First Match
That night, once he was lying in bed ready to sleep he called the cards out.
The cards of all the players had come up with Yukio's card being in a different color, surprising Jun slightly.
Well, Yukio although very inexperienced, he does have a great body. Jun just explored his obvious shortcomings, basketball can rely heavily upon size but it doesn't mean it is everything. Probably it had been the first time he felt so helpless, after all the lack of games he had and the fact that they lost so early into the competitions, they never really got to face the real monsters in basketball.
Either way, Yukio did have 3 skills. Surprisingly one such skill is B tier.
[ Rebounding Prowess (C): Understand how to use strength and agility, excelling in grabbing rebounds, and securing possessions. ]
[ Endurance (B): Gain exceptional stamina enabling the player to maintain a high level of play throughout the game.]
The other skill was C rank and a Mid-range shooting skill which Jun felt he would never need.
Jun was tempted by the rebound prowess skill, rebounds are an essential part of the game, and many games would be dictated by what team would win the rebounds. But it would be stupid to give up on the Endurance skill.
[ Predatory Integration: Integrating Endurance (B), Time: 5:00 ]
Jun saw as the timer began to count down. Expecting the timer to be way longer, he was slightly surprised. Jun didn't linger on this skill anymore and moved toward Yoshi, only one card could be seen.
He was trying to copy the other skill he had Precision Pass.
[ You can only have one active skill of a player. Do you want to trade Precision Pass for Starter Vision? ]
Jun wanted to curse someone. Not only was the condition, to trigger Predatory Integration high, but there also seemed to be restrictions to it. Why couldn't he just integrate every skill someone had? Well thinking deeply about things it indeed would be too op. Jun in the end placed the skill in the stockpile. [ Precision Pass / - / - ]
''Yanagihara doesn't seem to have anything skill...'' Jun mumbled as he went through the other players in the team he had played against, unfortunately, no other player had a skill, Jun had learned this very early into the holiday. The method of defeating a player also varies, because it is dependent on the mental state of the opponent. If the player is proud of his 3 points shots, you either need to know how to stop him or you beat him in his own game. As such Jun was happy that he managed to get a natural skill such as Yukio's.
While in his world, the integration timer hit 0 and he acquired a great new skill.
''It is good that I filled one of my shortcomings. Now for the team let's make do with it and play along for now.'' Jun got comfortable in bed and drifted to his sleep.
Quickly the week went by and unfortunately for Jun, the Kibito Junior High School Male basketball team didn't seem to have any activity, the female team had one practice match the previous weekend and had another one scheduled for this week. Meanwhile, the male team even though they had requested a couple of friendlies they were politely refused.
It was frustrating. Jun wanted to play a match as soon as possible but nothing seemed to go his way. The reputation of the male team was that bad, they were known for being weak and not competitive, even if they had a physically imposing player such as Yukio, the label set to the team stuck. Fortunately, the matches began on the 3rd weekend after the start of the school year, as such Jun had 1 'free weekend'.
Through practice, Jun could tell Yukio hadn't recovered from being beaten in the things he was the most proud of. Would he talk to him? No, it did not concern him, if anything it would backfire. 'What do you know?' Jun could guess this would be thrown at him.
After all, it wasn't the first time a teammate had gotten discouraged because of him. He wanted to play it safe, involving himself too heavily would just make things harder for him, after all, he had promised himself he wouldn't make the same mistakes twice.
Jun was the first to arrive at the gym and the last to leave. Before leaving training he made sure his quota of 500 Free throws was done, and 100 3-pointers. By no means was he a person who never missed a free throw his efficiency was at 70% at the end of practice while if he was fresh it was at around 85%, as for the 3 pointers it was way worse and the reason why his quota was 100 was because it had always been his weak point.
Coupled with the Endurance skill, his numbers slowly were getting higher. Jun had read in a book, and it had made sense, people seek immediate gratification and immediate results. Not understanding that if they get better 1% a week or even 1% a month is way better than not improving at all.
Practice builds perfection, so Jun practiced as if his life depended on it. His plans depended on basketball, and for everything to work this season, he wanted to be as dominant as he could.
With all the intensive training he had done, Jun planned to go with his family to the zoo. He enjoyed watching programs centered on wildlife. The struggles they have to face coupled with how they train and develop their senses for survival. These skills are honed for generations and perfected to get the highest chance of survival, although watching the creatures at the zoo wasn't as exciting as watching the full explosiveness of his favorite animals, which were coincidentally the big cats.
Hina's favorite animal was the red panda because of their overall behavior. A fitting favorite.
During the following week, the draw for the Regional tournament. Jun did not know which team was strong or weak, nor did he have any interest in researching his opponents during this first stage.
Note that Kibito Junior High was part of the Hyogo Prefecture. Home to various competitive Junior Schools, Hyogo prefecture is home to the Junior High Champion before Teiko. A behemoth called Higashigahara Municipal Middle School. Jun remembered the name because of how absurdly big it was.
Looking at the dejected faces of his teammates, Jun guessed that they had drawn a difficult team.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone