The King's Avatar

Both sides had sent out their second player in the group arena, but the atmosphere in the stadium seemed to have paused at the first matchup. When Mo Fan walked towards the stage, the crowd members in the away team seats clapped wildly, but because the Samsara fans were still downcast, the overall atmosphere felt rather oppressive. No boos or taunts were thrown towards the opposing side.

The atmosphere in the stadium could affect how a player performed, especially more emotional players. For them, the more intense the crowd, the more exhilarating it was. It didn’t matter if the cheers were aimed towards them or the other side, the cheers could help ignite their fighting spirit all the same.

The atmosphere in Samsara’s stadium was abnormal. It was only the second player in the group arena, but because of Zhou Zekai’s defeat, the crowd seemed to be dispirited and cold.

However, this ice-cold atmosphere seemed to be far more comfortable for Mo Fan compared to the past. His footsteps were light and quick as he walked towards the stage.

The match soon began, and the two characters loaded in.

The map wasn’t a random map, so the group arena lineups were predetermined. Jiang Botao knew who his next opponent would be.

But while Mo Fan’s Deception loaded into the map, Jiang Botao was in a similar mood as the crowd. He was still thinking about the previous match and was having trouble readjusting his mindset.

Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim only had 4% of his health remaining from his battle with Zhou Zekai. However, with that 4%, he was able to take out 24% of Jiang Botao’s Empty Waves. This was not a good outcome.

But if you considered that Ye Xiu had healed at the start and his true health wasn’t really 4%, it wasn’t too bad.

But he couldn’t seem to forget how he had believed that he had seen through Ye Xiu, but in reality, he hadn’t, and Ye Xiu was still able to get off a combo on him.

Even though he was able to quickly stabilize his footing again, he had indeed experienced Ye Xiu’s fearsomeness.

He hadn’t looked down on Ye Xiu. At the start of the fight, there had been a psychological battle. Jiang Botao’s words hadn’t been fierce. There was no unadorned ridicule. He had used a rather passive-aggressive method to get at his opponent. This was because he knew that to these experienced old players, that sort of unadorned trash talk wouldn’t faze them. On the contrary, the seemingly more careless but sincere remarks were more likely to tilt them.

Jiang Botao wasn’t the first on Samsara to go up, but before the match had started, he had talked with Ye Xiu quite a bit.

It didn’t seem like he was trying to provoke Ye Xiu. He just seemed to be calmly stating a fact. However, Ye Xiu exposed his intentions to teach them a lesson. Jiang Botao’s calm and collected provocation had clearly succeeded.

He had wanted to trigger this sort of mentality from Ye Xiu. That way, when he faced Zhou Zekai, he might play more rashly and become distracted by Jiang Botao’s words. Even if he won against Zhou Zekai with this mentality, when he faced Jiang Botao, he might play poorly from being too excited…

In short, Jiang Botao’s goal was to break his concentration.

However, it ignited Ye Xiu’s fighting spirit instead. Then, he beat Zhou Zekai and fought against Jiang Botao well enough to display his “fearsomeness”.

Jiang Botao was at a loss. He wasn’t sure if his mental attack had worked or not.

If the skill gap had been wide, then this sort of mental attack was useless. But Ye Xiu was facing Zhou Zekai! There wasn’t a wide skill gap.

That was why Jiang Botao was rather inclined to believe that Ye Xiu hadn’t been provoked by him in the end.

Was the attitude that Ye Xiu displayed just in order to make me overly optimistic?

This was the “fearsomeness” that Jiang Botao experienced. The subtleties in this psychological battle couldn’t be completely uncovered in just a few minutes. The psychological battle was no less fierce than the battle on stage.

Loading complete!

When these words popped up, the scene instantly shifted to his character’s view. The countdown finished, and Jiang Botao immediately refocused.

Ye Xiu? Who? What did he do? No idea!

His opponent was Mo Fan. What he needed to do was beat him, that was all.

Jiang Botao’s attention quickly returned to the match, to the opponent he would be facing next, to Happy’s Mo Fan.

A quiet, persistent, patient, and explosive player.

He played rather unorthodoxly, but what was more astonishing was that after an entire season, these unorthodox traits still remained. Jiang Botao was very curious to how Happy practiced. Had there been any guidance for this rookie?

Could they all be self-made geniuses? But Happy didn’t only have one rookie though. The others weren’t as unorthodox as him.

