A few days pa.s.sed, and nothing much happened inside the game. There were no big conflicts, and all the big guilds—Warsky Alliance, G.o.ds of Destruction, Hegemon Palace and so on—kept a fairly low profile. Warsky and his players were fighting to get a good ranking in the compet.i.tive arena. Farewell Song and Lin Bing Dou Zhe especially were so enamored with 2v2s that they spent three whole days grinding inside the arena as a team. As a result, the pair took first place in the rankings and was far, far ahead of the runner-up, Li Chengfeng and High Fighting Spirits. Judging from how good they were, Warsky Alliance might even send them to all future compet.i.tions with 2v2s in them.
It would be a sound decision. Farewell Song and Lin Bing Dou Zhe definitely made a powerful pair as they were both calm, patient and clear-headed. They wouldn"t act if the time wasn"t right, and if the time was right then they acted with unflinching decisiveness. This excellent quality of theirs gave them multiple wins even against powerful teams like Luo River G.o.d of the Capital and Moonkiss.
That didn"t mean that our teams were doing bad in the arenas. He Yi and Murong Mingyue also spent three days fighting inside the team arenas, and He Yi"s skill grew drastically thanks to it. She was steadily growing into a well-rounded player, and even her parries were starting to look good and proper. Besides super teams like Farewell Song and Lin Bing Dou Zhe, Candlelight Shadow and G.o.d"s Dance, and Li Chengfeng and High Fighting Spirits, everyone else basically got destroyed by the tank-and-healer pair. With Murong Mingyue behind her, He Yi could solo almost anyone like it was a single-player game.
……
As for Beiming Xue and I, our focus was on the champion arena. For the past three days, I spent half my time grinding levels, and the other half grinding wins in the champion arena. In the end I accrued a total of 3784 wins and 7 losses, averaging at a mind-boggling 99.8% win rate. Out of these 7 losses, 5 of them were caused by Candlelight Shadow. It was normal though. No one could be at their best at all times, and not even I could maintain an 80% win rate against a player like him. That being said I still beat him 14 times out of the 19 encounters so if there was anyone who felt ashamed here it would be him, not me.
Oh, I also lost a match to Luo River G.o.d of the Capital. The girl had insane firepower, and in that match I committed a technical error and walked right into her fire trap. In the end, she was able to one-shot me with the triple-hit spell Ice Fire Flurry. You just couldn"t make even a single mistake when fighting against a woman like her.
My last loss was in the hands of Lin Yixin. We encountered 4 times in the arena in total, I won 3 out of 4 times. It was a pretty good result all thing considered.
……
Noon, at the living room of the workshop.
Clak clak clak clak...
Murong Mingyue was sitting by the table and typing elegantly like a b.u.t.terfly. She seemed to be searching for some game data.
Clutching a cup of red tea and sitting next to her, I asked, “Sis?”
“Hmm?”
“What are you looking for?”
“Oh, nothing. I was just testing out the high-end notebook Lenovo sent us…”
“f.u.c.k!”
Since we were now a proud member of the Lenovo esports club, the company had sent us each a personalized, high-end PC. The notebooks had arrived just yesterday, and they were pretty outstanding well all things considered. At the very least playing Angry Birds or Plants VS Zombies on it was smooth as h.e.l.l.
Seated on the other side of the table, He Yi pushed her notebook toward me and said, “Looking at these rankings! You"re doing amazing for the past couple days, Lu Chen. Even our team leader, Rose said that your results were out of the world. Speaking of which, Rose is going to visit in a couple of days. Lenovo is planning to build the club headquarter at Shanghai, and they"ll be recruiting a couple more players beside us.”
I smiled. “Sure, why not? We are the first seed, so we can choose to enter the prestigious compet.i.tions only. But someone has to partic.i.p.ate in the not-so-prestigious compet.i.tions as well, right? Rose already said that our main focus should be on grinding and improving our in-game strength as much as possible. Only then we"ll be able to prove ourselves in the upcoming compet.i.tions.”
