Chapter 546 - Prelude To The Competition

With these criterias, many countries rapidly began recruiting to fill these spots. Each team was given 15 members and no reserve. 5 members for the Combat Team, 5 Members for the Tradeskill Team, and 5 members for the Technical Team. 

To fill these slots, the various countries went all-out in their recruitment. Those lower class members of Umbra were sometimes peacefully recruited and sometimes forcefully. 

But as one climbed the hierarchy of the guild, the methods softened greatly, even for the violent countries as they knew that they couldn't afford to offend these young ancestors who basically decided the flow of the game when the main two were not around. 

The AI gave team creation and management to selected Representatives of each country verified by the World Council. These representatives would then send invites to the players who had been recruited externally and they would join the team. 

The time for recruitment was listed as two weeks, meaning that every country had 14 days to set up their team. The Inter-Player International Competition would begin one month later in-game time, meaning that after team formation, they only had another 14 or more days to train together and build some team synergy. 

Over the next few days until Draco's avatar gave the approval for Umbra's members to assist their home countries, many things occurred worldwide. The world was spooked awake by the strange movements of their governments and the news that was taking social media by storm. 

Even though Boundless was popular thanks to the hearing and the photo function that allowed pictures to be taken, it still wasn't patronized completely. It did not even have a total playerbase of over 300 million yet, much less the entire world like in the previous timeline. 

Until the pods came out, many people just couldn't play boundless for various reasons like illnesses, work, prejudice, and disinterest. It was certainly a cool-looking game, but there was no direct benefit in putting that helmet on and leaving their minds open to some computer thing. 

Still, an international competition of any scale would garner viewers. Especially when the countries themselves took it so seriously, it was bound to have the people themselves lining up to find more and take a look. 

As such, many non-players were tuned into the network to find out more, and learned about Boundless bit by bit as they researched their country's listed participants and the types of games that the competition had. 

Countries like Central, China, Japan, Russia, and the UK were those that used a mixture of force and benefits to lure their members and fill their rosters. Others in Europe like Spain and France used softer methods due to how their political systems had developed over the years. 

South American countries also used some force to get their way, but their players also bit back at their governments for daring to cross them. As for Africa, the players themselves stepped up to the fore, because seriously, if they didn't, who would? 

The countries seemed to treat this upcoming competition as a way to set up a new world order between them, especially as the political system of the world was still not entirely stable after world war 3. 

After the 14 days were passed, the complete list of players for each country were published. For the members of Umbra, they were split up like this; 

｢First Inter-Player International Competition 

1. Money Lover - Tradeskill/Central Country 

2. Cold Summer - Combat/Canada 

3. Essence Stalker - Combat/Mexico 

4. Akainu - Tradeskill/Central Country 

6. Cobra - Combat/France 

7. Uno - Combat/Mexico 

8. Boyd - Combat/Ghana 

9. Slim Fatty - Combat/Central Country 

10. Deployed Soldier - Combat/Central Country 

11. Silent Walker - Combat/England 

12. Dreary Traveler - Combat/Brazil 

13. Loving Aunt - Combat/Italy 

14. Rambunctious Buttlover - Combat/Canada 

16. Intellectual Monkey - Tradeskill/Central Country 

17. Fitter Cleric - Technical/Canada 

18. Tunder Power  - Combat/Spain 

19. Sublime Notion - Combat/England 

20. Happy Saint - Tradeskill/France 

21. Gentle Light (Lucia) - Combat/England 

22. Warm Spring - Combat/Central Country 

23. Gentle Flower - Combat/Canada 

24. Noble Soul - Combat/England 

26. Happy Scholar - Combat/England 

27. Killer Queen (Keira) - Combat/Japan 

28. Great Caster (Hera) - Combat/Japan 

29. Trouble Maker (Yui) - Technical/Japan 

30. Sanji - Tradeskill/Central Country 

31. Brother Is Best (Bella) - Combat/France 

32. Shani - Combat/Ghana｣ 

They were all split up into their different nationalities. More than one of the core members had dual or even triple nationalities but chose the countries they felt they would either stand out more in or had closer feelings too. 

As such, the usually close-knit Umbra was naturally split apart at this time and everyone gazed at the other with an air of competitiveness. Here, their closeness served to be a double-edged blade as they knew almost everything about each other, and so could plan strategies around each other's weaknesses. 

The Central Country had the best stakes to win due to having the best fighters of the lot and the best Tradeskill player. With Armonia on the team, even Happy Saint and Noble Writer might not be able to bring more points to their teams against him. 

England came a close second with Noble Soul, Sublime, Lucia, Happy Scholar, and Silent Walker on their team. If it were not for the fact that the Central Country had the two monster siblings of Slim Fatty and Deployed Soldier, England would easily win the combat segment. 

