Pillar of Yita

The first match of the second round quickly had a result, Liuli Yue’s Walker (Type-II) received a B- Grade Quality. Considering the difficulty was much higher than the previous round, the judges awarded a score of 95 out of a full 100 points.

But when Fang Hong turned to look at the Walker built by the little girl from Silver Weslan, he was taken aback. Her assembly technique was clearly superior to Liuli Yue’s — indeed, after a staff member went to check, they gestured a B+ — to which the judges correspondingly gave a high score of 98.7.

Fang Hong recalled that the information given to him by Soul Fingerprint mentioned that this little girl was ranked lowest in Silver Weslan, and her average score in previous rounds hovered around eighty. Who would have expected her to suddenly burst forth with such a high score? He immediately realized that if she wasn’t holding back in previous matches, then she has extraordinary talent in the field of Flexible Construct, a typical case of specialization.

Fang Hong quickly glanced through the records of previous rounds, and sure enough, the matches Silver Weslan assigned to this little girl were not related to Flexible Construct, which explains her mediocre performance. He immediately realized this was a peculiar move arranged by Sophie, but what was her purpose in doing so?

While Fang Hong may react slightly slowly in other areas, his thoughts are always clear when analyzing such issues. He pondered, and immediately perceived Sophie’s sinister motive:

Because, in the competition, the main general of each team is usually an all-round player, tactical arrangements often revolve around others.

For instance, among the four members of Silver Weslan, besides the main general ’Xiaoyao’, one excels in the intricate domain—namely plugin creation, while another is from the Rose School, excelling in Fairy Master structures.

The remaining girl named ’Shuishui’ had previously shown mediocre performance in the matches.

Generally, each side of course tries to ban the opposing side’s areas of expertise and chooses their own areas of expertise. Since banning strategy is almost unavoidable, both sides often engage in a struggle over the selectable strategies.

For example, their side’s banning strategy naturally involves choosing between the plugin and Fairy Master to cut off an arm of Silver Weslan; meanwhile, Silver Weslan directly banned the Magic Guided School, obviously seeing their team’s talent in Dill in that area.

In terms of selectable strategy, they first chose the Resonance Crystal—this is because, according to intelligence, apart from the main general ’Xiaoyao’, the others in the Silver Weslan are not proficient in crystal making.

Crystal making primarily requires the precision of structural point connections to ensure it can accommodate more magic power under fixed structure conditions.

Coincidentally, Cui Yu from their side excels in this area.

Thus, to avoid losing too many points in this item, the opposing side will almost certainly have their main general ’Xiaoyao’ take the field against Ragnarok in this item.

This way, since the all-round player must be used in this battle, Silver Weslan will not have much choice left to ensure their advantage in the other matches. Among their expertise, the plugin and Fairy Master School, one has already been taken, thus the plugin school is sure to be chosen.

Among the remaining categories of Flexible Construct, large devices, Magic Potion Studies, and Dragon Knight, only Magic Potion Studies and Flexible Construct are common categories; they chose Magic Potion Studies, so the other side will almost certainly choose Flexible Construct.

Because in Alchemy, the large devices only include three categories: Floating Ship, Magic Furnace, and City Barrier, these things are areas even many High-Rank Chosen craftsmen do not delve into.

Even Fang Hong himself has only dabbled slightly in ship equipment, he doesn’t believe anyone in Silver Weslan might know about this.

As for the last one, Dragon Knight, that’s the domain of Dragon Knights and Pseudo Dragon Knights—commonly known as Gundam Designers, responsible for building ’big toys’, an area not even the Artisan Master would typically venture into. But coincidentally, he has also dabbled slightly in it—for instance, in the area of Type-One Crystal.

In summary, they are forcing Silver Weslan to choose Flexible Construct. Although Flexible Construct has as many branches as stars in the night sky, with each craftsman having their own area of expertise, Fang Hong isn’t afraid of them choosing an obscure topic.

Are there many branches in Flexible Construct? Is Magic Potion Studies any fewer? Moreover, in the field of Alchemy, Magic Potion Studies is far more niche than Flexible Construct.

Fang Hong was determined to clash with Silver Weslan in these two domains.

He just didn’t expect Sophie to be even more ruthless.

She did choose Flexible Construct but took out a pedestrian Type II in a minor category, seemingly unassuming and most ordinary. However, upon further consideration, Fang Hong broke out in a cold sweat.

Sophie understands him; had he not happened to find Liuli Yue as an external aid, he would most likely want to play in this match himself. Because MTT is not adept at Walker Constructs, though he is also a general of Ragnarok.

There are, of course, differences between generals. The general of Ragnarok and the general of Silver Weslan cannot be compared.

If he wanted MTT to score highly, he would certainly arrange for MTT to attend the plugin event. Ragnarok’s stronghold was Cui Yu’s crystal making, combined with the surprise ace of Magic Potion Studies from Dill. Thus, as long as MTT performs steadily and does not allow the opponent to gain too large a lead in the stronghold event, their chances of victory will be significant.

But what they never expected was for Sophie to have hidden a move; if, under the original arrangement, the opponent scores a high 98.7 in this match, while MTT cannot lead by too much in the plugin event—