Beiming Xue bent over and took a peek at the champion arena ranking on the screen. She couldn"t stop herself from sticking out her tongue and commenting, “OMG, Big bro, your win rate is ridiculous…”
I returned her smile and said, “It"s okay.”
I checked out the ranking list—
Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand Matches Fought: 3784 Wins: 3777 Loss: 7 Win Rate: 99.8%
Candlelight Shadow Matches Fought: 4471 Wins: 4443 Loss: 28 Win Rate: 99.3%
Little Piglet Matches Fought: 5782 Wins: 5161 Loss: 621 Win Rate: 89.2%
Wind Fantasy Matches Fought: 3124 Wins: 3072 Loss: 52 Win Rate: 98.3%
Legendary Brave Matches Fought: 4899 Wins: 4427 Loss: 472 Win Rate: 90.3%
Beiming Xue Matches Fought: 5130 Wins: 4672 Loss: 458 Win Rate: 91%
Purple Marquis Matches Fought: 3982 Wins: 3672 Loss: 310 Win Rate: 92.2%
Luo River G.o.d of the Capital Matches Fought: 2984 Wins: 2941 Loss: 43 Win Rate: 98.5%
Blue Sky Scar Matches Fought: 10189 Wins: 8173 Loss: 2015 Win Rate: 80.2%
Chaos Moon Matches Fought: 4088 Wins: 3472 Loss: 616 Win Rate: 84.9%
……
At this point, we were all squeezed in front He Yi"s screen to check out the champion arena ranking. The girls stuck their tongues out when they saw how fierce the compet.i.tion was...
Nestled against me, He Yi said with a smile, “Lu Chen fought almost 4000 matches but lost only 7 of them. Sigh, the mere sight of your win rate is probably going to murder more than a couple of fragile hearts. Did you know? Rose told me that after the Lenovo CEO saw your ranking, he told her that the money he had paid to sign you was definitely worth it…”
I nodded and smiled back. The biggest reason Lenovo signed us was to promote their brand, and one of the players they signed was currently sitting at first place of the champion arena ranking. I didn"t need to describe how good it was for their brand, did I? Plus, Beiming Xue was in the top 10 of the champion arena ranking as well, so of course the sponsors were satisfied with the results.
Beiming Xue suddenly burst into a giggle. “Blue Sky War G.o.d is pretty amazing too. Ten thousand matches, tsk tsk! It must"ve taken him an enormous amount of stamina and willpower to play this many matches…”
Murong Mingyue agreed. “Too bad his win rate isn"t 95% or higher, or the first place of the champion arena ranking would be his for sure!”
He Yi couldn"t help but roll her eyes. “Come on, there are only 4 players in all the servers who have a win rate above 95%!”
“True.”
Beiming Xue nodded in agreement. “You"ll encounter all kinds of cla.s.ses and players in a 1v1 match, so only the absolute best of the best can maintain a win rate of 95%. If you look at the win rates in descending order, you"ll basically get the same list as the latest Player Power Rankings of China…”
He Yi exclaimed in realization, “Lu Chen"s number one, Candlelight Shadow"s number two, Luo River G.o.d of the Capital is number three and Beauty Lin is number four…”
I sucked in a deep breath. The a.s.sessment was pretty fair and objective all things considered. I had a tonne of Spirit-grade or Earth-grade Outstanding equipment such as the G.o.d Suppressing Necklace, G.o.d Suppressing Helmet, Soul Suppressing Cloak and Heavenly-stealing Sword, so in terms of equipment literally no one in China was better than me. It was also the main reason Candlelight Shadow couldn"t get a good win rate against me. My next objective was to find a big map, do some quests, grind some levels etc and get to level 150 as soon as possible. I would become the first swordsman ever to ride a mount!
……
It was at this moment we heard someone knocking at the front door.
