Volume 3 - CH 31

Book 3: Glory on the Other Side

Chapter 31

Ai Qing stared at the invitation on screen.

……

She turned off the table lamp and took her earphones off the rack.

She accepted the invitation without a word.

In order not to impact the rankings of the main players on her team, the registered id she used in Secret Room had never played any ranked games.

But her routine training partners were players in her team.  Occasionally when she was bored, she would use one of their accounts to play for fun.  So her familiarity with the game and skill level were comparable to a professional player.

Particularly in terms of close combat, even Slide couldn’t out perform her.

As for Dt…...that match between Dt and Buff flashed in her brain as a game of perfect execution……

Maybe she should find an opportunity to play with him to see who was better.

As she was thinking, she created a custom game.

She set the mode to Secret Room Duel.

The opponent accepted.

The chat was in a frenzy the moment they saw she had set it to a duel.  It was a rare sight to see in competitions. Even during their daily training, most professional top players wouldn’t bother practicing the mode.

After all it was a team game, it was rare to see a 1V1.

But what did people who liked fps games want?  Excitement!

What mode got right into the thick of the action?

It was a Secret Room Duel.

The system began a five-second countdown.

The sound of a ticking clock came through the headphones.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1…...The screen became dark and the two players were thrown into a secret room.

Their view was entirely black.

The two red dots on their respective life detectors were very close to each other.

Ai Qing tried to back off a few footsteps till she hit the wall, but the opponent was still on the life detector.

It was abnormal to spawn in such a narrow space even though it was randomly selected…...but she really had too much luck.

In such a narrow space, it was better not to use any guns at all.  Only the combat knife and machete were the best weapons.

Ai Qing pulled out her combat knife.

She pressed the tab key to switch to advanced combat controls.

The advance combat controls were difficult to use, giving the player the ability to squat down, backstep, kneel down, go prone, somersault forwards and backwards …… and other more movements.

Not all players used the controls, but it was a hard requirement for professional players.

Whether a player was a skilled player or a substitute, victory would be determined very easily.

There were no tactics and no teammates.

They would meet in a narrow road and kill each other with their knives.

The first match took 18 seconds.  Ai Qing won.

The second match took 27 seconds.  Taotao won.

……

In the last match, as Ai Qing wielded a machete in her hand and, a short distance away from Taotao, she heard the lifelike sound of gasping and the thumping of a heartbeat.  She even felt like she really had a fatal fight with someone in her study room late into the night.

She was at 30% health left while Taotao only had 10% health left, incapacitated.  He was lying on the floor, unable to move.  When she moved to finished him, a line of small characters rose next to the person in front of her.

Taotao: GG

Ai Qing put her machete away: no re?

Taotao: I accept my defeat.

Ai Qing: Two wins in three matches depends on luck.  Only best of three is fair..

Taotao: I just wanted you to recognize my ability.

This young man was pretty straightforward?

Ai Qing: You’re really good, you don’t need me to validate your ability.

Taotao: Then won’t you invest in us?

The words floated on the screen before they disappeared slowly after ten seconds.

There were hundreds of thousands viewers watching the stream.  It wasn’t a good platform to ask for an investment. It was very likely that it would be attacked on the internet and become a sour spot for him for the rest of his life.  Ai Qing looked at the characters disappearing, then she thought about the past…...the time Solo and Gun were looking for investments; Xiaomi and All had to power level others to make a living; and several young teammates turned in all the money from red envelopes they had received during the Chinese New Year……

She pulled out a smiley face and typed words in the chat window which may cause a huge uproar and unleash a wave of wild speculation: How about this, I’ll be an independent investor for your team if you win the Shanghai competition. If you lose, then I’ll decide your future professional career path.

Taotao: OK. It’s a deal.  I’m all yours if we lose.