The King's Avatar

Ye Xiu and Fang Rui casually discussed. Although it was impossible to know what Fang Rui was thinking, Chen Guo, standing beside Ye Xiu, had been petrified for a while now. It was only after Ye Xiu made this statement, and Fang Rui didn’t reply for a while, did she finally come back to her senses.

”What’s this all about? Fang Rui?” Chen Guo immediately asked. ”Didn’t you say earlier that getting Fang Rui would be impossible?”

”Fang Rui as a Thief would be impossible, but if he changed classes to Qi Master, that could be possible,” said Ye Xiu.

”Why?” Chen Guo didn’t understand.

”Because Thieves are more expensive than Qi Masters,” said Ye Xiu.

”That’s it?” Chen Guo was slightly confused. Happy obtained Boundless Sea for 5.5 million, which was an extremely low price for an All Star account. But Doubtful Demon hadn’t fallen that far in status, its price would likely be at least 10 million - the difference was obviously large. But aside from this, Fang Rui’s transfer fee and salary would put great pressure on Happy. They would definitely need to use some of Wei Chen’s 18 million.

”Don’t think so much for now. Right now, the important thing is to convince him.” Ye Xiu said.

”Fang Rui switching classes to Qi Master, can he actually do it?” asked Chen Guo.

”I’m not a hundred percent sure either. But Guo Yang and Song Xiao both rejected us, so we have to go for the next best thing and take a slightly riskier route,” said Ye Xiu.

”Aside from Fang Rui, what are our other risky options?” asked Chen Guo.

”Those who don’t fit us very well, or who aren’t as skilled, would be our other riskier options,” Ye Xiu said.

”He replied!” The chat window suddenly flashed with a notification, and Chen Guo immediately pointed it out.

Ye Xiu took a look. Fang Rui had typed two words: Go on.

”Dirty!” Ye Xiu first sent this contemptuous reply. This guy didn’t bother with engaging in a dialogue with Ye Xiu, he just wanted to hear all that Ye Xiu had to say. But this could be considered a good sign. He was willing to listen, which meant that he wasn’t completely resistant to the idea. He didn’t think that this was inconceivable. What he needed now was more convincing evidence.

”What else is there to say. Don’t you want to be a champion?” Ye Xiu asked.

”Let’s be real, who would believe that your Team Happy can win the championships?” Fang Rui asked. After considering Ye Xiu’s personality, he hurriedly added, ”Aside from Happy yourselves.”

”Does belief matter? Then, do you believe you can get the championship?” Ye Xiu asked.

”Of course I believe I can!” Fang Rui, Master of Playing Dirty, responded unusually quickly to this question. But after doing so, he realized that this question could have been a linguistic trap, so he quickly added, ”But I still have no way of believing that I can do so at Happy.”

”You believe you can win a championship, but as of now you still haven’t; I also believe that I can win a championship, and I’ve won three. Just by looking at this, it seems that my belief is more convincing than yours! And right now I believe in Happy, what about you?” Ye Xiu said.

Fang Rui spat blood. What linguistic trap, how low-end! He used his solid, but very much real, three championship cups to smash Fang Rui’s baseless confident belief. But this sort of argument was meaningless, it didn’t say anything about Happy’s actual strength. He really shouldn’t get wrapped up in such an argument with this person.

At this moment, Ye Xiu responded with a question of his own. ”You know, I’ve always wondered, why is it, exactly, that no one believes that Happy can win the championship?”

”Because…” Fang Rui typed this word, and then he discovered he didn’t know what to say.

Because of what?

A team’s strength primarily came from two components: the players and the characters.

Players? Happy had Ye Xiu and Su Mucheng, and if they gained Fang Rui as well, in addition to the talented rookies who had earned the world’s attention, there was no reason for their roster to be considered weak.

Then, the characters? Their characters were currently relatively weak, but as Ye Xiu already said, as long as they got through the early stages, then once they reached the higher-level upgrades, they actually had an advantage. Fang Rui understood to what he was referring to. The pro players had participated in the fight for wild bosses in the Heavenly Domain after the Level 75 update, so he knew how Happy had dominated all of the other guilds, and therefore the other pro teams. This meant that Happy was rich in the rare materials needed to upgrade Level 75 equipment.

But a character’s strength couldn’t simply be measured with how many materials were available. The skill of the R&D department and the characters’ skill points played a role too. And even if Happy was rich in higher level rare materials, that only meant that later upgrades would be easier. They would still struggle during the early stages.

On this end, Happy was in a rather confusing situation. At first glance, it seemed like their character strength wouldn’t be a problem, but this appearance couldn’t withstand a detailed examination.

After thinking over this carefully for a while, Fang Rui finally replied to Ye Xiu’s question.

”Right now, in terms of players, aside from you and Su Mucheng, they’re all rookies, and their instability is evident.”

”Rookies can be unstable, but don’t underestimate the value of a rookie’s ability to grow, especially talented rookies.” Ye Xiu said.

”In terms of characters, you’ve definitely gotten a lot of high-level materials over this past year, but do you have enough low-level ones?”

