing Chen Hero to collapse to the ground.

The surrounding environment also receded from his eyes like a tide, quickly returning to normal. He was lying on the floor of his dormitory—with the instance system, you don't need to go to the training ground in person to enter the instance. You can enter the instance at any location and then return to the place where you were before entering the instance after exiting.

Lying face up on the ground, he breathed a sigh of relief: "Damn... I'm exhausted..."

He had indeed made progress now. At least he could still speak after training...

Yesenin asked him: "Have you decided to choose 'Heavy Cannon'?"

"Yes."

"But Heavy Cannon has five talent points..."

"So I have to keep practicing!" Chen Hero stretched out his arms and legs and made a big character shape: "Let me rest for a while, and we'll continue!"

In the weekend league game, Chen Hero still started. They were playing against Lokomotiv Moscow at home. Facing the twelfth-ranked team, Zenit went on a killing spree this time and won the final victory 4:1.

However, Chen Hero was still closely guarded by the entire opposing team in the game, so he didn't perform well. Moreover, Chen Hero's physical condition didn't seem to be very good, and he looked very tired on the field.

This time, he was substituted by Advocaat after only playing for sixty-five minutes.

"Obviously, Advocaat is using this method to express his dissatisfaction with Chen Hero..." said Sergei Yershovsky, a commentator for the local St. Petersburg television station. "But he has a reason for doing so. Chen Hero's performance in this game was quite bad!"

Sergei Yershovsky must be regretting now that he had praised Chen Hero so much at the beginning, and now it all seemed like he was slapping himself in the face...

In fact, Chen Hero's performance was not as bad as they thought. At least Chen Hero attracted most of Lokomotiv's defensive attention on the field, creating opportunities for his teammates.

That's why Zenit was able to defeat Lokomotiv Moscow 4:1 at home.

The main reason was that Chen Hero had performed too fiercely in the previous games, especially the hat-trick against Wings of the Soviets, which raised everyone's expectations of him.

So as long as Chen Hero didn't score, it meant he was in bad shape...

After the game, a reporter shouted at Chen Hero in the mixed zone: "Where has your form gone!"

Chen Hero hurried away without stopping.

The St. Petersburg media finally won a round against Chen Hero...