The team bus pulled away from the Mestalla into the Valencia night, the stadium's floodlights diminishing in the rear window. Around Lorenzo, the post-match routine was already in motion, Alves had secured the window seat he always fought for, Messi had his headphones on, Neymar was showing Bartra something on his phone. The ordinary rhythms of a squad that had done its job and was ready to leave.
Lorenzo settled into his seat, let the noise of the bus become background, and opened the chest.
[Ding! Opening Valencia 'Legendary' Star Chest...]
He looked at it for a moment. The Valencia badge, the Bat crest. The club had produced Mendieta, David Villa, David Silva - a production line of genuine quality across four decades. The chest from a side like that carried weight.
Then the gambling instinct surfaced.
He had done this once before, with the Zaragoza chest. The Roulette had given him Romário then. The memory of that result made the itch difficult to ignore.
"Activate: Chest Reforge Roulette," he commanded.
[Ding! Reforging Valencia 'Legendary' Star Chest... spinning...]
[Result: Levante UD 'Legendary' Star Chest × 1!]
He paused. Levante. Valencia's local rivals, perennial survivors in the lower reaches of the division. On the surface it looked like a step down, trading the chest of a Champions League club for one from a side that had spent most of its history in the Segunda.
Then he let the thought settle.
"Open it," he said.
[Ding! Opening Levante UD 'Legendary' Star Chest...]
[Congratulations! You have received: Johan Cruyff - 'The Turn' Template (100% Initial Load)!]
[Effect: The Cruyff Turn. A sudden deceleration combined with a 180-degree drag-back, designed to leave a tracking defender committed to a direction that no longer exists. At 100% load, the execution is immediate and requires no setup touch — applicable at any speed, in any space, under any defensive pressure. The tighter the marking, the more effective the move. Ideal for breaking double and triple coverage without physical confrontation.]
Lorenzo reached for the memory.
Cruyff. The late 1970s, after his first retirement from Barcelona. Before Ajax, before Feyenoord, there had been a brief, almost forgotten loan spell at Levante in 1981, a footnote that almost nobody cited when they recounted the Godfather's career. The greatest footballer of his generation, playing Segunda División football in eastern Spain. Even in that context, the quality had been impossible to hide.
Lorenzo sat with it for a moment. The Cruyff Turn, one of the simplest moves in football's vocabulary, and one of the most disruptive when executed at the right moment. Every defender in the world knew it existed. Knowing it existed and stopping it were two entirely different things.
As his arsenal grew, the Pendulum for open space, the Drogba frame for physical duels, the Romário touch for close quarters, the Turn added something none of the others provided: a pure escape mechanism. When three men had him cornered and brute force wasn't the answer, a single deceleration and drag-back could make all three of them redundant simultaneously.
He felt it integrate immediately, the mechanics settling into his instincts without the usual calibration period. 100% from the first moment. It would be there whenever he needed it.
[Ding! Stadium Codex Update:]
[La Liga - Cycle 2: 2/3 lit. Estadi Cornellà-El Prat, Mestalla.]
[Champions League: 1/3 lit. Parc des Princes.]
[Bundesliga: 1/3 lit. Signal Iduna Park.]
One more La Liga stadium. He knew where the third lamp was going. The Pizjuán was three days away.
He pulled up the attribute panel while the bus crossed the outskirts of Valencia, the motorway opening up ahead.
[Name: Lorenzo | Age: 17 | Height: 187cm | Weight: 86kg]
[Club: FC Barcelona | National Team: None (Dual Eligibility)]
[Core Attributes - Training Cap: 90 (Breakthrough Potion applied):]
Attribute Value Note: Shooting - 80 [Growth unlocked - was stagnant]
Positioning - 93 (Inzaghi Template)
Speed - 90 (Caniggia Template)
Heading - 72 [Growth unlocked]
Jumping - 80 [Growth unlocked - was stagnant]
Shooting Power - 93 (Batistuta Template)
Physicality (Confrontation) - 95 (Drogba Template)
Ball Control - 85 (Romário Template)
Passing - 72 Base [room to grow]
Long Shot - 94 (Batistuta Template)
Free Kick - 80 Base , Curve - 83 (Beckham Template)
Stamina 89
He looked at the numbers. Eleven templates. A ceiling now raised to 90. Heading and Passing both sitting in the low seventies, the weakest points in a profile that was otherwise operating at legend-tier levels in the final third. The templates compensated for both, but he knew that a complete striker didn't rely on compensation. He needed those base stats to climb on their own.
That was the work ahead. Not new rewards, the existing ones, pushed to their full potential.
Outside the bus window, the lights of Valencia gave way to the dark, flat expanse of the Valencian plain. The city receded. Somewhere ahead, at the end of the week, Seville was waiting.
In the Argentine digital forums, the conversation was already running at its usual overnight pace.
[Paul Pogba? Lorenzo dismantled him in Jerusalem. This conversation was over in the summer.]
[The Golden Boy looks at the full calendar year. Lorenzo only has two months of data. Pogba has a Serie A title with Juventus.]
[Two months of data: Ten La Liga goals in four games, UCL hat-trick on debut, U-21 brace, Super Cup winner. What does Pogba need to do to compete with that?]
[Varane and Lukaku are in the running. But after the Mestalla hat-trick, anyone who votes against Lorenzo should explain their reasoning in public.]
The global media had already framed it as a two-horse race - the French midfielder who had anchored Juventus's Serie A campaign, and the Argentine-Spanish striker who had arrived in August and immediately started rewriting records. Tuttosport, the Italian organisers of the award, had run the headline the day after the Mestalla result: Lorenzo vs. Pogba: The Battle for the Crown.
Both had cases. Only one of them had ten league goals in four matches.
The final matchday of September was already on the schedule. Seville - the Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán, a 1982 World Cup venue, forty-five thousand seats, one of the most hostile atmospheres in Spain. Sevilla FC: third in the table, undefeated, Rakitic dictating from midfield, Gameiro leading the line.
"The Pizjuán isn't just a stadium," Santiago had noted in the pre-match preview earlier that week. "It's a fortress. The Spanish national team maintained an undefeated record there for decades. Sevilla play with an intensity that breaks clubs who come unprepared."
The Beast had conquered Madrid. He had conquered Paris. He had conquered the Mestalla.
Now Andalusia was next.
[Status: Travel to Sevilla: Thursday.]
[System Note: Cruyff 'The Turn' Template - Integrated (100%).]
Plz Drop Some Power Stones.
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