Chapter 1 New Regulations

With the new competition system, how should the players arrange their formations? Teams were concerned, players paid attention, and everyone was actively involved in research and discussion. The most common practice in the past, like putting the ace player last as the trump card in a Lei Tai (擂台) competition (arena-style competition), was of course no longer advisable. It was too passive.

But putting the ace player directly in the first position seemed a bit too aggressive. In professional competitions, it was rare to see someone defeat three opponents consecutively. In Lei Tai competitions, a good performance usually meant defeating about two opponents.

"About two opponents" meant sometimes defeating one person and then weakening the second, but being unable to hold on and falling first; or defeating the second person but having little energy left when facing the third, and quickly losing. Even this was considered a rare achievement in a Lei Tai competition. So even if it was an ace player, putting them in the first position might not necessarily win more head points for their side.

Good steel should still be used where it's most needed. The ace players of the past guarded the final gate, but the ace players of today needed to win as many head points as possible while securing victory. Therefore, appearing at the most appropriate time was the most skillful approach. For example, if the opponent had only one and a half players left, arranging for the ace player to enter the battle at that moment would naturally increase the chances of success.

After much analysis, the general consensus was that the most appropriate position for ace players in the five Lei Tai slots was the third or fourth position.

However, even so, earning head points in a Lei Tai competition was still much more difficult than in a team competition. The future trend of Lei Tai competitions should be stability first, defending the arena well, not losing too many head points in the Lei Tai competition, and then determining victory or defeat in the team competition. This was the predicted direction of future events.

But today, the first player to take the stage for Team Zhuxian was their current captain, the swordsman player, Lin Yi.

Based on the matches that had already taken place, Lin Yi was the most outstanding player in Team Zhuxian. Now, he was surprisingly the first to appear. Was it confidence, or were there other arrangements?

Xiao Jie, the owner of Team Zhuxian, always wore a smile and gestured to Team Xingxin to make the first move. Ye Xiu smiled and patted the person next to him, "Go!"

"Oh, oh, oh, oh!!!" Instantly, the Xingxin fan group ignited in a climax due to this person's appearance.

"Baozi, take on all five!!" The fans, of course, didn't care whether it was realistic or not. It was just a slogan, and if it wasn't exaggerated, could it be called a slogan?

"Hahaha." Baozi laughed loudly. With his temperament, he didn't care about the opponent's formation. He waved his fist at the group of friends behind him in the game.

"Take on all five!" Baozi said loudly. In the eyes of others, he was truly an arrogant and shameless guy. The Team Zhuxian fan group had already booed loudly. The Xingxin fan group was really embarrassed to respond seriously because they knew that taking on all five was impossible. To use this to provoke others would be like slapping themselves in the face.

The players from both sides then went on stage and began to swipe their cards to load their characters. The few from Xingxin looked at each other, and their eyes all focused on the character loading screen. The screen would display all of the character's equipment to the audience after the character was loaded.

"As expected!"

Lin Yi's character, the swordsman Wanjian Guiyi (万剑归一), made his appearance. Just from his attire, everyone could see the difference from before. When the equipment viewing panel opened, a row of silver items immediately popped up. Wanjian Guiyi had as many as seven pieces of silver equipment. Although it seemed like one less piece than Wei Chen's Wind Howl Formation, Xingxin's silver equipment was not evenly distributed. Wei Chen's Wind Howl Formation had as many as eight pieces, while other characters had fewer. Ye Xiu's Lord Grim only had one piece of silver equipment, the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella, because the silver equipment that was made was mainly prioritized for other people's characters.

But professional teams generally wouldn't be so biased. Core characters would definitely occupy more resources, but it wouldn't be so exaggerated that core characters had eight pieces of silver equipment while other characters only had one. In addition, the sense of unfamiliarity that Team Zhuxian showed was present in every character. Lin Yi's Wanjian Guiyi's level of silver equipment was likely the average level of their main characters. An average of seven pieces of silver equipment... this level of armament was higher than the league average. Team Zhuxian was indeed deeply hidden.

However, none of the seven pieces of silver equipment on Wanjian Guiyi were level 75. After all, level 75 resources were limited. The reason why level 70 silver equipment was so common in the league was because they had accumulated over many years during the level 70 phase. If the level was raised once a year, the production of rare materials in the Divine Domain would drive professional teams crazy.

Zhuxian's situation was somewhat expected, so the Xingxin players were relatively calm. Zhuxian was able to actively obtain so much silver equipment so quickly probably not only because of financial resources. Xiao Jie was just a young writer. No matter how well his books sold, in terms of financial resources, he certainly couldn't compare with Lou Guan Ning and his group, not to mention that Yizhan (义斩) was a group of five people. Even so, they only managed to get 20 pieces of silver equipment at first.

