The King's Avatar

As the name implies, hand exercises were exercises to stretch and relax the hands and wrists. For pro esports players, the hands were their most important physical assets. Happy had limited conditions. They could only do some general exercises. The powerful clubs had their own medical team that would design more focused hand exercises depending on the habits of each pro player; the effects were much better.

Apart from needing to protect their hands, their mental health had to be maintained as well. If their hands were fine, but they felt exhausted, that wouldn’t be good either. Taking care of their mental health was more complicated. Food, a healthy lifestyle, a proper biological clock, and so on all affected their mental health.

Team Happy’s various practice routines were mainly to help Tang Rou, Steamed Bun, Luo Ji, and An Wenyi’s skill level, but in pro teams, apart from helping their players improve, another important part was regulating the conditions of their players.

Every person had their ups and downs. Through these scientific regulating, they had these ups and downs conform to the pace of the competitive format. Every team hoped to have their players be at their peak condition every Saturday night. As a result, how to design practice routines was actually a very deep school of knowledge. There were Glory specialists, who constantly researched this area.

As for Team Happy, as they gradually moved towards the standards, these areas naturally had to be looked into. Unfortunately, Ye Xiu didn’t understand the scientific basis for these practice routines, so he could only rely on his own experience to design practice routines for each person.

As for the training currently being carried out at Happy, in a pro team, that sort of training would only be directed towards practicing for their matches. A more comprehensive training would usually wouldn’t consist of practicing for the match every day because that type of training consumed too much energy. Practice was for improving, not to squeeze their players dry.

Today’s practice made everyone feel exhausted. The next day, Ye Xiu didn’t organize everyone to hunt pro players in the game. Instead, he arranged for a more relaxing practice routine for recovery.

In the blink of an eye, another day passed. That marked the end of the week. A new week started and the bosses refreshed. After everyone in Happy went through a day of recovery, they were once again ready and waiting. Waiting in the game was too much of a waste of time. With the advantages of a guild, they could simply go on once they received the news.

As for the big clubs, when the new week started, the pro players rubbed their fists and wiped their palms in anticipation. However, the teams clearly weren’t willing to have their pro players waste their energy here. They had set up a rotation system. Each team had pro players come, but it wouldn’t be the same few every day. Everyone would rotate each day. When match day approached, most would beat the gong and have their troops retreat to focus on the upcoming match.

Happy had grasped the timing of these big clubs and took advantage of it. For example, there definitely wouldn’t be any pro players in the early morning. They needed to keep a good sleep schedule to maintain their condition! As a result, Happy followed the pro team’s schedules and also kept a good sleep schedule. At day time, they waited for news from their guild. As soon as news came up, they would immediately set out. Their target wasn’t the boss, but the pro players. They weren’t picky with their food. It didn’t matter if the pro player was a God or a main roster player or a substitute player, if he or she was a pro player, then he or she would be attacked.

As a result, because Happy wasn’t focused on killing the boss and instead focused on causing trouble, the various teams viewed them as thorn in their side. It had to be known that going wild boss hunting wasn’t a fun get-together. It was a competition. Even though other pro players would fight each other, from an overall perspective, the boss was the objective. If fighting wouldn’t help them get the boss, then they wouldn’t fight. However, Happy wasn’t proper. As soon as those guys saw a pro player, they would fight. It didn’t matter if it was related to the boss or not. One time, they found a character, who was suspected to be a pro player, inside the city and they also mercilessly killed him…...

Because of Happy causing trouble, quite a few guilds failed to take down bosses that should have been theirs, and quite a few pro players ended up snatching a bellyful of anger when they tried snatching the bosses…..

Two months passed in the blink of an eye. The Glory Alliance completed four matches this month. At the end of the month, they began summarizing this month’s matches like usual, including the number of seats filled in the stadium, their TV ratings, the numbers for their online streams, as well as several other general statistics. The Glory Alliance wasn’t just the tournament organizer. The Glory Alliance was also the manager that needed to keep track of the profits from running the league. From one perspective, the Alliance could be seen as a company. The Alliance’s chairman was this company’s chief executive officer....

When the February briefing came out, many of the numbers were startling. The most noticeable was that in February’s matches, the number of mistakes made by players shot up in a straight line. In comparison to January’s matches, it was an explosive increase.

The distribution of these mistakes was outrageous. From the numbers, the top ten teams contributed to seventy percent of this explosive increase of mistakes.

What happened to these teams?

