Host: Akashi Asuka
Height: 197.2 cm
Weight: 83.6 kg
[Finishing]:
Drive Layup – 67
Drive Dunk – 73
Under-the-Basket Finishing – 66
[Shooting]:
Close Shot – 68
Mid-range Shot – 58
Three-Point Shot – 53
[Ball Handling]:
Passing – 64
Dribbling – 65
[Defense]:
Lateral Quickness – 70
Steals – 60
Blocks – 76
Rebounds – 73
[Physical]:
Speed – 70
Strength – 76
Jumping – 67
Stamina – 67
[Reaction]:
Reflexes – 69
Agility – 67
[Innate Skills]:
Brutality (Manifesting...)
Clear Mind (Manifesting...)
[Grind Points]: 25
Staring at the newly updated stat panel projected by the system, Akashi Asuka couldn't help but wince a little.
How should he put it...
This body's stats weren't bad, at least, not terrible. If the average ceiling for a typical junior higher was around 75, then these numbers were decently above average.
Despite the overwhelming amount of information on the panel, different positions on the court required different core attributes. No one could be good at everything.
As a center, the original body's strengths, blocks, rebounds, strength, were all hovering just below the typical cap of 75. At the very least, it meant this guy hadn't wasted his natural height advantage.
But aside from those few areas, the rest of his stats barely scraped past passing marks, most didn't even reach 70.
Which basically meant: the original guy probably just coasted through practices. Because if he had even taken things slightly seriously, there's no way his passing, dribbling, and close-range shooting would be this underdeveloped.
"Looking at these stats, there's no way I can take on the 'Generation of Miracles.' I'd bet every one of them has core stats already well above the normal Junior High limit. Some of them probably broke the 80-point mark already."
Compared to the previous world, where the protagonist's aura was still somewhat grounded, in Kuroko's Basketball, even the side characters were clearly playing with cheat codes.
If the last world offered a faint glimmer of hope through hard work…
Then in this world, the only path to victory against these walking hacks was to be an even bigger cheat.
"Alright, System. Let's see what you're really capable of, bring up the stat allocation screen!"
This time, Akashi started with 25 Grind Points, way more than what he had at the start of the last world.
Of course, that was thanks to everything he'd painstakingly earned in that last world. All of his accumulated Grind Points had been converted into raw energy during the transition, and what he had now, 25 points, was just the leftover residue after the system burned through most of it during the transfer.
[Attention, Host:] Due to this world having a 1% Sci-Fi Rule Ratio, the difficulty of siphoning rule energy has increased. Please use your Grind Points with caution.
Akashi had just raised his hand to begin boosting stats when the system's rare warning echoed in his head.
"Wait... 1% Sci-Fi Rule Ratio?"
He froze, dumbfounded.
Sure, he had called it sci-fi basketball earlier, but that was more of a joke.
Even though the skills in this world were flashy, they were still somewhat grounded in physics.
But now the system was straight-up confirming it, this really was sci-fi basketball.
"Well damn... They're not even pretending to play fair anymore, huh?"
The warning made Akashi proceed more cautiously. Still unsure what the system meant exactly, he decided to test the waters.
He put 1 point into Blocks, one of his highest stats.
A wave of training experience surged through his mind...
Grind Points dropped from 25 to 24, and Blocks rose from 76 to 77.
"Huh. Nothing unusual. Maybe I'll just keep going?"
He had planned to max out Blocks anyway, ideally pushing it past 80. With monsters like the Generation of Miracles up next, anything below 75 was basically useless.
He kept pumping points in.
In no time, Blocks hit 80, and Grind Points dropped to 21.
"Still looks normal…"
Then he gritted his teeth and added one more point.
And that's when something changed.
Suddenly, Grind Points dropped by 2, not 1. And Blocks only increased to 81.
Akashi's eyes narrowed.
"Two-for-one? What gives? Is it a threshold thing? A talent cap? Or... something else?"
He pondered it for a moment but decided not to get too hung up on it.
He didn't have enough points left to play around with. What mattered now was surviving the upcoming match.
Next, he shifted his focus to Reflexes and Agility.
Normally, a center wouldn't need to prioritize those, but this wasn't a normal world. Against the Generation of Miracles, if he couldn't react fast enough, he wouldn't even see the ball before it flew past.
He started slow, adding points into Reflexes one at a time, wary of pushing too far and hurting himself or wasting points.
But once again, the unexpected happened.
Before he even reached 80, just at 76, the system began consuming 2 points per stat again.
His Grind Points plummeted to 13.
That threw off his calculations, but it also told him something.
This time, Akashi skipped Agility and chose to boost Strength instead.
He added 4 points, bringing Strength from 76 to 80. So far, so good.
But the moment he tried to go higher, he lost 2 points for just 1 stat increase.
"Yup... this world's talent ceiling is definitely harder to break through. But..."
He raised his arm slowly, flexing, and felt the surge of power in his muscles, an increase far beyond a mere +1.
"But once you do break through, the gains are massive."
He didn't want to waste precious Grind Points testing the system's limits, but Strength was the one exception.
Because the monster he was about to face?
If Akashi didn't reach this level of raw power...
He'd get crushed. Again.