by <unknown>
Competitions would often produce with unexpected results, and this was what made it all so interesting.
The chance for Han Xiao to venture off into the stars would not come for another four or five months. As this was right in the middle of the tournament season, Han Xiao planned to take this time to look for more potential lackeys. For him, players were currently the most valuable resource on the entire planet.
After the ceremony, the arena started off the regular matches. All ten battle platforms had one referee, and all had ongoing matches at the same time. There were about ten thousand players who had registered for the tournament, and they were all currently going through the first elimination round. Each match was fairly straightforward and only took around ten minutes on average.
Only when the elimination stage entered the final rounds would the tournament slow down, giving time for the players to be introduced one by one.
As Frenzied Sword and Bun-hit-dog’s matches were held on a different day, Han Xiao got bored and went to the forums after switching between several fights.
There were a lot of players who were excitedly discussing about the opening fight. Hao Tian’s performance invited a lot of praise, and Long Sky Club also released their official message, congratulating Hao Tian for seizing victory in the opening fight.
…
A few days later…
Players were eliminated one after another, and the audience’s excitement was higher than ever. Han Xiao was also rejoicing from this.
Aside from selling merchandise, creating more tools, and training with Hila, he spent most of his free time watching the fights. He mainly paid attention to the team battles where two teams would try to fight each other to the last man on a random map. Each team was allowed to send in six players.
Pugilist, Esper, and Mechanic. These three classes had drastically different combat styles and allowed for a large variety of team combinations and skill chaining. Moreover, taking into account of terrain differences, team battles were much more entertaining to watch than the individual battles.
The more common teams were composed of a main tank, melee attacker, ranged attacker, and someone in charge of crowd control. The specific numbers for each role would differ depending on the team’s tactics.
Pugilist was naturally the most popular class for the main tanks.
Espers, on the other hand, were more of a jack of all trades. Due to their varying abilities, Espers could take on both melee and ranged roles in a fight.
Mechanics played the role of the main attacker and dealt outburst damage under their teammate’s protection.
Chapter 300. Frenzied Sword's First Fight |
Out of the three main class change trees for the Mechanic class, Cannon Master was the most popular among the players. It served as a reliable ranged attacker. Mechanics and Mechanical Pugilists, due to the early stage of the game, were still quite awkward in a fight. There were close to zero contestants with those two classes.
Mechanics were definitely out of the question, especially when they were a player and did not have access to a vast number of resources that Han Xiao had. Without paying to win, the Mechanics’ combat strength was nothing impressive.
Mechanical Pugilists, at this point in the game, were like a weaker version of the normal Pugilists. Moreover, they even had to repair their tools every time the durability ran out. A Pugilist would serve the role of a meat shield much better.
Han Xiao did not agree with this meta. Mechanical Pugilists were actually already pretty strong in Version 1.0. As long as they did not have awful gear, they could easily be both a tank and an attacker. They would also adapt to different environments much easier due to the variety of their equipment. However, the Mechanical Pugilist class did have a higher skill cap then Pugilists as they also had to control their machinery.
The combination of need for good equipment and harder controls meant that there were barely any who chose to play as a Mechanical Pugilist.
Although the Mechanics were quite useful in group matches, they performed poorly in individual battles. Players of the other two classes would often consider themselves lucky if they came up against a Mechanic.
After nearly a thousand elimination rounds, Mechanics had already been defeated sixty-four times, while they had only won eleven times!
Many of the players on the forums had already come to the consensus that Mechanics were not suitable for PVP. After watching several fights himself, Han Xiao understood that, as the Mechanic was a class that would take longer to develop, and also due to the class’s demand for skillful controls, it was not a class that suited the PVP scene this early on in the game.
Moreover, most the equipment that the Mechanics made was not high level enough to actually make much of a difference in a fight, especially not when other classes also had access to basic equipment.
The Mechanic class was heavily reliant on the player’s equipment, and as new versions of the game were released, players would gain access to better equipment and also reveal the strength of the class.
Today was Frenzied Sword’s first time fighting in the tournament. The opponent that he drew against was an Esper. Han Xiao was watching this fight live.
Frenzied Sword was a Mechanical Pugilist and had received a bunch of ‘benefits’ from Han Xiao—well, gear that he did not need anymore. Frenzied Sword was wearing the Magnetically-Controlled Retractable Armor and also had the Heavy Mechanical Arm attached to his arm. He had also brought with him lots of other spare parts and gadgets, which all hung on his body. He was fully clad in metal, and he gave off a cold glint under the sun, looking like a heavily armored knight.
The opponent was an ice-type Esper. With the wave of his hand, he instantly covered the platform with a thin layer of ice, reducing Frenzied Sword’s movement speed while increasing his own.
The Esper was a kiting player, and he then took out an enhanced Assault Rifle and started firing at Frenzied Sword, causing a shower of sparks to burst on Frenzied Sword’s armor.
“Ice abilities combined with ranged weapons is indeed a good combo to kite with.” Han Xiao nodded.
Firearms and other equipment were available to players of all classes, but without the Mechanic’s Machinery Affinity, they could only dish out the base damage with those weapons.
