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Xiaoshan Stadium.

With Excellent Era’s liquidation, their lease contract was terminated early and this stadium recovered its old name. But to the workers of this stadium, it was as though nothing changed. After a year, the stadium once again was hosting Glory Pro League, and the work they had to do was the same.

”Pardon, Miss, we need to clear the stadium.” A worker quickly walked up to an audience member who was standing just below the stage.

”I’m sorry, I’m just about to leave.” Chen Guo immediately apologized to the worker, and prepared to leave. But after taking a few steps, she couldn’t help but turn back and look again.

The audience seating, the player prep room, the competition stage...

It had already been two hours since the end of the match, but as she looked at all of this, Chen Guo could clearly picture the scene as it was during the match, even which seats had the passionate Happy fans who stood and waved their arms in the air as they screamed and cheered Happy on. She remembered it all.

”This... is our home stadium?”

Happy’s first home game was already over, but Chen Guo’s heart still hadn’t calmed down. Of course, she had watched matches here and felt the atmosphere of a home game before, but this time, compared to when she watched Excellent Era’s matches, the feeling was completely different.

”Miss…” The worker, seeing how Chen Guo took a few steps and then suddenly stopped again, reminded her again.

”Oh, I’m sorry.” Chen Guo quickly turned around again. Without looking back, she walked outside through the only exit that was still open.

We’ll return to this place, and we’ll earn victory after victory, all the way until the end. Chen Guo’s footsteps were rapid, and her heart surged.

9 to 1!

Even though she had somewhat greedily hoped for a perfect 10-0 victory, the result they got was enough to please anyone. Chen Guo picked up her phone and dialed a number.

”Hey! Where’d you all go!” Chen Guo said loudly.

”We should be the ones asking you that question…” the person on the other end of the phone answered.

”I just stayed a bit longer at the stadium, to feel the atmosphere of the home stadium,” Chen Guo said.

”Everyone else probably left already, right Boss?”

”Yes, it was empty. So we can go out without worrying! Let’s go, let’s celebrate!” Chen Guo said.

”Isn’t it too late right now?”

”We’ll make an exception this time! This was our first home match! And we won so beautifully,” said Chen Guo.

”Alright…” On the other end, Ye Xiu hung up the phone.

At least here, this was a night that completely belonged to Happy.

The strongest new team in history. A huge 9 to 1 victory over Hundred Blossoms.

Happy’s pretty female rookie won fame through the group arena.

The next day, as expected, news about Happy vs Hundred Blossoms filled the headlines on the front pages of every major esports publication. Chen Guo was elated. During breakfast, she clutched a cup of warm milk and sat in front of the computer, scrolling through the web. She just sat there with a silly grin, completely forgetting about her milk until it had already gone cold.

The dizzying praise felt exhilarating to her. To the occasional critical comment, she swept by with a laugh of ”you people wouldn’t understand.” In the midst of the praise, the one who was mentioned the most often was undoubtedly Tang Rou. Her thrilling performance in the group arena was truly unforgettable, and quite a few people were already discussing the question of Best Rookie for this season. One Glory player made a poll about this, and Tang Rou was at the top of the list by a large margin.

But Chen Guo knew that selection of the Best Rookie wasn’t like the All-Stars, where they were determined by fan vote. Best Rookie was awarded by the Alliance based off their performance throughout the entire season and took into account many factors. Just because a rookie was popular didn’t mean that they would be chose. This poll was just for the players’ amusement; it meant nothing to the officials who would actually decide.

Even though that was the case, Chen Guo was still happy to see all of the favorable comments about her friend.

After reading her fill of all this excitement, Chen Guo went to the official Glory Alliance page to investigate the various technical statistics of the season so far.

There were countless official statistical records: damage dealt, damage boosted, damage taken, heal amount, damage reduced, longest combo, final kill, and so on and so forth.

A player’s strength and performance could be judged from these technical statistics. However, most viewers paid attention not to the raw numbers but to the relative rankings.

The leaderboard for damage dealt received the most attention. There were separate group arena and team competition categories. As for the individual round, that was directly compared by win-loss records. There was a separate win rate leaderboard that didn’t count by damage.

Tang Rou had played a strong game, and so Chen Guo came here to see her ranking on the group arena damage leaderboard.

But two rounds of the season had already passed. Although Tang Rou’s performance in this round was stunning, she had lost to Sun Xiang in the first round, and her damage dealt wasn’t very high. After two rounds, Tang Rou’s ranking wasn’t as high as Chen Guo had anticipated. The current number one of the group arena damage leaderboard was none other than Sun Xiang.

In the first round of competition, Sun Xiang had faced a 1v2 in the group arena, and his performance in terms of damage dealt was no worse than Tang Rou’s this past round. And in the second round of competition, Samsara played an away game at Seaside, once again winning in a clean 10 to 0. And this time, Sun Xiang had truly completed a full 1v2. After two rounds, his 142546 far surpassed Tang Rou’s 70421.

It could even be said that comparing Tang Rou with the current number one was a mistake in and of itself.

