The King's Avatar

Lin Jingyan wanted to cry.

This is exactly why they hadn’t figured out Lord Grim’s unspecialized class after half a season. Apart from possessing all the low level skills from all 24 classes, he could also equip different skills to his weapon. That meant that Lord Grim had the chance of knowing any skill that wasn’t a classing or awakening skill, so long as Happy had enough skill scrolls.

Under such circumstances, how many different combos could Lord Grim execute? That wasn’t something a human mind could calculate. Especially since they didn’t know what skills would be set into the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella, how would they know what to look out for?

Looking at his whited out screen, Lin Jingyan didn’t know if he should act or if he should wait it out. In the end, he made a decision: he’d endure it!

Skills added to a weapon would be at most rank 1. The effects of Lord Grim’s Flash Bullet wouldn’t last long, and Lin Jingyan refused to believe that this guy could figure out his whereabouts in such a short time.

That’s what Lin Jingyan thought, thus, Cold Thunder stayed there, unmoving and calm.

The audience, as well as Tyranny’s players, were just about close to crying.

Lord Grim was already standing in front of Cold Thunder. If he moved the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella forward just by a bit, he would hit the other’s forehead.

Old Lin, you’ve been tricked!

The spectators with their omniscient view actually all knew that Ye Xiu had probably caught sight of Dark Thunder when Lin Jingyan had first creeped into the center of the map.

The TV broadcast chose a shot of Lord Grim’s view. There was a split-second where a figure flashed by in the corner of the screen.

Yes, just a shadow, just a split second. Pan Lin and Li Yibo had even had a very long and enthusiastic discussion as to if Ye Xiu had seen it or not. Back then, no one could be certain if Ye Xiu noticed or not and how far he could go in determining Dark Thunder’s position from that.

It wasn’t until a Flash Bullet blinded Dark Thunder and Lord Grim’s form appeared from the dispersed purple smoke, accurately darting towards Lin Jingyan that everyone was certain that Ye Xiu had noticed that split-second incident and accurately determined Dark Thunder’s position.

Then, Gatling Gun swept forth, Smoke Bomb, he really put on quite the act. It wasn’t until the Flash Bullet was used that Ye Xiu managed to close in without Lin Jingyan’s notice.

Victory had already been decided...

Lin Jingyan’s sight came back while he was being attacked, and then received a head-on beat down from Lord Grim. There had yet to be anyone who could counter Ye Xiu’s unspecialized blitz. Lin Jingyan tried and tried and tried, but still lost in the end.

The first individual competition ended and Ye Xiu left the stage with a victory to thunderous cursing. Things like how fake, how deceitful, how treacherous, what a showoff!

No matter what, that’s how it was like for Ye Xiu at Tyranny. If he lost, there would be endless mockery, and if he won, it wasn’t much better. No matter how he won, the Tyranny fans would still find it dirty, unhonorable, low end.

The passionate, open Tyranny fans would all become mean and petty when Ye Xiu was concerned, nit picking at everything and not seeing anything good in him.

However, Ye Xiu was completely unmoved, calmly returning to his seat.

”Tyranny’s home game atmosphere doesn’t seem to be affecting Ye Xiu at all!” Commentator Pan Lin exclaimed.

Li Yibo, sitting to the side, gave a strained smile. He was from Tyranny and though it had been a long time, he had personally seen this scene before, shaking his head and saying, ”It’s not affecting Ye Xiu, but instead it’s affecting Lin Jingyan’s performance. The atmosphere Tyranny’s fans created has backfired.”

”Ah?” Pan Lin was stunned.

”This atmosphere is something Lin Jingyan has yet to experience, having been on the team for half a year. When the match started, everyone was yelling about ending Ye Xiu’s consecutive wins. It’s easy to yell, but what about for Lin Jingyan, who is actually going up against Ye Xiu? In the end, this is only giving him more pressure,” Li Yibo explained.

”Oh… so that was why he had accidentally revealed his shadow while moving to the center of the map, giving his position away to Ye Xiu,” Pan Lin said.

”Yeah…” Li Yibo sighed again.

Pan Lin didn’t continue the conversation. This saying wasn’t illogical, but how could you be certain that Lin Jingyan’s mistake was because of this pressure? Pan Lin felt a little incredulous, so he couldn’t really bring himself to agree so fervently. By then, the second players on each team were heading towards the stage..

Happy, Mo Fan, Deception.

Tyranny, Song Qiying, Sunset River.

”Hey, the second round is a clash between two newcomers,” Pan Lin exclaimed.

”Indeed!” Li Yibo confirmed, looking interested. There were quite a few talented rookies this season. Tyranny’s Song Qiying was definitely one of them. As for Happy, they had a particularly large number of rookies. Tang Rou, Bao Rongxing, and this Mo Fan, then there was their Cleric An Wenyi. However, if you wanted to say whether or not they were talented, that was a bit of a problem over here.

