João started smiling beside him as Lukas waved to the boy and the crowd and turned back around to face the group.
"They love you already."
"Relax," Joanna muttered. "They haven’t even seen him play yet."
"They’ve seen YouTube compilations," João replied seriously. "That’s enough."
Viana gestured toward the entrance.
"Co on," he said lightly. "Before they adopt you permanently."
As they entered the main academy building, the atmosphere shifted from chaotic excitent into sothing more controlled.
Professional.
Focused.
But still warm.
Staff mbers greeted Lukas almost imdiately.
Receptionists smiled.
Employees walking through the hallways stopped briefly to shake his hand or welco him to the club.
"Welco to City."
"Glad to have you here."
"Congratulations on the Nations League."
Even so younger academy players passing through the corridor visibly tried not to stare too hard at him.
The inside of the academy reflected the sa feeling as outside.
Elite.
Huge glass walls overlooked training pitches.
Frad photos lined sections of the hallway—Aguero, Kompany, David Silva, De Bruyne, Haaland, the club lifting trophies across different years.
The entire building carried the atmosphere of a machine built purely for football.
And a very expensive one at that.
Eventually, Hugo led them deeper into the dical departnt.
The others remained nearby in a waiting area once they arrived.
João imdiately collapsed into one of the chairs dramatically.
"I’m starving already."
"You ate on the plane," Joanna reminded him.
"That was plane food. It doesn’t count."
anwhile, Javi stayed closer to the entrance of the dical room while Marco quietly spoke with one of the club representatives nearby.
Inside the dical suite itself, Lukas was greeted by several staff mbers before one older man stepped forward.
"Lukas," he said warmly, extending his hand. "Dr. Max Sala."
Manchester City’s Head of Sports dicine.
Lukas shook his hand politely.
"Nice to et you."
"You too," Sala replied. "We’ll run through a few tests today. Standard procedures."
The "few tests" quickly turned into sothing far more intense.
Mobility assessnts.
Joint flexibility.
Blood work.
Muscle analysis.
Reaction-speed testing.
Cardiovascular endurance evaluations.
Sprint chanics.
VO2 max testing.
Body composition scans.
Strength asurents.
Even neurological response examinations.
At one point they had him inside a hyperbaric recovery chamber while technicians reviewed recovery trics from previous physical strain.
The entire process felt less like a football dical and more like testing a Formula One car.
And slowly—
the mood in the room began changing.
At first, it was subtle.
Small glances between assistants.
Double-checking numbers.
Quiet conversations.
Then the assistants started bringing tablets directly to Dr. Sala more frequently.
Lukas noticed it imdiately.
So did Hugo.
Every new set of results seed to make the doctor more confused instead of reassured.
At one point, Sala stared down at one tablet for nearly ten full seconds without saying anything.
One assistant leaned toward him quietly.
"I already recalibrated it."
Sala frowned slightly.
"Run it again anyway."
The test was repeated.
The numbers barely changed.
That only made the room quieter.
Eventually, Hugo stepped forward slightly.
"...Is there a problem?"
Dr. Sala slowly lowered the tablet from his hands.
Then he looked directly at Hugo.
"There is a big problem," he said.
The room imdiately went still.
Hugo Viana frowned imdiately.
"What’s wrong?"
Dr. Sala looked back down at the tablet in his hands before exhaling slowly.
"I honestly don’t know how to explain this," he admitted. "Or how to make sense of it."
That answer alone imdiately made Javi tense slightly nearby.
Hugo noticed it too.
"Is it bad?" Hugo asked. "Or too good?"
Dr. Sala rubbed a hand across his jaw.
"Technically... it’s not bad."
He hesitated.
"But it’s also not possible."
That made the room go quieter.
Sala looked around briefly before motioning toward Hugo.
"Can I speak to you for a second?"
Hugo followed him a short distance away while the assistants continued moving around the room pretending not to listen.
Once they were far enough from the others, Sala lowered his voice.
"I think we need to test him."
Hugo frowned imdiately.
"Test him?"
Sala nodded slowly.
"For PEDs."
Even Hugo looked slightly caught off guard by that.
"What?"
"I know how it sounds," Sala said quickly. "And honestly, I don’t even know if I believe it myself. But these numbers make absolutely no sense for a sixteen-year-old athlete."
He turned the tablet slightly toward Hugo.
"His recovery markers are absurd. Lactate clearance rates are elite-level. His oxygen uptake trics are..." He shook his head lightly. "They’re ridiculous."
Sala scrolled through another section.
"His VO₂ max is testing near the top end of what we have recorded in the squad."
That got Hugo’s attention imdiately.
"Near Haaland’s?"
"Practically alongside him," Sala admitted. "And Haaland is a fully developed twenty-four-year-old physical anomaly."
He scrolled again.
"Explosive output, muscle endurance, anaerobic repeat sprint capacity... everything is elite. Not elite for a teenager. Elite for a player entering physical pri at twenty-five."
Hugo stayed silent while Sala continued.
"And the strangest part is that nothing is actually wrong."
"What do you an?"
"I an usually when soone is using PEDs, you see irregularities sowhere. Hormonal imbalance. Abnormal recovery indicators. Hematological distortion. Elevated markers that point toward manipulation."
He shook his head slowly.
"But everything here is... clean."
That was the part bothering him most.
"There are no obvious abnormalities," Sala continued. "No biological red flags. No suspicious endocrine readings. No signs of blood manipulation."
He looked genuinely perplexed now.
"It’s like soone took the ideal athletic profile for a world-class footballer and compressed it into a sixteen-year-old body."
Hugo exhaled quietly through his nose.
Then finally nodded once.
"Okay," he said calmly. "Run the tests."
Sala nodded imdiately.
"If there’s even the slightest issue," Hugo added carefully, "we deal with it internally first before anything else."
"Of course."
A few monts later, Sala returned toward Lukas while Javi instinctively stepped slightly closer.
Lukas imdiately noticed the shift in atmosphere.
"Is everything okay?"
Sala gave a small professional smile.
"We’re just going to run so additional blood work."
"Blood work?" Lukas repeated.
"Yes," Sala replied carefully. "I don’t really know how to say this, but your test results are... well, they’re off the charts."
One of the assistants beside him actually nodded slightly in agreent.
"We just want to send a few samples to the lab for verification," Sala continued. "Fast-track processing. We should have results within an hour."
Lukas looked at him for a second before nodding calmly.
"Okay."
But inwardly—
"Honestly... I don’t bla them."
"If I didn’t know what I’ve been putting myself through every single day inside the LTC... I’d probably suspect too."
Javi still looked uneasy beside him though.
"Is this serious?" he asked.
"No, no," Sala reassured quickly. "This is precautionary. That’s all."
Lukas looked toward his father and gave him a small nod.
"It’s okay."
Eventually, blood samples were taken and imdiately rushed internally to the City Football Academy’s performance laboratory for testing.
While the lab processed everything, the rest of the dical continued.
Movent analysis.
Pressure testing.
Acceleration scans.
Joint resistance evaluations.
And every new test sohow made the staff even more confused.
One assistant actually muttered "what the hell" under his breath after one of the sprint repeat readings ca back.
*************
A/N: This Chapter is sponsored by Coolvamp. I appreciate the tip, it really is a huge help to !
You can’t support the work @ ko-fi(.)com/writ1 where you can buy a biscuit and 1 biscuit = 1 extra dedicated Chapter.
Another Chapter incoming today.
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