959 Everything Ready

Chen Guo finished talking to her father. Just when she was about to say goodbye and leave, she saw Ye Xiu and Su Mucheng returning. They were standing along the side of the path, waiting for her.

"Ah….. that was fast." Chen Guo was surprised.

Ye Xiu and Su Mucheng chuckled, but didn't say anything. Chen Guo checked the time and was even more surprised: "It's already been so long!" After looking at the time, she realized that it wasn't that Ye Xiu and Su Mucheng had been fast, but her being too slow.

"Sure enough, it's been an eventful year..." Chen Guo turned her head to look at her father's gravestone and mumbled happily to herself.

The three immediately headed back and chatted with each other along the way. They were still talking shop the entire time, but when they got to the offline matches, Chen Guo felt a bit awkward because Su Mucheng would be their opponent in these offline matches. It was hard for her to accept. However, seeing how Ye Xiu and Su Mucheng were chatting without caution, Chen Guo was very curious how Su Mucheng really felt about the situation. Chen Guo didn't think that Su Mucheng favored Excellent Era even 1%, but if that was the case, how could she be allowed to stand on stage? Chen Guo could already feel how twisted her feelings would be when the time came just thinking about it. In the end, she never asked before the two sides parted.

Once the Qingming Festival passed, there were only two weeks left.

Their request to trade materials with those three guilds was finally approved. In addition, the good relationship between Happy and their guilds had spread to their clubs as well. When Happy took the initiative to request a trade, the three guilds didn't take the opportunity to raise the price and happily reached an agreement on the trade for materials.

Ye Xiu used some of their Heavenly Domain materials to trade for some urgently needed normal server materials. The Silver weapon, Dancing Fire Flowing Flame, was immediately crafted. The process went smoothly, and it was successful on the first try. Happy now had three Level 70 weapons along with the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella and Death's Hand.

Dancing Fire Flowing Flame.

Weight: 3.3 kg

Durability: 33

Attack Speed: 4

Physical Attack: 920

Magic Attack: 635

Strength +57

Attack Speed +1

Physical Critical Strike Chance +12%

Fire Attribute Damage Increase +11%

Fire Chaser Level +3

When attacking, there was a 5% chance to inflict a Burn.

Compared to the current Orange weapon held by Soft Mist, Falling Moon Piercing Cloud, Dancing Fire Flowing Flame had slightly higher attack and also had increased Strength by 2 points. Apart from that, it was lighter by 0.2 kg and had 1 higher Attack Speed. Weight and Durability were directly linked, but in a normal match, 30 Durability was more than enough. 33 Durability and 35 Durability didn't make any difference. However, a lighter weight weapon was a small advantage. A lighter weapon meant that the character's overall weight would be lower, resulting in a slight increase in speed, even if it was a minute 0.2 kg difference. But 1 point of Attack Speed was not a minute difference.

A +12% increase in Physical Critical Strike Chance was the same story. Falling Moon Piercing Cloud had a light attribute, while Dancing Fire Flowing Flame was neutral, but because it increased fire attribute damage by 11%, if it were a fire attribute weapon, it would be a powerful buff, but as of now, the effectiveness of a fire attribute damage increase was rather worthless. The only skills with attributes that a Battle Mage had were Chasers. There was only one type of Chaser with a fire attribute too, so this seemingly powerful stat wasn't too useful.

Self-made equipment should have this kind of flimsy support stat, but Ye Xiu still crafted it like this, naturally with a plan in mind. The current Dancing Fire Flowing Flame couldn't get a fire attribute, but with Ye Xiu's understanding of Level 75 materials so far, he was certain that when it was upgraded to Level 75, it would gain a fire attribute. Thus, this fire attribute damage increase of 11% was like a salted fish flipping its body. It would be an extremely formidable stat bonus.

It also increased Fire Chaser's level by 3. It was a stat that increased a skill's level. With this type of stat, even if a skill was maxed out on the skill tree, it could still gain these levels. A Fire Chaser could be leveled to 9. With Dancing Fire Flowing Flame, the max level would be 12. Skill points didn't need to be used for those three levels either.

An extra level in Fire Chaser not only increased its base damage, but it also increased the strength buff received from landing the chaser, so it directly improved the Battle Mage's overall damage output. A three level increase was very very good.

Finally, it had a 5% chance of producing a Burn. Ye Xiu had created this stat, so he obviously knew what it did. He had considered Tang Rou's playstyle and habits when choosing this bonus effect. When making the choice, Tang Rou herself offered some ideas before confirming this Burn effect.

With Dancing Fire Flowing Flame, along with 5 other Silver equipment, Soft Mist now had a total of 6 Silver equipment. However, One Autumn Leaf was considered Glory's number one character. Admittedly, some of it had to do with Excellent Era's three consecutive championship victories, but it couldn't be refuted that their victories were closely related to One Autumn Leaf's superior fighting strength during that time. One Autumn Leaf claimed that title back then and after many years, it still remained unshaken, so it was naturally considered the number one character. Soft Mist currently had 6 Silver equipment. She had surpassed the average Silver equipment per character in the Alliance, but she was still far from reaching One Autumn Leaf's level. One Autumn Leaf had a total of 12 Silver equipment, just one away from a complete set.

