Chapter 179 Winter Transfer Window

The two girls were naturally not in a good mood after failing to get a single sock in two consecutive rounds. They were especially worried that this would affect their future careers. And now, after learning that their fate in these two rounds was closely related to Ye Xiu, the two girls lost their composure and calmness for a while.

Disguising himself as a noob while being a pro, what kind of person is that?

The two girls, filled with resentment and indignation, blacklisted Ye Xiu's Lord Grim and Yinuo. Originally, they had a decent impression of Yinuo. Although he had snatched all their socks, they had at least teamed up to trick a powerhouse professional team like Excellent Era, and this sense of accomplishment was enough to fill the void of not getting any socks. But after learning Yinuo's true identity, this sense of accomplishment vanished, replaced by the feeling that they had been tricked, twice!

Looking at the Christmas event leaderboard again, compared to ordinary players, the performance of their duo was still outstanding. However, two consecutive rounds of goose eggs made them only slightly better. The initial amazement from the first day was no longer visible, especially when compared to the leading teams at the front.

And Excellent Era's team, after getting a goose egg in this round, was destined to never surpass the Lord Grim and Steamed Bun Invasion duo, who were currently ranked second on the team leaderboard.

Looking at the results of these two, Who Doesn't Know and Could Not Be Better were gnashing their teeth once again.

But what's done is done. Using this event, the limelight they could gain was no longer as glorious as the first day. The two were now even more anxious about whether the major teams would have any ideas after noticing them. This made them cherish every invitation even more.

In fact, the time the two had to consider wasn't much.

The Glory Professional Alliance had two transfer windows. One was the summer transfer window, which spanned the entire months of July and August, with plenty of time, and was the transition between two seasons, so most major transfers happened during this transfer window.

The other was the winter transfer window, which was in December.

December was roughly a little more than a third of the way through the league. In fact, when December was initially set as the winter transfer window, the number of teams in the league was not yet 20. There weren't as many matches in an entire season, so December was right in the middle of the season. Later, as the number of teams increased and the number of events increased, December became more and more early. The alliance had considered changing the winter transfer window to January, but the major teams felt that it was good to keep it in December, even if it was a little earlier.

This was because there usually weren't any long-planned major transfers in the winter transfer window. Instead, there were more hasty transfers to put out fires. For example, if they found that the new players added in the summer were completely unsuitable for the team, they would make changes in the winter. Or, if a player suddenly suffered an injury and couldn't continue the next game, they might also bring someone in during the winter. And if someone announced their retirement like Ye Xiu did back then, they would naturally have to find someone to replace them. So for the teams, they naturally wanted to make these repairs as early as possible. This would at least leave more matches for the team with a resolved roster problem to strive for.

So the question of whether to change the winter transfer window to January was dragged on and on in such tangled discussions. At least in this ninth season, December was still the winter transfer window. And this December was like most winter transfer windows, with a winter-like chill, and the teams that made trades were more likely to trade than buy.

Who Doesn't Know and Could Not Be Better weren't professional players yet. They were considered free signing transfers, but they had to perform these operations during the transfer window's open period. It was now December 26th, and there were only five days left until the transfer window closed. If they wanted to join a professional team sooner, they had to make a decision in these five days. The two were originally very confident, but after directly fighting against the players of Excellent Era, they realized that actual combat was not the same as watching the broadcast of the match. In addition, their performance in the second day's event was so bad that they were already worried that something might go wrong. If they didn't make a decision in this transfer window, would there still be so many enthusiastic invitations next summer?

It was time to make a decision for the future!

The two girls quit the game and carefully discussed their career prospects.

On Ye Xiu's side, Yinuo and Rain Later Only had the first round of the sock event, so naturally, they continued with the second and third rounds. The coincidence of encountering Excellent Era again did not happen again. However, Excellent Era, who had a goose egg in one of today's three rounds of events, suddenly had a rather shabby final result.

"Hahahaha, well done! Seeing your performance, I am more and more confident in defeating the Excellent Era team." Wei Chen was of course the happiest with this result. With the Excellent Era team like this, it was as if they had participated in one less round of events. Unless their team also gave up a round like this.

"The first place in the team leaderboard is already in the bag!" Wei Chen laughed triumphantly to the sky.

"Don't be happy too early, will you? Please open your eyes a little bit," Ye Xiu said.

"What? What else is going on?" Wei Chen exclaimed, and then saw Ye Xiu poking at the screen, pointing to the team, which was none other than his and Steamed Bun's Lord Grim and Steamed Bun Invasion duo.

