The Copa del Rey match was almost upon them.
The small town of Sarria was buzzing with a kind of excitement it rarely saw.
Not only had a handful of Real Madrid supporters made the journey, there were also many e-fans.
"Hachim, what's that?"
Hachim Mastour was full of questions.
"Hachim, you still have a great deal of work to do!"
"As the creative hub of the side, you need a bigger picture view of the game!"
"More passing and link-up play, rather than just dribbling and shooting from distance!"
Watson's tone had turned sharp when addressing Hachim Mastour.
It was precisely because Watson thought highly of Hachim Mastour that he was being this blunt about his shortcomings.
"Oh."
The expression on Hachim Mastour's face was something to behold, as he deflated instantly like a punctured balloon, all the energy draining out of him.
'Turns out I was the fool all along!'
'And I've been swaggering around in front of Leon like I'm the big brother!'
'I want the ground to swallow me up!'
Leon gave a quiet smile, patted Hachim Mastour on the shoulder, and said nothing more.
Hachim Mastour's talent was on a completely different level from his own, and there was no real obstacle to him returning to Milan.
If the system hadn't activated, Leon doubted he would ever have had the chance to play alongside Hachim Mastour at all.
Now that Milan's attention had been secured, the coming match simply had to be played well no matter what.
Leon's brow creased slightly.
Right now, he had no confidence whatsoever in keeping Ronaldo off the scoresheet.
This season both Ronaldo and Messi were scoring machines, and Ronaldo had broken through the defences of countless world-class goalkeepers one after another, so Leon genuinely couldn't see how keeping Ronaldo out was even possible.
"Ding! Host detected to be facing a formidable opponent. System quest issued!"
"Ding! Quest One: Win the match. Reward: 2,000 system points!"
"Ding! Quest Two: Keep a clean sheet. Reward: 2,000 system points! (Excluding penalty shootouts.)"
"Ding! Quest Three: Keep Ronaldo off the scoresheet. Reward: 1,000 system points!"
"Ding! All three quest rewards are stackable. No penalty for failure!"
The system notification chimed into Leon's mind at just the right moment.
'Five thousand system points in total.'
Leon's eyes narrowed sharply, because that was an absolute fortune.
To put it in perspective, the settlement from his last match had yielded 58 system points, and with the 3 points left over from before, he had only 61 system points to his name, and adding the 50 system points earned from five straight days of maxed-out training sessions, his current total stood at just 111.
Five thousand system points would represent an enormous boost to what Leon currently had at his disposal, and if the move to Milan did go smoothly, those 5,000 points could be used to raise his attributes across the board significantly, giving him a real shot at pushing for the first-choice goalkeeper position at Milan.
Leon had no intention of going to Milan only to spend his days playing youth team football.
He was going for it.
But if Leon conceded defeat in his own mind before the match even kicked off, he would lose any chance of taking the next step entirely.
And keeping Ronaldo off the scoresheet was not completely out of the question either, because Leon had the [One-on-One Specialist] talent, and nobody in the world ever turned down a one-on-one.
What if the team actively created the conditions to funnel Ronaldo into one-on-one situations?
Leon already had a plan forming in his mind.
To make that approach work, he would need the help of head coach Burke Abel, and Leon felt it was time to go and have a conversation with him.