Chapter 985: Hidden Strength

Translator: Nomyummi Editor: Nomyummin/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

With this new tournament format, how should the teams choose their pick order? The teams worried, and the players were also concerned as well. Everyone was vigorously researching and discussing such topics. Using the previous group arena strategy of placing the ace players at the end to hold the bottom line was too conservative and quite undesirable with the new rules.

However, directly placing these ace players at the front of the lineup also seemed excessive. In the competitive scene, 1v3 sweeps happened too rarely. The remarkable displays often seen in the group arena matches usually consisted of a two-player up-and-down.

This so called two-player up-and-down was a situation in which one player, after defeating their first opponent, also took their second opponent to half health; or possibly, after defeating their second opponent, they had little health left while facing the third and fell quickly. Even this was already considered a rarely seen success in the group arena. Thus, even if an ace player appeared first, they wouldn’t necessarily bring their team a huge advantage.

The good steel still had to be used on the blade of the knife. While previously, the ace players had fought towards the end to guard the mountain pass, now they had to do their best to gain an advantage when there was an opportunity, in order to achieve victory. In this way, appearing on stage at the most optimal time was key. For example, if an opponent only had half a person remaining, sending out the ace player at that time would maximize the chances of victory.

After going through a lot of analysis, the current consensus was that, in this five person group arena, ace players should be placed in either the third or fourth position.

Except, even in this way, the group arena scoring was far more complicated than the team competition. The future development of the group arena should be stable. Teams should focus on not losing too many points in the group arena, and using the team competition as a tiebreaker. At present, the forecast predicted that the future competitions would head in this direction.

Except today, when Jade Dynasty went on stage, their first player was actually their captain, the Blade Master, Lin Yi.

Looking at the previous matches, wasn’t Lin Yi Jade Dynasty’s most outstanding player? Now, astonishingly, he was the first to step onstage. Did he have that much confidence, or was there another reason for such an arrangement?

Jade Dynasty’s Boss, Xiao Jie, hid his smile the entire time. He turned towards Happy, making an inviting gesture towards Happy. Ye Xiu smiled, immediately patting the people next to him. "Forward!"

"Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh!!!" Immediately, Happy’s fan club surged because of the person that stood up.

"Steamed Bun, 1v5!!!" Obviously the fans didn’t care whether or not this was realistic. Either way, this was a cheer. If it wasn’t grandiose, then how could it be called a cheer?

"Ha ha ha." Steamed Bun laughed. With his personality, he didn’t care at all about what order his opponents sent out their troops. He waved his hand, turning to his group of in-game friends and pumping his fist in the air.

"1v5!" Steamed Bun yelled out. From the bystanders’ point of view, this really was an arrogant and shameless guy. Jade Dynasty’s fans had long started booing. After this was said, Happy’s fans really felt too embarrassed to earnestly respond. Them shouting was just shouting, they obviously also knew that there was no way a 1v5 would happen. Using this to challenge other people, wasn’t this just asking for their faces to be slapped?

Both sides’ players immediately went onstage, swiping their account cards to enter the game. Happy’s players all looked at each other. All of their screens were stopped on the character loading image. After the characters had finished loading, the screen would display the characters’ equipment for the entire audience to see.

"Sure enough!"

Lin Yi’s character, Blader Master Ten Thousand Swords, struck a pose. Just from the character’s attire, everyone could see what was different from before. As soon as the equipment viewer was opened, a line of glittery silver names jumped out. From head to toe, Ten Thousand Swords had seven pieces of Silver equipment. Although this was one less piece than Windward Formation. In reality, Happy’s Silver equipment wasn’t evenly distributed. Wei Chen’s Windward Formation had eight pieces, but the rest of Happy had far less than that. Furthermore, Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim only had a single Silver weapon, Myriad Manifestations Umbrella. When it came to Silver equipment, Ye Xiu mainly prioritized his teammates.

Yet, most pro teams wouldn’t be this ridiculous and heavily favor one character over another. Although the core characters would definitely consume more resources, they wouldn’t go so far as to give one character eight pieces of Silver equipment while leaving another with only one. Adding onto Jade Dynasty’s shaky foundation, Lin Yi’s Ten Thousand Swords’ Equipment level likely represented the average of the team. An average of seven pieces of Silver equipment... this armor surpassed the Alliance’s average level. Sure enough, Jade Dynasty possessed a lot of hidden strength.

However, of Ten Thousand Swords’ 7 pieces of Silver equipment, not a single piece was level 75. After all, level 75 materials were very limited. Right now, in the Alliance, level 70 equipment were widespread. All of this was accumulated over the years while the level cap had remained at 70. If any team really wanted to upgrade their equipment over the course of a year, they would have to monopolize the Heavenly Domain’s uncommon materials. Trying to do this would make any team go insane.

Jade Dynasty’s circumstances were well understood. Thus, Happy’s players maintained calm expressions. Jade Dynasty being able to acquire this many pieces of Silver Equipment so quickly probably wasn’t due to financial resources alone. After all, Xiao Jie was only a young writer. No matter how well his books sold, there was no way he could compete financially with people like Luo Guanning. Moreover, Luo Guanning had a five man crew. Even with that, they had only managed to obtain a total of 20 pieces of Silver equipment when they had entered the alliance.