They had gotten a grand slam in the round with Who Doesn't Know and Could Not Be Better today, so their total number of socks was naturally not low. Excellent Era's team was left behind, but their duo was still closely following behind Wei Chen's team. Seriously, if Wei Chen and the others had bad luck tomorrow, or if Ye Xiu and the others had a lucky streak and got another grand slam, the first place in the team might be taken away by their duo.

"Don't mess around." Wei Chen immediately became serious. "Looking at the grand slam, the rewards are aimed at the members one by one, so we have reason to suspect that the final leaderboard ranking rewards are also the same. We have five rewards for first place, and you only have two for first place. Such a simple calculation, you must calculate it very carefully with self-respect."

"Hehehehe." Ye Xiu chuckled a few times and stood up, looking at everyone: "Everyone, rest early today, and clear all the event tasks early tomorrow morning. There's also a match tonight."

"A mere match, as long as we don't forget, what suspense can there be?" Wei Chen said dismissively.

Ye Xiu didn't say anything about this attitude.

Apart from Team Wuji, Excellent Era only encountered ordinary player teams. If Ye Xiu still solemnly emphasized the need to pay attention and not be careless with such opponents, it would be too much.

December 27th was the last day of the Christmas event and the first round of the ninth round of the Challenger League.

After continuous slaughter and adjustment through eight rounds, there were exactly 40 teams left out of the 14,218 teams participating in the Challenger League in the ninth round.

The ninth round will determine the final 20 teams. These 20 teams will be divided into four groups, with five teams in each group. They will first conduct a group round robin, and the top two teams in each group will enter the subsequent knockout stage. The final winner will be the champion of this season's Challenger League, the final team to open the door to the Professional League.

It is from the matches of these 20 teams that the alliance will uniformly organize everyone to conduct offline matches. The offline events will also have some sponsors and media broadcasts, and the teams that have made it this far will certainly have the right to share a piece of the pie.

For ordinary player teams, being able to get to this point is definitely a success. However, having reached this point, many teams that initially thought about focusing on participation may start to have some illusions about entering the professional circle. The player teams that have made it through all the levels to this point do have some outstanding strength. However, compared to professional teams like Excellent Era, the strength is still quite uneven.

Currently, it is the ninth round, the last level to break into the offline finals. What is the most important thing to pass this level? Of course, it is luck.

No matter how outstanding a player team is, drawing Excellent Era is a dead end. But among the 39 teams, there is always one that cannot be avoided, including Excellent Era, who were most nervous in this round of the draw. Because this time there were the fewest teams, the probability of drawing Excellent Era was the greatest.

In the end, the tearful expression of drawing Excellent Era was left to others, and Excellent Era finally relaxed this time. The matter of being eliminated by Excellent Era early was destined not to happen. Because after the group round robin, even if they were drawn into the same group as Excellent Era, Excellent Era still had a place because the top two teams advanced.

As for encountering Excellent Era again after that, that would be the final battle, which would also be the end of the Challenger League. This was in line with Excellent Era's expectations, and naturally there would be no more panic as before with things within the plan.

On the 27th, the Excellent Era team cleared the Christmas tasks early in the morning. Wei Chen's team finally secured the first place in the team leaderboard, and the first place in the individual leaderboard was unexpectedly Mo Fan's Deception, followed by Wu Chen's Dawn Rifle and Tang Rou's Soft Mist. In addition, the three's alts were also ranked at the top, with excellent results.

The rewards were not redeemed on this day. They had to wait until this day passed, and after the event was closed, they could take the socks to receive the gifts and receive the leaderboard rewards at the same time.

The Excellent Era team had seen some scenes. They wouldn't be so excited by the event rewards that they would lose their composure. After finishing the event tasks, everyone also made some appropriate preparations for the match in the evening.

The opponent that night was the Fissure team, an ordinary player team. After Ye Xiu flipped through some of their previous match data and watched it, he was even more convinced of this point, so the match that night was not stressful for Excellent Era. On the other hand, the Fissure team was in a very low mood. When they first drew the lot, the team members cheered when they didn't see the words "Excellent Era", but the cheers stopped abruptly when they saw that it was Excellent Era.

The Excellent Era team, which had reached this point, was no longer a team that could be easily taken down. They had been on the Electronic Sports Weekly a few times. Although beating Excellent Era was still scolded by many as overestimating their abilities, if they were to play against each other themselves, they would have to admit that they couldn't beat Excellent Era.

That night, in the first round of the ninth round of matches, the Excellent Era team swept the Fissure team, and it was almost certain that they would enter the offline knockout stage.

At the same time, the Excellent Era team also defeated their opponents with the same sweeping advantage, locking in the offline competition in advance.

"What a pity... it would be great if they were eliminated here," Chen Guo said with regret.