After the first match, there was only a three minute break before the second match officially began. Since the players in the second match were matched to the game room in advance, the computers, keyboards and other equipment were checked. This reduced the preparation stage accordingly and everyone was only given 20 seconds to change weapons.
In the second match, there were no players who performed particularly well. The coaches didn’t discuss it carefully and directly passed over it after scoring the points.
Next, no particularly outstanding talents were found for several consecutive matches. The judges scored very quickly and it was basically between 60 and 80 points.
Since they were scoring on the spot, the first round of matches were carried out one after another. More than 300 people had to play over 30 matches. According to the average of 10-15 minutes per match, excluding the waiting time, they could play 4-5 games in an hour and it would last eight hours.
On the first day, players 1-150 were arranged for the afternoon matches and players 151-315 were arranged for the evening matches.
Players who competed in the evening could open their own game training room in the afternoon to practice alone or sleep to refresh their spirits. However, they couldn’t leave the room where they were staying.
The computer was locked by administrator privileges and chat software like Q and WeChat couldn’t be downloaded. The mobile phone signals were all blocked so they couldn’t communicate with the outside world. It was like being locked up in a ‘little black room.’ This was also a test of the psychological quality of the players.
In the blink of an eye, an hour and a half passed and it was already the seventh match.
A message popped up on the computer. [You have been matched to the 7th match. Please log into the game server and enter the game room No 7.]
Qin Xueyao had drawn the number 77 and she was in the 7th match. 7 was her lucky number so she was quite happy to draw 7s in a row. She thought that she should have good luck.
What she didn’t know was that at this time, the number one scout of the professional league, Ye Qingming was also matched to the No 7 game room.
The No 11 scout Ye Qingming and the No 125 assaulter Zhou Yiran were the red side of this match.
The No 77 scout Qin Xueyao and the No 93 sniper, the youth trainee of the national team,. Gui Siyang were teammates on the blue team.
After watching several matches in a row and finding no outstanding talents, the eyes of the judges were a bit tired. Yu Mingxiang refilled a round of tea for everyone and asked, “Why don’t you rest for a few minutes?”
Jiang Shaoyu looked at everyone. “Do you need to rest?”
Qi Heng said, “It’s fine. Let’s rest after the afternoon matches. The players are anxious.”
Old Xu smiled. “The matches are quite fast-paced and we are almost halfway through the afternoon matches. It isn’t a problem to hold on a bit longer.”
Jiang Shaoyu nodded. “Okay, let’s continue.”
The 7th match officially started.
The red team lurkers were numbers 3, 15, 18, 110 and 125. The blue team guardians were numbers 45, 62, 77, 93 and 113.
The judges quickly wrote the numbers of the contestants on the scoring sheet while the contestants prepared their weapons.
The random map for this match was Cross Street. The moment the match began, Qin Xueyao gave a signal before sneaking into the building complex and disappearing.
She was in the command position of the Snow Leopard team but this tryouts was full of stars. She didn’t have to open her mouth to command. In addition, she was the support type scout. If her teammates didn’t cooperate, they would only dislike her for talking a lot. It wouldn’t be too late for her to speak if no one in her team took command.
At the same time, Ye Qingming also sneaked into the building complex. He quickly moved around and walked behind the guardians in the blink of an eye.
The map of Cross Street was a typical ‘田’ structure. There were two large roads dividing the map into four small squares. There were many ways to play, with dense, high-rise buildings and a large number of forked roads. This also made it extremely difficult to find people.
However, Ye Qingming moved gracefully, like the wind. He switched to a dagger and made a continuous S-shaped detour. Within 30 seconds of the game starting, he accurately locked into the position of the guardian sniper and circled behind the opponent.
Ye Qingming’s sneak attack caught people off guard. Before Gui Siyang could react, he was shot in the back of the head.
[’No 110 Scout’ has used the Sand Eagle to kill ‘No 93 Sniper’!]
The sniper on the guardians side died too quickly and the situation opened up in an instant.
Seeing this, Zhou Yiran realized that he had matched with an excellent scout teammate in this round and immediately said, “Turn around and go in the direction of 3 o’clock.”
Ye Qingming replied, “Okay.”
Ye Zi quickly circled around in the direction of 3 o’clock and Zhou Yiran cooperated with him, running over from the other side. The two people seemed to be ‘making dumplings’ and blocked the charger and assaulter of the guardian side in the middle of an alley.
Bang bang bang!
The ferocious gunfire from the AK assault rifle was mixed with the clear firing of the Sand Eagle handgun.
The two ace players, Zhou Yiran and Ye Qingming formed a tacit cooperation and their gunshots rang out at almost the same time. The two guardians had no time to react. They were caught between front and back and instantly fell to the ground.
