At the end of September, the preliminaries of the Tournament for the Best S2 were in full swing. The livestream and recording of the competition had officially started.
Even though the Gathering of the Heroes would last until October 25th, most of the teams would have their final score decided in the first thirty-six days. Therefore, if the preliminaries were to be compared to a long-distance race, then it would be the latter half of the race.
Looking back at the competition schedule for the first half of the month, it could be described as uneventful. Other than the close combat between Zombie Blade's first team and Regulation's first team, there were no other encounters between strong teams. Generally speaking, most of the professional teams advanced triumphantly and won their matches like a hot knife through butter.
At this stage, the casual players at the lower levels of the game seemed to have realized that the point system was crueler than the elimination system or the winner-takes-all system of S1. Under such a system, the teams that could enter the semi-finals had to be strong teams. The teams that trained hard before the competition had no chance at all.
Therefore, starting from mid-September, there were dissatisfied voices on the forum. "The Dream Company's system doesn't give casual players a chance to advance," "Can't you play if you're not a professional team?" "Going against the masses is shaking the foundation of the game," and so on … Posts with strong resentment popped up one after another.
Dream Company's official response to such voices was righteous.
The customer service department even replied, "Dear, let me use basketball as an example. If … you find three to five basketball fans and you can achieve better results than five professional basketball players in a basketball game, then there is a problem with the competition system."
Yes, Dream Company had such an attitude. They had always had such an attitude …
…
On the morning of October 10th, more than seventy percent of the participating teams joined the queue and started their thirty-sixth preliminaries. Almost all of the pro teams had announced their final results in the preliminaries before dawn on this day.
Order, Order, Team One, Team Two, Team Four; Gods, Team One, Team Two, Team Three; Blades, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team Four, Team
It was just that … since each studio would update the results of their teams in real time on their official websites every day, when the dust settled in the last three minutes, there didn't seem to be much of a surprise.
However, as the saying goes, postpartum confinement bends over the nine prefectures, some families are happy while others are sad.
There were teams that won all the matches, and naturally, there were teams that did not win all the matches. Among them, the most depressed was probably Zombie Blade's first team.
It was reasonable to say that their strength was not inferior to those teams that had won all the battles. Unfortunately … they just had to meet with the first team of order once, which directly caused them to enter the second echelon. Although there was a high chance of entering the semi-finals with 105 points, that "defeat" was still a shame that could not be erased.
…
Let's talk about our Underworld Frontline. Their results were exactly what Feng Bujue had predicted — a complete victory. Furthermore, this result was achieved even though Brother Jue had been sitting on the bench for a long time.
Of course, since the official website had yet to announce the names of the teams that had advanced to the semi-finals and the points of each team (it would only be announced one week after the end of the preliminaries), Underworld Frontline was still an unknown team.
It was worth mentioning that starting from October 8th, the Dream Company removed the privacy protection option in the matches. In other words, every team … would have at least three videos of their matches in the preliminaries.
Faced with this situation, Brother Jue came up with a very cunning response. Under his instructions, Blood Corpse God was the main force in the last three matches of Underworld Frontline, and Xiao Tan and the others tried their best to hide their strength.
This way, even in the semi-finals, the information on the members of Underworld Frontline was still a mystery. Even if their opponents studied the videos of their matches, the only conclusion they could come up with was that this team had an overpowered summoned creature. That was all.
…
October passed by quickly.
In the blink of an eye, it was late autumn.
On October 25th, 'Gathering of the Heroes' ended. However, the Dream Company did not immediately announce the results of the preliminaries. Instead, they used 'statistics' as an excuse to delay the results of the preliminaries for a week.
In these seven days, the Dream Company held a product launch and launched an 'economical gaming cabin'. They also took the opportunity to announce that 'Crazy Thinking 1.0 official version' had been developed and would be released after the end of S2. At the same time, they also held a Halloween themed offline event. In short, they did not mention anything about S2.
These actions … confused all the players and even many of the media outside. It also made many teams who were looking forward to the results of the preliminaries anxious and unable to eat or sleep.
As the saying goes, strike while the iron is hot. However, the Dream Company did the opposite. They had an entire week of 'intermission' between the preliminaries and the semi-finals of S2. Without a doubt … this was Woody's idea again.
Sometimes … in order to maintain the popularity of a matter, it was necessary to cool down appropriately. This was called 'tension and relaxation'.
As expected, on November 1st, when the Dream Company's official website updated the announcement, it immediately set off a wave of frenzy for S2.
On that day, the rules for the second stage of Tournament for the Best S2 — 'Battle of the Four Worlds' were released.
However, before that, the focus of everyone's attention was obviously on the list of qualifiers and the ranking of points.
According to the data given by the system, among the 256 teams that successfully passed the preliminaries, the lowest score was actually 104 points. In other words … out of the 36 matches, achieving 34 wins and 2 draws barely squeezed into the semi-finals. Teams that had lost one match could only advance if they won all the remaining matches. As for teams that had lost two matches, or had one loss and one draw, they would have to say goodbye to each other.
What was more surprising was that among the 200 teams that advanced, there were more than 70 non-professional teams. Moreover, eight of these teams were in the top 100. This data also made those who were dissatisfied with the competition system shut up. They were all non-professional players, but they could win all the matches, lose one match, or draw one match. However, with a fifty percent win rate, they complained that the competition system was unfair.
Of course, among the top 100 teams, the number of professional teams had the absolute advantage.
These one hundred teams all finished the competition with 108 points, and the system ranked them according to the system's ranking mentioned earlier. It calculated the various points lost, time used, Skill Points gained, and so on.
In the end, the team that was ranked first … was Brahman Team One.
This time, they really had their heads held high. They had beaten their old rival, Regulation, and claimed the top spot on a ranking that had a lot of credibility.