A good candidate for third was Canada with Joker, Gentle Flower, Rambunctious Buttlover, and Cold Summer. Though, one had to wonder who put Fitter Cleric in the Technical section given his battle prowess. 

However, when one found that Fitter requested it himself, many were left with questions marks. Of course, the members of Umbras who knew him had their lips twitch, knowing that the technical section was likely forever lost to them. 

After all, if one looked at it deeply, most of the games there required Luck more than skill, and who else but the Almighty Luckmancer could dominate the world in this category? 

A favorite for fourth place was France with Cobra and Bella, two powerful assassins, but they were tied with Japan who had two of the Three Pinnacles as well. The rest were just given the side-eye by the real of the world. 

However, players of Boundless and members of Umbra saw it differently. In their eyes, there was no need to even bother since the winner of the combat section had been decided! 

Of course, it was Mexico! 

That small and often overly stereotyped country had birthed a monster called Essence Stalker. Literally, the only two players who could kill him were Draco and Eva, which was why he was placed in 3rd place in the Universal Rankings. 

He even ranked above Rina who was 4th, and she had both a Divine Class and Divine Weapon! If even Rina couldn't surpass his power, how was anyone else supposed to?! 

Not to mention Mexico also had the untouchable and unkillable Uno. This fellow would practically make any group battles a waste of time as monsters could not inflict 1 damage on his teammates. 

The only one who even came close to his level of supportive power was Warm Spring in the Central Country, but she could not keep up with Uno's level of prowess. 

The team sure to be second was tied between Italy and India. After all, India had the 5th strongest player in the game, Kiran, who was like a mobile army on his own. Italy had the  13th strongest player, which was Loving Aunt. 

However, while her rank was only middling, it was her class that was the problem. If she faced any monster, they would be unable to attack her and might even be charmed into being her pet. Not to mention her other passive that reduced HP by a certain amount per second until you choked to death in poisonous mist. 

Even Essence could not negate that, so one would have to end the battle with Loving Aunt in seconds if they wanted to survive. 

Ghana was also a surprising addition as the only African country with a competent roster including Boyd and Shani. The two were actually from immigrant families that moved to the Central Country after the third world war, which was why they had lived in such poverty during their early lives. 

Whatever the case, the competition was truly uncertain as it could go either way. New names might rise to the fore in their competition as top players while others at the top may fall due to lackl.u.s.ter performance. 

This was a competition that, no matter how you looked at it, could go any way possible. 

In the 14 days up until the competition, the world buzzed as many betting houses opened bets on the various countries and their chances of victory. Unlike the rest of the world who only casually researched and formed opinions that were generalized, the betting houses researched deeply as this represented their profits. 

As such, their odds confused the rest of the world while they made the players of Boundless nod in agreement. 

1. Central Country - 1:1.75 

2. England - 1: 1.5 

3. Mexico - 1:1.1 

4. Italy - 1:1.3 

5. France - 1:1.4 

6. Ghana - 1:2.1 

7. Canada - 1:1.9 

8. Brazil - 1:2.5 

9. Japan - 1:1.8 

10. China - 1:5.6 

(Author's Note: Place your bets in the comments and send the funds to my Ko-Fi page. I promise that I will dispense the winnings to those who make the right choice and never embezzle it all hahaha.) 

As one could expect, the moment the bets opened, an overwhelming amount was placed behind Mexico right away. It was a safe and easy bet, though the returns were poor exactly because of that. 

This was unprecedented in betting history as competitions like these tended to always favor a specific set of countries, but this time, it was an outlier that seemed to have the highest chances. 

Even the drug cartels of Mexico had stepped forth to support Uno and Essence, promising them a lifetime supply of cocaine and heroin if they brought the championship home. 

However, the three saddest countries were likely Italy, Japan, and China. Originally, the fight should have been between these three as Draco was Italian by birth, Eva was Japanese royalty and Ao Shangtian was China's number 1 Young Master. 

However, two were locked away in a Unique Quest and couldn't leave lest they wanted to forfeit it. One was rendered into an idiot through intense torture and couldn't leave the game for the rest of his life. 

Though, the AI could pull some strings and return Local Lord's sanity for a while to let him participate, but that was foolish. Not because he could pose a threat, he couldn't ever. The way he was now, even if his people found him and wanted to save him, he would be the first to tell them to scram. 

His life was tied to the AI, any harm to it was harm to him. He was basically no different from an NPC in this game now, so he would not be able to play any tricks as his mind could easily be read by the AI. 

