The King's Avatar

”Zuo Chenrui got a lot of things right. Perfect timing, let’s use his evaluation as a starting point for our discussion!” Ye Xiu said, taking the paper from Fang Rui and lifting it in the air.

Soon afterwards, whether they came onstage the previous round or not, everyone in Happy went to the strategy room. The always quiet, cold, and lonesome Mo Fan seemed quite eager this time. He was the first to go into the room, although his expression was as apathetic as always.

In the strategy room, everyone sat down at their own seat one after the other. After Ye Xiu came in, everyone stopped chatting.

The projection screen rolled down. Ye Xiu sat in front of a computer to the side and opened up their previous match.　　

”The first round of the individual competition… Yeah, there’s not much to say here. That Hundred Blossoms kid was too nervous. This issue…” Ye Xiu looked at his teammates. At Happy, there was only one person who would be nervous. Ye Xiu look around the room. In the end, his gaze landed on a laptop.　　

The new season started in September and so did school. Having a young genius mathematician push his academics aside to focus on a professional gaming career was somewhat of a waste, but in this past year, Luo Ji had come to love Glory deeply. He was also unwilling to give up on his position as a pro player. After weighing the two options, Luo Ji decided on staying at school. When he was needed for a match, he would fly over to the stadium.

Fortunately, this was esports. Even if Luo Ji wasn’t personally with the team, as long as he was online, he could still practice with everyone else. However, since Luo Ji was at school, he obviously had to spend a lot of time on his academics. He couldn’t completely keep up with Happy’s pace. Happy tried their best to arrange for more important matters when Luo Ji was free. Everything else could only be communicated online. For example, right now although Luo Ji wasn’t here in-person, a laptop was placed where he would be sitting. Though a bit strange, he could participate in the meeting through a video call.

”There’s not much to say about this issue. Dealing with it is mainly dependent on you. From my experience, try to focus on the match as much as possible and don’t think too much about other things. It’ll help a bit.” Ye Xiu said.　　

”Yes yes yes…” Luo Ji spoke through the laptop. Everyone felt weird seeing it.　　

”The second round was Steamed Bun’s. Steamed Bun, you see how he evaluated you? He gave you 10 to 0. Do you know why?” Ye Xiu asked.

”Why?” Steamed Bun asked back.

”Because you played very well at the start, but then played badly at the end.” Ye Xiu said.　　

”No wonder I lost!” Steamed Bun suddenly understood. He lowered his right fist to his left palm.

”Yeah… let’s look at Steamed Bun’s match!” Ye Xiu said as he opened the VOD of Steamed Bun versus Zhang Wei.

A huge display of Steamed Bun’s match started playing on the projection screen. This wasn’t a recording of the broadcast, but Glory’s own specialized VOD. By using a special video player, they could change the viewpoint and the speed however they pleased.

Ye Xiu fast-forwarded until the point where Steamed Bun and Zhang Wei met.

Zhang Wei threw a Lava Flask, while Steamed Bun flew over with a Powerful Knee Strike...

For the first half, Zuo Chenrui gave Steamed Bun 10 points. What was 10 points? Perfect play was 10 points. For any other analyst, giving out 10 points was extremely rare. But for someone like Zuo Chenrui, who could give 10000 points for looks, what was 10 points? He wasn’t stingy about that, just like how he wasn’t stingy about jabbing at someone.　

10 points...

Ye Xiu took the newspaper and for a moment, he didn’t know where to start. Steamed Bun and Tang Rou were the same. Both of them had started playing in the tenth server. Ye Xiu had personally watched over these two blank pieces of paper as the papers were drawn on. For Tang Rou, her lines were crisp and clear. Her thought process was distinct. Ye Xiu could see the logic behind every stroke. He could see her thoughts. However, for Steamed Bun, his art was the legendary abstract art. His playstyle and his logic did not coincide much, if at all, with those of a normal Glory player. However, sometimes he could produce surprising results.　　

As Steamed Bun’s skill continued to grow, in his practice, there were times where even Ye Xiu was caught off guard. As for Ye Xiu, he had constantly been trying to understand Steamed Bun’s thoughts. For example, he would frequently review the VOD after practice together with Steamed Bun and have him explain his logic when Ye Xiu didn’t understand.

Lots of times, Steamed Bun also scratched his head in wonder. He had clearly already forgotten about his thoughts at that time. This wasn’t Steamed Bun getting derailed, it was simply due to the nature of this game. Glory was fast-paced. Oftentimes, inputs could not be carefully thought about and were done instinctively. There were very few players who could remember every detail in their match perfectly. In Happy, the only one who could do this was named Luo Ji, definitely not Steamed Bun.

Even though he couldn’t get an answer for everything, from the places that Steamed Bun could explain, Ye Xiu gradually started to get a feel for it.

Steamed Bun wasn’t playing without any logic whatsoever. It was just that his logic was rather bold and imaginative. It was born from wild creativity and observation. In this point, he was very similar to Wang Jiexi. The difference was that Steamed Bun had only played Glory for a year, while by the time Wang Jiexi became a pro player, he had been playing Glory for far longer than Steamed Bun. His foundation in Glory had been more solid than Steamed Bun’s.

As a result, Wang Jiexi’s creative playing was precise, sharp, and unpredictable. It was why he was called the Magician.　　