”It’s comparably easier to obtain low-level materials. We’ve already established guilds in various areas to build up our reserves. Even if we lack some things, it wouldn’t be difficult to obtain them. We could easily get them from the market.” Ye Xiu said.

”Once or twice, maybe, but does Happy have the funds for frequent transactions?” Fang Rui asked.

”Only frequent equipment production failures will use up too many materials. But Happy invited the core of Excellent Era’s R&D, and his skill and experience will allow us to minimize waste,” Ye Xiu said.

With that, Fang Rui realized that even the issue of the R&D department had been addressed by this guy.

”What about skill points? How are the skill points on your characters?” Fang Rui said.

”Number one in the universe!” Ye Xiu said.

Fucking hell! Straight to the universe! Even if Fang Rui wanted to retort with a ”and I’m number one in xx”, he couldn’t, because there was no bigger environment than the universe. But he’d have to believe those words! But before Fang Rui even had a chance to figure out how to mock that statement, Ye Xiu had already sent an image to him.

”You photoshopped this, didn’t you!” Fang Rui cried out in shock.

The image was of a character’s skill tree. Where the number of skill points used was displayed, there flashed a domineering ”5500.”

5500 points. At Level 75, that meant maxed skill points. Wasn’t that even scarier than Team Samsara?

”Tch, would I use such low methods?” Ye Xiu scoffed.

”Are there other characters like that?” Fang Rui asked.

”Sign a contract with us, then I’ll show you all our secrets.” Ye Xiu said.

”Then just tell me in general, around how many skill points the others are at?” Fang Rui asked.

”They’re pretty much all like this. 5400 is the lowest, belonging to a character that can’t even raise its head in Happy.” Ye Xiu said.

Fang Rui continued to be shocked. 5400… His Doubtful Demon in Wind Howl was only at 5355, and that was after he’d lucked out with a 20-point skill point from Ghost Parade! Even with that, at Happy that’d be a character that couldn’t even lift its head?

”Now do you see how powerful our Happy is? These are all secrets, I shouldn’t have told you,” Ye Xiu said.

”...” Fang Rui was still recovering from the shock of the skill points.

”Okay… then if Happy has so much potential in all these areas, then I think it’s strange, why not also get Doubtful Demon for me to use?” Fang Rui said.

”Good question,” said Ye Xiu.

”I hope that didn’t stump you.” Fang Rui said.

”Nonsense. If that were a difficult question, then there’d be no reason for me to do all of this,” Ye Xiu said.

”So the reason is?”

”No money,” Ye Xiu said.

Aside from a spitting blood emoji, what else could Fang Rui say?

”No money is just one of the reasons. If we had a lot of funds, we would consider getting both you and Doubtful Demon, but we would only consider it. In the end, Happy doesn’t need a dirty Thief, we need more tactical analysis and research. However, if the option of a Qi Master is there, I would absolutely take it. So we got Boundless Sea, and now we shoulder the risk of having you switch classes,” Ye Xiu said.

”Because all of the other Qi Master players rejected you?” Fang Rui asked.

”Yup! Choosing them would be the safe option. But if it’s you, you might have something they don’t. ”Ye Xiu said.

”Such as?”

”The ability to grow.” Ye Xiu said.

”You want to use me like a rookie?” Fang Rui asked.

”During this season, Happy will continue to grow throughout, whether the players or the characters. This is a factor of instability, but it will also be our weapon. And your change of class will allow you to synchronize with this rhythm of growth. We will constantly develop new content, bringing surprises to everyone again and again. Unexpected - don’t you like that word?” Ye Xiu said.

Fang Rui of course liked this word, very much in fact. Because ”unexpected” truly encapsulated the style of playing dirty.

”Through our unexpected playing, we’ll obtain an unexpected victory. And you? Do you want to unexpectedly change classes? That definitely has the sneakiness of your dirty playing!” said Ye Xiu.

”I…” Fang Rui seemed as though he were reaching the end of his deliberation.

”I’ll come visit Happy and then decide,” was his final decision.

”Welcome.” Ye Xiu wasn’t too disappointed. A transfer was a player’s investment in his future, and that wasn’t even considering the risk of changing classes. If the class change was successful, that was a breakthrough. But if it wasn’t successful, then not only was it unfortunate, it was possible that when the player tried to change back, he wouldn’t be able to discover the old feeling again, and the player’s skill would be ruined for good.

For such an important matter, Ye Xiu didn’t expect that a decision could be reached with a chat window. Steamed Bun was probably the only person who could make such a life-changing decision so casually, and of course Ye Xiu didn’t want everyone to be like Steamed Bun.

”You really convinced him.” This result shocked Chen Guo.

”Not just him, I even convinced myself. ”Ye Xiu said.

”How?”

”I suddenly feel that having Fang Rui change classes is really an exceptionally wonderful decision.” Ye Xiu said.

”You only like the sneakiness of this plan, don’t you?” Chen Guo looked at him coldly.

”No, no. Our team is still lacking in many areas, so if we want to obtain unbelievable results, then we need unconventional moves. Later, we’ll move slowly, but this time, we’ll take this leap!” Ye Xiu said.