Chapter 316 – Hurdles
The host finally announced the final guest and the audience sighed in disappointment. Everyone wanted to go up onto the stage, but unfortunately, the spots would only go to the few lucky ones.
Chen Guo was one such person who sighed in disappointment.
As soon as the numbers started rolling, her eyes would grow wide. When Zhou Zekai said the final seat number himself, she listened intently. But among the ten thousand spectators there, only four would be chosen. With a 0.04% chance, Chen Guo was unfortunately not chosen.
Though for these types of lottery events, not being chosen wouldn’t make her too depressed.
After a short moment of lament, Chen Guo immediately brought out her newly bought binoculars to look.
“AH!!!” Chen Guo suddenly shouted in astonishment.
“What is it?” Ye Xiu and Tang Rou asked.
“Su Mucheng also brought binoculars!” Chen Guo was very excited at the thought of doing the same thing as her idol.
“Really? Let me look!” Ye Xiu hastily said.
“Look!” Chen Guo gave the binoculars to Ye Xiu, “Over there.”
Ye Xiu took it and looked through them towards the pro players’ seats and quickly found Su Mucheng. Sure enough, she really had brought binoculars. Right now, they were raised up, searching around.
‘Right, right, right!!” Chen Guo continued to chatter in Ye Xiu’s ears. Ye Xiu saw Su Mucheng’s binoculars turn and turn, until finally it turned towards his direction, where it quickly stopped.
They were a bit far…… though they could at least see each other. Ye Xiu stared through them some more, but Chen Guo already wanted the binoculars back. Ye Xiu handed them back to her. Chen Guo raised them up and immediately cried out: “Ah!”
Chen Guo quickly put down the binoculars. Her expression was somewhat dumbstruck: “She seems to be looking towards us, don’t you think?”
“Seems like it……” Ye Xiu said.
Chen Guo quickly raised the binoculars again and continued to say in surprise: “Ah, she seems to be waving in this direction. Who do you think she’s saying hi to?” Chen Guo stood up and looked around, but didn’t notice the person next to her waving back.
After looking around in a circle, she obviously didn’t find anything. When she sat back down and looked through her binoculars again, Su Mucheng had already stopped looking in their direction.
On stage, the four partic.i.p.ating pros had already gotten up. Zhou Zekai, of course, was one of them. In this event, three pros could sign up on their own and the fourth one was usually chosen from the all-stars list, in order to raise the stakes. Anyone on the all-stars list was naturally more popular than any normal pro. These types of players had a status similar to a box-office celebrity.
The popular pro’s task was to pick out four lucky guests and then partic.i.p.ate in the event along with everyone else.
In the first event, the Hurdles, the popular pro was Zhou Zekai. When he stood alongside the normal audience members and the other partic.i.p.ating pros, he already stood out.
He seemed somewhat uneasy, but it wasn’t as obvious as the chosen guests’ nervousness was. The other three pros, who were not as popular, looked even more calm than the G.o.d.
The host announced the eight partic.i.p.ants.
He asked the four chosen audience members their names and then their Glory IDs and cla.s.ses. He then asked them for their thoughts.
Two of the four expressed their excitement. Another one of them could only laugh and smile nervously. He couldn’t get a clear word out. The other was a female, who was staring at Zhou Zekai with sparkling eyes. Though to her disappointment, Zhou Zekai never turned his head to look at her. His head was lowered towards his feet the entire time.
After asking the chosen audience members their thoughts, the host turned to the pros, who were skilled at interviews.
Finally, the mic was handed to Zhou Zekai. The host was already sweating.
“Zekai…..” The host called.
Zhou Zekai lifted his head to look at him.
“What do you think? Do you have any confidence in winning?” The host asked.
“Uh…..” Zhou Zekai hesitated.
“Good.” He said.
“You can do it.” The host didn’t even attempt to figure out what he meant by “Good” and hastily ended the G.o.d’s interview. He immediately announced that the first event would begin soon.
This match was purely for fun, so no one bothered with being fair. The pros would use their own accounts, while the chosen audience members would use their own, as well. Only if they didn’t bring their account cards would the host provide them with one. When they advertised the event, they had reminded the audience members to bring their account cards because there was a chance they could play with the pros on stage, so these four chosen audience members used their own accounts.
The eight players got up onto the match platforms and their eight characters appeared on stage. The most eye-catching character was obviously Zhou Zekai’s Cloud Piercer. His character was covered in grey and wore a black cap. Its posture was similar to Zhou Zekai. His character was looking down and standing silently behind the starting line.
