Chapter 27 Unsettled

That night, the substitutes of Team Tiny Herb didn’t sleep soundly.

They didn’t gather again to cause trouble for Lord Grim’s group. Although almost everyone used the excuse of “unfamiliar with low-level characters and incomplete skills,” they all knew that wasn’t the real reason. They were professional players. To be wiped out by a group of online game players just because they were unfamiliar? That would make professional players too worthless.

The next day, the main players and substitutes of Team Tiny Herb met in the training room one after another, exchanging greetings.

As professional players, of course, they had to participate in standardized professional training every day. Although there were some lazy players who didn’t like to train, there weren’t any such members in Tiny Herb, at least. With Captain Wang Jiexi’s glaring eyes, half the team didn’t even dare to breathe loudly.

“Wow, didn’t you sleep?” Qiao Yifan was startled when he saw his friend Gao Yingjie. Gao Yingjie’s eye circles were dark, like a panda’s.

“Ah…” Gao Yingjie just responded vaguely and didn’t say much.

Qiao Yifan looked over again, and Xiao Yun, Zhou Yebai, Liu Fei, which of them looked good? Fortunately, these guys had stronger mental fortitude than Gao Yingjie, and didn’t develop such exaggerated dark circles.

What about Qiao Yifan? He didn’t feel any pressure, anyway, no one ever had any expectations of him.

At nine o’clock sharp, Wang Jiexi appeared in the training room on time. Tiny Herb’s formal training was divided into morning and afternoon sessions. Coaches weren’t common in Glory at the moment. After all, Glory was only a ten-year-old game, and the professional scene had only developed for seven years. Everyone was still in the exploration phase. In the entire circle, first-tier gods like Wang Jiexi were already at the highest level, both in theory and technique. So there was no one qualified to guide them at all.

Thus, clubs like Tiny Herb didn’t have coaching teams, but rather a consultant team. They did a variety of things: collecting opponent information, studying opponent tactics, providing some tactical options, researching possible new map strategies, etc. These could all be within their scope of work. But the final right to choose belonged to the captains of each team.

Frankly speaking, the greatest value of these people was actually to save the energy of professional players. In the early days of the Professional Alliance, these were all the work of the professional players themselves. Now that clubs had developed and had the financial resources, they had the capital to increase labor costs and allow professional players to focus more on training and competition.

In the current Alliance, the only ones who could truly be called coaches were Zhang Yiwei and Li Bo. Both of them were early Glory players who had gone through several twists and turns and were now coaches at small clubs.

These two teams, Xuanqi Club, had newly entered the Alliance last year. The team was full of rookies, with uneven levels and a lack of experience. The boss didn’t have much money in hand, nor any ambition. In the end, they casually invited Zhang Yiwei to help the team. Unexpectedly, the effect was good. They ranked 17th in the league, which was considered good for a team entering the Alliance for the first time, as they didn’t fall into the bottom two and get eliminated. Some teams spent money to poach people when they first entered the Alliance, trying to quickly pick up the beams with professional players, but ended up with a dismal end. This had happened more than once. In this light, a coach was a very cost-effective transitional method, at least with low investment and low risk.

So this year, the newly joined Mingqing Club followed Xuanqi’s example and invited Li Bo. But so far, the two clubs were truly brothers in misfortune. Xuanqi, who ranked 16th last year, directly bottomed out this year, ranking 20th. Although Mingqing was ranked 18th, the team they were压着 (yā zhe - pressing down on) was Excellent Era, who theoretically could never fall to such an exaggerated 19th place. And they only led Excellent Era by 3 points. No one would believe that they could压着 (yā zhe - press down on) Excellent Era and kick them out of the league.

Coaches were still far from becoming a decisive figure in Glory esports. This was the general consensus in the current Glory Alliance. Zhang Yiwei and Li Bo were also living in deep water, racking their brains to prove themselves.

After Wang Jiexi appeared in the training room, the whispers that had been going on immediately stopped, and the players began to seriously busy themselves with their training subjects. Wang Jiexi walked around and finally came to the substitutes’ seats. The few of them immediately took a breath of cold air. Usually, everyone hoped that God Jiexi could pay attention to them, but at this time, they all hoped that they were invisible. Only Qiao Yifan was the exception, he had always been a little transparent.

“How was last night?” Wang Jiexi still opened his mouth. The five looked at each other, not daring to answer. Finally, Xiao Yun looked up and saw that Wang Jiexi was looking at him. He said helplessly, “Uh… we encountered a little difficulty.”

“How so?” Wang Jiexi asked.

“We…” Xiao Yun thought back and forth. The word “team wipe” was really disgusting and couldn’t be said. What’s more, he died first, and the other four died later, in batches. This wasn’t a team wipe in the standard sense. So Xiao Yun bypassed this word, and while paying attention to Wang Jiexi’s expression, carefully recounted it.

