The King's Avatar

Mo Fan had joined Happy for over a month now, and he was still the same as he was when he came. During this time, only Su Mucheng could cause him to change his attitude. And now that Su Mucheng had already gone back to the Club, Mo Fan just sat in front of a row of laptops, not speaking to anyone. He seemed very isolated.

But here, he had food, water and shelter, computers to game on, and no intentions to leave. With Happy being challenged by all sort of people, and now with the official matches, he hadn’t even participated once.

The Challenger League was critical to Team Happy. For it, An Wenyi hadn’t even checked in with his school yet, and it was already late September. Not soon after Su Mucheng returned to her team, Luo Ji also returned to school. In contrast, An Wenyi remained at Happy, telling them that there wasn’t anything he had to do at school anyways.

Everyone was focused on and high-strung about the Challenger League. Although Luo Ji wasn’t there personally, he knew with his ability that he wouldn’t be of any help, but he was still very concerned with how things were progressing. Only Mo Fan never seemed to care. If it wasn’t for the fact that there was an extra set of cutlery on the table at mealtimes, most people would probably forget that he existed.

And now, the tactics meeting regarding Team Everlasting, in the practice room also known as ex-first floor common room, began. Who would’ve thought that at such a time Mo Fan would speak up, and ask a very much legitimate question. But when on earth did this guy start paying attention to the Pro League? He could even not only name Samsara’s team name, but also their play style!

Chen Guo’s heart soared. She believed that with him being here day after day, he finally was influenced by the atmosphere. Something he originally had no interest in, he was finally starting to take part.

Ye Xiu, like everyone else, was surprised by this turn of events. He glanced at Mo Fan and asked, ”You actually know Samsara?” Mo Fan lips thinned, refusing to answer such a useless question.

Ye Xiu smiled and then said, ”What Samsara is like, you have to find out from watching their matches, not just through the media.””...”

”By the way, do you know who’s at the core of Samsara?” Ye Xiu then asked.

”Zhou Zekai.” Who knew where Mo Fan managed to learn this information?

”And his account?” Ye Xiu continued to ask.

”...” Mo Fan once again stopped speaking. Whether it was because he didn’t know or felt like Ye Xiu’s question was an insult to his IQ, they didn’t know.

”Cloud Piercer.” Ye Xiu didn’t care if he knew or not, introducing this character to him anyways. After that, he dismissed the topic and returned to Team Everlasting.

Towards Mo Fan, when he hadn’t wanted to join, Ye Xiu was very persistent. Hunting him down and killing him in game all the time, and even getting Tyranny’s Zhang Xinjie to help him, backing the guy into a corner.

Yet when Mo Fan actually came to Happy, he was completely let go of. Ye Xiu barely even talked to him. Most people would just leave out of boredom facing this lack of presence, but Mo Fan was used to this lonely lack of interaction and stayed for all this time. The only thing Ye Xiu did was give him a training plan to help him improve his playing abilities. After doing this training, he was constantly improving.

Apart from that, no one went to care about his will, but being in this environment everyday, Mo Fan witnessed and heard all sorts of things about Glory, He wasn’t someone who was completely isolated from his environment, he had thoughts and ideas, he just didn’t express them.

But there was one thing that Ye Xiu knew for certain he was right about: Mo Fan loved Glory. Though the path he chose in the game diverged from the typical player, it was still a part of this game. The Pro League was also another way to play Glory; it was a way of showing off your skills on a higher stage.

It might seem like Ye Xiu had zero interactions with Mo Fan, but this didn’t mean he wasn’t keeping an eye on him.

Mo Fan’s daily practice was something that he often paid attention to. With the attitude Mo Fan held towards this practice, it could be seen that he definitely wished to improve his skills. With better skills, the online game wouldn’t be able to hold his attention for much longer and becoming interested in the Pro League was inevitable. And now, the idea had been planted in his head, so Mo Fan started paying attention to this topic. He could understand and pose questions to the topics Ye Xiu discussed.

But Ye Xiu didn’t give him a direct answer. Compared to being lectured, fighting for what you wanted was far more interesting, especially for Mo Fan whose interest had just started to appear.

Ye Xiu then introduced Team Everlasting’s techniques and combinations to everyone. After that, he sent everyone the recording for this part.

”There’s not much time left, so work hard, everyone.” Ye Xiu said at last. He knew how to counter Team Everlasting’s tactics and combos and explained it to the best of his ability, but how much they understood was all on them. The tides of a match could change in a split second. To understand someone’ tactics was to understand their ideas and adapt to fight back against it, not memorize the form of attacks that you saw.