Of the 84 players that appeared on the group arena damage leaderboard, Tang Rou was only number 31, slightly above the middle. The 30 players ahead of her, including Sun Xiang, had dealt more damage in the group arena after two rounds of competition.

And this was only for the total damage output rankings. If they looked at average per match, Tang Rou’s ranking was a bit lower, number 41 out of 84, very ordinary.

Chen Guo was a bit disappointed after not seeing the results she had hoped for. She scrolled the mouse wheel, searching for the names of the other Happy players. When she scrolled to the bottom, she saw Mo Fan and Deception at number 84. That 0 was particularly glaring.

”Looking at these things now, isn’t it too early?” Ye Xiu’s voice sounded from next to her.

”I’m just looking for fun,” Chen Guo said, turning her head to look at him.

”It’s only been two rounds, the leaderboards haven’t stabilized. Who’s number one?” Ye Xiu was eating breakfast right now, drinking from a cup of milk as he asked this question.

”Sun Xiang,” Chen Guo said, scrolling back up to show him.

”140000, that ferocious? That’s pretty much a 1v2 in both rounds!” Ye Xiu said.

”I know!” Chen Guo was quite depressed. She had hoped that Tang Rou was the only one to 1v2, but looking at the leaderboards, it was clear that many players had outstanding performances.

”If he played that ferociously, doesn’t that mean that some people wouldn’t be able to deal their share of damage?” Ye Xiu laughed.

Chen Guo blinked, and then began scrolling down again. In the end, at number 80, she found Zhou Zekai’s name. Not much farther ahead flashed the names of Huang Shaotian and Wang Jiexi.

Zhou Zekai, Huang Shaotian, Wang Jiexi.

Who would dare say that these three had poor DPS? But on the leaderboard after two rounds, each of them seemed weaker than the next. The reality of course wasn’t that they were doing poorly, but that they hadn’t yet had much chance to perform onstage. In their respective teams, each of these three was the powerful player anchoring the group arena. To take Zhou Zekai as an example, in the first round he had faced Lord Grim at low health, and it only took a few attacks to end the battle. In the second round, he hadn’t even gone onstage, since Samsara’s second player ended the group arena.

Under these conditions, of course Zhou Zekai’s damage output would be low.

Thus, although the raw numbers of the Glory statistics leaderboards could reveal a few things, they had to be analyzed with context. Glory’s competition system had its own characteristics, such as this situation where because a teammate was too strong in the group arena, a player didn’t have the chance to deal damage.

Chen Guo casually flipped through a few other leaderboards. Because they were swept in the first round, whether in the overall standings or the average standings, Happy was fairly low, nowhere near as exciting as the news reports today.

”How are the point rankings?” Ye Xiu asked from the side.

”You haven’t looked yet?” As she spoke, Chen Guo flipped to the team points leaderboard.

”Not yet.” Ye Xiu leaned forward a bit. Evidently, he was more interested in this information.

”Samsara’s in first,” Chen Guo said, looking at the leaderboard. ”They swept again, 20 points.”

”Mm.” Ye Xiu looked further down. Samsara was in first with 20 points after two rounds, followed by Wind Howl, Blue Rain, and Tiny Herb with 18 points each. Fifth was Tyranny with 17 points, sixth was Misty Rain with 15 points. This seemed to be the cutoff for the upper tier of the points rankings, as there was a large gap between Misty Rain and the seventh place Thunderclap, who earned 13 points over two rounds. Eighth and ninth were Royal Style and Void, each with ten points. Then after that, Happy made a dazzling entrance, placing tenth with nine points. And Happy’s neighbor happened to be the team they just defeated, Hundred Blossoms.

After two rounds, Hundred Blossoms had also earned 9 points. If ordered alphabetically by the pinyin of their names, then they should be placed before Happy - Baihua (Hundred Blossoms) before Xingxin (Happy). But because the two teams had fought and Happy had won against them, Happy ranked ahead of them. After Hundred Blossoms was 301 Degrees with 7 points, and then there were the various mid-to-low-tier teams. After two rounds, none of these teams broke through to the upper tier. They all obediently stayed in the bottom.

Heavenly Swords, the team that Happy was friendliest with, had earned 3 points in two rounds. They were currently in second to last place, in danger of being relegated.

After Heavenly Swords, last place was held by Seaside. Zhao Yang retired, Boundless Sea was sold. The team that had once been solidly mid-tier had directly slid to the bottom.

However, only two rounds had passed so far. It was still too early to talk about a team’s chances. After all, Heavenly Swords and Seaside, the two teams at the bottom, had faced strong opponents in the first two rounds. Heavenly Swords had faced Hundred Blossoms and Blue Rain, while Seaside faced Misty Rain and Samsara. Losing to these teams, they couldn’t be accused of not trying hard enough.

But Heavenly Swords, who had lost 2 to 8 to Hundred Blossoms, saw how Happy defeated the same team in a drastic 9 to 1, and they couldn’t help but have mixed feelings.

”They really are something else!” Lou Guanning sighed.