Chapter 1337: Who’s Being Bullied?
Translator: Nomyummi Editor: Nomyummi
Since he had never appeared in a competition before, Luo Ji's Summoner, Concealed Light, obviously wasn't the focus of Happy's tailor-made Silver equipment. At the moment, there weren't more than 3 pieces of Silver equipment on Concealed Light's body, and they were all put together from the leftover scraps after Guan Rongfei had finished making equipment for the other characters. After half a season, Concealed Light had only collected 3 pieces of Silver equipment.
This set of equipment was below average in the Glory Alliance, but where equipment was concerned, Luo Ji's opponent for this match wasn't better off than he was.
After Team Miracle took in the three players who had previously been in Excellent Era, their expenditure was significant, and they weren't able to make any big moves in terms of their equipment or materials. In their team, the development of equipment similarly had an order of priority to it. He Ming, Shen Jian and Wang Ze, these three former Excellent Era players were obviously the core generals of Team Miracle, so their equipment priority was naturally the highest. After them was their rookie, Guo Shao. After these four players, Miracle's equipment was more or less accounted for. In terms of equipment, they really weren't even a match for Team Happy. Whether it was their stockpile of materials or their R&D talent, they still lost to Happy by quite a bit.
This time, Luo Ji's opponent was a very pitiful player who had no standing in Team Miracle: Jia Xing, and his character, Battle Mage Prideful Mage.
The classes that Team Miracle prepared for their players was an exact duplicate of Excellent Era's original class line-up. But in practice, their structure was actually the exact opposite.
He Ming's Elementalist was originally the sixth player in Excellent Era. Shen Jian's Striker and Wang Ze's Sharpshooter were both second-string players, but now all three of them formed the backbone of Team Miracle. On the contrary, it was the Battle Mage, Launcher and Spellblade, the classes that originally belonged to the core players of Excellent Era that had become secondary characters in Team Miracle.
Jia Xing was one of these players. His Battle Mage, Prideful Mage had an arrogant-sounding name, but he actually didn't have anything to be arrogant about. Team Miracle hadn't received much attention. If they had achieved the same kind of results as Happy, there were many in the team who were likely to face the question of "whether or not they were at a professional caliber", just like An Wenyi.
Jia Xing could be considered part of the main force of Team Miracle, and his standard wasn't too bad. In the competitions, he was always careful and prudent. A stifling and oppressive performance like that of the Battle God was something that he had begun to dare to dream of.
As a rookie who had just entered the professional scene, Jia Xing was perpetually walking on thin ice. But being part of a team as new as Miracle did have a benefit: while he was still a rookie, he had far more chances to compete than rookies in other teams.
After half a season, he had grown considerably, and Team Miracle's performance was receiving favourable evaluations. Jia Xing didn't receive much attention, but still, there was a seed of restlessness in his heart. Who would be willing to continually play the role of an obscure and unknown player? A performance as grand as the Battle God's was no longer something limited just to Jia Xing's wildest fantasies, but something that he had begun to have a the tiniest bit of hope for.
So today, when he had been selected to represent Miracle in the second round of the individual competition, he had looked at his opponent's name on the television screen, and his heart skipped a beat.
Luo Ji? Who was that?
Happy had always received a lot of attention, and Miracle, a new team, just like them, could only be jealous of them. But Luo Ji was a player who had never once appeared in a competition. No matter how much attention the team was receiving, it would still be very difficult to have news about him. Luo Ji was just like Qiao Yifan in the old days. Despite being in a champion team, he had no chances to appear in the battlefield, leaving the outside world to have no way of gauging his strength. At most, when one looked at the player seats, they would realize that the team actually still had such a person.
Never appearing in a competition simply meant that their caliber wasn't high enough. Concealing a hidden weapon? The Glory Alliance was a serious place, with no room for such a whimsical playstyle!
A rookie, and a player who had never appeared in a competition before; Jia Xing's excitement was as if he had just discovered the New World for the first time. As someone who had been around the block, he couldn't be clearer on how nervous one would be when they first appeared on stage. He had used quite a few rounds before managing to slowly get rid of that kind of discomfort. As for how much that discomfort would affect one's technical skill, he was also clear on that matter.
So, in his eyes, Luo Ji was a sub-par rookie who would be in complete shambles because of his nerves.
Finally, I've encountered an opponent that I can bully!
Jia Xing was fairly happy about this.
In the past 27 rounds of competition, there was no need to talk about the strong teams. Even when facing Bright Green and Seaside, two teams that looked doomed to be relegated in this season, someone as new as Jia Xing couldn't afford to look down upon their players, and had to use all his effort when facing them. But now, he finally had a chance to show-off to his heart's content, and display all of the fighting strength that he had.
Luo Ji?
Hahaha, this was a convenience delivered to his doorstep!
Jia Xing impatiently entered the player booth, impatiently waited for the competition to begin, and impatiently waited for the timer to countdown before the two of them loaded into the map. Then, he impatiently controlled Prideful Mage to charge out.
At the same time, Luo Ji was still taking deep breaths and still trying to rid himself of the nervousness and dread that he felt. He felt as if his whole body was on fire, and as stiff as hemp…...
Huu, huu, huu!
After taking three deep breaths, Luo Ji controlled Concealed Light and left the spawn point.
This was Happy's home game, and the map was selected by them. For his very first competition, how could Luo Ji dare to be careless? He had selected the map he had felt most comfortable and familiar on during his practice sessions for the individual round.