Frenzied Sword moved across the ice as he tried to avoid the spray of bullets. He had very good armor on, so the Assault Rifle was not much of a threat to him. However, the Esper player planned to keep on kiting and slowly whittle down Frenzied Sword’s HP.
Bullets landed one after another on the heavy armor, but they suddenly stopped. The Esper had run out of ammo. Just as he was trying to reload, Frenzied Sword took this opportunity and leapt forward with the help of the booster on his legs. His legs exploded off the ground and scattered the ice surface that he was standing on.
Frenzied Sword flew through the air and rapidly closed in on the Esper.
The Esper player hurriedly threw away his Assault Rifle and took off a grenade launcher from his back, immediately firing a shot at Frenzied Sword in midair.
Boom!
An explosion occurred where Frenzied Sword was, causing a bright flash of light, followed by a cloud of dust that rolled across the platform.
A sound of gears locking into place suddenly came from within the smoke, and a thin metal cable shot out and latched to the Esper player before it rapidly pulled him back to Frenzied Sword.
Bang!
The two clashed into each other and rolled around on the ground due to the impact. Melee combat was Frenzied Sword’s strong suit, and he quickly took care of the Esper after a few exchanging blows.
“Smoke to reduce visibility and increase the hit-chance of the hook.” Han Xiao nodded. He had focused on every single detail in the battle. Frenzied Sword was able to use the Mechanical Pugilist’s abilities and equipment to a pretty good level, and he could be counted as one of the rarer Mechanic players.
Currently, no single
player had reached the point where they were completely invincible. All classes had weaknesses that could be taken advantage of. In the case of the ice-type Esper, Mechanical Pugilists could use their equipment to close in the distance, Pugilists could use Energy Burst or other movement skills, while other Espers also had their own tactics to use.
…
As he was not popular yet, Frenzied Sword’s victory did not garner much attention. Moreover, it was only an elimination round. However, Han Xiao thought that Frenzied Sword had shown a stellar performance in that fight. He just did not know if this Frenzied Sword was as good as the one in the past.
Players from around the planet went all out in the fights, and soon, twenty days had passed. Eighty to ninety percent of the players had been eliminated, and the ones left behind were the cream of the crop.
Frenzied Sword had passed hurdle after hurdle and had not lost a single match up to this point, so more people were starting to pay attention to him. There was an extremely small number of Mechanics who had made it that far into tournament. So, naturally, as a Mechanical Pugilist, Frenzied Sword piqued the interest of many curious players. Most of his earlier matches were replayed by players.
“Is this how Mechanical Pugilists fight? He seems to bring along a lot of equipment. It looks kind of complicated.”
“That combo he did with multiple weapons and gadgets looked really cool, but it seems pretty hard to pull off.”
“What’s so great about this? He just has a lot of good gear. Take away all that equipment and let’s see if he can still beat a Pugilist.”
“Bruh… why would a Mechanical Pugilist fight with their bare body for no reason?”
The forums were filled with different opinions, but overall, Frenzied Sword had finally made a name for himself. In a tournament filled with Pugilists and Espers, his Mechanical Pugilist class was a breath of fresh air.
However, Frenzied Sword’s rising popularity was nothing compared to the current talk-of-the-town, Hao Tian.
As a pro player from Long Sky, Hao Tian had blasted through all his opponents since the first round, and he seemed to be getting stronger and stronger after each fight. His battle team was also taking win after win in the team matches section. Hao Tian seemed like a potential candidate who could carry the future of the Chinese e-sports scene.
Aside from the three core members, none of the other Long Sky players were anything to scoff at. They had great team fights and were able to effectively complement Hao Tian’s aggressive playstyle.
On the other hand, the pro players from the other gaming guilds seemed to be hiding their strength, so they were not blasting through all opposition like Long Sky.
Long Sky players demonstrated an overwhelming momentum in both solo and team matches, and they were the player favorite on Planet Aquamarine. Many video streaming channels were also focused on highlighting these players.
Bun-hit-dog’s ‘Suicide Hosts’ team had been eliminated in a single round. Han Xiao randomly watched their match, and his eyes almost burst out of their sockets.
All six members were Cannon Masters. It was a pure ranged DPS team composition… yet they were unluckily placed in a dense forest that did not favor ranged classes at all.
To make it worse, their opponent was a powerhouse team made up of foreign pro players.
They were butchered.
Although Han Xiao knew that they did not have much of a chance in this tournament to begin with, he was still speechless at how bad their luck was.
It seems like Hao Tian has the best chance of getting a good score. Frenzied Sword’s performing well in his solo matches, but his team’s performance is rather subpar, and they’re barely surviving in the tournament…
Chapter 301. Regular Season, The Group of Death |
Under the bright, burning sun in the middle of the desert, the two teams were staring at each other with a sand hill in between. The players were soaked in sweat as they stood on the burning sand and entered the [Energy Draining] status. Even though they were not moving, their energy points were still decreasing at a steady rate.
