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Chapter 305 – Exceeding Everyone’s Expectations

The Rookie Challenge Competition was completely up to the rookie. Signing up didn’t have to be done through the Club or the Team. However, rookies usually gave their Team a heads up beforehand. Clubs would sometimes publicize their rookies and would also sometimes ask their rookies to sign up.

Qiao Yifan obviously didn’t belong to the latter. With a genius like Gao Yingjie, if the Club was going to publicize a rookie, it most certainly wouldn’t be him. Participating in the Rookie Challenge Competition was Qiao Yifan’s own idea. He had given the Club a heads up, but everyone was just surprised, that’s all.

For someone like him to participate in the Rookie Challenge Competition, he was somewhat overestimating his abilities. This was what everyone was thinking about and it was something Qiao Yifan had thought about too, but it hadn’t changed his decision. It was just when the news got to the captain, he still felt somewhat uneasy. If the captain didn’t support his decision and he was still going to be stubborn about it, then even though the rules said that no one could stop him, his future in the Club might be gone.

However, aside from the Rookie Challenge Competition, there was no other chance for Qiao Yifan to appear on stage. This was his only chance and he hoped that he’d be able to seize it.

He had succeeded!

Team Captain Wang Jiexi didn’t have any objections to his decision and he wasn’t treated coldly, like how the other team members treated him. Wang Jiexi simply gave him the attitude a team captain should have by giving him a few words of encouragement and hoping that he would perform well and learn.

“I will!” Qiao Yifan was very excited. Afterwards, he prepared for this day the entire time. No other person cared so much about the Rookie Challenge as much as he did because he knew that it was just for “show”. Qiao Yifan also understood this, but he hoped that he’d be able to “show” something different in this “show” in order to win a turning point in his career.

Qiao Yifan versus the number one Phantom Demon, Li Xuan.

The host announced the contestants. The players and the audience responded normally. A few of them were excited, and they were mostly Li Xuan’s fans.

They didn’t know what was so astonishing about this match, but Tiny Herb’s players knew.

They knew because Qiao Yifan played as an Assassin, but he chose to challenge a Phantom Demon, Li Xuan. It was somewhat unheard of.

The rookie had complete control over his decision and he also had his reasons. Usually, rookies would choose to challenge seniors they liked in the Alliance, which was why it was very common that players who played the same class fought in the Rookie Challenge. Outsiders would only think this type of reasoning when Qiao Yifan chose to fight Li Xuan, but to the more familiar players of Tiny Herb, they had no idea what the reason was for Qiao Yifan decision.

After Qiao Yifan went up on stage, he said some common words on how he wanted to learn from his senior, which made Tiny Herb’s players even more puzzled.

“The kid likes Li Xuan?”

“No idea!”

They were completely at a loss. And only now did they discover that they knew very little about their younger teammate. They all looked towards Gao Yingjie. Qiao Yifan and Gao Yingjie had a very good relationship with each other. This was perhaps the only thing they knew about Qiao Yifan’s situation and the reason for this was because of Gao Yingjie’s existence.

Gao Yingjie was also at a loss, perhaps even more puzzled than his seniors. This was because he understood Qiao Yifan well, but he couldn’t understand why he would challenge Li Xuan…… He recalled how Qiao Yifan was always very busy, how he was often alone, and how they hadn’t been talking much lately. Gao Yingjie felt like something had happened.

Li Xuan had already walked on stage. As an ace and a God with the status of a team captain, his bearing was much greater than Qiao Yifan’s. After going up on stage, he said a few kind words to his younger generation and then the two walked to their competition platforms.

From the audience’s perspective, this match would be the same as the first one. Only Tiny Herb’s players felt that it was unordinary. On the other hand, Ye Xiu completely guessed Qiao Yifan’s intent, but…….

“Sigh……” Ye Xiu let out another gentle sigh, which had coincidentally been seen by Tang Rou again.

Another sigh? Tang Rou muttered in her heart. In the last match, she had seen Ye Xiu sigh, but she hadn’t seen anything worth sighing for in that match. And in this match, he sighed once again. Qiao Yifan……. Tang Rou obviously recognized him as the one who played with them as One Inch Ash because when they partied together, he didn’t hide his name. Then did Ye Xiu’s sigh mean that Qiao Yifan couldn’t win?

Tang Rou was a new Glory player through and through. Chen Guo knew that the All-Star Weekend was more for show than it was for competition, especially the Challenge Competition. However, she hadn’t thought of explaining this to Tang Rou, who thought it was a serious competition. At this moment, since she knew the player, she was hoping for the youth to win. But Ye Xiu’s sigh made her aware that her hopes would probably fall through.

The map had already appeared on stage. The two players chose their characters, added their points, and then chose their equipment. Soon afterwards, they entered the match.

Li Xuan choosing a Ghostblade wasn’t a surprise to anyone.

Qiao Yifan choosing the same Ghostblade wasn’t a surprise to anyone except for Tiny Herb’s players.

