After the training match ended, Shimokawa Mitsuto quietly called Akashi Asuka aside and lowered his voice.
"Asuka, is everything… okay at home lately?"
"Huh?"
Asuka was confused. Question marks seemed to pop up all over his head.
"Should be… fine! I haven't noticed anything wrong." he answered uncertainly. Shimokawa's sudden question threw him off balance.
Could something really be wrong at home? But he hadn't heard of any problems with his original parents. Maybe it was that annoying older sister?
Seeing Asuka's expression, Shimokawa Mitsuto exchanged a quick glance with Tanno Sawaka and said nothing more. He just nodded for Asuka to leave first, then turned to call Asuka's parents.
After some careful communication, they finally confirmed that Asuka's recent changes likely had little to do with his family.
"Not family, then maybe it's something romantic?" Shimokawa suddenly suggested.
Tanno thought carefully but shook her head. In their country, junior high relationships were generally accepted. As far as she knew, although Asuka was popular, he was still single.
Tanno paid quite a bit of attention to Asuka, though mostly with concern rather than admiration.
After all, the label of "delinquent" might sound cool to a fourteen or fifteen-year-old, but as a teacher, she found Asuka's "bad boy" attitude much more troublesome than someone like Oomae Masato, who was just a simple fool.
Oomae Masato: "Hey, show some manners!"
Asuka couldn't have guessed that his sudden growth, caused by his reincarnation, was making Shimokawa and Tanno speculate so much.
At that moment, after training, he was already playing video games with his friends, all crowding around to grab the limited controllers, the true art of gaming.
The days at the training camp passed one by one.
Asuka's stats grew at a visible speed.
Especially in the basic skills, because of the camp's intensity and schedule, Asuka barely gained any "Overachiever Points" during the camp.
But for those basic skills that hadn't even reached the passing line yet, pure high-intensity training actually improved them almost as fast as using Overachiever Points.
After this camp, Asuka began to suspect maybe this was the proper way to use those Overachiever Points: first, boost low skills with high-intensity training; then, when ordinary training no longer helps, use accumulated Overachiever Points to break through talent limits.
When the two-week camp finally ended, Asuka's stats had changed drastically:
,
Host: Akashi Asuka
Strength: 76.1 [Core Strength 75.4, Arm Strength 76.8]
Speed: 72.7 [Explosive Speed 73, Reaction Speed 72.4]
Stamina: 74.2 [Endurance 74, Cardiopulmonary 74.4]
Jumping: 74.3 [Leap 76.6, Hang Time 72]
Basic Skills: 66.8 [Serve 65.2, Bump 64.6, Set 58, Spike 76, Block 72.2, Defense 65]
Advanced Skills: [None yet]
,
The camp had given Asuka another breakthrough above 75, Core Strength.
For volleyball players, core strength is extremely important. For Asuka, breaking 75 here meant his spikes had just leveled up again.
Also, all his basic skills were now mostly above average, except for setting, but that wasn't a big problem.
As the team's main attacker, Asuka rarely had to set the ball. Even when rotating to the back row, the focus was on passing and defense, which fall under bumping and defense skills.
That explained why his setting skills improved so slowly.
After the camp, all volleyball club members happily returned home.
Oomae Masato and others loved club activities, but as Junior Highers, they loved vacations even more.
In theory, spending the entire six-week summer vacation on intense training could raise the whole team's skill by several levels.
But theory was just theory.
Even professional players had off-seasons. Asking a bunch of fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds to sacrifice their last junior high summer break for camp was unrealistic.
Not just in Sengoku, but probably nowhere else in the country.
Unless they were high school seniors, then maybe.
Even Asuka, whose body carried an adult's soul, couldn't spend the whole precious break training.
At most, he'd use about two-thirds of his time.
Back home, Asuka found someone new there.
"Yo! Asuka, welcome home."
"I'm back."
He looked at the girl slouched on the sofa in baggy shorts, hair messy, lounging in a lazy pose.
That was Akashi Kana, Asuka's older sister.
She was a second-year high school student.
Usually, she didn't live at home. The distance between school and home was long, and with busy parents, commuting every day was a waste of time. So she rented a place near school.
That was common in their country.
From his memories, Asuka guessed that he and Kana had a very normal sibling relationship, friendly enough after long separations, but if together for more than three days, they'd definitely fight.
After greeting Kana, Asuka put his bag away and headed to shower, training left him stinkin with sweat.
"Asuka, finished showering? What do you want for dinner?"
"Done. I'm coming out soon, "
Whoosh!
Before he could finish, the bathroom door was thrown open.
Just as Asuka finished putting on pants and was about to put on his shirt, he froze.
Kana was also stunned at the doorway.
Asuka's shock wasn't because of her bursting in so boldly, that was typical of his sister.
Kana's surprise was from seeing Asuka's muscles.
Asuka had a good build to begin with. But his recent scientific and intense training had transformed his body day by day.
Now that his arm and core strength both exceeded 75, his shoulder and abdominal muscles were sharply defined, exuding masculine energy.
There was a brief silence.
Then Kana stepped forward, no hint of awkwardness, and started pinching and feeling his muscles, her face breaking into a sly, experienced smile.
"Tsk tsk tsk~ Just a few months apart and my little brother's body's already this good? You've got your big sister stunned here. Looks like your future girlfriends are lucky!"
Asuka: "..."
Original body, you call this a "normal" sibling relationship?
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