Chapter 1140: First Round
Translator: Nomyummi Editor: Nomyummi
Happy may have been swept by Samsara, but they won versus the press conference reporters. After routing the reporters, the four left the stage in high spirits. When they left through the passageway for the players, they just happened to bump into Samsara, who would be participating in the next part of the press conference.
Zhou Zekai, Jiang Botao, Sun Xiang.
For the opening round and a good beginning, Samsara hadn't held back and had sent out their three All-Stars. Even though Sun Xiang's year at Excellent Era had been a devastating failure, he was still young and people still looked highly upon his future. From this match, it could be seen that Sun Xiang was meshing well with Samsara. There was no point talking about the individual competition, but in the team competition, he had done a great job assuming the responsibilities of an attacker. One Autumn Leaf in the front. Cloud Piercer in the back. The duo tore apart Happy's formation as if everyone in Happy was a dead branch. It was easy to foresee that this wouldn't be the only time the duo would go on a rampage. This duo would certainly become a nightmare in the entire Alliance for a long time. Many reporters were already describing them in this way.
"Senior!" After bumping into Happy in the passageway, Samsara's Jiang Botao gave a polite greeting to Ye Xiu. The winners would often console the losers. It seemed like Jiang Botao wanted to do the same.
"Mm, I'm glad to see how outstanding the younger generation is!" Ye Xiu sighed.
Sun Xiang rolled his eyes. Because of this person, he had been put into a difficult situation. However, he had gained a lot of experience from these failures. But if it had to be said that he felt gratitude for Ye Xiu beating him, Sun Xiang wasn't so sweet. He still wanted to ruthlessly crush him. In today's match, he had gone all out, and Samsara had achieved a perfect victory. However, in his heart, he didn't feel like he had beaten Ye Xiu. Was it because it wasn't a direct confrontation? Sun Xiang was somewhat puzzled.
Before anyone in Samsara could reply, Fang Rui nodded his head: "Yes, I'm glad too."
Zhou Zekai stared at Fang Rui but didn't say anything.
"Haha, aren't you and Little Zhou both from the same generation?" Jiang Botao laughed.
"Really? Who told him to always be so quiet. I forgot." Fang Rui said.
"Pro players should speak with their play!" Jiang Botao said.
"Okay, I'll give a good talk with you guys next time." Fang Rui said.
"See you next time."
"See you next time."
The two sides departed after a brief exchange. Samsara's press conference went more like how an opening round press conference should go. Most of the discussion was focused on their goals for the new season. Their new player Sun Xiang was given a lot of attention and was asked about his thoughts on Samsara and how he was fitting in with the team.
The four passed through the player passageway and returned to the guest team's lounge at Samsara's stadium. They didn't take a moment to sit down and take a break. They pushed open the door and called out to the others inside: "Let's go!"
Happy left Samsara's stadium and returned to City H with their zero points. Saying that they didn't care at all about their zero points obviously wasn't possible. On the plane, Chen Guo was just sitting and she wasn't feeling comfortable. She looked at Su Mucheng, who was seated next to her, and wanted to chat, but then she saw that Su Mucheng was looking at the tablet in Ye Xiu's hands.
"What's he watching?" Chen Guo asked curiously.
"The VOD for the match that just ended." Su Mucheng said.
"Oh…" Chen Guo didn't say anything more.
Happy wasn't the only one playing their first match. Happy was already on their way back home; the matches going on in the other stadiums had already ended as well.
Team Miracle, the other new team alongside Team Happy, hadn't received the champion sweep. Instead, they had been swept by Team Tyranny. Truthfully speaking, Team Miracle wasn't that bad. They had joined when Team Excellent Era disbanded. Seizing this opportunity, they had fished up quite a few things including three of Team Excellent Era's players. In terms of their players, Team Miracle was actually superior to last season's Team Heavenly Swords. Unfortunately, apart from some leftovers from Team Excellent Era, Team Miracle didn't bring anything fresh to the Alliance, so the attention received was less than that of last year's Team Heavenly Swords.
