章 18: Special Prize

Over the next few days, Shun's routine remained the same, the system put him to sleep and woke him up early. He would go out for a morning run and train in the afternoon after school. Unfortunately for him, the pitch count in the "Perfect Form" mission remained at zero.

SPLASH

"Ahhhh, I'm so tired" - Shun said as he got into the bathtub, recovering from the day's training.

It had been ten days since Shun received the system, and he had continued to work hard every day. Of course, to those around him, this was a drastic change. Kenta and Ren, his two closest friends, believed that Shun would return to normal after a day or two, but to their surprise, it seemed like the boy was working even harder with each passing day.

Coach Yamada was also surprised by the boy's dedication, but what he found unbelievable was Shun's rapid improvement in the outfield. He was already beginning to think about testing Shun as a starter in the upcoming friendly games. The only thing holding him back was Shun's batting. Although the boy was improving and making contact with every pitch from the machine, almost all of them went into foul territory, and only a few were lucky enough to land in the infield. But even those hits would just be groundouts or maybe even double plays.

At home, Shun had also changed a lot. The boy would wake up early every morning and go for a run. He would return in the late afternoon, take a bath, and only come down for dinner. Speaking of dinner, the most drastic change was the amount of food Shun was eating, not just at dinner and breakfast, but he even asked his mother to prepare more food for him to take to school. Aiko, for her part, was happy to see her son working so hard.

"Well, let's open today's reward. I've received a bronze arena pass every time I've opened the box, so maybe there aren't any other types of rewards in it," - Shun thought as he opened the system's inventory.

[Do you want to open the Bronze Mystery Box?

Yes/No]

"Yes!"

[Congratulations! You've received a special prize!]

[You obtained the quirk Break I.]

[Break I:

Enhances the break effect of the user's breaking balls.]

"Huh? Quirk? That's different from a skill, though I don't quite understand the difference. But from the description, this will be very useful when I start pitching again." - Shun was pleased with his reward, he'd probably be happy with anything other than those bronze arena passes. But when the boy thought about pitching again, he sighed, still having not managed a single perfect pitch with his new form, which made him quite unhappy.

"Ahhhh, it's no time to be down! With today's rewards, I should have enough coins to upgrade the system. Maybe after the upgrade, this system will be a little less stupid" - Shun decided as he opened the system menu to upgrade it.

[THE OLD BASEBALL PLAYER SYSTEM

System Level: 1 (100 coins to upgrade)

User: Shun Takahashi

Age: 14 years

Coins: 100 coins

Missions *

System Shop (locked)

Arena (locked)

Inventory *

User Statistics:

Overall: D+

PITCHING: F+

BATTING: C-

FIELDING: B-

RUNNING: D+

GAME IQ: D+

Physical Conditioning (locked)

Overall Potential: S

User Skills:

4-seam fastball (E+) (locked)

Hunter Eyes (SS+)

Contact (A+)

Chase (A+)

Dive (C+)

User Quirks:

Break I]

After 10 days of training, Shun had made slight improvements in his fielding and batting stats, but aside from that and the addition of new skills and quirks, nothing else had changed. Shun then requested the system upgrade.

[Are you sure you want to upgrade the system to level 2, spending 100 coins?

Yes/No]

"Yes!"

[DING]

[Beginning system upgrade, all system functions will be completely disabled during the upgrade]

Shun heard the system's notification and was surprised by the news that all functions would be disabled. He then tried to open the system menu to check.

[DING]

[The system is being upgraded.

Time to complete the upgrade: 0h 59m 30s]

"It will take an hour, so it should be done by the time I finish dinner" - Shun said as he got out of the bathtub. He dried himself quickly and got dressed, the dinner should be nearly ready, and he was starving after the training.

"BRO!!" - Shun heard a childish voice as he walked down the stairs. He looked towards the voice and saw his cute little sister standing there. He went over to her and lifted her up in his arms.

"Hey Yumi, shouldn't you be helping mom with dinner?" - Shun said playfully as he pinched his sister's cheeks.

The little girl shook her head cutely before saying:

"Bro, dinner just got ready, we were waiting for you."

"Huh? It's ready? Then let's eat, Yumi" - Shun said excitedly when he heard that dinner was ready, and quickly headed towards the kitchen with his sister in his arms.

The little girl giggled when she saw her older brother get so excited about dinner. The two arrived in the kitchen, both his father and sister Mika were already seated, and his mother Aiko, who was finishing setting the food on the table, looked at the two and said:

"Hurry up and sit down, or the food will get cold."

Shun nodded and placed his little sister in her chair before sitting in the chair beside her.

The family began to eat and chat peacefully. During the conversation, Shun's twin sister, Mika, spoke up.

"Mom, can the girls sleep over at our house tomorrow after the game?"

"Of course, dear" - Aiko quickly agreed.

* cough *

"Shun, are you okay?" - Kenshin saw his son suddenly coughing and asked worriedly.

"Hm, sorry, I choked, haha. I'm fine, Dad" - Shun quickly replied, the reason for his coughing being that a blonde-haired, green-eyed figure appeared in his mind when his sister mentioned the sleepover. But he didn't want his sister to notice, so he tried to play it off.

"Ehh, don't tell me you choked when you thought that Hana might sleep over, brother" - Unfortunately for Shun, Mika was a very sharp girl.

"Huh? What? What are you talking about? Of course not!" - Shun turned as red as a tomato, and even though his words said no, there was no way he could fool anyone with that reaction, especially his family.

So for the rest of dinner, Shun was the victim of teasing from his parents and sister.