Although Jade Dynasty was in dire straits, when all was said and done, they had started off as a member of the pro circle. After so many years, they still hadn’t given up. No matter what, they still had to have accumulated resources. Xiao Jie’s investment this time had probably come at an optimal time, exploding forth all of Jade Dynasty’s accumulated resources. Additionally, that guy Zhang Jian perhaps was also a crucial figure in breaking out Jade Dynasty’s potential. Back in that era, he was a pro level player. If he still hadn’t given up after all these years, then his achievements in Glory wouldn’t be a small matter either.

As Ye Xiu waited for the people to realize Jade Dynasty’s circumstances, onstage the first round of the group arena had finally begun. After the countdown finished, both sides’ characters entered the map, and the competition officially began. Jade Dynasty’s boss, Xiao Jie, had indeed done as he promised. As soon as the competition began, he gathered together with Ye Xiu to chat.

"I think your team’s current player is really interesting," Xiao Jie said, his voice giving off a kind of pompous tone of seniority, but to tell the truth, Ye Xiu wasn’t really at an age where he could be looked down upon. Twenty-five, twenty-six, there was basically no difference in age between the two.

"Your team’s player also seems quite steady," Ye Xiu replied.

"A team captain needs to be like this," Xiao Jie sighed.

"It looks as if he still isn’t the ace player of Jade Dynasty," Ye Xiu said.

Xiao Jie smiled, immediately asking, "From God Ye’s perspective, which of our Jade Dynasty’s players do you think is our ace?"

Ye Xiu also smiled, turning to look towards one of the players on Jade Dynasty. "Your ace player would find it difficult to guide your troops into battle as the core. He’s instead acting as your final line of defence."

"God Ye indeed has a good eye!" Xiao Jie gave a thumbs up out of praise, also turning to look at this player within Team Jade Dynasty, the Cleric Lu Shilin.

"However, God Ye’s statement that a Cleric isn’t able to guide troops as the core, I think that’s a bit old-fashioned." Xiao Jie said.

"Eh. Actually what I wanted to say was leading, not guiding. I used the wrong word. Sorry about that. I’m sure you know that I’m no writer." Ye Xiu said.

Xiao Jie stared blankly, suddenly not knowing whether to laugh or cry. Leading, guiding, these two phrases only differed by three letters**. The meanings were indeed a bit different. He had thought about picking a fight with Ye Xiu to prove he was superior. He didn’t expect the other party to immediately use a wording error to cover this up, conveniently mocking his own identity as a writer at the same time.

"It seems that God Ye also has a card up his sleeve when it comes to responding to this threat?" Xiao Jie composed himself and continued to ask.

"In reality, as long as he’s not the core player leading the team, there’s really no need to specially respond," Ye Xiu replied.

"Really?" Xiao Jie smiled again, not saying anymore. He went back to his seat to continue watching the competition.

This guy really liked to smile, the dim, faint kind. At first, looking at these smiles easily created good feelings in people, thinking that there was a good reason for his modesty. However, after these kinds of smiles came time and again, they no longer conveyed that same meaning. Instead, there was pride and conceit. He used this kind superiority-filled expression to express his disapproval of the other party. From Chen Guo’s perspective, it would be better if he directly said, "You truly are an idiot," to his heart’s content.

"This guy’s smile is truly annoying," Chen Guo said to Ye Xiu.

"He’s annoying even when he doesn’t smile, making this team to cause trouble for us. It’s truly troublesome!" Ye Xiu said.

"..."

Offstage, the exchange stopped at this point. Onstage, Steamed Bun’s Steamed Bun Invasion and Lin Yi’s Ten Thousand Swords had already exchanged blows for quite a while. Neither side had specific tactics for this round, directly heading for the middle of the map. As soon as they met, they began to fight.

Mechanics, awareness, judgment, a battle without much scheming. With more experience, more solid tech skill, and better equipment, Lin Yi very quickly gained the upper hand. He didn’t have the strength to completely suppress Steamed Bun, but his steady and unaffected state of mind nevertheless partially restrained Steamed Bun’s derailment. Although from time to Steamed Bun would jump out with an ingenious move, it didn’t have any psychological impact on Lin Yi. Though this kind of randomness couldn’t possibly follow any rules, Lin Yi actually managed to use his steady mind to remain completely unaffected.

Ye Xiu glanced over at Jade Dynasty. Coincidentally, at that same moment Xiao Jie also happened to look over towards him with that same smile again. His superiority seemed to say: Look, I know.

The opponent’s first player had been chosen as a tactical move with purpose. It seemed as if they had guessed Happy’s intent. Although no one knew how skilled Xiao Jie was at Glory, as a fan of Jade Dynasty from the early days until now, he was clearly a Glory fanatic. It appeared that when it came to Glory, this guy also had some skill.

Seven Fields and the others had been wildly cheering for Steamed Bun in the beginning. At this point, they were feeling a bit depressed because they could all see that the present circumstances were quite unfavorable towards him.

If even the audience members could tell, then the circumstances were quite obvious. The commentators nearly announced the results.

"Haha, it looks like the outcome of this match is already clear." Xiao Jie moved closer to say.

"Everyone can already see the obvious, but there’s still one more person who isn’t so sure!" Ye Xiu said.

"Who?" Xiao Jie didn’t understand. It was so obvious. Who couldn’t tell?

"Look," Ye Xiu held out his hand, pointing towards the screen. "Our Steamed Bun is still fighting energetically."