As he walked out of the spawn point and saw the familiar landscape around him, Luo Ji felt his mood lightening greatly.
"This should probably be the home team's advantage? It's really useful!" Luo Ji thought, controlling Concealed Light as he began to execute his mental plan for this battle.
After finding out that he was to appear in this round, Luo Ji had visualized countless scenarios in the match. Last night, he had slept very late, but woke up very early. Still, the lack of sleep didn't show on his face at all. He was too nervous, to the point where he couldn't even tell if he was tired anymore.
"Adopt your normal frame of mind."
"Just do it like you did in your practices, and you'll be fine."
These were some lines that his teammates told him to ease his anxiety, and the effectiveness was basically zero. Everyone dropped a few vague lines, with no one really hoping to be able to dissipate his nervousness with just a few words. At the end of the day, it was still left to Ye Xiu to be honest, telling him, "Go and carefully experience the feeling of competing!"
This kind of feeling, did it include nervousness?
As Luo Ji controlled Concealed Light, he thought about this and that, before suddenly realizing that his concentration was far too scattered. He frantically purged all of these useless thoughts from his mind, completely focusing on the road in front of him.
Jia Xing's Prideful Mage very quickly reached the center of the map, took a glance, and realized that no one was there.
He still wants to play tactics! Jia Xing laughed. A rookie who hadn't even competed before, what tactics could he possibly come up with?
Jia Xing had no fear. He originally wanted to just wait for Luo Ji to arrive, but after thinking about it, he decided to be a little more proactive, to appear more domineering. As a result, his character moved everywhere, searching for Concealed Light's whereabouts.
Fuck!
Luo Ji's heart leapt violently. He was just controlling Concealed Light to move very carefully when Prideful Mage's silhouette suddenly flitted across his camera. Just a flicker in his field of view had caused Luo Ji to be unbearably nervous. He frantically controlled Concealed Light to take cover in a corner, before inwardly guessing whether or not the other player had seen him.
If he had seen me…...
As Luo Ji thought about it, he promptly began casting a spell, and a Devil World Flower was immediately summoned near his leg. Immediately after that, he summoned a Frost Wolf.
The Frost Wolf's attacks were physical in nature, but they had the chance of applying a magical freezing effect. Under Luo Ji's inputs, it curled up next to the Devil World Flower, giving Luo Ji a fair bit of peace of mind.
However, his opponent hadn't appeared from start to finish.
He didn't see me?
When he had first seen his opponent, Luo Ji was hoping that his opponent hadn't noticed! But after completing his summons, when his opponent didn't appear, he actually felt a little disappointed.
Had he really not noticed?
All of the spectators in Happy's stadium had their hearts in their throats!
Jia Xing had seen Concealed Light and had clearly seen where he had gone to hide. But this fellow wasn't stupid. Even though he took Luo Ji as a gift sent to him to bully, when he saw how Concealed Light had hidden himself, he knew that his opponent had noticed him. If he just charged over, who knew if his opponent had an army of summons waiting to pounce on him? That would be difficult to deal with!
So, Jia Xing chose to take a roundabout path. At the same time as Luo Ji was anxiously making his conjectures, Prideful Mage had already used another path to loop around, spying on Luo Ji's arrangements from a corner.
Of course there's an ambush.
Jia Xing laughed coldly.
There weren't a lot of summons, but the Devil World Flower was capable of attacking in all different directions, and the Frost Wolf's attacks could cause a freezing effect that would slow enemies, making them particularly annoying to deal with. If he had rashly charged over just now, things wouldn't have ended well. Even though it was his opponent's first time on stage, Jia Xing still didn't look down on him too much. He couldn't just assume that his opponent was some normal player that he could deal with easily.
Waiting a bit more would be good enough.
The Devil World Flower could attack in all 360 degrees, so mounting a sneak attack from behind wouldn't make much sense. JIa Xing decided to let the Devil World Flower time out. He didn't believe that Luo Ji would repeatedly summon a Devil World Flower at the same spot to protect him. The Summoner's summons had a high mana consumption, they couldn't simply be summoned for no reason.
Jia Xing adjusted Prideful Mage's position slightly, waiting for the Devil World Flower to time out before launching a sneak attack.
It was at this moment that a cat's cry could be heard from his character's side. It wasn't a languid purr, no, it was the wrath-filled cry of a cat chasing after a mouse.
What?
Jia Xing was greatly alarmed and frantically turned his camera, only to see a black Spirit Cat already flying towards him. At this moment, Prideful Mage was already crouching down and couldn't crouch any lower, so Jia Xing could only control him to roll towards the side. Surprisingly, the Spirit Cat was extremely nimble, twisting its body in mid-air as its claws stretched out, leaving three bloody lines on Prideful Mage's face.
The audience let out a sigh of relief.
Were they worried about Concealed Light being sneak attacked? Of course not! With the 360 degree protection from the Devil World Flower, a sneak attack was impossible. They were worried because they had seen Concealed Light summon a Spirit Cat before simply letting it free.
Would such an attack be able to hit Prideful Mage? This was what the crowd was nervous about, because Luo Ji's commands to the Spirit Cat weren't very definite, as if wasn't confident that Prideful Mage was there. But now, the Spirit Cat's attack had completely uncovered Prideful Mage's location. Luo Ji immediately turned around and started casting.