As for Steamed Bun, he was limited by his foundation. His creative playing would sometimes crash into a dead end, leading to noobish mistakes.

Once he understood Steamed Bun’s situation, Ye Xiu couldn’t help but sigh. If Steamed Bun had started playing Glory sooner and had more time to grow, he would definitely be even more terrifying today. But he had only just started now and suffered for that. It was true that Steamed Bun was quite talented, but this was no longer the game. Compared to the in-game Glory, everyone in the Pro Alliance was brimming with talent. And those who became Gods were the best out of all those talents.

Every rookie found by Ye Xiu in Happy had a certain amount of potential, but in Glory, because of all sorts of reasons, all of them had been delayed. Sun Xiang and Tang Hao, these new generation Gods, were only 20 years old. They were even younger than Tang Rou and Steamed Bun, yet they were already the stars of this era.

It wasn’t the first time that Ye Xiu had thought about this. If he had discovered them earlier, or if they had found Glory fun earlier and started practicing systematically, would their current selves have already joined those at the top of the pyramid?

Unfortunately, there were no ifs. He could only dream. Right now, Ye Xiu could only do his best and help these latecomers grow faster. However, towards Steamed Bun, the amount of help that Ye Xiu could provide was becoming less and less. Steamed Bun’s playstyle was special, his unique talent. If Ye Xiu forced him to follow the conventional logic of Glory, it would kill his talent. Ye Xiu could not help Steamed Bun develop his unique talent. As the saying went, what came next would depend on Steamed Bun’s own good luck.

As a result, Ye Xiu would generally just help Steamed Bun make as few mistakes as possible. Those obvious dead-ends would help remind him not to make the same mistake next time.　　

In Steamed Bun’s match against Zhang Wei, he was bold and creative in the first half, but in the next half, he regressed back to the ordinary and confronted Zhang Wei head on. When he asked for the reason why, Steamed Bun’s answer couldn’t be refuted.　　

”I had more health!” Steamed Bun said.

Everyone in the room stared blankly. They wanted to laugh, but they felt like it was nothing to joke about. In the first half, gain the upper hand and get a health lead. Then, in the second half, there was no need to use any special tricks, just directly trade blows. It was a very common and logical strategy. Even the master of playing dirty, Fang Rui, had the same idea in his match against Zhou Guangyi. After successfully pulling off the cooldown method twice and gaining a health lead, he immediately started fighting against Zhou Guangyi directly.

”Yeah, that…” Ye Xiu also hesitated. He fast-forwarded to the middle. ”Okay, then let’s take a look at how you played after you had more health than him.”

Steamed Bun had more health, yet he still lost to Zhang Wei. It wasn’t hard to realize that Steamed Bun had made many mistakes. The strategy meetings weren’t just Ye Xiu lecturing them. During this time, everyone was free to speak up. The rookies and Qiao Yifan were rather quiet, though. Su Mucheng just listened more often than not. She would typically only raise an issue if something was missed. Today, no opportunities had appeared yet. Ye Xiu wasn’t the main speaker either. So, after they started analyzing the latter half of the fight, Wei Chen and Fang Rui were the ones dominating the discussion.

”Here, here. At 2:41, you hesitated! Don’t you think you could have just thrown your Brick at his forehead?” Wei Chen pointed at the projection screen. His tone of voice and attitude didn’t seem like he was discussing tactics. It sounded like he was telling him how to fight like a gangster.

”You’re right!” Steamed Bun again put his right fist to his left palm. He had taken a liking to his movement recently.　　

”The hesitation is okay, but you shouldn’t have leaped back and retreated afterwards. Why not just use Tiger Flips the Mountain?” Fang Rui said.　　

”That’s not necessarily correct. After jumping backwards, you should have followed up with a Powerful Knee Strike. It would have been very strong too,” Wei Chen said.

”Powerful Knee Strike? He could just use Shadow Cloak and wrap you up,” Fang Rui said.

”That’s why you need to jump backwards first to dodge Shadow Cloak before counterattacking,” Wei Chen said.　　

Fang Rui looked distracted for a moment, but he quickly responded, ”Fuck, if there’s no Powerful Knee Strike, where would the Shadow Cloak come from?”　　

”Young people these days, do you not understand the word ’predict’?” Wei Chen said.

”Predict, my ass!” Fang Rui wasn’t polite at all to this shameless senior. ”Steamed Bun, don’t listen to his nonsense. You should have just used Tiger Flips the Mountain and flip him.”

”Peh!” Wei Chen spat. ”Steamed Bun, trust this senior. Jump back first and then Powerful Knee Strike. Watch the opponent carefully. You’re aiming for that small time gap. It’ll definitely give your opponent the biggest surprise.”　

”Surprise, I like it!” Steamed Bun said happily.

”Mm, mm.” Wei Chen nodded his head as if he were teaching a child. ”Rhythm. What’s important is the rhythm.”　

”Steamed Bun,” Ye Xiu called out at this moment.

”Hm?” Steamed Bun looked towards his boss.

”You hesitated here,” Ye Xiu said. ”Don’t hesitate next time. React faster.”

”Okay,” Steamed Bun replied.

”Alright, good.” Ye Xiu nodded his head.