Time flew by. It was already midnight on the 16th of May, and the preliminaries of the Tournament for the Best had officially ended. The Battle of the Bug had officially ended. The 16th was a resting day, a whole day for the players to rest.
On the morning of 17th, the Battle of the Cocoon would begin. From the semi-final onward, all the matches would be conducted in sleeping mode server and the time would be set between one to 2 am. When the matches started, those who weren't ready in the login lobby would be automatically disqualified.
Each match of the Battle of the Cocoon would be livestreamed. The players would see the feed from any match in their login lobby or conference room. Those who preferred a crowd could have a group viewing at the big monitor at the market. The main monitor would pick one of the more exciting matches to show and the company had also hired two commentators to accompany the show. Xiao Tan's preliminary result was not that bad because he did not manage to advance forward with consecutive wins and fought all fifty matches.
Even though he had marked a good result of nine consecutive wins and had beaten professional players like Sky Song, but as Brother Jue analyzed, it was normal to run into players who directly countered him…
Finally, Xiao Tan's result was forty-eight wins and two losses. With Feng Bujue's theory, there was no way Xiao Tan wouldn't move forward to the next round. Since Xiao Tan was required to report to work for a whole week starting from 8th May, he completed all fifty matches on the 7th. During the week of duty, he only played one or two scenarios in sleeping mode at night and he stayed away from the game in the day.
For these seven days, Brother Jue, Passing Rain, and Laughing Soul spent more time together in team scenarios. If their friends were online, they would be invited to prevent queuing up with strangers… After all, Brother Jue was now a celebrity and he hated to field questions from random players. It was worth noting that while this Tournament for the Best was going on… Dream Inc. had silently pushed out their second game—Deranged Scheme.
Of course, it was just a trial mode and currently, the player could only play against the photon computer, the PVP service hadn't been opened. This was a CCG, the players took on roles of 'commanders', armed with 'duel plates', lead their own 'card army', and strategize with the monsters, traps, and magics that materialized from the cards to battle each other.
The game could be entered through the login lobby. After lying inside the gaming hub and the connectivity was set up, one only needed to choose Deranged Scheme after "Welcome to the game's login lobby, below are all the game modes provided by Dream Inc. Please select which you would wish to play."
When Feng Bujue calculated way back when that Dream Inc. had great ambitions, he was not wrong. The gaming hub and accessories like helmet released by Dream Inc. was one of a kind and the games they released could only be played on their own hardware. Think about it… if one day, Dream Inc. gaming hub could allow players to play games from other companies, then the hardware released by other companies would be cornered out from the market…
…
5 pm on the 16th of May. The name list of all three thousand players who managed to get into Battle of the Cocoon was officially released on the official website. Actually, one hour ago, those who got in had received mail in their mailbox that they had gotten the qualification to advance to the next round. The mail was highlighted in red and the system would remind them about the mail.
In any case, after the news was announced, there was joy and sadness. The forum that had settled now over time had become heated again.
Threads like 'Aiz… so thirty-five wins still can't get me through?', 'First I had ten consecutive wins and then four consecutive losses', 'The bunch of whales are pushing the rest of us out!'…
They were reeking with envy, complaints, or excuses… In any case, those who had participated in Battle of the Bug but were unable to move forward seemed to have many things to say.
It was as if either they were treated unfairly by the system or that somehow, they were not at their optimum state and luck was not on their side. But just like that demon—Mr. Simon had said: Victory is victory and losers will be losers. The winner will always be the stronger party.
The preliminary was quite fair because of those players with actual ability, most of them moved forward. Those who couldn't had no one to blame but themselves. Finding excuses won't change anything.
…
8 pm that night, the rules of the Battle of the Cocoon was listed out in detail. The Battle of Cocoon would be split into five rounds and then two redemption rounds.
At 1 am on May 17th, the first round for Battle of Cocoon would start. The three thousand players would be paired up randomly in one versus one duel. The winners and losers would have 1,500 people each. In the losers' group, 1,380 people who had the worst result in the preliminary would be eliminated directly; the remaining 120 players would enter the redemption round.
At 1 am on May 18th, the first redemption round would start. It would pit the best 120 players from the losing group with the worst 120 players from the winning group… to have a one versus one match, the loser would be eliminated directly. On 1 am of 19th May, it would be the second round of redemption. The remaining 120 players from the previous round would battle again. The sixty players who survived would join the winners' group.
At 1 am on May 20th, the second round for Battle of Cocoon would start. The 1,380 players from the winners' group and the sixty players from the redemption rounds, so in total 1,440 players would be matched up randomly and the losers would be eliminated directly.
At 1 am on May 21st, the third round for Battle of Cocoon would happen. The 720 would be shredded down to 360.
At 1 am on May 22nd, the fourth round for Battle of Cocoon would happen. The 360 would be shredded down to 180.
At 1 am on May 23rd, the fifth round for Battle of Cocoon would happen. The 180 would be shredded down to 90.
That would where the Battle of Cocoon ended. The last ninety players would join the ten VIP players to become the Top one hundred and enter the Battle of the Butterfly. Basically… at this stage, to move forward, one had no chance of losing at all…
These three thousand were experts that were left behind after the great elimination. They knew each match was important. If you missed or became careless, then it was over. Of course, the game was kind enough to give them a second chance. Considering the chance of seed players meeting each other in the first round, they set up two redemption rounds to give them a second chance. At the same time, the redemption rounds could further test out the weaker players who managed to sneak through the first round with pure luck.
Other than that, there was the concept of 'victory result' that had the most controversy on the forum. There were threads that compared… two players who both won thirty-seven matches in the Battle of the Bug, but one failed to advance to the next round but the other did. There were many other similar threads too.
For this, Dream Inc. provided satisfactory answer in terms of data. The system had done a conclusive review based on the overall exhaustion of Life Points, Stamina Points, acquirement of Skill Points, and time used in the fifty preliminary matches of each player. This rating would also be used during the selection of players to join the redemption rounds. It would be used to decide which player had the better result when they had won the same number of matches.
…
On the morning of 17th May. Xiao Tan entered the game in sleeping mode with excited feelings to welcome his first Battle of the Cocoon. If the preliminary was like a one versus one Killing Game, then this semi-final… was greatly different. This was broadcasted live. If he ran into a celebrity player, that game might be shown on the big monitor at the Market and it would be commented by commentators and watched by millions.
Xiao Tan was a low-profile person, and he didn't like to be under the spotlight, so it was natural for him to be nervous. But this psychological stage fright would most likely be forgotten when the real fight began. After all, the players wouldn't see the audience and hear the commentary during the actual battle. They wouldn't know if they were selected to be shown on the big screen.
For the players, they only needed to focus fully on the battle itself.
"Important notification: The first round of Battle of Cocoon will initiate soon. Please be prepared in ten in-game minutes. You will be teleported after the countdown is completed," the system announced at 0:50 am.
Xiao Tan opened the game menu, and he could see the count down on the top right-hand corner.
