Chapter 228 Last National High School Champions.h.i.+p 6
Jake returned home after that and told his mother that his team had won and also that a friend had been injured and could no longer play with them in this national champions.h.i.+p, Eva just as Jake could not be happy with his son"s victory knowing that someone had been injured.
Jake also found this a pity, but he knew he had no chance of his friend recovering in the remaining two weeks before the game, even though it took Jake almost that time to recover from a much milder injury Mark had sustained.
That"s because Jake"s body was so much stronger and had the system"s help to recover faster, and after recovering from the injury would still take time for Mark to recover his ideal form, it was very different from Jake"s situation.
As Jake couldn"t see Mark for a while until his friend went to school he had to think now what to do for the national champions.h.i.+p final in two weeks, without Mark in the game he had to think of a solution not to lose the game.
After all, in Jake"s view, the most important person on the team after himself was Mark, even if the whole team played badly if he could play the best and Mark also played well they might have a chance to win.
The reason for this was not so much Mark"s talent as Center but his friend"s ability to catch rebounds when the team missed the attacks and defensive rebounds, which was what guaranteed the team"s victory.
So much so that at the end of the last game Jake missed some attacks trying to score more points and without Mark to catch the rebound the lead did not increase, and although Carter seemed to have played well improvised as Center the reason was that the opposing team had no time to prepare a strategy to capitalize on the weakness of the Elite team.
But there were still two weeks to the final game, it was obvious that the opponents would prepare for it, but Jake didn"t want to think about it today and decided to sleep, but before he had a doubt to ask the system.
"Fate, what was that premonition I felt in the middle of the game before Mark got hurt?"
[So you felt a premonition that something bad could happen huh, this is unexpected.]
"What"s unexpected, don"t you even know what happened?"
[I didn"t realize this happened in the middle of the game, but I think I know what happened, as you know even though I"m kind of a system to help you, I"m both a part of the fate of this world.]
[In addition, you came from the future, and even though only a part of me has gone back to helping you and also correcting the mistakes that were made, it still caused a small change in universe karma.]
[Of course, it"s nothing serious and I was expecting this before I went back to the past with you, even though as I am a piece of fate I know what will happen in the near future thanks to this change in karma.]
[At the same time after going back to the past I merged with a part of your soul, so it seems that after so many variables in your life happened and I had to warn you so many times you could have taken a small part of my abilities.]
So Jake understood why the system could warn before he was injured and so could avoid before he thought the system only knew well about his body and so could warn before an injury.
But now he understood that it had to do with the system"s ability to predict the future, at the same time many things went through Jake"s mind after discovering it.
"So you mean you knew my house would be overrun by bad guys and my friend would get hurt and didn"t warn me?"
[Yes, I did, but I can"t warn you anything that doesn"t pose any serious danger to you and your mother, as your friend Mark was just a normal gambling injury, I couldn"t warn you of something ordinary like that.]
Even if he didn"t agree with the system that it was better not to warn him about breaking into his house and his friend"s injury, he understood that the system was already doing a lot for him, just that he was back in the past it is changing and much to the natural order of the world.
It was because Jake was so perhaps one of the reasons he was chosen to go back to the past, after all as the system itself said fate wanted to go back in time anyway to correct some mistakes Jake didn"t know about.
Even so, Jake knew he was just lucky to be the one to go back to the system if there was any other reason why not even Jake knew for sure.
"So from now on, I"ll also have some premonitions or visions of the future when something serious happens?"
[I really don"t know about that, even if I was hoped that going back with you could cause some small change I didn"t expect you to have premonitions about the future, I hope this "skill" of yours doesn"t get any stronger, otherwise, it can end up driving you crazy.]
Jake s.h.i.+vered with fear when he heard the system say that, he himself knew it must be true, even though in many stories predicting the future was often shown to be a cool skill Jake didn"t think so.
The human mind can"t handle that much stress and even a premonition that something was wrong ended with his friend"s injury already leaving Jake feeling guilty about it, what happened was not Jake"s fault, but knowing it made him feel that way.
If he always had premonitions like that he would go crazy trying to take care of everyone not to feel guilty later and if something happened, he would feel guilty for not helping the person, Jake didn"t want such a power.
At least he knew that if something serious could happen to him and his mother, the system hinted that it would warn Jake of it, just as it warns before the injuries, so Jake knew that he and his mother were protected if something could happen.
"Can"t you stop me having these premonitions in the future?"
[No way, only the fate of this world could be powerful enough to do that, but I know that if I and the fate of this time get too close something even worse can happen, then nothing can be done.]
As nothing could be done Jake decided to rest, in the coming days Jake just focused on training, whenever he could he ran the 60 km and increased his confidence for the upcoming Olympics, so he would make sure he could run quietly 15 km less in the marathon.
In the training of the basketball team coach Mike told everyone the day after the game that Mark would be out of the national champions.h.i.+p because of the injury, everyone felt bad about it and even those who didn"t care about Mark were sad because it meant that Elite team could lose in the final.
Coach Mike could do nothing about it and began training more with the makes.h.i.+ft team that played in the last period of the semifinal game, Jake in PG position, Nathan in SG position, Harrison in SF position, Lucas in the position of PF and Carter in Center position.
Jake was concerned that if the team played like this they would lose in the final after all the team they would face in this year"s final would surely be stronger than the Fox team they faced in the semifinal.
Jake knew that even if he played the game trying to do everything himself would not work out as before, after all, he could do it only if Mark was there to secure the rebounds, after all, Jake knew that rebounds were key to winning a game, more than make several points.
After coming home Jake kept thinking about it, he had to think something to change in his team, otherwise they could end up losing in that final, if he thought something would be great for his team, after all, he was sure the opponents would do strategies thinking of exploiting the failures of the Elite team without Mark in the team.
The defense was not that important in Mark"s absence, after all, he and the other players could cover it, the problem was the rebounds, even though Carter could catch some offensive and defensive rebounds, it wasn"t even close to what Mark did.
Only who could get more rebounds on the Elite team besides Mark was Jake, but Jake couldn"t do that ... Or could he?
When that thought came to Jake"s mind he couldn"t stop thinking, he could actually play defense even better than Mark and catch rebounds better than Mark if he really struggled.
Not to mention that thanks to his imagination training s.p.a.ce he has played hundreds of times as Center since he learned to play with Mark, so in training he had theoretically more experience than Mark, not to mention that he was the second tallest player in staff only a few inches less than Mark.
So Jake understood what he should do in the next game, he would play as PG in attack and defend as Center in defense, so he could cover the s.p.a.ce left by Mark and catch the rebounds for the team, in attack he would also fight more for offensive rebounds.
So the subst.i.tute for the team would be David instead of Harrison, after all, David was much better at offense than Harrison, so David would defend against the opposing player who was worse at offense, so Jake thought about it and found a great idea to tell the coach the other day he would make the decision.
The other day Jake arrived earlier than his other teammates and called Coach Mike in for a private conversation, Coach Mike was curious about what was so important but even agreed to talk to Jake.
"What happened so important to you wanting to talk to me before Jake training?"
"Coach, I think I figured out a way for our team to play that would be better than what we are doing now and still catch our opponents in the surprise final as they must be preparing a strategy to take advantage of Mark"s absence from the team."