Speaking of Team Heavenly Swords, their announcement that Sun Zheping would be returning and joining their team had led to a heated discussion. After all, the last time they checked, Sun Zheping had been with Happy in the Challenger League. Everyone thought that he would return along with Happy. Who would have thought that he would turn around and run to Team Heavenly Swords?
For Heavenly Sword's opening match, they happened to be matched with Hundred Blossoms.
First, it was Zhang Jiale. Then, it was Sun Zheping. Hundred Blossom's two kings had retired then returned, but neither of them chose to go back to their team.
When Zhang Jiale returned, the fans cried and cursed, unable to understand and accept it. As for Sun Zheping? When he had fought with Happy in the Challenger League, people had foreseen this development. However, Sun Zheping had been away from the scene for a long time now. The sentiment towards him had lessened drastically. What's more, when he returned, he had been in the Challenger League, so everyone felt like he wasn't being too serious about it and was just having some fun. On the other hand, Zhang Jiale had returned and joined Tyranny. It was obvious that he had gone over because of their fame. In comparison, Sun Zheping's return truly didn't set off any big waves. There was still some noise though. The reporters also knew that this could be considered a noteworthy topic. As a result, in the press conference, someone tossed out this question.
Sun Zheping's return didn't unfold as magnificently as Zhang Jiale's, but Sun Zheping himself was a lot fiercer than Zhang Jiale. When he was asked "Why did you choose Heavenly Swords and not Hundred Blossoms," his reply was just three words: I wanted to.
Everything there was to know about Sun Zheping's situation had pretty much been uncovered when he had been with Happy. Everyone already knew that his hand injury wasn't fully healed. He could play, but he couldn't play for long. He was incapable of becoming a pro team's main force.
Thus, many smart people had already guessed why Sun Zheping chose to go to Heavenly Swords.
He clearly had an appropriate reason that everyone could understand, but instead, he gave this three-word reply.
"I wanted to" indicated that he wasn't going to give an explanation.
This was just how Sun Zheping was. His hand injury meant that he could never become a true pro player again, but he himself hadn't changed.
In the match between Hundred Blossoms and Heavenly Swords, Hundred Blossoms won 8 to 2. Heavenly Swords had won two points in the individual competition, one of which had been gotten by Sun Zheping. Many people felt it was regrettable. It had been many years since he had left the pro scene, yet even with an injury, he could still perform to such a level. If he hadn't gotten his injury, what status would Sun Zheping have in the current pro scene?
Unfortunately, there were no ifs in this world....
Apart from that, the opening round had seven other matches. There weren't too many particularly noteworthy confrontations. This was also how the Pro Alliance always arranged the league schedule. It was the opening round! Satisfying the fans' curiosity towards the teams' adjustments during the summer was enough. They didn't need to set up anything special.
Seven matches.
Team Blue Rain beat Team Bright Green 9 to 1.
Team Tiny Herb swept Team Lightly 10 to 1.
Team Wind Howl beat Team Conquering Clouds 9 to 1.
Team Misty Rain beat Team Seaside 8 to 2.
Team Void barely beat Team 301 6 to 4.
Team Thunderclap beat Team Parade 7 to 3.
Team Royal Style beat Team Radiant 7 to 3.
There were no surprises. The teams that should have won won. The teams that should have lost lost. Although, in regards to the competitive format, with everyone vying for points, there wasn't technically a win or lose. However, out of habit, everyone still considered the team with more points as the winner and the other team as the loser for every match.
From this first round, the placings were currently Tyranny, Samsara, and Tiny Herb tied for first with 10 points. Wind Howl and Blue Rain tied for fourth with 9 points. Misty Rain at sixth with 8 points. Royal Style and Thunderclap tied for seventh with 7 points… in last were obviously the three teams that hadn't won a single point: Happy, Miracle, and Lightly.
Team Lightly was a mid-tier team in the Alliance, neither good nor bad and rather invisible. (Author's Note: Yes, very invisible. It wasn't until I officially started writing about the Pro League did I realize that there was still 1 team missing out of 20. And thus, Team Lightly was born!) If they matched against a powerhouse, losing badly was nothing surprising.
