Published at 25th of March 2019 9:37 pm

Chapter 639: Playoffs

“By improving strength, are you referring to skill books?” As expected, Little Cold Hands wasn’t Steamed Bun. It wasn’t hard to arrive at this answer. He was a max leveled character. If he wanted to strengthen his character, there were only two ways: skill points and equipment. Ye Xiu had just asked him about his character’s skill points and now, he wanted him to do some seemingly random quests. It was only to be expected that he would put two and two together.

“Yes. First, verify which quests you’ve already completed.” Ye Xiu didn’t hide it. Even though they weren’t too familiar with one another, Little Cold Hands would still be a member of their future team. It wouldn’t be good to treat him like a complete outsider.

“Sure, give me a moment to check.” Little Cold Hands replied.

As a result, the team began to hurry and improve their skill points as if they were participating in the upcoming playoffs as well. After Little Cold Hands circled around the Heavenly Domain and the normal server, he reported the results to Ye Xiu. His luck was quite good. Little Cold Hands hadn’t done many of the quests yet. Of the total 1650 skill points possible, he still had 1220 skill points that he could potentially obtain. His character only needed 830 skill points to max out, so if his luck was good, he just might be able to do it.

This type of normal account made Chen Guo very envious. Her Chasing Haze had completed most of these quests already, so she hadn’t gained much from the guide. However, Chen Guo had created a new account in the new server earlier and made sure to leave all of these quests open, but with the quest guide being bought out by Samsara, by the time her new Chasing Haze reached the Heavenly Domain, it was hard to say if she would still be able to utilize the guide.

Chen Guo was upset. She only regretted that she hadn’t spent enough time on the new server account to level this account faster.

“That’s pretty good. You have a lot of quests still available. If it’s okay with you, could you leave this account with me? I’ll help you finish these quests.” Ye Xiu said.

“I can’t do them myself?”

“It requires a special method.” Ye Xiu said.

Little Cold Hands didn’t ask any further questions. Ye Xiu had expected this to happen because the other side was an astute person, who had certainly realized that this method couldn’t easily be given away. Little Cold Hands wasn’t just astute either. He was also smart. Ye Xiu trusted that Little Cold Hands wouldn’t blame him for not giving him the guide to see. The question was whether or not Little Cold Hands was willing to entrust him with his own account. It had to be known that this guy had initially suspected Ye Xiu of trying to swindle him. Ye Xiu hadn’t asked him for anything like a cash deposit, but the first thing he asked him to do was send over his account card. It seemed very much like a scam.

“Are you in a hurry?” Sure enough, Little Cold Hands was a bit hesitant.

“The faster the better.” Ye Xiu replied.

“Uh… ” Little Cold Hands left this message and then became silent.

The conversation had been conducted in the group chat, so everyone else saw it too. Apart from Steamed Bun, everyone could tell Little Cold Hand’s misgivings. Thus, Wei Chen suddenly spoke impatiently: “Stop wasting time! How much could your account possibly be worth? I’ll give you a down payment.”

Wei Chen’s wealth was considerable right now, and he had no qualms using it.

“Oh, if that’s the case, how about 2000!” Little Cold Hands actually gave a number. His account was very average, but it was still a member of Tyrannical Ambition. Amidst the normal playerbase, it wouldn’t be considered too bad.

“Fuck, you actually dared!” Wei Chen was surprised.

“What?” Little Cold Hands asked in doubt.

Wei Chen was speechless. When he said he would give a down payment, according to Wei Chen’s understanding, the other side would usually be too embarrassed to ask for the money and would just happily send over the account card. It turns out he had met someone on a completely different wavelength than himself. The other side immediately answered back and actually gave a price.

But since things had already reached such a stage, Wei Chen felt awkward, but he couldn’t back out, could he? Plus, after having received 20 million, 2000 was nothing to him.

“Alright, send me your bank account info.” Wei Chen didn’t say anything more.

Little Cold Hands didn’t hesitate and sent over his bank account info.

“Check your account tomorrow.” Wei Chen coldly said and turned his head towards Ye Xiu: “I don’t like this guy.”

Not many people would like what Little Cold Hands had just done. Even Chen Guo wasn’t happy. Although they didn’t trust Little Cold Hands and didn’t send him a copy of the guide, the difference between their exchanges were completely different. Chen Guo was certain that if it were anyone else in Little Cold Hand’s position, they wouldn’t have done the same thing that Little Cold Hands had done.