Unless Happy told him the answer, thinking about it was pointless. Knowing the reason wasn’t important anyways. As long as he could see what condition his opponent was in, that was all that was needed.

Empty Waves began to move, going straight towards the center. At the same time, Jiang Botao typed out in the chat: “Straight to the center? Going around? Thanks.”

No response. Jiang Botao wasn’t surprised. Up until now, no one had seen Mo Fan say anything during a match, let alone respond to trash talk.

Jiang Botao hadn’t expected any response from Mo Fan, and reality proved that he was right.

Empty Waves quickly reached the center of the map. The center of the map had a huge stalactite that connected the ground and ceiling.

Before Jiang Botao got close to it, he looked around, and sure enough, Mo Fan’s Deception had taken a roundabout path.

Mo Fan would circle around 9 times out of 10 to set up an ambush, and it looked like this time was no exception.

But this was Samsara’s map. When choosing a map, the map should be advantageous to your side but disadvantageous to the other side. The map should help the players on your side perform, while restricting the players on the other side. That was how a map should be picked.

Mo Fan’s playstyle was restricted by this map. Seeing that the other side hadn’t gone straight towards the center, Jiang Botao had Empty Waves find a spot and wait there quietly.

There were three stalactites in his immediate surroundings. The closest one was still a distance away. If Mo Fan wanted to ambush him from there, he would still be able to react in time. By positioning himself here, he seemed to have shut down Mo Fan’s preferred methods.

“Would you like my coordinates?” Jiang Botao had finished finding a spot. He continued to check his surroundings and tried to communicate with Mo Fan.

Mo Fan spoke more in the game than in real life, but when playing in a match, he didn’t like to talk with his opponent, especially if it was to respond to this sort of useless chatter.

I don’t need your coordinates because I already see you…

Deception was hidden behind one of the three stalactites close to Empty Waves.

It wasn’t easy to ambush him at this distance, so Mo Fan patiently waited.

But Jiang Botao didn’t move.

In these circumstances, if Jiang Botao didn’t move and he didn’t move, he would be the one penalized. Mo Fan had made this mistake before, and he still remembered it clearly.

He checked the time and made sure that the other side wasn’t going to move. Mo Fan was helpless. He could only act.

Deception peeked out his head from behind the stalactite.

Jiang Botao had been checking his surroundings the entire time. Suddenly, he noticed a flash of cold light from one of the stalactites. Deception had thrown a Shuriken towards him.

Empty Waves dodged it and then quickly moved forward, swinging his Divine Chains. Jiang Botao didn’t think a simple swing of his weapon would hit Deception, who only had a small part of his body exposed. As a result, when he swung his Divine Chains, he used Waltzing Wave Slash to curve his attack.

Deception pulled back and then took out his ninjato. He stabbed it into the stalactite and then leapt onto it.

Jiang Botao couldn’t see what Deception was doing, but he also wasn’t charging in. After all, Spellblades were a mid-range class.

Empty Waves moved laterally to expand his vision.

At this distance, Empty Waves could see Deception above. Mo Fan’s attempt at a sneak attack was like child’s play. Mo Fan had completely overlooked the characteristics of his opponent’s class.

But no one had expected Deceptions to move along with Empty Waves. Empty Waves moved to the side to widen his vision, while Deception also circled around to keep himself hidden.

He had predicted what Jiang Botao would do!

At Happy’s player bench, Ye Xiu, Su Mucheng, and the others gave off smiles of gratitude.

Mo Fan was becoming more and more like a pro player. For example, predicting what the opponent would do based off of the opponent’s strengths.

He had been trained in an unorthodox way. His playstyle was unique to him, but his thoughts, his intuition, and his approach towards the game was becoming more and more like a pro players’.

He was playing the game like it was a competitive match rather than like his former scrap-picking days. With this change in perspective, he was gradually forming his own way to better utilize his strengths to win.

The more time went on, the less Ye Xiu worried about Mo Fan’s future. Mo Fan might not like talking to others, but that didn’t mean he refused to change. He had his own way of doing things. It might be slower than if he listened directly to his advice, but what he found in the end would definitely be the most suitable and the best for him.

“It’s good to be young!” Wei Chen suddenly sighed. He had also seen Mo Fan’s quiet growth and hated how he wouldn’t have the same opportunity as him ever again. If not, no matter how difficult it was, he would certainly try his hardest to break through and improve.

Growth was the domain of the young!