Chapter 3: The Ranked Arena’s Tragedy

Li Xiang heard that Liu Chuan played the Puppet class and couldn’t help euphemistically suggesting, “Liu Chuan, you just started playing this game. As a newbie, I think that playing Archer is better, the Puppet class is too hard to control!”

Liu Chuan smiled faintly and said, “It doesn’t matter, I only liked to play the Puppet class, I can practice slowly.”

The roommate smiled and was quite calm. Li Xiang also didn’t have the face to push him anymore and could only warm-heartedly suggest, “Cough, if you are determined to play this class, how about lets first take a look at videos by experts. I remember in the professional circle there’s a Puppet Tangmen expert that recorded many how-to videos, he’s called…what was it?” Li Xiang scratched his hair and thought carefully.

Liu Chuan reminded him, “Is it Hundred River Flows into the Sea?”

Li Xiang slapped his forehead. “That’s right, it’s Hundred River Flows into the Sea, the previous team captain for the Huaxia team, Hundred River Flows into the Sea. You know him? His name happens to have the word Chuan in it. Is it because you like him which is why you want to play the Puppet class?”

Liu Chuan calmly said, “Mm, I like him very much.”

Zhu Xiaoyu, who was beside him, agreed, “I also really like Captain Chuan. He could control seven puppets at the same time, too awesome! Too bad he suddenly retired and don’t know what happened to him. Say, it’s been more than half a year without any news of him, he doesn’t have an incurable disease, does he?”

Li Xiang echoed, “This is possible!”

Liu Chuan: “……”

I am sitting perfectly right here! Do you guys want to curse me?

Rather than continuing with the “Where did Captain Chuan go?” topic, Liu Chuan cleverly shifted the subject. “Oh right, didn’t you guys want to play in the Ranked Arenas? Are the other two friends online?”

Li Xiang turned to look at his Friend’s List and sure enough, he saw that his two friends were online and Li Xiang quickly sent a team invite. The five people became a team and joined the Ranked Arena list. With five members being short of one, the other person could only be randomly matched with a stranger.

Very quickly, the system finished matching the five people and the added stranger. Li Xiang casually said hello to him in the team channel and everybody pressed the ready button one by one.

“Your team has joined the Ranked Arena queue, looking for your opponent, please wait for a moment.”

After half a minute, the matching finished and the screen popped out a prompt——

“Successfully matched with the opponents, random map loading, counting down from 10, 9, 8…”

Li Xiang hurriedly held his headphone and greeted in the team’s voice channel: “It’s going to start, everyone, focus your mind and let’s go!” After encouraging their morale, Li Xiang turned again to face Liu Chuan and said, “Oh, by the way, in a moment, I’ll need to command the match so I might not be able to give you a detailed explanation…”

The corners of Liu Chuan’s lips raised. “No problem, I’ll watch how you guys play.”

The 10-second countdown finished and the match officially started.

A beautiful peach blossom island appeared in front of everyone. Li Xiang and the team members spawned at the same time at a resurrection point on the lower-left corner on the map.

The tournament rules for the 6-Player Team mode was a bit unique. When the match starts, the two teams would spawn at the corners diagonal to each other. This resurrection point was also their base camp. After dying, the players would be resurrected here. As the number of times they died increased, the wait time would also increase.

In regards to the battle maps, they were randomly generated, such as a bamboo forest, a town, a snowy mountain or a swamp. The various maps would bring all kinds of fun.

The goal of the match was to seize the three flags randomly placed on the map and bring them back to their base camp. After the flags were spawned, their coordinates were displayed on the small map. Whoever captured the most flags would win the final victory.

Simply said, it was the “Random Map Capture the Flag” mode.

Li Xiang and the guys had randomly arrived at the “Peach Blossom Island” map. Looking at this map, it was very beautiful with pink peach blossoms being lifted and flying all over the place with the wind, causing the ground and even the shops to be covered in a slightly thick layer of petals like a carpet. The game’s 3D effect was done quite nicely. However, they were obviously not in the mood to go and admire the beautiful scenery. Everyone stood together to survey each other’s situation, then afterwards, Li Xiang commanded, “Okay, everyone, go to the middle road!”

Pushing everyone to the middle road, that was the most common rookie strategy seen…

This Peach Blossom Island map was not hard at all and the terrain wasn’t complicated either and Li Xiang brought his teammates to the middle flag directly.

The five people arrived at the fork. Suddenly, behind a dense layer of peach trees, a Mingjiao rushed forward and without any hesitation, an ice-cold sword light swung straight toward everyone!

Li Xiang hurriedly called out, “There’s an ambush! Go!”

——Sweat, there was an ambush and without adjusting your positioning, you guys are just going to…go?

Hearing Li Xiang’s command, the others immediately rushed forward and the crackling sounds of skills being smashed could be heard.

Li Xiang continued commanding, “Kill the healer first! Quick quick quick! Kill the healer!”

——At this moment, should you kill the Mingjiao first? Just now, the Mingjiao was a bit too reckless and had moved out of their healer’s healing range, ah?

“Leave the Mingjiao alone! Kill the healer! Speed up killing the healer!!”

Liu Chuan: “……”

“Add blood, add blood! Quickly heal my health! I’m carrying! Quickly heal!”

Liu Chuan: “……”

What the hell was this command! Liu Chuan practically lost all his power to say anything!

Although the fourth battle tier was not bad among the online game players, however, it was still weak in the eyes of professional players——they didn’t understand how to calculate damage, didn’t understand how to control positioning, didn’t understand adjusting distance, nor did they know how to survey and use the terrain…

This was the case in esports. A high-level player had techniques and awareness that were completely different from everyone else.

