My Goalkeeping System

Dave walked out of the building with the conversation he just had with his father lingering in his mind.

<It's nice to see that things turned out well at last> Catherine said as he made his way to his car.

He got closer to his car and just as he looked at the glass, the image of his father as he said those last words to him popped up in his mind.

"I know that you're going to find it hard to forgive me after all these years, I should have respected your choice but I decided to force my own choices on you and refused to see the light no matter how much your mother tried to make me see it, I know it won't make much sense and you're confused even as I speak but you should know that I have decided to be a good father to you and will do my best to support you in any way I can."

The goalkeeper stared at the glass for a while before he opened the door and entered the car.

He didn't drive off immediately as he wanted to give someone a call first.

"Hey, Clark." He said after putting the phone against his ear.

"Hey, Dave, how're you doing?" Clark asked.

"I'm okay, you?"

"Same, and Emma?"

"She's okay, she got released from the hospital today." The goalkeeper said.

"That's good news." He said. "Have you met up with your dad like you said you were going to do today?"

"Yeah."

"Fill me in on the details."

"There really aren't many details to fill you in on but he said yes." The goalkeeper said.

"So, you're not going on the loan transfer."

"Yeah."

"That's good news, you did it."

"Yeah."

"We're going to celebrate the win next week when I return."

"Sure," Dave said as a bright smile appeared on his face.

"I've already bought the hyper ball blaster and the play station seven just like you requested."

"That's good." The goalkeeper said.

"Okay, I have to…."

"Um…Clark." He cut him short and prevented him from ending the call.

"Yeah," Clark replied.

"By any chance are you still single?"

"Huh?" Clark said as that wasn't quite what he was expecting to hear. "Usually whenever you ask me about my relationship status it usually ends with you mocking me."

"Well, that's not happening today, I just wanted to know if you are single or not."

"You know I haven't been in a relationship since Tiffany."

"Good, now all you have to do is maintain that status until you are here next week."

"Why? What's going on?"

"Bye," Dave said before ending the call.

After ending the call, he started his car and zoomed off.

______ _______

"Yeah, it's just a short training session." The goalkeeper said before stepping outside.

"I see you haven't been giving yourself a break these days," Emma said as she walked closer to him.

"I have a whole new season ahead of me and I want to make my mark unlike what I did last season." He said. "But you should get some rest, you need it, I didn't expect you to start overworking yourself on the first day after getting back from the hospital."

"There was no one around to do them so I had to do them." She said,

"Yeah, now go get some rest." He said before leaning closer to kiss her. "I'm on the lawn if you need me." He said before closing the door.

'2:36, that means I have a lot of time left before Emilia will need me to pick her up.' He said subconsciously after checking the time on his watch.

[ (-7 ) skill points ]

[ You have successfully unlocked focus ]

"Now, let's go see what this skill can do." He muttered before he made his way to the ball blaster which was already filled up with all eight balls. "Now, Let's just put this on the max level."

He clicked the button for the last level which was level seven before he quickly made his way to his goal line.

[ Focus activated ]

As soon as that message popped up on his screen, the whole area went dark and the only thing he could see was his goalpost, even the ball blaster was hidden in the darkness surrounding him.

The first ball was shot out as soon as the skill was activated and just before the ball could get to him, he noticed faint dotted lines pointing toward the area the ball was most likely to end up in but the lines faded as they got closer to the goalpost but he didn't need them to be complete as he dived toward the bottom left side of the goalpost and caught the ball before it could go any further.

'Wow, this is great.'

The second ball was quickly shot toward the top right side of the goalpost and pushed the ball out before it could fly into the goalpost.

With the focus skill, he was able to keep out all the balls without breaking much of a sweat, well that was until the skill got deactivated.

[ Duration complete ]

[ Focus has been deactivated ]

As soon as the skill was deactivated, the darkness cleared up and for a few seconds, everything seemed alright until he suddenly crashed to the floor with both of his hands on his head.

"What the heck is going on?" He groaned in pain. "Why do I feel this sudden surge of pain running around my head? This doesn't feel like a normal headache."

<Calm down, it only lasts for five minutes>

"Five minutes of this." He said gritting his teeth.

Five minutes later, he got up from the floor with his right hand on his head and his face looking like someone who didn't get enough sleep in the night.

'What the heck was that, Catherine? I feel like I had five hangovers at once.'

<Really? It felt that bad for you?>

'Of course, it was that bad, which you would know if you had any idea of how pain worked in the human body.' He replied. 'If you had told me that this skill had an aftermath like this, I would have never used it.'

<No, you would have gone ahead and used it to see things for yourself>

'Maybe but you still haven't answered my question on why the skill has this kind of aftermath.'

<Just think about it, the skill works on your brain to increase the intensity of your focus in doing your job, it syncs with your brain to create that dark environment that blocks out everything that may distract you and even draws patterns of possible places the ball might end up in>

'Okay, so let me get something straight here, the skill works on my brain to create that environment and keep me focused, my brain can't do that naturally so when the skill deactivates the aftermath of inducing my brain to do that is the stinging pain in my head.'

<Exactly>

'Okay, is that the only aftermath?'

<Check your energy bar>

[ 59/127 Energy ]

'How did that happen?' He asked with a shocked expression on his face.

<The process of activating the skill requires a whole lot of energy for your brain to pull it off so your energy gets drained faster, you're lucky your energy level has increased>

"Why does all the good skills have to come with drawbacks like this?" The goalkeeper mumbled before crashing to the floor.

***

New year mass release goals.

A magic castle= one extra chapter.

Two magic castles= two extra chapters.

Mass release for goals met last month will still be rewarded on the due dates.