“The location in the desert is too open, which is bad for us. We are probably going to lose here.” Lone Crane was discouraged.
This was Frenzied Sword’s Rivervale Club Team. They were lucky as they had not met any strong teams. They had struggled their way through the competition, and now, they are on the last batch of the Qualifiers. If they won this game, they could get into the next stage.
But it seemed that Rivervale’s luck had run out. The randomized map was an open desert, which was bad for a composition focused on close combat.
Lone Crane was annoyed, and because of that, the whole team’s morale was down.
Frenzied Sword stepped up to change the atmosphere and frowned. “Don’t worry, the fight hasn’t started yet. We still have the chance to win.”
Lone Crane shook his head. “The chance is too abysmally slim.”
“You are the leader; don’t you say things words.” Frenzied Swords got more and more unsatisfied on how the Lone Crane led the team. He had no leadership skills and did not give any insightful command. On top of that, he only brought a negative energy to the team.
“Oh? Then what do you suggest we should do?” Lone Crane glanced over.
“The enemy has a strong ranged attack abilities, so the only way for us is to close the distance. Of course, we will only get kited if we charge in recklessly, so the best way is to lure them into an ambush. I can hide in the sand, and you all act like you are running away and lure them to where I’m hiding. Then I can pressure their backline while you all turn around and attack. This is the only way.
“Luckily, I still have two shields for cover. Who wants to ambush with me?” Frenzied Sword said as he took out two oxygen shields. This was equipment that he always brought, and it was the essential tool for the plan to work.
The teammates all looked at each other, and this time, Lone Crane replied, “Since this is your idea, if we lose, you will be responsible for this.”
Lone Crane was obviously trying to be avoid the blame so that he would be off the hook if he lost the game. Frenzied Sword hated this type of behavior and stopped paying attention to him. Looking at his teammates, a pugilist sped forward to be his partner for the ambush.
They quickly selected a spot, and Frenzied Sword and this teammate hid under the cover and sank into the sand. Lone Crane and his team on the surface made some disguises and went on with the operation. They walked up the hill and exposed themselves in the vision of the enemy.
“Hehe. Seems that they can’t wait any longer.” Isaac from the opposing team laughed. The other team with six people saw the movement of Lone Crane and his team.
Isaac looked like the skillful one in his team, but in reality, all the six contestants were ‘spies’ all from other nations’ clubs to challenge the competitive league in Planet Aquamarine. Every league had this type of team.
“The enemy is just a small club. I saw their matches before, and they excel in close combat, but they have no synergy. Plus, we have the map advantage, so as long as we keep our distance, victory is ours.”
They moved up toward Rivervale and initiated their attacks while keeping their distance. Most of the players were Espers. Isaac could create a small tornado, while one of his teammates could shoot laser beams from his finger. Another could even create a small white fish ball that exploded like a grenade.
Lone Crane and the other four ran with tails between their legs. Isaac’s team quickly chased after them, but soon, they realized that there were only four people in Rivervale team.
“Where did the other two go?” Isaac raised his suspicion and raised his hand. “Halt. I think they are luring us into a trap.”
Isaac thought that if Rivervale was luring them, then if he stopped, Rivervale would also stop, or at least they would slow down their pace to bait Isaac. However, Rivervale did not slow down and ran as far as they could.
Lone Crane
kept on running forward while being demotivated. He could not understand Frenzied Sword’s strategy. Then he suddenly had an idea to push all the blame on Frenzied Sword. If he directly fought the enemy head on without telling Frenzied Sword, at least it would seem like Lone Crane tried his best, while Frenzied Sword was hiding the entire fight. This would definitely make the higher officials be disappointed in Frenzied Sword.
However, he could not purposely steer away from where Frenzied Sword was hiding since the rest of the teammates also knew the location. Therefore, the only thing that Lone Crane could do was make them look like they were luring the enemy into a trap. Thus, Lone Crane kept on running, regardless of whether the enemy followed or not.
Lone Crane had been in the profession circle for years. For a man without much glory and achievements, he had been hired by Rivervale with a higher pay than before. However, he had never cared about winning or losing. The only thing that he wanted was to keep the position as a leader and enjoy the wealthy pay and luxurious life. There were all kinds of people in the professional scene, and the type like Lone Crane was also common.
However, Isaac misunderstood the intention. He shouted, ” Look at them go! They don’t look like they are trying to lure us, and there’s a lower chance that there will be an ambush in the open field. Let’s chase after them!”
Unfortunately, Isaac was wrong. After chasing Rivervale for a while, they reached the ambush area, and a spot within the team exploded, covering them in sand. Frenzied Sword and his teammate rushed out and charged into the backline.
It was so sudden that Isaac and his teammates’ jaws dropped.
Frenzied Sword used all his strength and tore open the enemy’s formation. Lone Crane, who was far away, also frowned, and he had no choice but to lead his team back into the battle.
The scene was in chaos. Despite the ambush, Isaac and his teammates did not back down easily, and Rivervale still had to fight an intense battle. Luckily, Frenzied Sword had a great performance and eliminated the squishy Espers, getting a double kill.