“Damn, how cunning!” Zhou Yebai and Liu Fei regretted not speaking up first when they heard this. Now that Xiao Yun had control of the narrative, this guy downplayed his initial mistakes, while vividly describing the team wipe of the last four people, and with a hint of “if I were there, it certainly wouldn’t have been like this.” Zhou Yebai and Liu Fei both wanted to argue, but seeing Wang Jiexi’s uncertain expression, they didn’t dare to speak up.

Xiao Yun finally finished speaking, and concluded, “Uh, we decided to practice low-level accounts well and go find him again tonight.”

After all, besides “unaccustomed to low-level accounts,” they really couldn’t find any other excuse. Xiao Yun could only use this to express his attitude.

Wang Jiexi remained noncommittal, and after a moment of silence, suddenly looked at Gao Yingjie, “Little Jie, what do you think?”

Xiao Yun and the other two were jealous.

Gao Yingjie stood up somewhat fearfully, and stuttered, “I think… he’s very powerful.”

“What’s so powerful?” Wang Jiexi asked.

“That Lord Grim,” Gao Yingjie said.

“How powerful is he?” Wang Jiexi said.

Gao Yingjie glanced at Xiao Yun. Because Xiao Yun had simplified his own experience of being abused, he didn’t mention that he was played to death by Lord Grim using the Step Behind Shadow skill. Although Gao Yingjie wasn’t scheming, he wasn’t so clueless as to not understand Xiao Yun’s little secret. But the Step Behind Shadow skill was a problem that could very well illustrate Lord Grim’s level…

Gao Yingjie only thought about it briefly. If he really considered this and didn’t tell the truth, he wouldn’t be a “naive” youth. He quickly began to speak truthfully, “I saw Brother Xiao being defeated by Lord Grim using the Step Behind Shadow skill. Our actions were all calculated when we fought him later. I think this person is also Lord Grim.”

“Oh? What do you think of him?” Wang Jiexi asked.

“He’s very experienced, his attacks and skills are used appropriately, and all his judgments are very accurate,” Gao Yingjie said.

“Have you ever met such a powerful person?” Wang Jiexi asked.

Gao Yingjie was stunned, and after a long while, he said, “Only the captain.”

“Then what about you?” Wang Jiexi turned his gaze to the others, “Besides me, have you ever met such experts?”

Xiao Yun and the other two looked at each other. Lord Grim was an expert, they admitted that, but, Gao Yingjie actually said that besides Wang Jiexi, he had never seen someone so strong. Wasn’t this a bit too exaggerated?

“Do you think that experts of my level are impossible to appear in the new server?” Wang Jiexi said.

The three were silent, but Liu Fei nodded.

“It’s because you have this preconceived idea that you think Lord Grim is very powerful, but… he’s just powerful, you didn’t seriously measure his level, right?” Wang Jiexi said.

The three continued to look at each other.

“Lord Grim is not an ordinary person,” Wang Jiexi said.

“He is?” Liu Fei asked doubtfully.

“Eighty percent chance, it’s Ye Qiu.”

“Ah?” Several people exclaimed in surprise.

“Is he online now?” Wang Jiexi asked.

Several people were practicing with their characters at this time. Hearing the captain ask, Xiao Yun quickly quit his character and refreshed the tenth server account he used last night. After logging in and searching for Lord Grim’s name, he nodded and said, “Online.”

“He was online last night, and he’s online now. He pulled an all-nighter… No matter how much he plays, he can’t be playing even this afternoon, right? That should be his rest time. He’ll probably show up tonight,” Wang Jiexi calculated for a while, and suddenly waved his hand and tapped on the table. All the players who heard it looked over. Those who were wearing headphones and didn’t hear it were quickly reminded by others.

“Add a training subject after dinner,” Wang Jiexi announced to the entire team.

“What subject?” A main player asked the captain.

“Grind bosses,” Wang Jiexi said.

“Boss? What boss?” Someone asked in confusion.

“The biggest boss in Glory history,” Wang Jiexi said.

Everyone was stunned, still not understanding what he meant.

“Fu Sheng, go get some account cards. They need to be for the tenth server, level 25 or above, and the classes should correspond to our team members. We don’t need any for the substitute players,” Wang Jiexi instructed. Deng Fusheng was the vice-captain of Team Tiny Herb. His account character was called Dugu, a knight.

“Oh,” Deng Fusheng responded, got up, and left.

Everyone in the training room couldn’t help but whisper and discuss. Wang Jiexi tapped the table again, “Now, continue training.”

The training room fell silent again. After a moment, the sound of keyboards and mice rang out, with no more noise. Wang Jiexi was still on the substitutes’ side, and asked, “Did anyone record yesterday’s game?”

Everyone was stunned. Liu Fei blurted out, “The captain didn’t say we needed to record…”

Zhou Yebai immediately glared at her. This woman really didn’t know how to speak, actually shifting the responsibility to the captain.

As a result, in the corner of the room, Qiao Yifan weakly raised his hand and said, “I recorded it.”

“Oh? Let me see,” Wang Jiexi quickly walked to Qiao Yifan’s computer, and Qiao Yifan hurriedly got up to give up his seat.