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The water’s surface never returned to its calm state.

Windward Formation’s attacks didn’t stop once, chasing Leopold into the water. The water would have some effect on both characters and skills, and the water battle training for pro-plays was to help familiarize them with these effects.

Team Everlasting’s Warlock was hoping that he might get an opportunity to turn the tides upon falling into the water. He could use the experience he had with water battles to escape from the opponent’s attacks, but he soon realized that his opponent’s grasp of this was no worse than his own, no… it should be that it was even better.

So falling into the water turned out to be a misfortune for Team Everlasting. With the movement speed he had currently, he didn’t know if he would be able to escape from Windward Formation’s attack range.

In the second round, Team Everlasting’s Sharpshooter tried to find One Inch Ash and corner him in the water, but because he fell into an ambush of Ghost Boundaries from One Inch Ash, he never managed to carry out his plan. Yet in this round, such a plan was completed by Wei Chen

Team Everlasting’s Leopold didn’t get another chance to return to the veranda, being continuously suppressed in the water by Windward Formation. When he eventually returned to the surface, it was in the form of a corpse...

Happy claimed victory once more in the third round.

The spectating faceslappers’ speechlessness was evident. With this loss by Team Everlasting, they took quite a huge blow.

This round was lost even more clearly than the second.

In the last round, they could say that the Sharpshooter had accidentally fell into his opponent’s ambush, but for this round, the two Warlocks fought head to head. Happy’s victory showed off their player’s experience and their advantage in equipment.

Because Leopold hadn’t gotten a chance to close in on Windward Formation enough to check his equipment, Team Everlasting still had no idea what Windward Formation had equipped.

But from his increased cast range , it could be seen that Windward Formation had better equipment than Leopold. If they had equipment that could increase cast range by three body units, they would’ve given it to Leopold from the start.

They didn’t have it, but Happy had. That was an advantage in equipment.

Their home game advantage had long since been scrapped in the second round.

Their belief in the superiority of their characters had taken a harsh blow in the third round, but this exchange only revealed how terrifying Windward Formation’s cast range was. His true advantage was something they had yet to experience.

Windward Formation’s 4920 skill points would be terrifying if put in the Pro League, but in Team Happy, this was a rather low number. Low enough that Wei Chen hesitated if he should use a different account or not.

”Don’t lose hope now!” On Team Everlasting’s side, someone broke the silence of the training room. The one who spoke was He An, their team leader. At the same time, he was also a part of the team.

Wu Chen was their captain, true, but in their team there was also He An. And he was team leader, having power over the captain. In the Glory circle, team leader was an antique title, now known as club manager. This was a position that truly had power over the team. For Captains, they actually only had the right to give advice, but most teams treasured the advice of their captain, making it seem as if the captain had the power to make decisions. However, it wasn’t like that. If the manager decided to ignore the captain’s advice entirely, that was perfectly ok.

With one of the team members having such a position, Wu Chen’s position as captain was a little awkward and his power within the team was limited. At a time like this, Wu Chen hadn’t even spoken, being the captain, yet He An took the role of leader to comfort everyone. This was because of his two positions.

”The situation was just out of our expectations, that’s all. These inconsequential characters can only be hidden to temporarily give them an advantage once in the arena.” He An spoke so, but in reality, Happy had thoroughly shocked him, too. He obviously couldn’t express his surprise either. He could only describe the situation as if these surprises were just some insignificant attempts to pull the advantage to their side. This way, his team members would be able to relax a little.

He An’s words did as they intended to. Team Everlasting’s members relaxed upon hearing them. Next up was the group competition. There was only a small pause between it and the individual competition, but their line-up had long since been decided and couldn’t be changed. At the moment, the two players about to battle were both impatient to get on with it.

In the stands, the faceslappers weren’t sure what to think. They had so much hope in Team Everlasting, but they somehow lost two matches in the individual competition. This made them want to rage at Team Everlasting. However, it was just an individual competition. There was still the group and team competitions. Maybe… they should stay and watch a little longer...

The arrogant faceslappers were silenced by Happy’s two victories. The public chat became much more normal as well. It was mostly the true fans of Team Everlasting giving them some encouragement.

The group arena competition finally began, and the first participant of each team entered the stage.

Team Happy, Battle Mage Soft Mist.

