Chapter 178: Threshold cleared

The Champions League draw took place on Friday, and Magath flew out to Switzerland to sit among club directors and tournament officials while the matchups were decided. Mateo followed the ceremony at home on his couch, keeping the television volume low while working through a bowl of pasta.

He wasn't even going to watch it at first. Raúl had told him that stressing over a cup draw was as pointless as worrying about the weather, since you had to play whoever came out of the pot anyway. But the itch to know who they'd get was too strong. Mateo picked up the remote, turned on the broadcast, and watched the presenter reach into the glass bowl.

The plastic sphere twisted open. The presenter read the slip aloud.

Inter Milan.

Mateo lowered his fork to the plate.

He knew the pedigree of the Italian giants by heart. Inter were the reigning European champions from the previous season, having lifted a historic treble under José Mourinho before the Portuguese manager left for Real Madrid. Their current campaign had been rocky, with two coaching changes and an uphill chase behind their city rivals in Serie A, but they were still a powerhouse. Carvajal had a favorite saying about teams of that caliber: an empire in decline is still an empire.

The individual talent alone commanded respect. Júlio César was between the posts. Maicon and Javier Zanetti patrolled the full-back positions, with Zanetti somehow playing at a world-class level at thirty-eight years old, outrunning opponents half his age. Sneijder pulled the strings in attacking midfield, shielded by Cambiasso, Stanković, and Thiago Motta. Up front, they had Diego Milito, who could hold off center-backs and finish with clinical precision, alongside Samuel Eto'o, whose pure speed and sharp instincts were legendary.

Schalke had no business traveling to the San Siro to play an open, end-to-end game against a squad like that. Mateo knew it before Magath even held a team meeting. Trying to match Inter punch for punch on their home turf would be suicide. The smarter route was staying compact, absorbing the early pressure, and waiting for one clean counter-attack before digging in to protect the aggregate score.

He picked his fork back up and finished his lunch while watching Leonardo Nascimento de Araújo give his post-draw interview on the screen. The Inter boss was polite and polished, projecting the easy confidence expected of a manager leading a European superpower. He sounded certain that Inter would advance. On paper, that confidence made complete sense.

Football matches, however, were never decided on paper.

That evening, in the quiet living room without Vardy around to crack jokes, Mateo brought up his interface.

He had been grinding relentlessly since the Dortmund derby, pouring every spare hour into sharpening his Offense attribute. That single stat had held him back at an 84 overall rating for weeks, often making him lean toward safer passing lanes when what he truly wanted was the confidence to take command of tight matches himself.

During the final technical drill at the training ground that afternoon, he had felt an unmistakable shift in his feet, a sharpness that signaled a jump in quality. Looking at the blue screen, he saw the confirmation in black and white.

Offense: 85.

Ball Control: 85.

Passing: 100.

Shooting: 85.

Heading: 68.

Set Pieces: 70.

Curve: 66.

Speed: 85.

Kicking Power: 80.

Jumping: 74.

Physical Contact: 80.

Stamina: 85.

Defence: 80.

Tackling: 65.

[Overall: 85.]

Gaining ten full points of Offense had nudged his overall up by a single number. He chuckled softly to himself. Weeks of early morning sessions and heavy gym shifts had produced just one digit, but the system immediately signaled the weight behind that bump.

[Overall Rating reached 85.]

[Threshold cleared: Squad Player → Star Player.]

Before reaching 85, he had been viewed as a talented prospect, a promising young midfielder monitored by major scouts. Now, according to the system's baseline, he was entering the elite tier of European football. Seeing the label "star player" felt somewhat surreal. He did not feel like a star; he just felt like a tired teenager with a monumental match in four days.

The screen flickered softly.

A progress bar materialized, filling steadily toward one hundred percent. Mateo leaned back against the cushions to watch it with genuine curiosity. The system rarely pushed an automated update unless fundamental rules were changing.

The bar locked at one hundred.

[System upgraded.]

[Honour module unlocked.]

[Training Camp unlocked.]

He tapped the Honour tab first. The panel was currently blank, resembling an empty trophy cabinet waiting for its first piece of silverware. Mateo glanced at the clean slate, knowing that if Schalke pulled off something remarkable over the next two months, that shelf would start filling up. He closed the window without lingering. A trophy cabinet was just an outcome; it did nothing to win the next match.

The Training Camp was what grabbed his full attention.

He read through the description to understand how it worked. The system offered an isolated training space designed to simulate match pressure and get the most out of every minute. Unlike skill cards that granted free skills directly, this one simply allowed him to drill specific match scenarios with zero physical fatigue, funded by burning match points earned from real games. The higher the training density he selected, the faster his points drained.

The biggest draw was that the camp had no limits on repetition. Whatever he practiced in there, he could run through as many times as he wanted until it felt completely natural. That was the part that stuck in his head, even if he couldn't quite explain yet why it mattered so much.

Then came the final notification, confirming the trade-off he had anticipated.

[Training cost increased. Above 85, standard training costs triple.]

[Attribute ceiling: 90.]

He quickly calculated the math in his head. Where a single attribute point used to require thirty hours of dedicated training, it would now demand ninety hours above the 85 mark. Improving a single skill point would take weeks of grinding, and attributes would hit an absolute ceiling at 90.

He felt a brief pang of frustration seeing how steep the mountain had become, but as he sat in the quiet room, he forced himself to look at it with perspective.

In less than a year, he had moved from playing amateur ball in Brazil to starting for a top Bundesliga side in the Champions League quarter-finals. World-class players took years of youth academy development to hone their trade.

The system had already fast-tracked his physical and technical growth at an unbelievable speed. Having to grind out the final stretch through genuine hard work and steady discipline felt completely reasonable.

He could handle slow progress. Grinding through early mornings was something he was already doing anyway.

Mateo closed down the screen and rubbed his eyes.

Schalke had four days to prepare for Milan. Inter were waiting at the San Siro, backed by their home crowd and anchored by legendary winners like Zanetti, Sneijder, and Eto'o. The system called him a star player now.

He would see soon enough if that title held up under the floodlights in Italy.

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