74 Surprise, Surprise

The simulation that had just ended with Guan Yu and Meng Tian's victory came as a shock to Baron. After all, he had thought that he had come out victorious, now that he was out of the sim he realized just how many mistakes he had made. However, he wanted to hear it from the victor's mouths.

(BM) "Congratulations on your win Meng Tian and Guan Yu, how did you manage to do it?" Baron went up to them to ask.

(GY) "Haha, surprised Baron? We actually played a rather simple trick on you. That base that you destroyed just before the sim ended was actually not out main one. Our main base of operations was actually located a few kilometers to the west of the one you destroyed." Guan Yu told Baron.

(MT) "Worry not, you only thought that was the main base because it was located in an area perfect for defense and was leagues above the others in fortifications, that was a reasonable guess." Meng Tian added.

(BM) "It appears that we weren't very used to seeing the feint upon feint tactics that you have shown."

(MT) "Indeed, though it was quite difficult to set up. It was good for us since you decided to commit you as well ass Yue Fei and the number of forces you did to your first real offensive. By the time that you realized that something was off, we had already prepared enough of a trap to sap away your strength."

(BM) "That was an excellent play."

(GY) "The only that we were worried about was that we would put all of our aerial forces into pretty much a single base. If you had known and attacked that base, we would have very likely lost the sim."

(MY) "That was a bold and risky move on your part, but it looks like it all worked out for you two." Meng Yi chimed in also quite surprise of how these two had emerged victorious.

(MT) "Thanks brother, we were only just testing these new moves out and they have proved to be a usable tactic."

(YF) "How about we go another round?" Yue Fei asked no one in particular.

The other 4 still had many tactics that they wanted to test out so they all agreed to another sim. This was how they chose to spend another year at planet 4. By the time they came out of their year long training, they had gained much needed experience in aerial warfare. The privilege that came with being within the top 50 of elders was not to be underestimated. The millions upon million of sims that they could use as studying material would prove quite beneficial to their training speed.

Since Guan Yu was the elder that was able to get access to the records hall, he had to keep up with all the other elders who either wanted that position or preventing others from getting that spot. So, Guan Yu decided to spend a bit more time securing his position while Baron and the others continued to train.

This meant that Guan Yu's training speed was a little slower than everybody else in his group, but compared to the strategists that didn't have the privilege to use the records hall, he was still quite a bit faster. Hard work pays. During this time, Baron and Yue Fei had decided to stall their own contributions towards the community in order to practice more and more.

The 5 of them decided that it was time for them to once again test their aerial prowess amongst themselves. Before it was Meng Tian, Meng Yi, Guan Yu, Yue Fei, and finally Baron. After going through a round robin of sims, they had decided on a new ranking system for them. Up at first and second was still Meng Tian and Meng Yi, but now Yue Fei was third and Guan Yu fell to rank 4, while Baron remained at the lowest rank of 5 among them. With all the training that Yue Fei had been going on and the other tasks that Guan Yu was doing, Yue Fei actually managed to surpass Guan Yu.

This was not exactly much of a shock to anyone since everyone was able to see just how much Yue Fei had grown and become one heck of a competent strategist. Although expecting any big plays out of Yue Fei would be nothing more than a fantasy, he was the most consistent and well rounded player out of all of them. This meant that he could be relied upon for anything from attacking to defending to leading a small or large detachment. However, the ones among them who could achieve big plays like sneaking in to kill an enemy strategist or anything like that would have to be done by Baron, Guan Yu, or Meng Yi.

They trained like this for quite a while until the tournament was only about a month away. An invitation to discuss matters with Madam Zheng had appeared and invited all 5 of them. So they finished up whatever training they had been previously occupied with and made their way to Madam Zheng's residence to talk. On the way there, they ran into the community bulletin board that gave news of all the events that would be taking place within the Chinese Community. There was a huge crowd gathered and making a commotion.

So, the five of them poked around and found out that the tournament that would be hosted by the Sun Alliance would be changing a bit as compared to previous years. Any further details would be made public within a week or so and that had many people go around spreading multiple rumors on what it could be.

Baron and the others made it to Madam Zheng's place where they were greeted by Madam Zheng herself as well as husband 1 and husband 2.

(MZ) "It's good that the 5 of you are finally here, I have some news for you all."