Gooooooaaaaaaallllll!!!!
Pheeeewww!? Pheeeewww!? Pheeeeeeewwwwww!?
The final whistle.
The audience was in estacy. Their new club favourite have won the match. The referee blew the whistle after the goal was scored.
Wait!
How did she got a new beginning?
Joan gazed out at the endless expanse of the sky, her mortal body silently turn cold as the final moments of her life slipped away. The world around her, once so vibrant, now felt distant and muffled. Her dreams—of standing on the world stage, achieving greatness, and proving herself—remained painfully out of reach. She was a prodigy in her previous life, born with brilliance and ambition, but life had not been kind to her. Betrayed, defeated, and cast aside, Joan succumbed to an enigmatic and metaphysical demise that even she couldn't comprehend.
It wasn't just death that embraced her—it was something far stranger. A swirling vortex of light and shadow enveloped her, whispering words in an ancient, unknown elder language. The next thing she knew, she awoke in a place beyond her imagination. It feels so unreal. One moment she had battle with a sacrifice spell for wealth cast on her by a greedy extended family and the next moment...
Joan found herself reborn in a world of celestial splendor—the magical Gods Realm. Here, the skies shimmered with golden light, rivers of divine energy flowed freely, and towering spires of marble pierced the heavens. However, this realm came with its own peculiarities.
In this world, every human at the age of 16 underwent a rite of passage called the Baptism of Awakening. The baptism revealed a person's innate talent and bound them to a cosmic force that granted them unique abilities. But this world wasn't about warriors or mages or scholars. It was about football. Yea! You guessed right. They called it - Divine Football.
In the Gods Realm, the highest form of achievement lay in owning and managing football clubs. The sport was no ordinary game here; it was a mystical art, a battlefield of strategy and power. Talents awakened during the baptism determined one's prowess as a football club owner and head coach, shaping destinies and rivalries alike.
The talents were graded from F, the most mundane, to X, the stuff of legends. An X-grade talent had never been seen in the history of the realm, and many dismissed it as mere myth. Most people awakened at C or D grade, while the lucky few reached A or S grades. Joan, however, was destined for something entirely different.
Joan's second life began in the bustling city of Aevallure, a hub of trade, magic, and football fandom. Raised by a humble couple who adored her, Joan was a curious and resourceful child. Her sharp wit and fierce determination quickly made her a local prodigy. By the time she turned 15, whispers of her brilliance spread far and wide. People spoke of her as the next great mind, someone destined to change the realm forever.
But everything changed during her Baptism.
The ceremony was a grand affair, held in a sacred stadium imbued with divine energy. Thousands of teenagers gathered, standing on individual pedestals as beams of light descended from the heavens. One by one, their talents were revealed.
"Grade C!"
"Grade B!"
"Grade A!"
The crowd cheered for the higher grades, while those who received F or D hung their heads in shame.
Some shone in different ways: the artistry of a player, the raw spark of a trainee, the vision of a manager — and countless talents besides.
When it was Joan's turn, the air grew still. Everyone held their breath, expecting greatness. The beam of light that enveloped her pedestal was brighter than any seen before. It pulsed with raw, chaotic energy, and the divine sigils in the air danced in a frenzy.
"X... Grade!" the High Priest announced, his voice trembling.
The crowd gasped. An X-grade talent had appeared for the first time in history! Joan's heart swelled with pride and determination. She had been given a chance to rewrite her destiny, to achieve everything she couldn't in her previous life.
But as quickly as the excitement came, it vanished. The divine energy around her faltered, flickering like a dying flame. Cracks appeared in the sigils, and the light dimmed.
"Broken X-grade talent," the High Priest corrected, his tone now laced with pity. "A talent of unimaginable potential... but damaged beyond repair."
The crowd erupted into murmurs. Some laughed, others jeered. The greatest genius of their generation had become a laughingstock overnight.
Joan's broken X-grade talent was a cruel gift. It promised unparalleled power and insight into the game of football, but only if it could be repaired. The process required immense amounts of divine energy, a resource she didn't have access to.
Her talent allowed her to see glimpses of strategies and formations far beyond the comprehension of ordinary or deity views, but the visions were fragmented and incomplete. She could sense the potential of players, read the flow of games, and craft extraordinary tactics—but only in brief, fleeting moments before the broken talent failed her.
Though, broken she felt satisfied as her talent merge with her soul. It's broken not destroyed. It can be fixed. It will amount to vast amount of resources. Such resources was not in her beck and call cause she is from a humble beginning.
Her peers mocked her mercilessly. Rival club owners and investors dismissed her as a failed genius, a cautionary tale about the dangers of hubris.
"Genius turned trash," they called her. "What good is potential if it's broken?"
Even those who once admired her began to doubt her. Her parents tried to console her, but their pity stung more than the insults. Joan found herself isolated, her dreams of greatness slipping further away with each passing day.
But Joan was not one to give up. Her previous life had taught her resilience, and her new life gave her a second chance. She resolved to repair her talent, no matter the cost. If divine energy was what she needed, she would find a way to obtain it.
She started small because she had to start somewhere in the ladder of greatness, she couldn't pick great players. No divine being could wait for a miracle. A broken talent has never being fixed in their universe. This was a proven fact. Everything look bleak at the top scout hierarchy. It also look bleak on club membership and fans base. Every divine can only choose a sole club to support in their endless lifespan but not applicable to divine players and club staffs.
Well, she didn't mind at all. She descended too low to a grassroots level. Admitting ragtag group of very young players who had been cast aside by other clubs. They were the misfits, the rejects—players with no future. Joan saw potential in them that others couldn't, even with her broken talent.
As a previous indigene of Earth, she understood the game football and had brothers who were diligent to explain the game to her. She understood through sheer determination and hard work, she can mold them into a cohesive team. She can make it happen. She will draw inspiration from the legendary earth movie - Shaolin soccer. Or the legendary comic - Supa Striker.
A genius with unimaginable brain chemistry, capacity and power. She studied every aspect of the game, from tactics and formations to player psychology and training methods. She poured her heart and soul into her work, determined to prove her worth.
She was rewarded.
The reincarnation's gold finger arrived. A little too late. A week after she obtained her Divine football talent. Making it 16 years and a week. Though she read a lot of novels in her first life, she was completely hopeful of the legendary system. Yet...
The screen is black. Silence lingers...
Suddenly—
A single golden rune flickers into view. It spins slowly, casting radiant arcs across the void like ancient tactical formations. A low hum begins to rise—deep, harmonious, almost like a stadium choir breathing in unison.
As the rune rotates, lines of sacred geometry unfurl from its core, drawing out the blueprint of a pitch not made of chalk, but light and ether. Goals appear—hovering, shimmering. Midfield lines pulse to the rhythm of an unseen heartbeat. Spectral player outlines flicker into formation.
Then—BOOM. A celestial flare bursts overhead. The entire screen becomes engulfed in tactical symbols, numerical prophecies, and divine glyphs—scrolling like ancient match statistics rewritten in fire and code.
A voice of unshakable calm fills the space:
[Ding!
"You have reached the Threshold. The Pitch awaits your vision. Welcome, Seeker... to the Divine to Football System. Lead not just a team—lead destiny itself."}
The glyphs collapse inward, forming a diamond-like interface—elegant, clean, but pulsing with unearthly energy. She saw a control panel bloom open, like a lotus in slow motion.
Formations dance like constellations. Divine being glow with soul-scores above their heads. It ripples with cosmic weight and detailed stat of those beings.