Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
In the afternoon, Xiao Jia made a trip to Team Skycrown’s accommodation. It had been raining the past few days, and the room was filled with the smell of rotting wood and moss. As he walked through the dark and wet corridor, Xiao Jia frowned and said, “This place is quite rundown.”
“Yeah, they don’t have much funds. It was the cheapest room they could get.” Luocheng explained.
“Why not let them train in our club room, there are five computers there anyway, and we can let our members see how a master should play.” Xiao Jia suggested.
Although the environment of their E-sports Club was not as glamorous as Fudan University’s, it was still comfortable, clean, well equipped, and had a stable network. With the financial support of the university and sponsors as well as the membership fees, Shanghai University’s income was not lacking.
“That’s not a very good idea, they need to have complete silence when they’re training. They wouldn’t be able to concentrate in the club room. For the afternoon slot, however, maybe we could consider it.” Luocheng mused.
Combat practice was not something to be taken lightly, and playing in the club room with an audience would give an atmosphere of being in a competition. With a professional team regularly playing in the club room, it would be sure to attract more members and bring benefits to the club.
That being said, the problem of the accommodation environment had to be resolved as soon as possible, the house was entirely too old. Everytime he watched them train in such a shabby place, his heart would feel slightly bitter.
“Didn’t you guys reach the world stage before, you should have some savings from that, right? Or did those competitions not have any rewards?” Xiao Jia asked.
“Most of the money that we made was taken by Sky Club. We weren’t making a lot of money already, but when I left the team, they wanted us to pay a penalty which was high. They didn’t inform us of this clause when we signed the contract, so in short, we were all deceived.” Luocheng explained quietly.
Team Wings had erected a banner in the entire e-sports industry for Sky Club in the beginning, laying down the most fundamental foundation for their current glory. They had also racked in countless sponsorships, and yet, the members only received a meager amount of salary and rewards. When they had wanted to leave, they had even pressed them to the limit and stripped them of everything, taking away all that they had!
Luocheng had been insistent on leaving, so he had had to fork out the money. Once the other members had found out how blood-sucking Sky Club was, they weren’t inclined to stay behind either and chose to leave.
The members of Team Wings were young when they had joined, and Sky Club had taken complete advantage of them, making them as impoverished as they were now. They had even cut off any future routes into the professional field by using the fact that they had breached the contract.
After completely uncovering the truth, Lin Dong and the rest were discouraged from going into any other fields. All this while, Lin Dong, Da Luo and Zhou Yan had held a deep grudge against Sky Club!
While Team Daemons was a powerful team that Team Skycrown deeply respected, Team Sky was a team that they had to defeat no matter what the cost was, an enemy that they needed to trample over completely!
“Team Sky’s really shameless, I don’t understand how they got so big.” Xiao Jia said.
“Well, the road to being a professional player in e-sports was already difficult. You could always find these backstabbing assholes and traitors who would take advantage of you, so that’s why Lin Dong decided to set up his own team. He doesn’t want to be at the mercy of anyone else.” Luocheng said.
“That’s right.” Xiao Jia said, nodding his head in agreement.
Walking into the room, the five of them were in front of a single computer, their faces concentrated. At first, Luocheng was wondering what other videos did these guys find, but he was slightly relieved to find that they were watching a match by foreign teams.
This lot would be playing in three days, if they dared to waste their time watching those rated films, Luocheng would have to give them a kick in their asses to wake them up!
***
“For the combat practice in the afternoon, we’ll have it in the club room. They have better equipment and the network is more stable.” Luocheng said.
Everyone present nodded in agreement. Xiao Bei, Lin Dong, Zhou Yan and Da Luo’s computers were old, and many times when they played, they felt like smashing it in frustration.
The four of them were in Diamond 1, but it was hard to climb up to Challenger. Due to their old computers, it was often that there was a lag, the internet would suddenly cut off, or the keyboard and mouse didn’t respond fast enough, and this affected their overall win rate.
Never underestimate these external factors, for to a professional player, having a high end computer which ran smoothly and a perfectly stable network was like a soldier in battle having the sharpest sword!
