Divine Celebrity 76 (Patreon)

If there was one benefit to having my own channel, it allowed me to manipulate the perception of people easily. 

I returned to my dorm, picked a few balls and my laptop, and found myself an empty field, with some conveniently distant targets.

That time had been enough for Kevin to make another video, accepting the challenge, and turning it into a beautiful controversy. Especially since Megan, ever the opportunist, created a beautiful collage from our fight and posted that underneath, further inflaming the people. 

Before I could make a single throw, however, I received a call from an unknown number. 

I opened, only to hear the familiar voice of Coach Spencer. “What are you doing, you arrogant shit,” he started. One of the strongest men on the campus due to his role, and his riches making him even more important. 

Not a man to cross under ordinary conditions. 

If it wasn’t for the shadow attack, I would have either closed the phone immediately, or acted a bit innocent. Instead, I took a deep breath, tapping into the fear of being assassinated — one that was stiff and fresh in my mind — and reflected that as cold, intimidating anger. 

Conditions were far from normal. 

“Look, little man,” I growled, my voice cold. “I have more important things to cater to your overgrown ego. You either keep your little mouth shut, or I’ll give you a painful lesson about how to behave.” 

“Y-you,” he stammered, showing, even through the phone, the intimidation worked excellently. “I’m the coach—“ he tried to add, but that was the limit of his word before I could say anything. 

“Do you want to test how good you can coach with broken legs?” I said before slamming the phone close, not wanting to deal with him anymore. 

Was that ill-advised, certainly, but I was already doing my best to hold on. Two supernatural assassination attempts didn’t put me in a peachy mood, and I had more important things to optimize my approach toward Coach Spencer. 

I ignored the potential disaster on the horizon, and focused back on my little experiment. I continued setting up targets, and started making a show of throwing the ball. 

I was not a total newbie when it came to passing, but most of my practice had been limited to middle school, until the coaches realized that while I had the necessary visual acumen and arm strength, I had been severely lacking in accuracy. 

It was good that I was not live streaming but recording individual videos to create a collage. 

“Let’s warm up,” I murmured as I sling several passes, which went with all the accuracy of a shotgun. The act of throwing the ball looked simple, but it was deceptively so. Throwing a ball sixty yards was not a simple affair, and required a perfect twist of the whole body, generating and transferring momentum, starting from the legs. 

In a way, similar to throwing a full-strength punch, which I was very good at. Unfortunately, it was only because punches only needed to be accurate in one-yard range, not sixty, which explained why my passes turned into great disasters. 

I was not the one to be dissuaded by short-term failure even without the assistance of the Traits. Agility helped me to learn the correct movement faster, allowing me to progress more than I would have normally shown in a month in less than half an hour. 

Though, the role of Strength was hard to underestimate, as thanks to its general assistance, it allowed me to throw the ball more than fifty yards without pushing myself to the limit. 

And, not pushing myself to the limit meant I was much more accurate. It was like trying to walk through a tightrope. Difficult, certainly, but not as difficult as trying to run on the same tightrope. 

“It’s time to push myself,” I murmured even as I went and collected the balls, and placed a target in the forty-feet range, distant, not too far away. 

At first, barely one in twenty hit the target, even when I was throwing some simple bullet passes mid-range, with all the benefits of Agility and  Strength. 

Luckily, I was just trying to pick the best shoots. I took every video separately. After I had ten decent passes them was ready — all shirtless to also impress the part of the campus that wasn’t as interested in football skills — I called Kim. 

“Hey, handsome,” she said as I opened it. 

“I need your help,” I said even as I transferred the videos to her. 

“I’ll say,” Kim answered, her tone deliciously frustrated as she realized it was not a booty call. “A girl might feel neglected if you only call her when you need something.” 

“Well, help me, and I’ll spend a full day making that up to you after the next match,” I said. Then, I chuckled. “Assuming you can resist more than an hour, of course.” 

Her gasp was beautiful, but luckily, it wasn’t an impediment for her to continue speaking. “What do you need?” 

“I sent you a bunch of videos, and I need an impressive video put together. I’m sure you can handle that.” 

“I’m not a video expert…” she started and paused, no doubt to quickly go through the videos. “Lucky for you, it’s not too hard to create one. When do you need it?” 

“Ten minutes ago,” I said with a cheeky tone. 

“You’re lucky you’re handsome,” Kim murmured in frustration as she ended the call. I didn’t bother trying to call her and ask for confirmation whether she would work on the subject or not. Her personality might be prickly, but her professionalism was never in doubt.  

I continued practicing, and ten minutes later, my phone buzzed with a message from her. ‘Give me some time if you need something decent, but it should be workable,’ it read. 

I whistled in appreciation as I watched the video, transitioning through one scene to another with a smoothness that wouldn’t look bad in an actual movie, with colors and contrasted enhanced. 

Much better than I expected in ten minutes. Her skills were impressive, even more than I had given her credit for. 

I posted the video, and didn’t bother checking the responses, just continued practicing. I didn’t have too much time to waste. 

Especially since I had a better way of measuring the effect than the likes and comments. I felt the Intent flowing intensely once more. I paused for a second, closing my eyes as I channeled as much as I could to the System. 

As the benefit of the controversy, the Intent came in a big wave, allowing me to channel a sufficient amount of it to the System before my Guide devoured the rest.  

 And, I received my reward.  

[Precision I, Acquired]

“Excellent,” I murmured as I continued to throw the ball, and suddenly, hitting half of my attempts rather than a fraction of it. 

Cheating in life was fun. 

I paused after the flow of Intent diminished, checking the comments. Despite the Intent it managed to generate, most of the comments were negative, treating it as empty bragging, rightfully mentioning that those passes were not consequential, but just samples. 

The offensive players, in particular, were quite active, insulting the defensive players, who felt duty-bound to come to my help. 

Luckily, enough gullible people were affected by their argument — or at least, my shirtless upper body — to give me the Trait I desperately needed for my gambit. 

“It’s time for the second video,” I said as I started attacking the target in bursts of ten passes. After a dozen tries, I finally had a video that I had managed to hit all ten of them. Another quick message to Kim, and I had a second, even more beautiful video. 

Which changed the discussion about my skills, intensifying the fight even more as the defensive players retaliated. 

More importantly, gave me another reward, one that actually turned me into a passable quarterback. 

[Precision II, acquired]

I would have loved to repeat that trick again with a third video, but I held back for one important reason. 

I didn’t want to scare Kevin from the competition. It would hurt his reputation, but nowhere as much as actually losing the competition, and even the second video only looked like the last-minute attempt for me to create an excuse. 

So that I could claim I wasn’t playing particularly well when I inevitably lost. 

Kevin was in for a nasty surprise. 

However, the Trait itself wasn’t enough to guarantee my victory. Incremental improvements were useful, but only because I had the capability. More practice was necessary. 

So, I practiced until it was time to leave. As stepped onto my new car, I called Megan. “Do you think we can bully Coach Spencer to take a leave of absence if some embarrassing communication about him came to light?” I asked immediately. 

“You don’t do things halfway, do you?” Megan asked, though I didn’t miss the fascination in her tone. 

A girl of my own mind. 

I just chuckled. 

“Maybe, if some kind of blunder comes out about him, a big one,” she said. 

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” I said with a chuckle, my mind already on how to create one. 

But that was a task for the evening. 

Before, I had a coup to complete.