As for Happy and Miracle, the Alliance's tradition continued. Who had these two face against the finalists last season?
These three teams all had 0 points, but Happy was thrown to the bottom. Unfortunately, placings were done by points and then by reverse alphabetical order. Happy started with the letter H, which came before Miracle's M and Lightly's L*.
Season ten's opening round ended with these results. It was hard to predict how this season would go based on these results though. It was just that Happy, the team that had been hyped, was swept by Samsara, so Happy was once again an unfathomable mystery.
Was Happy a good team or a bad team?
The media was discussing this question. The players were discussing this question. But all of them were simply outsiders in the scene. The ones with the headache were the Alliance's teams. They were the ones who needed to rack their brains to figure out how they should be looking at Happy.
Each team found something from the VOD of Happy versus Samsara. This information was too precious. In general, there were practically no recordings of Happy against high-skill level. Only last year's match versus Happy could be considered as one.
As soon as they started studying Happy, all of the teams realized that there were many things needed to be studied.
Not only did Happy have a bunch of rookies, even among the three old veterans, they were only sort of familiar with Su Mucheng. The other two had switched classes! Since they had started again from scratch, it meant that the teams needed to start up their research on them from scratch too. It was a bit better for Fang Rui. There were footsteps to follow. However, Ye xiu made them feel nauseated.
Unspecialized? Everyone knew what an unspecialized was. They knew the theory behind one and could train one too. But the problem was that they didn't have a Myriad Manifestations Umbrella. An unspecialized without the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella was completely different from an unspecialized with one. They had no way of testing an unspecialized themselves nor could they imitate one. Their only source of information was from match VODs. There were really only two matches significant enough to watch though, so they could only watch these over and over again.
Ye Xiu was clearly someone that everyone was incomparably familiar with, but he was a completely mystery right now. This sort of feeling didn't feel good at all.
You bastard! You've already retired, so why'd you have to return? If you're going to return, why'd you switch classes? If you're going to switch classes, why'd you have to choose an unspecialized? If you're going to choose an unspecialized, why'd you have to have an exclusive weapon?
Nomyummi
The original was alphabetical order, which made sense in Chinese (兴欣 Xingxin - Happy), (神话 Shenhua - Miracle), (轻裁 Qingcai - Lightly), so Happy would have been last since Happy "starts" with an X in Chinese. I changed it around to make it work in English.
Chapter 1141: Which Match to Watch?
Translator: Nomyummi Editor: Nomyummi
In the eyes of the pro teams, Happy was a troublesome existence. In the past, when had they ever needed to spend so much effort studying a new Alliance team? Those teams on the border of relegations were no different than cheerleader teams in the eyes of the powerhouses. However, for Happy, they felt uneasy not taking them seriously. Fortunately, matches were played one by one. Over the entire season, each team would at most bump into Happy twice. The teams scheduled far from Happy weren't in a rush. On the other hand, the teams scheduled closer to Happy were rather worried such as Team Hundred Blossoms, who would be playing Happy next.
Team Hundred Blossoms had made it to the playoffs last season and even gave quite the trouble to Team Tyranny. After waving goodbye to Blood and Blossoms, their team became better and better. Yu Feng, the new generation's number one Berserker stood firm in Team Hundred Blossoms. His strength had erased Sun Zheping's influence to some extent. Along with the passing of time, Team Hundred Blossoms had been rather indifferent about encountering Sun Zheping, at least, they hadn't been as nervous as facing Happy.
Because Hundred Blossoms was a team on the fringe of the playoff level, it was very possible that a slight slip would lead to their playoff spot being taken, so in their view, Happy was an especially worrisome opponent. The difference in points this round might determine which of the two teams would be making into the playoffs.
However, no matter how diligent they might be, there were only two real matches of Happy to look at. In their match against Excellent Era, Happy had displayed closely interlinked and masterful strategic planning, but against Samsara, before Happy could even get their tactics going, Samsara had scattered them.