Beside him was a lucky audience member’s character. The seven characters were lined up in this way. Four of the characters had their heads turned. These were clearly because the four normal players were admiring the Great Gunner’s elegance.
The three pros were also rare existences to normal players, but compared with a G.o.d, they were immediately drowned out.
“Ready…….. Set……” A very loud voice resounded throughout the entire stadium.
‘Bang!” A gunshot.
“Bang, bang, bang, bang……”
After the starting gun shot, more gunshots closely followed. The audience were surprised and thought that something had happened to the starting pistol. But soon after, they saw Zhou Zekai flying backwards. The repeated gun shots weren’t from the starting pistol, but Zhou Zekai’s Silver weapon, Wildfire Revolver.
Zhou Zekai was undoubtedly using Aerial Fire.
Aerial Fire required high frequency shooting. Aerial Cannon could push a character very far, but Aerial Fire required repeated shooting to keep the character floating. In terms of difficulty, Aerial Fire was harder to do than an Aerial Cannon.
But for Zhou Zekai, the current G.o.d among Gunners, Aerial Fire was beyond easy to use. As soon as the starting pistol went off, his character quickly turned around and flew backwards, instantly pulling ahead of the other seven players.
When using Aerial Fire, the character touched the ground much more frequently than when using Aerial Cannon. But under Zhou Zekai’s quick fingers, Cloud Piercer slid along the ground like a dragonfly. He quickly arrived at the first hurdle. Without turning around, he simply angled himself downwards and then gently jumped. Cloud Piercer gracefully leaped over the hurdle without over-jumping it by even the slightest inch.
The electronic screens immediately replayed this part. The applause from the audience was very warm. This was Samsara’s stadium, which meant it was also Zhou Zekai’s home grounds. Here, he was absolutely the most welcome player there.
Among the other seven players, one of the pros was a Witch. He hopped onto his broom and flew low, quickly winning a small lead. When he met a hurdle, he would make a slight adjustment and his character would gently glide across the hurdle. The absolute majority of pros were extremely adept at these sorts of basic skills. It was impossible to tell who was better with just one move.
Apart from these two cla.s.ses with their more unique movement methods, the other six were more ordinary and were running along the ground. But the other two pros quickly pulled ahead of the four audience members. Whether it was from their equipment or movement speed, they had a better grasp of the tempo. The pros were obviously much more skilled than normal players. This type of difference was obvious at a glance.
If they kept on running like this according to the normal rules, then this match would be quite boring. But in a match with no rules, who would abide by them? Everyone awaited for that moment.
The audience didn’t have to wait long. One of the pro players broke the silence. His character was a Battle Mage. Even though he didn’t have any special movement abilities, he had an ability that could increase his movement speed. When he pa.s.sed by the first hurdle, he threw out a Dragon Tooth at the hurdle. The hurdle broke and a Neutral Chaser appeared behind him. If he could attack with the Chaser, then he would be able to obtain the movement speed buff.
Chasers couldn’t be used against the hurdles. They could only target other people. The players near him were both audience members. Even though there were no rules, the pro felt that bullying the normal players would be somewhat embarra.s.sing to do, so he sent his Neutral Chaser towards the other nearby pro.
But how could a pro be hit so easily? That pro was a Berserker, who directly jumped to a different lane to avoid the attack.
Correct, he switched lanes……. In a match with no rules, there was nothing wrong with switching lanes. That Battle Mage didn’t hesitate and immediately chased after him. He was clearly determined to get his Chaser buff.
The pros were clearly more on top of things. The four audience members were still running normally, while these two had already started fighting. The current second place pro, the Witch, began to move too. Seeing that Zhou Zekai’s Cloud Piercer didn’t seem to be slowing down, he wanted to stop him. As a result, he began casting Magic Missiles towards Cloud Piercer.
Cloud Piercer was flying backwards, so he could clearly see them coming. He immediately began to adjust his flying angle. His character continued to adjust his flying direction and he was no longer flying in a straight line.
His quick changes were like a b.u.t.terfly pa.s.sing through flowers. His beautiful movements caught the audience’s attentions and the applause once again came. The Witch saw that his Magic Missiles weren’t working, so he chanted again. His character threw out a sparkling light, which transformed into a ray of light that shot towards Cloud Piercer.
Witch skill: Star Ray.