Thinking about it in this way, Chen Guo felt more comfortable looking at Little Cold Hands with disdain and began expressing her discontent with Wei Chen.

In any case, they were now busy attending to improving these characters. As the days passed, the start of the playoffs finally arrived.

Blue Rain, Samsara, Tiny Herb, Tyranny, Misty Rain, Void, Thunderclap, 301. These were their final placings in the regular season. The seedings for the playoffs were decided by these placings: 1st vs 8th, 2nd vs 7th, 3rd vs 6th, 4th vs 5th.

This was also the order of the matches. Blue Rain versus 301. Samsara versus Thunderclap. Tiny Herb versus Void. Tyranny versus Misty Rain.

Four matches would be conducted across the span of four days. To make it easier to stream the matches, the matches would take place separate from one another. The matches would cycle between the home arenas of the the two teams to give equal opportunities for each team to share the profit for the revenue generated by playoff tickets.

Thus, the first round of the playoffs would take eight days total. In the second round, the four teams that won would move on and finish another four matches in four days. The finals would be two matches over four days as well. Because the matches would take place at different arenas, the players had to move around, so they didn’t want them to become too tired.

The competition format was the same as before: an individual competition, group competition, and a team competition. The total points in the home and away matches would be added up. Because there had to be a winner, when totaling up the points, there would be a few subtle differences than they had in calculations during the regular season.

The start of the playoffs received a large amount of attention from Glory players, so it usually started on a Saturday, but because many watched the matches, many of them would hold off on playing the game during that time, which affected the number of people playing the game.

For the match on the first day, Blue Rain versus 301, everything went as expected. Blue Rain had a huge lead. With such a huge gap in skill and placing, it was unrealistic for 301 to catch up to Blue Rain in their own home arena. Blue Rain’s performance immediately drew comments such as “killed the competition”. Such a quick victory made it seem like the playoffs would not be suspenseful, making people looking for a profit not as happy, but for the team, having such a large lead early on was a good thing.

For the match on the second day, Samsara versus Thunderclap, a lot of people were looking for an upset. Samsara had gained more and more momentum as the season went on. When the playoffs arrived, Samsara was believed to have the greatest chances of winning. Naturally, a lot of people didn’t want this to happen and were waiting to see them fail. Despite not having an incredible ace player, but one of the Master Tacticians, Xiao Shiqin, leading them instead, Team Thunderclap was often a team that gave powerhouses a lot of trouble.

But the results made them disappointed. Samsara maintained their usual dominance after the All Star Weekend and crushed Team Thunderclap in their home arena. This result made many surprised. Even if Thunderclap lost, with Xiao Shiqin’s tactics, they shouldn’t have lost so badly.

Everyone in Happy Internet Cafe paid more attention to this match than the first match. They naturally wanted to see how much of a difference the skill points would make and the results didn’t disappoint them.

“What a pity. If they didn’t have those skill points, Thunderclap wouldn’t have lost so badly.” Ye Xiu hit the nail on the head. Team Thunderclap often lacked the strength to dominate opponents, so they usually won through meticulously studying their opponents and finding a strategy to win. As a result, no one ever underestimated Thunderclap. However this time, Samsara had sudden improvement in skill points. This type of change significantly impacted Thunderclap’s plans. As expected, Thunderclap appeared to be underprepared and their tactics didn’t seem to be on point. In reality, it was impossible for their tactics to be on point because the data and information used by Xiao Shiqin to form the strategy were all wrong.

No one but insiders would realize this point.

After this match, the only person who would realize this point would be Xiao Shiqin himself. In the press conference afterwards, he talked about how the other side had some unexpected improvements. As for what these improvements were, Xiao Shiqin probably had a few rough estimates, but he didn’t say anything. For the next match, Xiao Shiqin said a few words that could be regarded as half-hearted.

For the match on the third day, the match between Tiny Herb and Void was actually very intense. The synergy between the Ghostblade duo of Team Void was immaculate. When Ye Qiu retired this season, the two had received the Best Partner reward in the regular season. In the end, Team Void and the previous champions Team Tiny Herb fought an even match, but despite Team Void having the home field advantage, Team Void was still on the losing side.

However, the most intense match would be between Tyranny and Misty Rain. The two teams fought for the longest. In the end, Misty Rain relied on their home field advantage to gather more points. Their second match would only be more intense. After Ye Xiu watched this match, he was quite baffled.

“Han Wenqing isn’t performing too well… ” His long-time rival unexpectedly made him feel like he was a stranger.

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