This was had been when Ye Xiu was still around. He didn't know what One Autumn Leaf was like now. After all, every player was different. When Ye Xiu was there, One Autumn Leaf was still missing a Badge. It wasn't that Excellent Era couldn't craft a Silver Badge. It was just that Ye Xiu felt like his current Orange Badge was more suitable. Right now, One Autumn Leaf's player was now Sun Xiang. Perhaps because Sun Xiang had different habits, that Orange Badge had been replaced by a Silver one.

As for whether One Autumn Leaf had any Level 75 pieces of Silver equipment, Ye Xiu didn't know. Even if it did, it wouldn't be a lot because when the new update came out, Ye Xiu would specifically target Excellent Era during the wild boss activities. It was taking drastic measures for a desperate situation. The goal was to stop Excellent Era from upgrading their equipment as much as possible during this period of time. This way, Happy could rely on Level 75 Orange equipment to pull their disparity in equipment closer.

From the looks of it, Ye Xiu's strategy was very successful. To Excellent Era, this move was similar to cutting off their food supply. The cleverest housewife cannot cook without rice. No matter how great Excellent Era's R&D team was, without materials, there was nothing they could do. Of course, if Excellent Era threw their money to purchase materials, Ye Xiu had no way of stopping that. Even though Level 75 materials were extremely important to teams, the Alliance was becoming more and more business-like. Too many owners sought after money. If they saw a heartbeat-raising price, selling their materials wasn't impossible for them. Short term benefits easily enticed them. If Excellent Era truly chose this path, they would bleed quite a bit, but it would definitely solve their materials drought.

The last two weeks before the offline matches passed by in a flash. These final two weeks were everyone's last opportunities to strengthen themselves, and during these two weeks, Happy did not create any new equipment.

New equipment would lead to a change in a character's stats. For a high-level competition, this type of change required some time to get used to. Although the Challenger League could not compare to the Pro League, those who could reach the offline matches could not be underestimated. Moreover, the final boss would be a formidable team like Excellent Era. That detail alone was more than enough for them to not be careless.

On April 19, Happy boarded a plane to City B, where the Alliance Headquarters was located. In the offline matches, all participating teams would gather together in one place. Food, drink, and living quarters were all complimentary via the Alliance. The accomodations were quite nice.

As for the stadium... The Alliance had only just begun utilizing projections. The Challenger League clearly didn't have this kind of luxurious arrangement. Everything was in accordance to the previous season. However, rumors said that this year's group stage would be using the new tournament format. If it all went well, it might even be used in the playoffs.

Everyone in Happy arrived at City B. Lou Guanning had sent people over to pick them up. It was Saturday today though, and Team Heavenly Swords had a match, so Lou Guanning didn't personally come. Instead, Sun Zheping came. The former number one Berserker, as agreed upon, would be helping Team Happy face the Challenge League. These days, even though Sun Zheping was still at Team Heavenly Swords, his Another Summer of Sleep was frequently together with everyone in Happy in the game. They would be playing together in a tournament, so the players needed some time to get used to each other. Sun Zheping had even gone along with Happy to attack pro players, but because of his injury, he couldn't participate in too many of this type of highly intense practice.　

He was an experienced pro player though. Even with the limited amounts of practice, he easily integrated himself into the team.

The Alliance set up check-in places throughout the hotel lobby. When Happy came, they saw many people there. There were 20 teams participating in the offline matches. If each team followed the standard guidelines, there would be at least 200 people. However, most of these teams were player teams. They had reached this step, so they had strength, but they couldn't be compared to a pro team. Nearly half the teams only had six players, the minimum requirement.

As for Happy, along with Sun Zheping, they had 11 players. This was about standard for a pro team. When they arrived and went to a check-in location, the other players felt like they were very professional.　

"You guys are?" An Alliance staff member went over to welcome them. Before Ye Xiu and the others could reply, someone forced his way through and shouted: "Sis Chen, Sis Chen, you're here!!"

Everyone in Happy turned their heads and saw that it was Esports Home's City H reporter, Chang Xian.

The offline matches had finally come. This young reporter seemed very excited because once the offline matches started, the Esports Home would give a page specifically about the Challenger League. Usually, the offline matches took place in City H. There were quite a lot of Esports Home reporters there, so just two or so reporters was oftentimes enough.

But this season's Challenger League had Team Excellent Era and Team Happy, both teams with many stories. As a result, City H required the reporters from City H to follow these teams. Challenger League teams also having team reporters? Esports Home hesitated when thinking about this treatment, but they also knew that the City H reporters this season were quite lonely. Moreover, Cao Guangcheng was Excellent Era's team reporter, so it was approved in the end.