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Getting a useful amount of mana recovery wasn’t something that could be accomplished with just one or two pieces of equipment. With the current stats of equipment, as limited by the maximum equipment level, a set of many pieces of equipment was needed. Lord Grim right now had many pieces of Level 80 Silver equipment, whose stats weren’t visible, but for stats like mana or health recovery that had a visible effect over time, it could be directly seen whether or not they were present. On Lord Grim’s body now, there didn’t seem to be any such equipment.

And carrying an extra set of equipment into a match was something that hadn’t been done for a long time. A set of equipment increased weight, which became a large burden on this high-level professional stage, especially since this was now the highest-level playoffs competition.

But Li Yibo didn’t dare use common principles to draw conclusions.

Ye Xiu leading Team Happy to return to the professional scene, this was already so far out of everyone’s expectations. Anything contrary to common expectations was possible. Perhaps the weight added by this set of equipment could be erased somehow by Ye Xiu’s unspecialized Lord Grim?

Li Yibo didn’t say anything. Everyone was waiting to see.

Lu Hanwen came offstage and returned to Blue Rain’s player area.

In the first battle, Song Xiao had knocked away 30% of Lord Grim’s health. In the second battle, based on his onstage performance, it had seemed that Lu Hanwen was doing better, but in the end he had only taken down 26% of Lord Grim’s health, which was a little inferior to Song Xiao’s performance.

From this it could be seen that the scene onstage and the actual numbers were two different things. It had looked like Song Xiao was taking a beating throughout the entire match, and he had ultimately fallen in a one-wave rush. But during this process, he had relied on his tenacious defense to wear away Ye Xiu by a significant amount. On the other hand, Lu Hanwen’s aggressiveness was more apparent, and he’d actually found an opportunity to successfully counterattack, but ultimately, he hadn’t worn down Ye Xiu as much as Song Xiao had.

However, Blue Rain’s players didn’t fuss over this point.

“You played well,” said Captain Yu Wenzhou.

Lu Hanwen nodded, taking this simple sentence to heart. He knew that their captain never threw around these polite words just to comfort his teammates. Whether success or failure, victory or defeat, he would always be gentle and sincere. He wouldn’t criticize harshly, nor would he protect them excessively.

So, even though he hadn’t won, his performance was correct, was worthy of recognition. When he thought about this, Lu Hanwen’s courage was suddenly refilled, and he almost felt like charging back to play another match against Ye Xiu.

“Of course this was impossible. All Lu Hanwen could do was turn toward Blue Rain’s third player, who was already walking onstage, and holler: “Go Huang Shao!!”

Huang Shaotian heard it, but he didn’t turn around. He simply waved his right hand, his index and middle fingers raised in the shape of “V” for victory.

“Ah, Team Blue Rain is already sending out Huang Shaotian as their third player!” Pan Lin said.

In the five-player group arena of the playoffs, simply winning the final victory wasn’t enough. The key was to win more points by having more players left standing. So up until now, a common strategy was to place the ace player in the third or fourth spot, because if a victory was achieved then, that would guarantee two or three points. If, on the other hand, the ace player was fifth, then even if they won the final victory, they would only have one point. One point had much too small of an impact on the team round. The team competition was rarely fought until only one player remained.

“But the current situation can be seen as fairly unfavorable toward Blue Rain,” said Li Yibo. The fact that he spoke so carefully, even though Happy was so far in the lead after completing a 1v2, only showed how cautious he was now.

Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim still had 44% health, but only 11% mana remaining. This little mana definitely wasn’t enough to kill an opponent like Huang Shaotian, so what would Ye Xiu do? Did he bring equipment, or would he use Wish Prayer?

But even if he did have Wish Prayer, it would only be at Level 1. With Lord Grim’s Intelligence stat, he would probably only be able to recover around 10%. 21% mana, this still might not be enough to deal with Huang Shaotian, would it?

Still, Ye Xiu had already knocked down two opponents. At this point, everyone was already quite satisfied with his performance. For this round, any amount of Huang Shaotian’s health that he managed to knock away would be considered a victory.

Huang Shaotian came onstage and entered the player booth. His character loaded in, and very soon, the third battle of the group arena began.

“I’m surprised you’re up so soon. Fighting me, the pressure’s pretty high, huh?” The moment the match began, Ye Xiu began to talk in the channel. The audience members watched as Lord Grim lifted his Myriad Manifestations Umbrella, surrounding himself with glowing blue light and chaotically-flying chanted runes. Indeed, he was using Wish Prayer. But ultimately, the mana-recovering equipment didn’t make an appearance. It appeared that in the rhythm of a playoffs match, even Ye Xiu couldn’t carry such a burden.

“I don’t have much mana left, it should be easy for you to pick up this wallet!” Ye Xiu continued to speak.

“How come you’re not talking? Since I saw it was you, I made extra sure to talk a bit more. What’s wrong with you, did you get muted? Or are you so scared that you’re all choked up?” Ye Xiu was still talking. But Ye Xiu was already on his third message sent, which everyone found strange. What was going on? Huang Shaotian wasn’t saying anything, while Ye Xiu was blathering on. Had these two switched bodies or something?

