After all, mental fortitude was far more important than ball skills. If a player didn't have strong enough mental fortitude, then even if he possessed outstanding technique, he still wouldn't be able to handle the matches ahead.
But Hank had already revealed something even more important than talent itself: mental fortitude. It was so terrifyingly monstrous that it was hard to believe.
No matter which aspect you looked at, he was flawless.
"That guy doesn't feel nervous at all. He has the exact same expression he had during that match. Just who is he?"
"He's so strong it's scary. What is going on? How did someone like him go through all of middle school without a single bit of news getting out!?"
"Who exactly is he!?"
"Don't tell me he planned from the very beginning to defeat the college team. That's impossible to imagine!"
At that moment, the other five people on Hank's side of the court all turned to look at him, where he stood silently on the service line. After watching him go from serve to scoring without the slightest emotional change, they all felt that he was practically like a machine.
A scoring machine. And because he was so demanding with himself, he normally wouldn't allow even the slightest mistake in his daily training. Sensing that, many people had already started keeping a strange kind of watchful distance toward Hank.
They all wanted to see just where his limit was.
Boom!
A tearing sound rang out as Hank's hit smashed straight into the other side of the court. Along with that crisp impact, the match officially came to an end. Many of the spectators still hadn't realized what had just happened.
And yet the entire match was already over. It was absurd.
Because judging from the result now in front of them, Hank really might have completely crushed a college team three school years above him through his own efforts alone. Seeing the final outcome, a lot of people were completely dazed inside.
They couldn't believe what had just happened.
"Did a middle schooler just beat college players!? Does anyone know what's going on here!? College players actually lost to a middle schooler!? What the hell is this? This is way too ridiculous."
"I can't believe what I just saw. Did the middle schooler really win in the end!? This is seriously insane."
"I'm completely dumbfounded. Even the coach is probably dumbfounded right now. Up to now, Aoba Johsai has never seen anything like this—a middle schooler actually beating older players in the end…"
Right after Hank successfully scored off the final serve, the entire Aoba Johsai volleyball club immediately erupted into discussion. A lot of people still couldn't believe what had just happened, or rather, they couldn't understand how it had happened.
How could college players lose to a middle schooler?
It was simply too outrageous.
[Ding! Detected that the host has gone through an exhilarating battle. Ball control +1, spike +2, physical ability +1, passing +1.]
…
After Hank completely finished this simple tryout, the notification sounded in his ears again. The moment it ended, he instantly felt his whole body fill with power, and his mind suddenly gained a great deal of new insight into volleyball.
These were all things that had been given to him in an instant. He hadn't expected that in such a short span of time, he could gain what would normally take dozens of days of hard training to achieve.
It looked like the system was encouraging him to play matches against other people. In that case, maybe from now on he could look into where exactly he could get more stats and raise his overall rating to the prefectural level or higher as quickly as possible.
By then, his entire game would improve by quite a lot.
[Ding! Raise your overall stats to youth national team level. Reward: Multi-Angle Spike!]
Hank had originally just wanted to see how many more stat points he needed to reach youth national team level, but then the system suddenly gave him another mission. If he raised his overall strength to youth national team level, he would be rewarded with Multi-Angle Spike!?
The moment he saw those words, Hank immediately grew excited.
If he could obtain Multi-Angle Spike…
Then even if he ran into opponents capable of stopping him at the block in the future, he wouldn't need to worry at all. He could completely avoid them through trickier angles and his own technique, and spikes launched that way would become even more powerful.
There would be hardly anyone capable of defending against them. It looked like his system really did know what it was doing. At least it hadn't misled him. From here on out, he only needed to focus on raising his overall strength.
At the moment, if he wanted to raise his overall stats to youth national team level…
He still needed about 18 more stat points.
(End of Chapter)
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