“What’s the kid doing?” Everyone was puzzled again.

“He’s going too far.” Tiny Herb’s teammate Xiao Yun said.

“Luckily no one knows that he doesn’t actually play Ghostblade, right?” The female team member Liu Fei said.

The Rookie Challenge was more of a show, but the rookie had to show his respects, too. Challenging a God with a class that he didn’t even play was simply too disrespectful. After seeing Qiao Yifan choose a Ghostblade, even captain Wang Jiexi wrinkled his brow.

However, what Liu Fei said wasn’t wrong. Besides their Tiny Herb players, no one knew that Qiao Yifan played as an Assassin. The audience probably didn’t even know who Qiao Yifan was.

On stage, the match quickly began. Just like the first and second matches, the two sides headed straight for the middle of the map.

The match’s map was a ruins map. There were a lot of walls and the terrain was quite good for Ghostblades to perform on. This type of terrain allowed for the player to hide themselves behind something, throw down a Ghost Boundary and then lure the enemy into the boundary. This was a very common tactic among Phantom Demons.

In a duel between Ghostblades, the duel was very rarely a battle between hand speeds or mechanics.

They often competed in decision-making, game knowledge, and…… dirtiness.

As the number one Phantom Demon, God Li Xuan’s abilities were naturally first class. The two sides closed in towards the middle of the map, but way before the two met, Li Xuan’s character halted.

This halt just happened to be outside of the Ghost Boundary set by Qiao Yifan’s Ghostblade. He then stepped over to the side twice and hid behind a wall. The audience could see the entire map and they could see this very clearly. But if they looked at Qiao Yifan’s point of view, Li Xuan’s character had already disappeared.

In the Rookie Challenge, the first to take action was unexpectedly the God-level character.

The audience might not be too surprised, but the pro players understood very clearly that, in normal circumstances, the “fatherly” senior always gave the rookie the first move before showing off. But Li Xuan? He snatched the first move.

Li Xuan wasn’t someone with no style, but after seeing the match between Tiny Herb’s members, he couldn’t help but be a bit careful.

The previous match had clearly been a real fight and Tiny Herb’s rookie had been merciless even to his own team captain. In this match, how could he dare consider this a “show” like the first match.

Even though the rookie in front of him wasn’t a genius like Gao Yingjie, who knew if he was Tiny Herb’s secret weapon? Perhaps they wanted to use this Rookie Challenge to have this rookie step on him to make a name for himself.

It couldn’t be said that he was being overly suspicious since it was very reasonable. If any other senior had come up, they probably would have thought the same way, too. However, even so, they might still maintain their style. But Li Xuan had no choice because Phantom Demons were extremely adept at controlling the field. If he fell into a disadvantage at the start and was controlled by the opponent, then turning the situation around was much harder to do than any other class. This was why Li Xuan had to be the first to act. Losing a bit of style in the opening was still better than Wang Jiexi’s losing to a rookie.

After Li Xuan’s character hid behind the wall, Qiao Yifan immediately stopped as well. The field paused for a moment like this.

In a competition between knowledge and decision-making, the match would sometimes be dry and dull like this. The parties would constantly stop in order to make an assumption about the other side’s intent. Right now, the two hadn’t even fought and yet the situation was already like this.

Behind the wall, Li Xuan’s character didn’t move. Qiao Yifan’s character took a few steps, crouched, and then continued to slowly move. Crouching made the character’s movements slow, but there wouldn’t be any noise from his footsteps. Of course, that depended on the terrain, but it was definitely the case for this map.

Li Xuan’s character stuck to the wall as if he was focused on trying to hear the other side’s footsteps. The short pause between the two had cut off. Now, the two were inching closer. Even though the audience could see it all, it was still nerve-wracking.

Watching as Qiao Yifan’s character moved closer, everyone was guessing what the two sides would do next, when Li Xuan’s character suddenly jumped up from behind the wall in such a grand manner that it looked to be unblockable.

Qiao Yifan had thought of this possibility long beforehand, but with the distance between the two, it was a bit too late to cast a Ghost Boundary. Qiao Yifan didn’t hesitate. The instant Li Xuan’s character jumped out, a Ghost Slash was already heading towards him.

As for Li Xuan? His character slashed downwards. A dark purple glow arced down; it was a Ghost Slash as well.

The same skills had been executed and they had been done at the same time. After the skills hit, the two sides both took damage. There shouldn’t have been any advantage. But that was not the case here. After the two skills flashed and then faded away, Qiao Yifan’s character flew backwards. But Li Xuan’s character stepped forward like an arrow. He turned his hands over with a Moonlight Slash and launched his opponent into the air.

“Ah!” Everyone cried out in astonishment. With just one move, the opponent was launched into the air. Things didn’t look good.

The experienced pro players had already figured something out: Li Xuan’s Ghostblade wasn’t his specialty Phantom Demon. In this match, he had unexpectedly chosen to use a Sword Demon instead.