"Samsara is even stronger this season!" Team Hundred Blossom's Cleric, Mo Chuchen, said.
But soon afterwards, under the gazes of everyone else in the team, Mo Chuchen shifted topics in a fluster: "Focus on Happy, focus on Happy."
Yes, he had mistaken what was important here. But the problem was that there really wasn't much to see from Happy this match. Happy hadn't been able to display any of their tactics before collapsing.
In the post-match press conference, Happy threw the word "rustiness" left and right, leading to a complete collapse of the reporters. But from Team Hundred Blossom's careful analysis, they felt like this rustiness might really be the truth?
Samsara had won two consecutive championships. Their strength didn't need to be questioned. Their team was an aggressive team, especially after the addition of Sun Xiang and One Autumn Leaf. With such strong attackers, their tempo only quickened. As a result, when Happy ran into Samsara, from their performance in the team competition, they indeed had been overwhelmed by Samsara's fast pace. Happy's decisions were always a half beat too slow. Even though they tried hard to make adjustments to their tactical rhythm, by the time they finished adjusting, Samsara was already on the next beat.
After all, Samsara was different than Excellent Era. Excellent Era was a team that Ye Xiu understood all too well. When fighting against Excellent Era, his tactics were clearly targeted towards them. Excellent Era had also been crushing noobs in the Challenger League for an entire year, so they had somewhat fallen from the pace of the pro scene. How could they compare to the reigning champions?
Happy needed to adapt to the pace of the pro matches. For Hundred Blossoms, this was undoubtedly good news. Thus, the general direction of this upcoming match was more or less confirmed now.
Fight fast!
Hundred Blossom's players reached a consensus. As for the specifics, each team had their own class compositions and styles. For the following week, they would be undergoing targeted practice for utilizing this playstyle. This was the pro scene. This was a pro match. How each battle played out depended on the opponents.
The week passed quickly. The second round of the league had begun.
In this round, there were two important matches. The first was between Team Happy and Team Hundred Blossoms. Everyone had been discussing how strong Happy was exactly over the course of the week.
The other match was between Team Thunderclap and Team Void. After Xiao Shiqin returned to Thunderclap, there had been a few more adjustments made during the summer transfer window, revealing the team's newfound ambition. As for Void, their dual Ghostblades were legendary, but this duo always gave people a feeling that these two weren't able to support the general picture. However, people saw room for growth from Void, not from transfers but from the interior.
Last season, Blue Rain's rookie Lu Hanwen shined. In his first year in the Alliance, he had been chosen as an All-Star. Another star was rising. In the end, the Best Rookie went unsurprisingly to Lu Hanwen. However, was this decision truly without controversy? For Team Void's fans, that was absolutely not the case.
Last season, a formidable rookie had appeared in their team too. An Exorcist: Ge Caijie.
Ge Caijie was 19 this year. No matter how it was looked at, he was at an age brimming with youth. However, placed among pro players in an competitive scene getting younger and younger, compared to the 15 year old Lu Hanwen, the 19 year old Ge Caijie was immediately labelled with traits such as mature and staid, words that didn't suit youths.
Ge Caijie was indeed a serious person with an air of a great general. Alongside Glory's famous Ghostblade duo, he displayed a terror never before seen in a rookie. His performance was always consistent. Even though the Ghostblade duo was still the core of Team Void, the air of a leading role appeared around him. This wasn't him trying to overtake his seniors. It was simply his playstyle. He was someone with the potential to become the core of a team, a person that could carry the team's banner.
Everyone had always been waiting for a good helper to the Ghostblade duo, but right now, a youth, who sometimes made the Ghostblade duo change from leads to support, had appeared. The two seniors seemed to have no disagreements towards him. And whenever team Void's Ge Caijie performed spectacularly, they always obtained good results.
For this type of player, even if he didn't grow to become the core of a team, he would still be a great general in a team. It was just a pity that his seriousness made him different than Lu Hanwen, who was brimming with energy and passion. The attention towards him was far less. Team Void had always been lamenting at this injustice. In the selection for Best Rookie, Lu Hanwen snatched away the majority of the votes, leaving a huge gap between the second place Ge Caijie.