“Holy f*ck you’re so annoying!”

Just as everyone was growing confused, Huang Shaotian finally exploded.

“Who wants to talk to you? We’re enemies right now, enemies! Understand?”

“You were so arrogant just now, defeating two of our people! Right now, are you getting mana-recovery equipment or doing some Wish Prayer or whatever? Whatever dirty tricks you have, bring it!”

In an instant, Huang Shaotian had already sent three messages in reply. Indeed, his rhythm here had surpassed Ye Xiu’s.

“Oh, that’s more like it. If you don’t yell a few sentences, the whole atmosphere feels wrong,” said Ye Xiu.

“Screw your atmosphere! Even if you want to do anything you don’t have much mana left, so stop wasting time and hurry up and come out and die!”

“Be patient. As you wish, I’m recovering mana!” Ye Xiu said.

“As expected, dirty and shameless,” said Huang Shaotian.

“Hehe, you’re just jealous,” Ye Xiu replied.

The cast time for Wish Prayer was long, as was the skill’s duration, so Ye Xiu activated the skill at the very beginning. Huang Shaotian had essentially guessed that Ye Xiu would do this, so as soon as the match began, he had Troubling Rain fearlessly charge forward.

Even as the two people were playing seriously, they were also chatting away in the channel. The audience didn’t know what to think. This was the high-stakes playoffs! In the two previous battles, who was in the mood for chatting? As expected of the super-God Ye Xiu, what a calm attitude for him to be able to chat with Huang Shaotian like this…

As everyone quietly reflected, those two were still going at it. Even though Wish Prayer was slow, it was still faster than Troubling Rain making his way toward Lord Grim. Happy hadn’t chosen a small map for this group arena, perhaps for this reason exactly.

Finally, Wish Prayer was complete, and Lord Grim recovered 11% mana, putting him at 22%. With this one-fifth mana, Ye Xiu could probably casually wipe out two or three ordinary players. But against a pro player, then the outcome would depend. Huang Shaotian was a strong player, so almost no one had any hopes for Ye Xiu. Happy’s supporters just hoped that he could chip away as much of Troubling Rain’s health as he could. When Ye Xiu defeated Blue Rain’s first player Song Xiao, someone had actually shouted for a 1v5, but right now, there weren’t even people yelling for 1v3.

A yell for a 1v5 was immediately obvious as a joke, so no one would pay much attention upon hearing it. But to shout for a 1v3 right now? In theory, 22% mana was enough to defeat a character. But the opponent was Huang Shaotian! Shouting for a 1v3 now would just seem ignorant. The passionate fans now suddenly became very rational, and they didn’t pull out unsuitable cheers.

After finishing Wish Prayer, Ye Xiu didn’t control Lord Grim to walk directly forward. Like last round, he took the path to the right. This didn’t surprise anyone. When starting a match at a disadvantage, especially when the opponent was such a strong player, it made sense to use more tactical thinking.

While Troubling Rain continued to charge, Lord Grim circled around to the right, and soon began to head directly toward the center road. When the audience saw this, they realized, this was an exact repeat of last round! Once again, Ye Xiu wanted to sneak directly behind the opponent and ambush them!

As expected.

This time, Ye Xiu had accurately calculated Troubling Rain’s movement speed. When Lord Grim circled to the right and then cut back to the center, his rhythm was completely synced with Troubling Rain’s footsteps. Of course, it wasn’t so coincidental that he used the same bush as last time, but like before, there were plenty of places for Lord Grim to hide and wait to ambush.

Roll, Slide Kick, again with these low-movement skills. Soon, Lord Grim had made his way right next to the path.

However, the audience members could see from the live display screens that Huang Shaotian’s camera view was currently locked onto the exact spot where Lord Grim was hidden.

The televised broadcast was a bit slower, but soon enough, they also displayed a split-screen featuring Huang Shaotian’s camera view.

“Ah, Ye Xiu’s ambush position has been discovered!” Pan Lin shouted.

“Blue Rain has enough understanding of the map now. Plus, Ye Xiu is repeating his strategy of last battle,” said Li Yibo.

“Will he directly attack?” Pan Lin shouted. As soon as he said this, Troubling Rain halted in his steps.

Silence.

A sudden silence.

Earlier, Troubling Rain’s footsteps had been pounding on the ground, and Ye Xiu was using that sound to anticipate his movement position. If Lord Grim poked his head up now, he would certainly be seen by Huang Shaotian.

But Huang Shaotian suddenly had his Troubling Rain to stop…

He’s found me!

Ye Xiu immediately realized. Right now, he could pretty much judge where Troubling Rain’s final step had taken him, but it was possible Huang Shaotian was already controlling Troubling Rain to small hop, roll, slow walk, or other such silent movements.

If he wasn’t accurate in his judgment of position, then if he acted now, he would only lose the initiative. This wasn’t what Ye Xiu wanted.

After Ye Xiu instantly and clearly organized his thoughts, his actions were extremely decisive.

Slide Kick!

Lord Grim moved low to the ground, and then rolled twice to the right. Ye Xiu was actually controlling Lord Grim to turn and move away.