According to Lin Dong’s analysis, if they could solve all the problems mentioned, their win rate would go up by ten percent, and this percentage was the key to getting into Challenger!
If all members of a team managed to achieve the Challenger title, they didn’t need any further publicity. This was a symbol of absolute strength, and many teams would be climbing over themselves to play against the strongest Challenger. They would probably even spend money to buy an account with the Challenger title!
The five members of Team Skycrown were definitely among the top players within the country, and during free training, they would always play rank games to improve their strength. Sadly, they were always hovering between Diamond 1 and Challenger, always missing just by a bit. They couldn’t go up anymore and there was not much for them to learn in these games.
Lin Dong had suggested switching to the Korean or US server, but without any funds, they couldn’t solve the network problem and it was always lagging. With such an unstable network, they were unable to reach the higher levels of the Korean server.
Like now, even though Wu Sen’s computer was good and he had the highest rank, he was also affected by the instability of the network. A hundred yuan a month was the usual broadband plan used by normal people, but to a professional player, it was not good enough.
In short, if they could earn a sum of money, the first thing they needed to do was to replace the computers, get a better broadband plan, and resolve their accommodation problem. Rather than their accommodation, the more pressing issue was replacing their computers, everything else they could still endure.
***
The five members agreed to train in Shanghai University from 3pm to 5pm everyday for combat practice, they could only improve with better computers and stable network after all.
“Who are we up against today?” Luocheng asked Xiao Jia.
“Team Galaxy.” Xiao Jia replied.
“Team Galaxy? Could it be the team that is sponsored by Galaxy National Network Chain?” Xiao Bei asked in surprise.
There were a lot of internet cafes by Galaxy around the city, and Xiao Bei had frequently seen ‘Galaxy Internet Cafe’ and ‘Galaxy Network Club’ written on signboards with stars.
“Yeah, the champion of the National Internet Cafe League is actually Team Galaxy. Their strength should be around a second or third-tier team.” Xiao Jia explained.
“Being able to obtain the championship in the National Internet Cafe League, they must be formidable!” Zheng Xia exclaimed.
“That’s right, break a leg. Their coordination and tactical plays are definitely better than ours, so learn from them.” Luocheng said to Team Skycrown.
Xiao Jia sat down and logged into QQ, clicking on a friend name labeled ‘Team Galaxy Manager’, connecting the call.
Duu…Duu…Duu…
There wasn’t an answer after a long time, and Xiao Jia was confused.
“That’s weird, why doesn’t he answer.”
“Hey hey, what’s up?” A muffled voice came through the speakers.
“Lu Lian, this is Xiao Jia. The E-sports Club vice president of Shanghai University made an appointment with you for combat practice today, are you guys ready on your side? If you’re okay, then sign in, the players on our end are ready.” Xiao Jia said politely.
“Oh, we’re not playing.” The person on the other end replied immediately without any hesitation.
“What? Didn’t we already agree on it?” Xiao Jia said, startled.
“That’s right, yesterday we couldn’t find a team for combat practice. When you told us about Team Skycrown, we were wondering if they were some team that managed to win some professional competitions before, that’s why we agreed. We checked on it later and even asked around, but no one had ever heard of Team Skycrown. They haven’t even managed to break into the professional leagues, and you have the gall to ask for a combat practice with them, isn’t that just a waste of our time?”
“Don’t you know that preseason is coming up, even if we do combat practice, we need to play against teams who are on a par with our own team! Enough with the nonsense, we have a game against Team Shadow Wing now. Also, don’t get some unknown team to play with us next time, do you think I’m so free!”
With a weird and loud accent, the person on the other side didn’t bother to hide his impatience and disdain. This person managing the team called Lu Lian talked like a pile of shit, everyone present including Team Skycrown was shocked.
“F*ck your sister, you’re just a f*cking piece of shit!” Jian Feng who was already short-tempered shouted in rage.
“Ceh, watch your mouth. Putting it plainly, we’re not interested in playing against a trash team.”
“F*ck, you’re the one who needs to f*cking watch your mouth, who did you just say was a trash team!” Jian Feng was unable to contain his anger.
“Idiot.” Lu Lian said disdainfully again, and he hung up the call without any further words.