The staff members of the Alliance analyzed one step further and discovered that the following distribution of mistakes was quite even. Each team and each player had contributed. When they compared this data to the other data throughout the Alliance’s history, the staff members would realize that this February was a new record. Numerous teams and numerous players had broken the record for the highest number of mistakes this February.

In fact, many jokes and discussions had come up because of the number of mistakes in the matches this month. It was only until they summarized everything did they realize how unprecedented it was.

What did mistakes mean?

It meant that their condition of the players wasn’t at its peak.

A poor performance led to a lackluster match. A lackluster match would not be looked at well by spectators. If the spectators didn’t like it, it meant a loss in revenue. It was a very scary thing for the Alliance. What had happened for all these teams to collectively be in a slump? These were all the powerhouses in the Alliance too. In fact, it was the bottom ten teams whose increase in mistakes made appeared rather modest. Their strong suit in making mistakes actually lost to these powerhouses.

The Alliance didn’t dare be negligent. After organizing the data for February’s matches, they immediately convened to analyze and discuss this issue.

The Alliance had many talented people, and there was no lack of retired pro players, who held a position in the Alliance. This February, what exactly happened to these teams and players? These specialists quickly found the answer.

The new update made it so that teams needed new materials to upgrade their Silver equipment. Starting from January, the teams gradually began having their pro players go into the game and help. After the Spring Festival, this phenomenon reached its peak. There were even players, who didn’t have much of a goal this season, that went to the game on match day.

”I have some information here.” A staff member in the meeting handed a piece of paper with information to everyone, ”This paper shows the monthly summaries of the league after each Glory update. Everyone, take a look at the green numbers and compare it to the red average. You can clearly see that the league is affected by each update. The most direct observation is the increase in mistakes made. There are many reasons: change in equipment, different skills, and splitting their attention to obtain materials in the game...”

”Haven’t we already discussed this reality long ago?” The Alliance chairman Feng Xianjun skimmed over the information and then placed it back onto the table, ”But this time, the number of mistakes has increased explosively. It clearly doesn’t conform with our past data. That’s the reason why we urgently convened this meeting. From the information we have, even though the Level 75 update had taken several years to complete, it wasn’t an overhaul of the game engine. Everything was developed according to the original rules, so from conventional reasoning, the effects of this update should conform to our past data. No, it should even be said that as Glory grows, the ability for teams to adapt should be even better. The effects this time should actually be less than before. That’s what the data should tell us. But this time, the number of mistakes actually increased explosively. There must be another reason.”

”How about... we have an informal discussion with these teams and these pro players….. The numbers are so clear. I think they must have the whole story.” Someone suggested.

”Let’s do that then…..” The chairman Feng Xianjun approved of this idea.　

Soon afterwards, the Alliance sent people to visit these teams to inquire about this matter and understand the whole story. They soon go the information they wanted. They didn’t need to summarize anything. The story that every team talked about was astonishingly all the same.　　

Ye Qiu. Team Happy.

These two key terms made the chairman Feng Xianjun speechless for a long time.

”This punk...” Seeing this name, Feng Xianjun could feel a headache coming.

As Glory’s most glorious pro player, Ye Xiu’s status didn’t need to be discussed. However, despite his outstanding achievements and his countless fans, the Alliance didn’t like him very much.

The Alliance’s former chairman, Jin Chengyi, had once sighed ruefully. Ye Qiu’s existence had slowed the growth of the Glory Alliance by at least two years.

Many people would interpret these words as Ye Qiu’s reign over the championship title, making the matches less suspenseful during the early years of the Alliance. But those who knew the inside matters would know that chairman Jin Chengyi was talking about Ye Qiu not cooperating with publicity.

As the founder of Excellent Era’s great dynasty and the undisputable number one player in Glory at the time, Ye Qiu should have absolutely been that era’s representative. Unfortunately, this number one player refused to participate in any activities. The Alliance could not borrow his popularity to promote themselves. In the end, all of the players that had been propped up by them were defeated by him. This put the Alliance in a difficult spot. Countless Glory fans even suspected that there some dark secrets going on. Was there some sort of unwritten rule? If not, why would they not be supporting Ye Qiu?

Even after Ye Qiu made an announcement to make things clear, the players were more than happy to use their imagination. Their guesses made the Alliance feel dejected and depressed.

Unable to ride on the east wind, Ye Qiu, the Alliance’s publicity team had to do twice the amount of work for half the results. This was why Jin Chengyi sighed ruefully, saying that Ye Qiu’s existence had slowed the Alliance’s growth by two years.