Chapter Three: Complete the First Mission and Claim the Reward!

In the blink of an eye, an hour had passed.

Serving: 260/1000

In that hour, Jiang Hong had completed a quarter of the task.

To be honest, the hardest part was not serving.

It was fetching the balls.

After Jiang Hong had hit more than twenty balls, he still had to run over to the other side and collect them all again.

At that moment, the soreness in his body was not in his arms, but in his lower back.

After all, retrieving the balls meant bending over again and again.

Jiang Hong took a short break, then resumed practicing his serve.

After dinner, Li Hua strolled over to the tennis court with a chilled bottle of cola in hand.

He had assumed Jiang Hong would already be resting, but when he arrived, Jiang Hong was still practicing his serve.

As soon as he stepped onto the court, he could see that the sweat beneath Jiang Hong’s feet had already dampened the ground.

Fortunately, this was a public school facility; if they had been at a tennis club, who knew whether the owner would have demanded compensation from Jiang Hong.

One hand kept tossing the ball into the air, while the other held the racket and struck again and again.

After walking in, Li Hua held out the cola before Jiang Hong.

“Hey, Old Jiang, want a sip?”

“Sure.”

Jiang Hong did not refuse. After sending out the last tennis ball in his hand, he took it.

He really was thirsty.

He carried the racket and sat down on the steps behind him.

He was panting hard, his hair already soaked through.

It was only May, and the hottest days had not yet arrived.

If this were August or September, and Jiang Hong kept practicing like this, he would probably be close to collapsing from heatstroke.

His throat felt as if it were about to split open.

But after opening the bottle, he merely took a small sip, then spat it out, moistening his mouth.

“Brother Jiang, you don’t like cola? You should have said so earlier. I would have bought you something else!”

Li Hua patted Jiang Hong’s shoulder and shook his head.

Jiang Hong rolled his eyes at him.

Not like it? Who wouldn’t like an ice-cold cola on a scorching day?

After intense exercise, the body was in a state of dehydration. If one drank too much water at once, it would place a sudden burden on the stomach.

One would instantly become a fountain.

By then, Jiang Hong would not even have stepped onto the tennis world before he already had a nickname of his own.

It could also dilute the blood and make the body feel unwell.

And if it was ice-cold, there was even the risk of bursting a blood vessel.

“After exercise, you should drink in small sips.”

After a while, once the cola was no longer so cold, Jiang Hong began to drink it slowly in small mouthfuls.

After resting for a bit and feeling better, he stood up again with the racket in hand.

“Keep going.”

Then he picked up the balls he had set aside and resumed practicing his serve.

Li Hua watched Jiang Hong’s movements, his eyes turning thoughtfully.

If his good brother was working this hard, he could not fall behind either.

So he went to another area and started practicing his serve as well.

As for the result...

After practicing for about ten minutes, Li Hua said, “Old Jiang, let’s take a break. I’m getting tired.”

Half an hour later:

“Old Jiang, the weather’s too hot. Why don’t we practice another day?”

An hour later:

“Old Jiang, I’ll just help you fetch the balls!”

After all, what was the point of improving yourself when dragging your brother down felt so much more comfortable?

So Li Hua helped Jiang Hong fetch balls for a while, then ran to the shade to rest.

At last, two hours later—

Bang!

1000/1000

“I did it, I did it, hahahaha!”

Jiang Hong collapsed to the ground like a puddle of soft mud.

At first, his serving efficiency had been absurdly low.

Only then did he truly understand the level of his own serve.

He had once thought he was pretty decent, but now it was clear he was nothing more than a pure, unadulterated beginner!

Usually, it took him two or three serves to get one inside the court.

But as he practiced, his serve gradually found its rhythm, and his movements became smoother.

What had once been one successful serve out of three had slowly improved to one out of two.

His swing also became increasingly fluid.

But by the final hundred balls, Jiang Hong’s stamina had plunged sharply, and he was basically exhausted.

Even tossing the ball and swinging the racket had become difficult.

Each serve took longer and longer.