“Huh. Who is it? Is it time to pay rent already?” He Yi exclaimed in surprise.
I walked over and looked through the peephole. I found a 20-year-old girl wearing a t-s.h.i.+rt standing outside. She also wore a light blue-colored badge in front of her chest, but I couldn"t see the name written on it clearly.
So I opened the door and asked, “You are?”
The girl stared at me with her big, round eyes for a moment before blinking. “Are… are you Falling Dust, the Little Heavenly King? OMG you"re so… handsome…”
The compliment made me blush. “Seriously, who are you?”
The girl extended a hand to me and smiled brightly. “h.e.l.lo, Falling Dust! I"m your team leader, Rose!”
“Rose?”
Her introduction only increased my surprise. Grasping her hand and giving it a shake, I asked, “You should"ve told us that you"re coming so we could receive you properly…”
Rose giggled a bit before walking into the living room. “There"s no need. It"s only a two-hour trip from Shanghai to Suzhou, so I decided to drive over myself. As for why I"m here, I want to meet you all in person, that"s all.”
He Yi rose to her feet and greeted Rose with a smile. “Wow, you"re quite the pretty woman in real life, Rose!”
Rose stared at He Yi for a moment before exclaiming, “So beautiful…”
Murong Mingyue greeted her next, and Rose froze like a statue. “So big…”
Beiming Xue greeted her last, and Rose twitched back to reality. “So cute…”
……
We all sat down in the living room as Rose produced a set of doc.u.ments from her small bag. She started, “I"m the leader of the club, but you"re the ones who are going to be acting on the stage, metaphorically speaking. Therefore, I would like to inquire your opinions before I make any new recruitment. Here, please check out the first draft of the recruitment list.”
He Yi accepted the doc.u.ment and gave it a look before pa.s.sing it over to me. There was a long list of names—
Remains LV-122 Cla.s.s: Warrior City: Vanished G.o.d City Guild: Blazing Hot Lips
Heart Like Water LV-123 Cla.s.s: Mage City: Vanished G.o.d City Guild: Hunting Moon Dynasty
Unwilling to Fight LV-123 Cla.s.s: Archer City: Wind City Guild: Peach Garden
Hidden Fragrance LV-122 Cla.s.s: Magic Knight City: Wind City Guild: Purple Lily
Calm Night LV-121 Cla.s.s: a.s.sa.s.sin City: Sky City Guild: The Monarch Descends
Little Little Hero LV-123 Cla.s.s: Mage City: Vanished G.o.d City Guild: Blazing Hot Lips
b.u.t.terfly Dance LV-122 Cla.s.s: Dark Ritualist City: Wind City Guild: Candle Dragon
……
I licked my lips after skimming over the name list. “This is a mess. There are players from all kinds of cities and guilds…”
Rose nodded with a smile. “Mn. This is what our headhunters gathered after seeking out the best PvP players they could find in every city. They"ll all work for Lenovo if the signings are confirmed. They are the ones who"ll be partic.i.p.ating in all minor tournaments unless the four of you choose to partic.i.p.ate in them. Basically, you"ll never meet each other unless something unusual happens. Is this okay with you?”
He Yi and I exchanged a smile with each other before nodding in unison. “We have no problems with your decision whatsoever. Feel free to sign whoever is necessary!”
“That"s great!” Rose replied with a smile. “So, do you want to have lunch together?”
“Your treat?”
“I mean, sure, I can apply for reimburs.e.m.e.nt…”
“Alright, let"s go!”
“...”
……
We were just out of the door when my phone rang. It was Lin Yixin"s number.
“h.e.l.lo, Yiyi. What"s wrong?”
“Did you check the official homepage a couple minutes ago, Lu Chen?”
“Nope. Why?”
A new large-sized map will sp.a.w.n at the end of Dragonbone Mountain Range tomorrow 9 am! It"s located between the borders of Vanished G.o.d City and Wind City, and it"s tied to the main quest!”