When professional teams go to compete, every map would have gone through careful analysis and studies. All kinds of siege warfares, guerrilla warfares, diversions, traps…There were many team captains filled with evil tricks in the professional circle, creating a wide variety of strategies. As the team captain of the Huaxia team, Liu Chuan was used to commanding in professional matches. Seeing them playing like a mess, it was practically heartbreaking.

At last, after watching for a while, Liu Chuan couldn’t help opening his mouth and suggested, “You guys should first withdraw behind the tree…”

However, Li Xiang’s eyes were already red and out of control. He hadn’t heard a thing of what his roommate beside him had suggested and only continued to shout, “Go go go! Beat the healer to death!”

Liu Chuan could only helplessly watch them send their heads in anger.

The first match ended with a lost very quickly, the second match continued to end directly with a lost. Li Xiang was rather depressed. Opening a bottle of Red Bull, he took a few gulps and then boldly said with his fist clenched, “Let’s go again!”

Liu Chuan wanted to say: Classmate, if you played like this, drinking Red Bull was useless ah!

As an Archer Tangmen, he didn’t hide in the distance to suppress with long-distance attacks and instead, followed his teammates to rush out there and sometimes even recklessly running into the crowd to save someone. He used the Tangmen as a melee and had made the Tangmen run all over the place, this person really was something…

However, this person’s hand speed was quite fast. Compared to the other teammates, it was clearly not slow.

Liu Chuan couldn’t help asking, “Li Xiang, is you hand speed over 220?”

Li Xiang replied, “It seems to be 240!”

The hand speed, which was the number of times the fingers could operate within a minute, was referred to as APM.

In the eyes of domestic esports team players, a 220 APM was the minimum for professional players. In other words, professional players needed to press at least 220 keys in one minute and not only that but to also accurately press the key that you wanted without making any mistakes.

The average person’s APM was around 120-150. With this hand speed, you could type a few thousand words in an hour. How fast the fingers of professional players could be was obvious. When those gods chatted, a large paragraph would be typed, it was practically as fast as copying and pasting.

As a matter of fact, Li Xiang’s 240 APM had already reached the professional player’s minimum standard. Perhaps if he was properly trained, he could become an expert. However, it was obvious he had not yet realized where the problem was. Liu Chuan felt that it was quite a pity.

Li Xiang’s personality was straightforward, passionate and loyal and also liked to run around. His style was actually more suited for the melee sects such as Shaolin, Beggars and so on. It was obvious that following the Tangmen sect was not working.

After continuously losing for three rounds, Li Xiang and his team automatically returned to wait in the queue to start matching with opponents again.

Li Xiang hung his head rather depressingly, his whole person seemed as if it was an eggplant beaten by frost1.

[1] 霜打的茄子: refers to someone who’s mental state wasn’t the best or someone in low spirits

Looking at the back of his head, Liu Chuan couldn’t help asking, “Li Xiang, have you be playing Tangmen all this time?”

Li Xiang nodded, “En.”

Liu Chuan euphemistically suggested, “You’ve never thought of switching to play another sect? For instance, a Shaolin and so on…”

Li Xiang turned and glanced at Liu Chuan as if looking at a fool. “Shaolin? Don’t joke, the Shaolin’s equipment is too ugly. Besides, I feel that the Shaolin is only useful for instances and is fairly useless when playing in arenas!”

Liu Chuan: “……”

You’re kidding with me!

Of course, it would be very difficult to see a strong Shaolin in these rookie games. Did you know how many great masters there were in high-level games? The masters might seem benevolent holding prayer beads draped with a kasaya but when they fought, they were fierce. Believe it or not, if you encountered a powerful master with your skill level, you would definitely be pushed and beaten on the ground, simply unable to fight?

Liu Chuan looked helplessly at Li Xiang. “I feel that you can give Shaolin a try. Wasn’t it also boring playing Tangmen all this time?”

Li Xiang waved his hand and said, “No no no, you don’t understand! I play Tangmen no matter what!”

Liu Chaun: “……”

——What was I supposed to do if my stupid roommate gives up trying?!

Liu Chuan had suggested for Li Xiang to switch sects and Li Xiang suddenly said: You don’t understand!

Liu Chuan watched people played games and just by looking at how they pressed the keys, he would know the person’s skill level and whether there was room for improvement. Li Xiang’s hand speed was actually quite fast but unfortunately, how he played was rotten to the core. Such a talented guy yet unknowingly continued to take the wrong path, it was obvious he had never met a truly reliable master. Liu Chuan couldn’t help wanting to give him a little piece of advice.

…It was a pity he didn’t listen to it at all. He’d firmly thrown away the advice and in the end, continued with Tangmen, an unsuitable and darkened dead-end for him.

Liu Chuan certainly couldn’t say: I’m actually the Huaxia team’s former team captain, Hundred River Flows into the Sea. Classmate, it won’t go wrong if you listened to me…

If he said it like this, he would reckon that his roommates would not only not believe him, but would also think that there was something wrong with his brain…

Besides, this time Liu Chuan had returned for school, certainly not to reveal his true identity.

If he allowed people to find out he was really Hundred River Flows into the Sea, Huaxia team’s former team captain, it would be far from good to be watched and surrounded by people.

With Li Xiang and the guys’ continuous tragic Ranked Arenas, Liu Chuan had watched a few games and it was too heartbreaking…

In the end, Liu Chuan wisely decided to leave first by himself. “Cough, Li Xiang, I have some urgent matters and will go back to the dorm first.”

Li Xiang’s head continued to droop. Hearing his roommate’s words, he lifted his head to glance at him, waved his hand weakly at Liu Chuan and said, “Go…I’ll rest for a bit and play for another round…”

After losing like this for so many times and continued to send their heads so bravely, it was really not giving up.

The screen was too pretty and Liu Chuan couldn’t help looking back at it again before turning to leave.