Having Tang Rou and Steamed Bun accomplish this was a bit too much; their tactical understanding wasn’t that good yet!

After explaining the team battle, something also had to be said about the individuals in the team. The only problem was, were Team Everlasting’s team members the same as the season prior?

From the information they found on the registered accounts, they had two that were different from last year. Clearly, some changes had been made over the summer, but a change in accounts didn’t necessarily mean a change in players. If the player changed, then talking about how to deal with them was a fruitless task.

So in the end, Ye Xiu didn’t talk too much about any of the individual styles of the players, and just analyzed the characters that were still in the team from last year.

Not long after, this pre-match strategy meeting came to an end and the others rushed off to prepare. Ye Xiu, on the other hand, was still looking over Team Everlasting’s match recordings, trying to find anything that he might have missed.

A day passed, only three full days were left until the match on Friday.

Yet on this Tuesday afternoon, Chen Guo received a call from the Happy Internet Cafe. They said that there was someone here to see the boss, something about talking business.

”What business? The Internet cafe isn’t lacking anything right now. Let them leave a business card, if we need anything we’ll find them later!” Chen Guo had thought that they were some sort of salesmen and had no heart to be concerned about that kind of thing.

”They said they’re from Team Everlasting, and that we just had to tell you this name.” The employee manning the counter relayed to his boss.

”Team Everlasting?” Chen Guo paused, looking to Ye Xiu and pointing at her phone, ”Team Everlasting came knocking.”

”What arrogance! Steam Bun, let’s go deal with them!” Ye Xiu hadn’t even had a chance to reply when Wei Chen jumped up. Steamed Bun immediately put down his computer and swiftly charged into his room. After a while, he came out empty-handed and charged into the kitchen to find ”them”.

”At the Internet cafe?” Ye Xiu ignored the idiots making a ruckus.

”Yeah!”

”I’ll go with you to check it out!” Ye Xiu stood.

”Do you need us to come with you?” Wei Chen stood, too.

”Don’t worry and continue training. We only need me to go and take a look.” Ye Xiu said.

”If anything happens, tell us,” Wei Chen replied with an air of severity.

”Heheh,” Ye Xiu laughed shortly and left with Chen Guo.

Happy Internet Cafe. As soon as the two arrived, an employee immediately came to meet them. There were two visitors in total, and they had been taken to one of the rooms on the second floor under Chen Guo’s command.

Chen Guo asked the employee a few more questions, but didn’t get any important information. The two then went up stairs, and pushed open the door to the room. The people sitting on beanbags, talking, stopped at once and turned their heads to look.

Ye Xiu and Chen Guo hadn’t even looked closely at these people when they simultaneously stood up. The one closer to them greeted them with a smile, directing his words mostly at Chen Guo. ”I assume you’re the boss, Ms. Chen? Greetings, I’m the team leader of Team Everlasting, He An.”

Team leader referred to the manager of the club, an outdated sort of title. Those who were used to being called such usually had some experience in the Pro League. When He An referred to himself as team leader, anyone could tell he felt superior. It was clear that he wasn’t here to boast about his position, but happy that he could use this title to tell the person standing in front of him: I’m no rookie, I’m an experienced veteran.

Yet this ”veteran” was very much a stranger to Ye Xiu. In contrast, it was the person next to him that seemed much more familiar to Ye Xiu. He just couldn’t seem to remember his name. There were over 200 people in the Pro League, and those were just the ones currently active. With all the players who came and went, joining and leaving, the number of people involved was far more than that. How could you expect him to remember all of them? But if he felt like this person was familiar, then it was probably someone that Ye Xiu had personally met. He could guess that this was probably a member of Team Everlasting and they had probably played each over in a pro match before?

Thinking of this, Ye Xiu suddenly remembered. He didn’t know the guy’s name, but he knew his identity, so he smiled and said, ”Hey, I recognize you! Aren’t you Team Everlasting’s vice-captain?”

”It’s captain now.” It was the team leader who spoke up, taking a closer look at Ye Xiu. Then he looked back at the captain. ”You know each other?”

That person’s expression had twisted a little. He understood his team leader’s little problem, but today your boasting of your experience has dug yourself a pit.

”He’s God Ye Qiu.” The vice-captain introduced with a hint of exasperation.

That’s right, God Ye Qiu.

Boasting about being experienced in Glory in front of God Ye Qiu, that wasn’t being an old veteran, that was being senile!