Team Everlasting, Qi Master Heavenly Rage.

As of late, Soft Mist was definitely the most well known member of Happy and also the one the faceslappers hated the most. The experts they had hope in all fell beneath Soft Mist’s spear. And when the one person who could defeat Soft Mist appeared, she won back the match quickly. With victories and losses on both sides, they couldn’t really say anything about that one defeat.

But here, in the Challenger League, there were rules to these matches. If she lost this match, then they didn’t have to worry about her winning it back, because she had no chance to do that here. Everyone could use this chance to say whatever they wished.

Thinking of this, the silent faceslappers became excited once more. Slowly, different voices rose from the crowd, all giving encouragement toTeam Everlasting’s Heavenly Rage. For a moment, it seemed like Heavenly Rage was a celebrity player, receiving the hopes of all the spectators.

Entering the competitor’s areas, loading the competition map. When the map was revealed, even the audience felt faint.

It was still Riverside Veranda...

It was hard for the faceslappers to hold in their mockery. Since they wanted to see Team Happy humiliated, they were supporting Team Everlasting right now, but don’t forget, not everyone was here to see Team Happy humiliated. In the audience, there were a neutral few who were just here out of curiosity, or even those who held hope in Team Happy. Though they weren’t many, seeing Team Everlasting’s never changing choice of Riverside Veranda, why wouldn’t they speak up against it?

Taunting came from the crowd, Team Everlasting’s choice was an embarrassment. There was nothing wrong with their original idea. Since there wouldn’t be an overlap of characters in the individual and group competitions, they wanted to use the field advantage to its fullest. Though this map choice was a little utilitarian, they couldn’t afford to be careless in the Challenger League.

Unfortunately, despite choosing this map, Team Everlasting still lost two round during the individual competition. And in these two rounds, their losses were in part due to the map choice. Now, this choice of map was more like a joke. The audience’s taunts were vicious, but they didn’t understand that Team Everlasting hadn’t thought it would turn out like this. It was too late now.

Luckily, these taunts couldn’t affect the characters who had entered the arena. From the start of the match, the characters fighting couldn’t see the public chat and the private chats between characters would also be forbidden. This was made so that the players in the arena wouldn’t get any outside help, with the audience having a bird’s eye view and all.

But there was no one there to enforce this, with this online match in the Challenger League. If there was anyone giving the players information offline, no one would know. They couldn’t even stop the dirty move of people getting others to play for them. With the rules announced, they hoped that people would act responsibly and follow them. If it was actually found that you weren’t following the rules, then naturally that wouldn’t be good for you. And even if you never got caught, you couldn’t use these tricks throughout the entire league. You would get exposed as soon as you got to the offline matches. So there wouldn’t be too much of an effect on the final results.

The Alliance couldn’t really do anything about it. With the current situation, they could only let it happen in these first rounds.

In regards to this, Team Happy was very responsible. In the first match when Steamed Bun got lost, no one went up to help. Even for victory, everyone made sure it was a fair match; that was what it meant to be a good sport.

As the countdown fell, the group competition officially started.

With how often Soft Mist appeared before, the faceslappers were very familiar with this character, to the point where they knew very piece of equipment she wore.

But when Soft Mist entered the arena, the audience realized that they couldn’t recognize her at all.

Was this that Soft Mist?

Her equipment had changed so much!

The audience had noticed this change with Steamed Bun and Windward Formation, too, but they only had a vague impression of these two characters, nothing like their understanding of Soft Mist. Now as Soft Mist stepped in, everyone immediately noticed that she was different from before.

Team Everlasting had researched their opponents, but they didn’t count on familiarity to judge the change in the character. They could tell from one look that Steamed Bun Invasion’s equipment had changed, and so had Windward Formation’s. It was just that Windward Formation’s victory made them realize it wasn’t as they thought; it was more terrifying.

Though He An had said it was just a small trick to surprise them, Team Everlasting’s members couldn’t help but feel uneasy when seeing that Soft Mist had also undergone a massive change.

Soft Mist’s equipment wouldn’t suddenly become very powerful, would it?

Their worries were accurate. Out of all of them, Soft Mist’s equipment had changed the most. Now, she was wearing five pieces of Silver equipment. In the Pro League, this was nothing, but on this grassroots character, it was something most wouldn’t dream to think about.