The five monsters from Regulation were ranked second. This result undoubtedly made the management of Regulation very unhappy. The dream combination of 'Thriller Paradise's number one player' and 'Four Masters of Drunken Life' was surpassed by their rival on such a crucial ranking. Someone had to take the blame for this, right?
Therefore, Understanding Death, who was the team leader, voluntarily stepped forward to do a deep self-reflection with the higher-ups.
"It's all my fault. I didn't lead well. It's such a big competition, but we only got second place in the preliminaries. As the team leader, I should bear the main responsibility." Dialogue like this, which made people not know whether to laugh or cry, was the main content of his self-criticism.
Other than the competition between the two old teams, starting from the third place, the ranking was quite interesting.
First, the team that was ranked third was called 'Trash Alliance'. This kind of self-deprecating team name obviously did not belong to any professional gaming studio. Furthermore, they only had three videos of their matches. This meant that they used the anonymous function throughout the preliminaries and did not rejoin the team after the thirty-six matches.
This kind of mysterious dark horse naturally attracted a lot of attention. However … after looking at the list of members of this team, the sense of mystery disappeared. This was because of the five members of this team. Four of them were experts who had made it into the top fifty in Division S1.
They were, respectively, Uncle Worthless, Hong Hu, Shadow King, and Tired Dream. These three were all famous professional players, so there was no need to elaborate further. As for Tired Dream's identity, it had long been made clear to everyone — the former Zombie Blade Ace, and now he had also joined the ranks of professional players.
Looking at the next few names on the ranking … Jiang Hu, Blades, Red Sakura, Underworld Frontline, and then … Hyotei. After that … Zombie Blade's second team, Regulation's second team, Brahman's second team, Heaven and Earth …
That's right, Hyotei, the Hyotei led by Atobe-sama, had won every single match in the preliminaries of Tournament for the Best S2. And from the overall result of the thirty-six matches, they were ranked ahead of Zombie Blade and Unit Two, just behind Underworld Frontline. Even Feng Bujue was shocked when he saw the list.
However, from an outsider's perspective, Hyotei was a team that came from a gaming studio. Furthermore, the Ming Nan Trio was already famous, so this team could not be called a dark horse.
After looking at the member list, the real dark horse in people's eyes … was Underworld Frontline.
Other than Feng Bujue and Wang Tanzhi, the other three members of the team were all nameless players who had no information on them. Even Feng Bujue and Wang Tanzhi were not professional players.
They were a team that did not belong to any gaming studio. They were a team made up of casual players, and … they had made it into the top ten of the preliminaries.
Before anyone realized it, Underworld Frontline seemed to have become the main team in most casual players' hearts, and they had become the focus of many gaming studios' research.
…
November 2nd, midnight.
Somewhere in the countryside of City S.
"Phew … It's already late autumn …" A middle-aged man wearing an old man's hat and black-rimmed glasses walked leisurely to a lamppost and sighed toward the sky.
"I say … Vice Leader Qi." Not far away, a young man walked over. "Calling me out to the countryside in the middle of the night … You're not planning to kill me, are you?"
"Haha …" Qi Zhi raised the brim of his hat and smiled at Brother Jue. "If I want to kill you, do I need to pick the occasion?"
"That's true." Feng Bujue also smiled. "Based on my deduction … you've found me a 'nine-subject job'?"
"No." Qi Zhi immediately denied Brother Jue's deduction. "There is indeed a 'nine-subject job' here …" He raised his hands to make quotation marks. "But it's not for you … It's for me."
"A vice leader like you has come out to do this?" Feng Bujue's eyes shifted slightly, and he started to look around cautiously. "Could it be that the Baltan people have already invaded Earth?"
"Okay, okay ~ It's just a small matter, don't make a fuss." Qi Zhi cast a disdainful look at Brother Jue. "Wasn't it Halloween two days ago? There are a lot of things going on outside, so the department is a little short on manpower these days, so I can only come out to run errands. "
"Oh ~" Feng Bujue said, "Then you asked me to come … to help you?"
"No, I have something else to ask you." Qi Zhi replied, "It's just that I can't leave because I have work here, so I can only ask you to come."
"What is it?" Feng Bujue asked again.
"The ten years' worth of martial arts I gave you, it's about time to get it back." Qi Zhi continued.
"Huh?" Feng Bujue was shocked. "So I have to pay it back?" Before he finished speaking, he instinctively took two steps back. "Wait … Is there interest?"
"Kid, do you think I'm a loan shark?" Qi Zhi shrugged and then explained, "I took back the martial arts because you don't need it anymore."
"How do you know?" Feng Bujue wondered.
"When I came to see you last month, I found that the power in your body had almost been diluted." Qi Zhi replied, "But … that power didn't fuse with my spiritual energy. Instead, after it finished using my spiritual energy, it removed it from its source to ensure its purity."
"Oh ~ My power has quite a lot of integrity …" Feng Bujue seemed to understand the other party's meaning, so he took the opportunity to complain.
"Whether it has integrity or not has nothing to do with me." Qi Zhi continued, "In short, I have to extract the spiritual power from your body again, otherwise it will become a burden to you." At this point, he looked up and down at Brother Bujue with a rather strange gaze. "Presumably … When the spiritual power in your body is completely removed, the power that you have awakened … will also reveal its true nature."
"Oh … So that's why you called me to this place …" Feng Bujue seemed to have noticed something from the other party's words and expression, and smiled evilly. "Haha … If the true nature of my power is some kind of demon king's power that can destroy heaven and earth, you will directly do me in this place where there is no one around, right?"
"Yes." At this moment, the smile on Qi Zhi's face was completely gone, and his expression was cold. His answer … was concise and comprehensive, sonorous and powerful.
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