This didn't affect Ge Caijie though. Another summer had passed and he became even more mature. Last season, he had been the new rookie of the team and now he had already come a player that Team Void couldn't lack. The opening round of the league further proved this point.
In the opening round, Team Void fought against Team 301 in a bitter battle. In this round, Ge Caijie had been crucial to the points won by Team Void. He had won a point in the individual competition. In the team copetition, Team 301 took the initiative, but he stood firm and led the team for a counterattack, resulting in a huge victory..
In the post-match press conference, Team 301's captain, Yang Cong, praised Ge Caijie. He even said that Ge Caijie reminded him of Wang Jiexi despite their playstyles being entirely different. Afterwards, Team 301's All-Star Grappler Li Yihui, who had once been a part of Team Tiny Herb but had been traded for Team 301's Xu Bin, also expressed his approval towards his captain's praise for Ge Caijie.
Team Thunderclap versus Team Void was the match chosen to be broadcast. Even though everyone's curiosity towards Happy hadn't been erased, the broadcast could only choose a single match. They couldn't only broadcast Happy's matches this season, no?
On 9/12, the second round of the Glory Professional League's tenth season started. The viewers tuning into watch saw Team Void's stadium as scheduled. But the commentator Pan Lin seemed to be even more uneasy than anyone else.
"Hello friends, this is the second round of the Glory Professional League's tenth season, Thunderclap versus Void. The players on both sides have entered the stadium. First up will be the individual competition, of course. And at the same time, there's another important match between Hundred Blossoms and Happy, which is taking place in City H. I'm sure everyone knows that after Excellent Era was defeated in the Challenger League last season, their boss Tao Xuan sold practically all of Excellent Era's assets. Many people probably thought that Excellent Era's competitive stadium was a part of these assets, but in reality, Excellent Era's stadium used to be called Xiaoshan Gymnasium, a public gymnasium in City H. When the Glory Professional League was established, the competition soon needed this type of venue, so Excellent Era rented it for long-term use. Later on, the name was changed to the Excellent Era Stadium. The lease was suspended ahead of time and the stadium has returned to the original Xiaoshan Gymnasium. Right now, Happy is temporarily leasing it for their stadium. In truth, this isn't surprising! This is the only venue in City H with the conditions to display Glory's projection technology!"
"Ahem!" A cough interrupted Pan Lin's introduction. After a pause, Pan Lin realized that he was currently commentating the match between Thunderclap and Void, but after only a short introduction, he had suddenly shifted focus to Happy. The director had told him to give updates on the situation between Happy and Hundred Blossoms. It would be enough to just say a few words when a result came out. He wasn't supposed to go too far though!
"Let's get back to the scene." Pan Lin immediately pulled the subject back from Xiaoshan Gymnasium. His old partner Li Yibo gave a loud laugh: "It looks like our Little Pan has quite the interest in the match between Hundred Blossom and Happy!"
"Uh, we'll be giving updates on that match from time to time." Pan Lin said.
"Okay, the match between Thunderclap and Void will be starting soon. First up is the individual competition. The first two players to come up will be… Thunderclap's Dai Yanqi and Void's Li Xun!" Pan Lin started focusing on the present match.
And at the same time, standing inside the venue renamed to "Xiaoshan Gymnasium", Ye Xiu let out a deep sigh.
Even though the name had changed, the venue itself hadn't. The only addition to it was equipment for the projection technology.
I'm back. A year and eight months to stand back here. My name has changed. My character has changed. But my will to compete will never change.
"I'll be going." Ye Xiu called out to his teammates and stepped towards the stage.
"Dai Yanqi has open fired! For now, Li Xun is unable to approach and is moving around. A beautiful Air Jump! He jumped backwards in midair to dodge the magic coming at him! Ah! Happy sent out Ye Xiu as their first player!!"
The viewers tuning into the match were listening to Pan Lin commentating the intense battle between Elemenalist and Assassin, when a piece of news about Happy suddenly popped up out of nowhere.
Chapter end
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