15 million!Putting aside the target player for now, just this amount was enough to set off stormy waves. The news revealed was very clear that this price didn"t include the character, only the player. Without a doubt, if this transfer was successfully completed, the value of professional Glory players would reach a new high.
It was worth noting that the current record for the most expensive player transfer was already set by Team Wind Howl. In the summer window between Seasons 8 and 9, Tang Hao transferred to Wind Howl, and that price of 10 million was currently the highest.
The winter transfer window was generally only for small adjustments and supplements, or if a team needed to fill a hole because of illness or other such special reasons. When Excellent Era obtained Sun Xiang in Season 8, that was a rarely-seen core player transfer. But that, too, was only because Ye Xiu had retired mid-season and Excellent Era was forced to fill the gap.
And now, Wind Howl directly pulled out a record-breaking transfer offer for Tyranny"s Zhang Xinjie. It was clear that they had completely recognized the problems with the team and were eager to solve it.
Was Zhang Xinjie the magic treasure that would solve all of Wind Howl"s problems?
When everyone thought about it, they realized that Wind Howl had made a fairly correct decision in choosing a player. After giving up on the dirty playstyle, Wind Howl was unable to establish a new tactical system. Bringing in a Master Tactician would undoubtedly help in this area. Wind Howl hoped to establish a new playstyle that involved strong offense, and since Zhang Xinjie came from Tyranny, he would entirely be able to adapt to such a style.
But in the end, relying on acquiring a new team member to solve a problem was a solution for when there was no other way. Choosing Zhang Xinjie seemed to be a correct choice, but the important point was that you couldn"t just buy any transfer you wanted, especially if you were targeting the core player of the other team.
So Wind Howl didn"t even bother probing carefully, they directly gave this record-breaking price of 15 million. Evidently they didn"t have any win-win trade to offer, so they could only use money to open the way, and hope that they could strike a price that Tyranny had no way of rejecting.
Everyone"s eyes were focused. All sorts of media came to investigate, and quickly confirmed that this news was true. Team Wind Howl indeed directly proposed an official transfer request to Team Tyranny.
But… Without even waiting to discuss any specifics, Tyranny had already given a lightning-fast answer, announcing their reply directly through the media: declined.
There"d been no official discussion, just a simple refusal. Tyranny"s fans hadn"t even had the time to become worried before the official response of the club was there to rea.s.sure them.
Tyranny"s att.i.tude seemed very resolute, but those who were familiar with transfer operations knew clearly that att.i.tude sometimes was only a bargaining chip for the price. Tyranny"s att.i.tude showed that they wouldn"t be moved by the price of 15 million, then, what about more?
Those looking forward to watch the excitement weren"t disappointed. Less than an hour after Tyranny refused Wind Howl"s price, Wind Howl followed up.
20 million!
Double the record set by Tang Hao for a solo player transfer. Everyone recognized once and for all Wind Howl"s current insanity. This old team had never given people the impression of being a bold, rich, and ostentatious team. Yet as it turned out, they might be quiet when not moving, but when they moved, it was with the sound of thunder.
A team begging for a big-name player, this was entertaining for any team"s fans to watch. Wind Howl"s fans were still depressed over being swept by Happy, but they grew excited by Wind Howl"s continuously bold strokes. Added to the fact that Zhang Xinjie was a good choice, this caused the Wind Howl fans to suddenly grow lively. Even as they waited in antic.i.p.ation, they took the initiative to use their fan pa.s.sion to send praises and welcomes to Zhang Xinjie. Everyone knew that in this transfer, the player"s own opinion would have a great influence, especially for a big-name player like Zhang Xinjie.
In the end, this time Tyranny hadn"t even made an official reply when Zhang Xinjie already made his own announcement, expressing that he had absolutely no intention of leaving Team Tyranny.
The pa.s.sion of the Wind Howl fans had only just been ignited when it was immediately extinguished by this bucket of cold water. Completely thrown off, they could only blankly wait for their own team"s next step.
Wind Howl"s two public price offers had already made them the talk of the town, but of course in reality, a transfer was never worked out without a direct conversation between the two sides. Wind Howl was in private contact as well. 20 million wasn"t their upper limit, this was just broadcast to increase the morale of the team and boost the hopes of the fans.
But afterward, in the private negotiations, Wind Howl again kicked a steel wall. Neither Tyranny as a team nor Zhang Xinjie as an individual showed any sign of wavering. In private, Wind Howl had already raised the price to 25 million and promised even better accommodations for Zhang Xinjie.
Refusal.
They continued to receive nothing but refusal, that sort of immovable refusal with no room for negotiation.
Wind Howl was helpless. Even as the outside world still antic.i.p.ated Wind Howl to give an even higher price, in private, Wind Howl had hit the wall until their heads were bleeding. Their invitation toward Zhang Xinjie had instantly become a farce of loud thunder with only a drizzle of rain. When Round 19 began, two small teams had already completed two transfers that didn"t draw any attention at all, but Wind Howl? After those two days of noise, there was no more movement.