Still, the rising progress on the panel made Jiang Hong determined.

He had to finish this no matter what.

Ding!

Detected that the host has completed the first recommendation, gaining 2 points in basic serving skill, 100 yuan, and one training recovery vial.

Because this is the first time the host has completed a recommendation, the reward has been upgraded.

Host reward updated to 20 points in basic serving skill, 1000 yuan, and one body recovery vial. Description: after use, the vial will repair injuries in the host’s body while the host is asleep, completing recovery within eight hours.

Listening to the system’s prompt, Jiang Hong found it incredibly pleasing to the ear.

Nearby, Li Hua was sitting in the shade licking an ice cream when he looked up and saw Jiang Hong sitting on the ground.

His heart skipped a beat.

“Don’t tell me he got heatstroke?”

He immediately ran toward the court, only to hear Jiang Hong shouting that he had done it, laughing madly.

“Bastard, what did you do it for?”

Although Li Hua was concerned about his sworn father, he still shamelessly took a bit of advantage of him.

He reached out, supported Jiang Hong by the arm, and dragged him into the shade.

Since Jiang Hong had just said he could not drink ice water, Li Hua had thoughtfully bought a bottle of room-temperature mineral water when he went to get the ice cream.

After drinking some water, Jiang Hong recovered a little.

“I’m fine. If I went to the clinic, they’d probably just give me some over-the-counter remedy and it wouldn’t do much anyway. I’m really fine.” Jiang Hong waved a hand. “I’m just exhausted. I’ll be okay after a rest.”

Li Hua looked at him skeptically.

“You’re sure you’re fine? You were practically collapsed on the ground.”

“Really. I just finished practicing and felt like my body had run out of strength.”

After resting for more than ten minutes and drinking some water, Jiang Hong felt much better and slowly stood up.

When he returned to the dormitory, the other roommates saw that he was drenched all over and teased him.

“Old Jiang, did you go swimming?”

Jiang Hong nodded and said with a smile, “Pretty much. Dry swimming.”

Then he took his things to the bathroom at the end of the hallway to wash up, scrubbed his clothes, and hung them on the balcony.

Only after lying on his bed in the dormitory did Jiang Hong remember the system.

Because he had been too exhausted after the task ended, he had not checked the system messages.

“Panel.”

He silently called out in his heart, and the panel visible only to him appeared before his eyes.

After reading the contents, Jiang Hong felt a burst of joy. He had not expected the reward to be upgraded.

“Body recovery vial? It’s missing the word training.”

This was a good thing. After all, after living this long, the body was bound to have accumulated some damage.

A training recovery vial could only restore injuries or fatigue left behind by the current session, but the upgraded version was different.

By simply practicing his serve, he could obtain a training recovery vial, which was practically an extra life-saving talisman.

For an athlete, that was a huge bargain.

And the serving skill points had risen from 2 to 20, so of course he should use them immediately.

After all, keeping the points would not make them grow on their own; it was better to spend them right away.

“Panel.”

He silently called out again, and the blue system panel appeared before him.

Serving: 29

Before practice, Jiang Hong’s attribute had been 28.

It seemed that aside from adding points, practicing would also improve his technical attribute.

“System, add the points for me!”

Jiang Hong put all the basic serving skill points into it at once.

Serving: 29 -> 49

Jiang Hong felt his vision blur, and then he found himself on a tennis court.

His body began to demonstrate the serve on its own—flat serves, topspin serves, slice serves, every technique coming effortlessly at his command, the placement accurate to a frightening degree, with wide-angle aces and body-line aces made to look like play.

His movements had also been corrected considerably. The way he had used to generate power had been nothing but reckless flailing; if he had kept training that way, he would have ruined himself in the long run. Now, his whole body worked in coordination, stable yet fierce.

When Jiang Hong came back to himself, all he could think was that his previous serve had been outrageously poor.

If he were to practice another thousand serves from scratch, he was confident he could finish within eleven hundred serves.

And this was only at forty-nine. If it reached fifty-nine...

Wouldn’t that simply take off?