Chapter 63: The Football Match

Seated on the sofa, Ye Yang was utterly baffled as to why the Pope had invited him to watch a football match. If there was something to discuss, they should have gone to a quieter place rather than a crowded stadium.

However... Serie A!! This was Ye Yang’s favorite football competition to watch, though now it was presumably called the Roman Papal Super Cup.

Pope Felix was currently dining with Ling Fengyan and Su Yi. After all, those two were official diplomatic ambassadors, while Ye Yang, merely a trainee, lacked the strength and status to accompany the old man for a meal. Therefore...

"Come on, try this. I baked these chocolate cookies myself," Greier said with a beaming smile as she handed him a cookie. Ye Yang took a bite and smiled with satisfaction.

There was zero fun in accompanying an old man to dinner; obviously, a pretty girl was much more appealing.

Perhaps completely intoxicated by the madness of the previous night, or simply because Milanese girls had a fondness for being hands-on during meals, Greier seized the opportunity to take advantage of him practically every time she handed him a cookie.

"Cut it out..." Ye Yang said, torn between laughter and tears. Having a pretty companion by his side was great, and he was happy to indulge in a bit of ambiguity. However, Pope Felix had mentioned arranging for someone to spar with him in the evening, and that sparring session certainly wouldn't be with Greier in bed. Therefore, preserving his physical stamina was an absolute must!

After sitting a while longer, the door opened, and the sturdy, giant-axe-wielding brute from yesterday walked in. Ye Yang hurriedly stood up to greet him. The man said something with a smile, and then...

"What did he say?" Ye Yang wiped away a cold sweat.

"He said his name is Andrei, and the Pope sent him to fetch you. We can leave together now, but I can't go," Greier said, spreading her hands with a sigh. After all, she was merely a receptionist, and the Pope's status was utterly out of reach for someone like her.

"I'll be waiting for you in my room," Greier murmured softly before walking out of the hall with a charming smile.

Watching the girl leave, Ye Yang suddenly felt a strange sensation in his heart. Although he hoped to have a pretty companion by his side every day during the training camp, this girl seemed unusually attached to him. Was she planning to entrust him with her entire life? Western women usually didn't act like this, did they?

"Um... Mr. Andrei, right? Tell me, do Milanese girls really fall in love for a lifetime after just one night?" Ye Yang turned his head and asked the burly man.

"Blah blah blah, yak yak yak, blah blah blah," Andrei laughed heartily and boisterously.

"Uh, what did he say?" Ye Yang felt awkward.

"Blah blah blah, yak yak yak, blah blah blah."

"Forget it... Just pretend I didn't ask," Ye Yang felt like crying without tears. If he had known better, he wouldn't have returned his spoken English to his teachers so early. A language barrier could genuinely drive a person crazy.

Andrei brought Ye Yang directly to the so-called football stadium. Ye Yang was left dizzy and disoriented; the land crisis in Milan was far more severe than he had imagined. The stadium was actually built on the roof of a skyscraper! The pitch was relatively small—though the playing field dimensions remained standard, the stands had been scaled down several times over. Scanning the entire venue, even when completely packed, it could only hold three to four thousand people.

The entire perimeter was enclosed with iron bars and wire mesh, ensuring absolute safety, but the atmosphere simply could not compare to the era before the apocalypse.

Since Felix was His Holiness the Pope, naturally he could not watch the match from the regular spectator seats. Instead, he was in a modest yet very comfortable private suite—not particularly spacious, but more than large enough for Ye Yang to do cartwheels inside.

"Sit!" Felix smiled and pointed to the seat beside him. Ye Yang didn't stand on ceremony and sat right down, startling Andrei and another Black man who served as the Pope's personal bodyguard. What was the background of this kid? The Pope attached such great importance to him.

"Can you tell me a bit more about your situation?" the Pope asked with a smile.

Ye Yang nodded. Even if the Pope hadn't asked, he had been planning to find an opportunity to talk about his own issues. In any case, these matters didn't involve state secrets, so he recounted everything that had happened to him since the day of the apocalypse from start to finish.

"You were cryogenically frozen for so long? It seems you aren't all that young anymore," the Pope said with a peculiar expression. "Turns out you're also Ye Lingyun's son... No wonder your physique has become complicated to such a degree."

"Just how complicated is it?" Ye Yang wiped the sweat from his brow, as his physical condition was his primary concern.

Old Felix’s thoughts were quite similar to those of Yao Jun. Ranking higher than Yao Jun and possessing even greater sensory perception, Felix had instantly spotted the item inside Ye Yang’s right hand, thereby guessing his secret, and even this gambling match.

However, just like Yao Jun, he could not accurately tell Ye Yang whether the spore creature within his arm was alive or dead. After all, this wasn't merely a matter of superhuman abilities; it also involved a vast amount of scientific knowledge. He was a Pope, not a scientist.

"Let's watch the match first. We can discuss your problems after the game. The old man will see if he can help you out a little," Felix smiled.

"Help me?" Ye Yang was so excited he nearly jumped up. He had long been prepared to beg this old man for assistance. After all, he was one of the world's rare Level 5 entities, and according to Ling Fengyan, Pope Felix's combat strength ranked among the top three hunters in the entire world! Such a super powerhouse was definitely someone to meet by chance rather than by seeking. He hadn't expected the Pope to proactively offer help.

"You're a Level 5. What is your supernatural ability? Have you ever defeated other Level 5 monsters? Can you show me a demonstration of your power?" Ye Yang’s eyes were practically sparkling. This old man was probably even stronger than Wang Feng!