The acquisition of Zhang Xinjie was unsuccessful, but they had made too much noise with this. The fans" hopes had all been lifted, but in the end it didn"t work out. It had to be said that Wind Howl had been too confident with this. They"d had excessive belief in the power of money to open the road. It seemed that they hadn"t even considered that in response to these prices and conditions, Tyranny and Zhang Xinjie would still say no to them.
Wind Howl now needed a backup plan to appease the fans whose hopes had been lifted. But just looking at healers, who in the current professional scene could compare to Zhang Xinjie? Besides, Wind Howl had hoped to solve the team"s problems from the basis. Just swapping out a healer player would be to no avail. Wind Howl understood clearly that their current problem wasn"t that their healer Ruan Yongbin maintained the dirty playstyle. The key point was that, after giving up on the dirty playstyle, the team had been unable to find a mature strategy to use in their matches.
Wind Howl, unable to obtain Zhang Xinjie, seemed like a fly without a head. And in the upcoming Round 19 of the league matches, Wind Howl faced another strong team, Tiny Herb.
Tiny Herb had strong performances in the group arena all season, but their team compet.i.tions had caused some worry. After this match, however, everyone saw clearly that even if Tiny Herb"s team performance wasn"t the best, it was still more than enough to take care of Wind Howl. At least they weren"t as fragmented as Wind Howl, who relied entirely on each individual players" instinct and judgment to fight matches.
9-1. Tiny Herb played their away game at Wind Howl and ultimately achieved a large victory. Even though Wind Howl had scooped up one more point than they had last round, this one point was far from enough to make anyone happy.
In the same round, Tyranny, who"d received Wind Howl"s request for Zhang Xinjie, displayed their resolve, winning their away game at Void with a score of 8-2.
But in Round 19, the result that was most unexpected was that Samsara"s golden win streak was broken.
The team that had completed this snipe was Hundred Blossoms. In their home game, they won 7-3 against Samsara, previously undefeated in the team compet.i.tion.
Samsara"s performance in this team compet.i.tion was indeed not good that match. After the match, a.n.a.lysts pointed out that their long and slow match against Thunderclap last round had crushed Samsara"s rhythm thus far, and in this match, they still hadn"t been able to adjust their rhythm back to normal.
But no matter the reason, victory belonged to Hundred Blossoms. After 19 rounds, every team had faced each other exactly once, and only Hundred Blossoms had managed to defeat Samsara. This was something that the Hundred Blossoms fans could feel proud of. In all these years, this team had received much more mockery than praise, and they really didn"t have many honors that they could claim as theirs and theirs alone.
Samsara"s golden body was broken, and this of course became headline news. But Happy was now no longer a little invisible team that would easily be overlooked and forgotten. In this round, Happy had also met their first loss since Round 9, which also earned quite a bit of attention.
This round, Happy had played their away game at 301, ultimately losing 4-6. After winning 4 points in the individual battles, Happy"s supporters were sure that this would be yet another big victory and were lamenting the fact that this wouldn"t be another 10-0. But in the team compet.i.tion, Happy actually lost.
Ever since Round 9, not only had Happy won every match, their winning scores had never dipped below 9-1. This was a point-scoring rhythm even more fearsome than Samsara"s. If the Pro League was only from Rounds 9 to 18, then the championship would already belong to Happy.
It was true that Happy hadn"t met any of the top powerhouses in their crazy win streak, but teams like Misty Rain, Void, Thunderclap, Wind Howl weren"t opponents that could be casually defeated. The ferocious thing was that when Happy faced these four strong opponents, their scores had actually been even higher. Among these four matches, they"d earned three 10-0"s.
Happy"s results these ten rounds had been even more insane than Samsara"s, and everyone recognized Happy"s strength. But no one really treated them as some invincible fleet.
Because Happy always had a weak point, their healer. From the very beginning, people had realized that his skill wasn"t enough. This wasn"t any secret, this was something that even the newspapers reported.
The various teams would of course target such an obvious weakness. But they soon realized that Happy"s protection of their healer was so extreme, it could be called frenzied.
Against Hundred Blossoms, against Misty Rain, then against Void… It was very apparent in these matches.
And then Thunderclap had made clear strategic plans to target this weakness, but in the end, because Xiao Shiqin was forced into a position where he couldn"t give commands, his strategy was broken. If he"d been able to give voice commands, then in this battle, perhaps Happy would lose because of their Cleric"s inability to keep up with the rhythm.
Happy"s weakness was extremely apparent, but so many teams were unable to grasp it. And then in Round 19, against Team 301 Degrees, Happy"s weak point was broken.
It was broken through brute force.
301"s captain, the number one a.s.sa.s.sin in Glory, Yang Cong used Life-Risking Strike to directly self-destruct and steal away An Wenyi"s Little Cold Hands.