The problem was that the AI had purposefully lured the Evil Duo in with the whole Inner Universe crap and the Unique Quest. You think it chose this time to launch this competition for fun? 

Now was the best time, as if it chose to do this any time before, those two would make it pointless as there could only be one of two winners. Now though, the field was relatively level and anything could happen, which was in the spirit of a true competition. 

Of course, this was unfair to the Evil Duo and would probably incur their wrath, so the AI had already put some failsafe measures in place. However, it absolutely had to let this tournament conclude before those two came out, otherwise there would be hell to pay. 

Poor AI. All it wanted to do was stabilize its game and make interesting happen, but it always had to dance around carefully since two monsters existed in its world that could topple the entire place in the blink of an eye. 

The countries trained hard, selecting different battlefields that could simulate their tactics. Since almost every country had a single member of Umbra on their team, they all used the Rank7 Guild Hall's training hall to achieve this, especially with the Private Rooms. 

Of course, having almost all the world's teams training in one place was quite awkward and full of tension. All of them gazed at the other with hostility and dangerous sparks in their eyes, but no one dared to cause trouble. 

It was already the acc.u.mulated Luck of their 10,000 lives that they were given permission to enter this Training Hall of Umbra due to the circ.u.mstances, and getting kicked out would be shameful and debilitating. 

The various countries then chose their team captains. Deployed Soldier had more experience leading than his lovestruck sister, so he took the helm for the Central Country. 

As Sublime was the Vice-Guildmaster of Umbra, she also took the helm of the England team. Essence Stalker was naturally chosen to lead Mexico, while Tunder Power led Spain. 

Italy was led by Loving Aunt who filled the team with youngsters of the Lucifer Lineage she had been grooming in Boundless all this while. France was led by Cobra who didn't even ask for the post, but Bella threatened the lives of the Prime Ministers that if they selected anyone else, they would become eunuchs. 

Knowing the cruelty of their noble family, the French Government acceded to her request. India also left everything to Kiran, which was an obvious choice. Canada had Fitter Cleric leading the team despite being in the Technical section, which was strange in comparison. 

Ghana chose Boyd to lead while Brazil bet everything on the back of Dreary Traveler. Japan chose Hera to led their team as Keira was more of a fighter than a thinker. 

China chose a fellow called Ao Potian to be their leader, and he was the cousin of Local Lord. His bloodline purity was 23% which made him a genius in the Pangu Lineage and equivalent to Loving Aunt in the Lucifer Lineage who had 25% herself. 

With the various captains chosen while the training was ongoing, it was only a matter of time before the day of the competition came around. On this day, a special venue was opened by the Ai that all players could access. 

In fact, many new people had joined Boundless to watch the event live, and after experiencing the wonderful feeling of being in this FIVR game, they too were hooked like pre-junkies that had taken their first sniff, not knowing how that substance before them would soon become their god. 

This bumped the total player count from the previous 150 million to almost 590 million now. Many intended to just watch the competition and go, but they would naturally be drawn to the game after seeing what others could do as well as the magic of the game itself. 

It could be said that the growth of Boundless had been forcefully spiked compared to the previous timeline due to the early introduction of this event. The playerbase was only supposed to grow like this when the pods came, but Daddy Butterfly Effect had different ideas. 

The grounds were styled like a modern stadium for the Olympics, with a huge field that was b.a.r.e. With over 500 million players in direct attendance, there was no way everyone would be able to see what was going on from where they were seated, so the AI adopted the method that Umbra sued with the First Player Auction and set up screens sequentially. 

Not only that, but each viewer was provided a visor where they could enter augmented reality and watch the various matches in-depth like they were there. A sort of virtual reality in virtual reality. 

Virtualception. 

The cheering was loud and each player chose to spend the necessary silver to change their attires into outfits from their localities and even buy flags from the system to wave them about. 

Once again, the AI had subtly found a way to drain player's funds and keep them poor as usual. Those newbies who fell for it in the heat of the moment thought this was normal, but those old monsters who had been schooled by this AI in terms of fleecing were cautious. 

The presidents and representatives of each country were located in private rooms at the top where they had premium views of the matches below. Finally finding an excuse to enter this game their aides had been praising, they finally understood one core truth. 

This game was the future of the world. Able to experience everything like it was reality, yet do things one could never do in reality without the fear of eternal death? Who could say no to this? 

With thoughts of how to center their country's futures around this game as efficiently as possible, the various players of each country filed into the stadium one by one as their citizens cheered for them. 

Gazing at the jubilant crowds, these players stood with their c.h.e.s.ts puffed out, not a single one shy, not even Warm Spring. 

After all, as a member of Umbra, she had long gotten used to millions of players watching her every action.