"Hehe." The old man smiled and shook his head. "My abilities are numerous, but they can also be categorized into one class. My eyes... are quite different."

"Your eyes?" Ye Yang was taken aback. True to the old man's words, Ye Yang had noticed that although the old man's eyes often maintained the dimness typical of the elderly, they would occasionally flash with clusters of silver light that were utterly soul-stirring. But...

"What do you mean by having many abilities? Don't hunters only have one ability?" Ye Yang asked in astonishment.

"Yes and no. The foundational principle of a hunter's ability is that a certain part of the body undergoes mutation during evolution, thereby triggering special powers. For example, some people can manipulate lightning or control flames. That counts as a category, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's just one single effect!

"For instance, if you cause a large-scale eruption of flames, concentrate those flames at a single point for burning, or place them in front of your body for defense, all of these produce different effects. You can collectively refer to them as flame manipulation, but you can also view them as many different ability techniques.

"Take your mentor, Ling Fengyan, for example. His metallization is not merely for defense. Can't he also condense his body into an offensive state? His level is still low and he doesn't seem capable of that yet, but theoretically, it is entirely feasible."

"Oh..." Ye Yang understood. That was what the old man meant. Then his eyes must be capable of many things. However, he didn't want to learn about supernatural abilities, because he was destined never to possess any.

"As for my strength and combat record... Hehe," Felix said with a wry smile. "The old man is old, nearing a hundred years of age. This so-called strength has long since become a thing of the past. Nowadays... I merely possess my former reputation."

Old? His strength had declined? Ye Yang nodded, but he didn't feel that way at all. Even with his abysmal sensory perception, sitting beside the old man still filled him with an overwhelmingly massive pressure—one inferior even to Wang Feng's.

There was another question Ye Yang was dying to know the answer to: why did he lack any supernatural abilities, and why didn't monsters have them either? Weren't they both combinations of human cells and an alternate dimension? Why was the gap so enormous?

"It's different. Monsters haven't completely integrated with human bodies; to be more precise, it's control. At this moment, they are still merely entrenched within the human brain. This is hard for me to explain because it falls under the domain of scientists.

"As for your situation, I believe you might not lack abilities forever," the old教皇 (Pope) mused. "Your situation is similar to a monster's, yet not entirely the same. Just as you said, having been frozen for twenty years, everything started much later for you than for anyone else. Whether it is evolution, cellular fusion, or anything else, it has only just begun.

"Everything still depends on your gamble. If you can obtain a sufficiently rich reward from this gamble, you may well develop abilities in the future, though the process will likely be much, much slower than for a normal person."

"I can have abilities too?" Ye Yang instantly grew excited.

The old man smiled, shook his head, and said, "This is merely my conjecture, and moreover, it's just one possibility."

"As long as there's a possibility, that's great!" Ye Yang rubbed his hands together in excitement. He had originally thought all hope was lost, but he never expected there was still a chance—even the tiniest fraction of a percent. As long as a chance existed, that was enough.

Down on the pitch, the match had already begun, so Ye Yang and the old man stopped chatting. It was clear the old man genuinely loved football; the two of them poured glasses of wine and watched with rapt attention.

The Rossoneri battle against the Bianconeri! Ye Yang discovered this was actually an AC Milan versus Juventus match. This was the exact game he had always wanted to watch live but never had the chance to. Then again, before being frozen, he had been a nobody who could only watch online live streams.

Though unaware of the reason, old Felix treated Ye Yang exceptionally well, pausing from time to time to explain things to him. He learned that the term 'Italian football' no longer existed; the Serie A league had transformed into the Roman Papal Super Cup, and there were far fewer teams than before because most Italian cities had been destroyed during the apocalypse.

AC Milan, Inter Milan, Juventus, and a team affiliated with the Roman Papal Super Cup—these constituted all the teams in Milan today. It was a bit sparse, but fortunately, they were all ultra-first-tier powerhouses.

Ye Yang actually loved watching football, but today he found it rather uninteresting. Over the past twenty years, he no longer recognized a single one of these players. The Juventus goalkeeper was no longer Buffon, but had been replaced by a rugged Black man, and coupled with changes in football rules and tactics, he could no longer fully understand the game.

There were two matches scheduled for today; the second was the Roman Papal Super Cup defending team against Inter Milan, but Ye Yang had long since lost interest.

"Ah, it's a pity that Super Mario transferred from Inter to Manchester City, otherwise it would have been truly spectacular," Ye Yang chuckled dryly. Mario Balotelli, deep in thought about the meaning of life, was his absolute idol.

"Super Mario? Are you talking about Balotelli?" the old Pope suddenly asked with a peculiar expression.

Ye Yang smiled. "You know about Balotelli too, Your Holiness? Right, of course, you're a super fan."

The old Pope smiled—a smile that could only be described as bizarre and eerie. He turned his head, waved his hand, and said, "Little Ba, you've run into another fan of yours. Come over and say hello."

Behind the Pope, the Black man dressed as a bodyguard walked over with a strange grin. Ye Yang's jaw instantly dropped. No wonder he had found this Black man somewhat familiar earlier; this guy was Balotelli? The legendary Super Mario? How on earth had he also become a hunter?

The Pope smiled and spoke another sentence, startling Ye Yang so much he nearly fell backward out of his seat. What the Pope said was: "Didn't you want to find someone to spar with? Your combat strength is too complicated, so it's impossible for a novice to spar with you. If you're willing, spar with Little Ba."