People originally had high expectations for Tang Rou, but then there were some conflicts with her character and her popularity plummeted. Though this had some effect, Tang Rou’s performance in the field continued to be outstanding. The Alliance was very conflicted. The selection for the Best Rookie award wasn’t like the All-Stars voting; popularity wasn’t considered. From pure performance, Tang Rou was the most outstanding rookie this season.

In addition, her position in the team was something no other rookie could hope for. She was the last line of defense for the arena, and no other rookie was taking such an important position in their team. She also performed extremely well in her position, scoring consecutive victories. Her performance in the team competition was rather amazing as well. In typical circumstances, Tang Rou would be a steady first in bot popularity and skill. Even if her popularity was low, Tang Rou’s performance would be enough to convince people.

But the problem was that Tang Rou’s popularity wasn’t just a little low, it was practically in the negatives. Award Tang Rou with Best Rookie under these circumstances? The Alliance really felt that they didn’t have enough support to do that. They had never experienced such a situation. They were burning brain cells trying to figure out what to do. They just hoped that an even more outstanding rookie would appear.

But, there were none.

In this era, even if rookies had talent, they needed their teams to give them a chance to shine. Many mature teams had talented rookies, but they weren’t as reliable as veterans due to their lack of experience. Each team had their own way of cultivating young talents. Some did throw their rookies into the thick of things directly, like Lu Hanwen who became a core member of the team at 14 and successfully took the title of Best Rookie. On one hand, he truly had talent, and on the other hand, he had enough chances to show his talent. Diamonds will shine, but this will wasn’t the same for everyone.

This season’s Tang Rou was like last season’s Lu Hanwen; she had plenty of chances to shine, and she made good use of them, become a unique talent amongst the rookies.

The Alliance hoped for some new rookies. They didn’t have to be better than Tang Rou, just being on par with her was good enough, and it would solve all their problems. Now there was still half a season. After the first half of the season, would there be any teams that felt their rookies were settling in well and could take on more responsibilities.

Li Yibo knew of the Alliance’s attitude, so when he saw a match between rookies, his interest was peaked. Would there be any rookies that’d make a good final run and get to Tang Rou’s level?

”Heh, this pair of rookies is pretty interesting!” Li Yibo opened up a discussion with this topic. ”This Mo Fan used to be a notorious scrap-picker in game before getting pulled into the team by Ye Xiu and attending the Challenger’s League with Happy. He’s a rare self-taught talent these days. As for Tyranny’s Song Qiying, he’s a talented product of Tyranny’s training camp. He grew under professional training, coming from a very orthodox background. What’s interesting is that this Striker player did not inherit the style of Tyranny’s Han Wenqing, but instead, from what we’ve observed, took after the Tyranny vice-captain Zhang Xinjie. His style is very meticulous.”

”That’s true indeed. This match will truly be interesting!” Pan Lin commented.

”Let’s see which rookie will perform better!” Li Yibo exclaimed.

The silent Mo Fan and serious-as-Zhang Xinjie Song Qiying were both the kind of player that didn’t make conversation. After the match started, there were no communications in the chat. The two met and opened combat directly.

A wild, self-taught style and a meticulous, academic style clashed. In this battle, Song Qiying attempted to break through Mo Fan’s barrage in a frontal confrontation. However, Mo Fan’s peak performance was enough to suppress Sun Xiang. Song Qiying was really struggling to deal with it. Every time he felt that an opening was imminent, Mo Fan would always swiftly pull a full retreat.

Song Qiying really didn’t like this sort of pace. This was way too abrupt; who even fought like this?

However, this was the exact kind of opponent he had trouble dealing with, and fell to a disadvantage in the match.

”What do you think?” At Tyranny’s bench, Han Wenqing posed this question to the others as they watched the match.

”It seems like that Mo Fan can only use five to six skills at a time well. He’ll always break off his offense after these few skills and won’t follow up with a new offensive afterwards, but instead clearly slows his pace down. It really does look like Cooldown Play,” Zhang Xinjie analyzed.

”However, his execution of those few skills of his is truly very high,” Zhang Jiale commented.

”Compared to before, he’s improved immensely and his style has become more varied. However, he really has yet to solve the problem of continuity in his offense,” Lin Jingyan added.

”If he can really solve that problem, then he’ll become even more scary!” Zhang Jiale exclaimed.

”Yes,” Lin Jingyan agreed.

”However, the current skill combos seem very complete and mature already. They don’t hold much to continuity,” Zhang Xinjie brought the topic down for deeper analysis.

”Could it be that he plans on persisting in his use of this style?” Zhang Jiale wondered aloud.

”He can clearly do better, so why doesn’t he try?” Lin Jingyan voiced his confusion.

”What if he can’t try?” Han Wenqing suddenly cut in.