Although Team Zhuxian was down on their luck, they had been in the professional circle since the beginning, and they had never given up for so many years, so they must have accumulated some resources. Xiao Jie's investment this time probably detonated Team Zhuxian's accumulation over the years, and that Zhang Jian might also be a key figure in this explosion. That era was at the professional level, and if he hadn't given up for so many years, his achievements in Glory must be extraordinary.

While Ye Xiu and the others speculated about Zhuxian's situation, the first round of the Lei Tai competition on the field was finally about to begin. After the countdown, the characters from both sides were loaded into the map, and the match officially began. Xiao Jie, the owner of Team Zhuxian, really kept his word. As soon as the match started, he came over to chat with Ye Xiu.

"I think your team's player is particularly interesting," Xiao Jie said, with a tone that felt a bit like an elder trying to act knowledgeable. But to be honest, Ye Xiu didn't have much of a position to look down on the other party's youth. If he was twenty-five or six years old, he was basically the same age as him.

"Your player is also quite steady," Ye Xiu said.

"As a captain, you need this kind of player," Xiao Jie said with emotion.

"It seems that he is not your Team Zhuxian's ace player," Ye Xiu said.

Xiao Jie smiled and then asked, "In Ye Shen's opinion, which one is our Team Zhuxian's ace player?"

Ye Xiu also smiled and looked at a player on Team Zhuxian's player bench, "Your ace player is less likely to play a core role in guiding the battle, but he is your last line of defense."

"Ye Shen has a good eye!" Xiao Jie praised with a thumbs up, and his eyes also turned to that player in their Team Zhuxian, the priest, Lu Shilin.

"But Ye Shen said that priests can't play a core role in guiding the battle, I think that's a bit old-fashioned," Xiao Jie said.

"Uh, actually, I wanted to say dominate, not guide. I used the wrong word, sorry, you know, I'm not a writer," Ye Xiu said.

Xiao Jie was stunned and immediately didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Dominate and guide, one word difference, the meaning was indeed not the same. He was just about to find fault with Ye Xiu, but he didn't expect the other party to frankly cover it up with a word mistake, and also joked about his identity as a writer.

"In that case, Ye Shen is confident about how to deal with it?" Xiao Jie calmed down and continued.

"There's no need to specifically deal with a core that can't play a leading role," Ye Xiu said.

"Is that so?" Xiao Jie smiled again, said nothing more, sat back and continued to watch the match.

This person liked to smile, a slight, faint smile. At first glance, this kind of smile made it easy for people to feel good about him, thinking that he was humble and polite. However, when this kind of smile appeared again and again, it was no longer conveying this meaning, but pride and conceit. He used this expression full of superiority to express his disapproval of the other party. In Chen Guo's opinion, it would be more enjoyable to just say "You're a moron!"

"This person's smile is really annoying," Chen Guo said to Ye Xiu.

"It's annoying even if he doesn't smile. Bringing a team over to make trouble for us, how annoying!" Ye Xiu said.

"..."

The off-field exchange ended there. On the field, Baozi's Baozi Invasion and Lin Yi's Wanjian Guiyi had been in contact for a while. Neither side used any tactical positioning, and they went straight to the center of the map, met, and then fought.

A battle of skills, awareness, and judgment, without much strategy. Lin Yi, who was more experienced, more skilled, and had better equipment, quickly gained the upper hand. He didn't have overwhelming strength, but his calm and composed state of mind happened to restrain Baozi's eccentricity. Baozi's occasional surprising moves didn't have any psychological effect. Although it was impossible to grasp the pattern of this kind of eccentric play, Lin Yi was able to remain calm and respond to all changes.

Ye Xiu glanced at Team Zhuxian's side and happened to see Xiao Jie also looking at them, with that same smile, writing superiority on his face: See, I knew it.

The opponent's first appearance was a targeted arrangement, which seemed to have guessed Xingxin's intentions. This Xiao Jie, I don't know what his own Glory skills are like, but since he's been a fan of Zhuxian since that time, he's obviously a crazy guy for Glory, and it seems that he has a good understanding of Glory.

Tian Qi and the others began to cheer for Baozi madly. They were already a little weak because they could see that the current situation was quite unfavorable for Baozi.

Even the audience could see that the situation was already quite clear, and the broadcast commentator was just short of directly announcing the result of the match.

"Hehe, the result of this match seems obvious, right?" Xiao Jie came over again and said.

"Everyone can see it, but there are still some people who haven't figured out the situation at all!" Ye Xiu said.

"Who?" Xiao Jie was puzzled. The situation was so obvious, were there still people who couldn't see it?

"Look." Ye Xiu pointed to the match screen, "Our Baozi is still playing with so much energy."