Chapter 21: The Possibility of Integrating Swordsmanship into Tennis!

Tokyo, Fudou Mine Municipal Middle School.

“Ding ling ling ling ling—!”

As soon as the dismissal bell rang, the female teacher, convinced that every extra minute spent in class was a loss, uttered a few trivial words and swiftly left the classroom like a cat.

Upon seeing the teacher depart, the students instantly unleashed their true natures.

Some rushed home to play video games, others made plans to go shopping together, and many prepared to attend club activities.

“Shengzai, the regional tournament is coming soon—Brother told you to go to the tennis club today.”

Shengzai had just finished packing his bag; last night he had shared power with Sword Saint Shengzai and was considering whether to integrate swordsmanship into tennis, so he had originally planned to skip club today.

But before he could act, a sweet, adorable girl with shoulder-length chestnut hair suddenly approached him and spoke.

“I have an urgent matter at home—can you please ask the captain for me?”

The sweet girl before him was named Ju Xing, not only Shengzai’s classmate but also the younger sister of tennis club captain Ju Jieping.

As a municipal middle school, Fudou Mine had a sizable student population and scale even within Tokyo.

Yet until last year, Fudou Mine’s tennis club remained utterly obscure.

The coach and senior members, lacking responsibility and treating others based on favoritism, were mediocre themselves yet constantly suppressed their exceptionally talented juniors.

As a result, despite having many students with tennis talent, Fudou Mine had achieved nothing in any competition for years.

This changed only when a student named Ju Jieping transferred here last year—then the tennis club underwent a dramatic transformation.

Just as Sword Saint Shengzai needed to complete a prerequisite task to unlock the true function of the system and enter “Heart Dream Between,” this world’s version of him had also received a similar system task.

Coming to the tennis world without playing tennis is no different than entering the Yu-Gi-Oh! world without being a card master.

Naturally, upon learning he had arrived in the Tennis Prince world and that tennis elements permeated everything, Shengzai had resolutely picked up a racket from childhood.

At first, as a transmigrator, Shengzai assumed that as one among the transmigration army, he might not dominate heaven, earth, and air, but at least he should possess extraordinary talent.

Yet after many years passed, he sadly discovered his tennis talent was only slightly above average.

Thanks to his decent family background, Shengzai had hired numerous private coaches, but after years of training, he found that aside from his innate dynamic vision—far superior to ordinary people—he had virtually no talent whatsoever.

When he learned this result, honestly, the blow to Shengzai was considerable.

After all, in the Tennis Prince world, if you can’t play tennis, what’s the difference between you and a salted fish?

You might not reach the national tournament level of “killer tennis,” but at least you should reach the level of the Kanto or Tokyo metropolitan tournaments.

Yet sadly, aside from his superior innate dynamic vision and better physical endurance from years of training compared to his peers, Shengzai had virtually no other distinguishing traits.

Of course, being good-looking was technically one trait—but in this world, being good-looking meant absolutely nothing.

Because every member of any renowned school’s team was undeniably handsome.

In this world, you must not only be handsome but also be skilled at tennis to become a top idol.

Just as Shengzai was about to lose all hope, the so-called system suddenly appeared and assigned him a prerequisite task.

The task’s gist was to become a member of a school team in Tokyo within three years, and that school’s overall strength must be at least at the Tokyo metropolitan tournament level.

Many schools in the Tennis Prince world possessed such strength, but considering his slightly above-average ability, to make the team…

After much searching, Shengzai ultimately settled only on Fudou Mine Municipal Middle School.

Before Ju Jieping arrived, Fudou Mine’s tennis club was pure trash.

As for Seishun, Teikou, Yamabuki, and Rikkai—Shengzai didn’t even mention them; the competition was simply too intense.

With his tennis level, going to those schools would mean he couldn’t even land a minor role.

But Fudou Mine was different—it had only seven members on its team; even if he was the worst, surely he could at least become a reserve, right?

For this reason, Shengzai rejected his family’s plan to send him to Teikou Academy and chose Fudou Mine Municipal Middle School instead.

In first year, Shengzai, like Shinou and Shinji, suffered constant exploitation by the club seniors, picking up tennis balls for a full year—until Ju Jieping arrived.

In terms of tennis talent and potential, Shengzai was inferior to geniuses like Shinou and Shinji, but he at least had years of tennis experience.

So after Ju Jieping drove away the former coach and took over the burden of Fudou Mine’s tennis club, Shengzai successfully secured a spot on the team.

“The regional tournament is coming soon—what could possibly be more important than tennis club training?”

“You’re not going on another date, are you?”

Ju Xing leaned both hands on the desk, her face inches from Shengzai’s, her bright black eyes scrutinizing him intently.

“The training load Captain assigns every day leaves me too exhausted to even move when I get home—how could I possibly have time for dates?”

“Today’s a new game release, so I thought…”

Before Shengzai could finish, Ju Xing grabbed his arm and yanked him straight toward the tennis court.

“Seriously, I thought you had something important—turns out you just want to go home and play games.”

“How much more self-destructive can you get? Brother already warned you—if you don’t work harder, you’ll eventually be surpassed by Shinji and Shinou.”

Hearing Shengzai’s “urgent matter” was just playing games, Ju Xing grew furious and, regardless of the stares from others, dragged him out of the classroom.

“Shinji and Shinou are naturally more talented than me—and I’m not being self-destructive, I’m just trying to integrate techniques I learned from games into tennis.”

“Xing, stop pulling—I can walk myself. If Shinou sees this, he’ll lecture me for hours.”

Shengzai wanted to integrate swordsmanship into tennis—and calling the Sword World a game world was perfectly accurate.

But Ju Xing considered his serious words pure nonsense.

(End of Chapter)