The medic was following his teammates but it was too late to come to their rescue. Ye Qingming quickly circled behind the medic and killed the opponent with one shot.
In less than one minute after the game started, four blue players had died and Qin Xueyao was the only one left.
Qin Xueyao wanted to cry without tears. It was really difficult to play a support. She couldn’t fight one against five, right?
However, she didn’t give up and quickly moved across the map.
Zhou Yiran said, “There is only the enemy scout left.”
Ye Qingming told him, “I’ll go look for them.”
Ye Zi searched quickly on the map, stopping from time to time. The thing that puzzled him was…
For a while, he couldn’t find the enemy scout.
Stealth scout play?
Ye Qingming raised an eyebrow. “Cooperate and search left and right synchronously.”
“Okay.”
The two people, one on the left and one on the right, started a thorough search of the hidden spots of the map.
Qin Xueyao didn’t give up. She said while running quickly, “The opponents in this match are very strong. I will delay for a while so everyone should pay attention to their positions.”
Gui Siyang was startled. He couldn’t tell the identity of this mechanical voice. However, when they were the only person alive, this No 77 teammate didn’t just die directly. They instead analyzed the opponent’s style of playing by moving quickly. Their awareness was very strong.
Gui Siyang immediately concentrated on observing the small map. He soon found that the enemy scout and assaulter were using the tacit cooperation of ‘crossing’ to lock on to the position of No 77. As the search area became smaller and smaller, No 77 was finally exposed to the gun of the enemy assaulter.
Zhou Yiran fired decisively and a wave of bullets killed Qin Xueyao.
[’No 125 Assaulter’ has used the AK-47 to kill ‘No 77 Scout’!]
The red side’s scout and assaulter were masters and could cooperate tacitly. They thought this game would be a crushing game and end directly with a score of 3:0.
Unexpectedly, the blue team’s scout was very flexible. They tenaciously dragged the enemy for 30 seconds to observe the enemy’s positioning.
In the second game, everyone was born on the map and Qin Xueyao immediately said, “Go counterclockwise. Sniper, hide first. I will report the positions to you!”
Gui Siyang cooperatively replied, “Got it.”
Qin Xueyao went around in the opposite direction to see for the enemy players. In the blink of an eye, she made a mark on the map. “The 3 o’clock direction.”
Gui Siyang quickly climbed up a tall building in the southeast corner and set up the sniper rifle. In the next moment, someone suddenly appeared in his 3 o’clock direction. The other person was very cautious but Gui Siyang fired decisively. He directly killed the charger on the enemy side with a headshot!
After firing, he immediately jumped off the tall building and sneaked into the building complex. He knew his location was exposed and the enemy scout would definitely come to try and kill him.
Gui Siyang changed to the light MSG sniper rifle to fight guerrilla warfare.
Qin Xueyao reported in time. “They passed through the middle road. Come to my side. It is safe.”
Gui Siyang quickly ran toward the area she had searched and killed the enemy medic in seconds.
At this time, the front row of both sides met in the middle and there was a fierce gunfire exchange. Qin Xueyao found that her teammates had died in the blink of an eye and only her and the sniper were left.
The situation had become 3V2.
The sniper on the opposite side was alive and there were still the two big gods.
Qin Xueyao took a deep breath and moved in the building complex like a nimble fish. She moved in an alley and went behind the enemy sniper. She held a dagger the entire time and her footsteps were very light. The enemy sniper didn’t notice her approach.
However, Gui Siyang occupied a high position and saw the vision that Qin Xueyao provided him.
Turn the gun, open the scope and snipe!
Bang!
This time, there was no need for Qin Xueyao’s reminder. Gui Siyang killed the sniper with a headshot.
It was 2V2 with two players left on both sides. The situation suddenly became tense.
Ye Qingming was thoughtful. “The enemy scout is quite interesting. I will solve the sniper. The scout will be handed over to you.”
“Okay.”
Zhou Yiran also thought the other scout was very interesting. This type of ‘stealth scouting’ style of play was rare. No 77 didn’t fire a single shot or move a knife during the whole process. It was as if they were an invisible person.
However, the scout must’ve provided the vision for the shots fired by the sniper. Otherwise, the sniper couldn’t have moved so quickly and received a head every time they moved. It was like opening a perspective cheat.
Ye Qingming and Zhou Yiran crossed positions. The former went to find the sniper and the latter went to find the scout.
At this time, the judges could see that the positions of the four players were exactly at the four vertices of an ‘X’ and they were staggered with each other.
Qin Xueyao and Gui Siyang were moving clockwise and Ye Zi and Zhou Yiran were moving counterclockwise. Like two crossed chopsticks moving in opposite directions, they would soon collide.
Suddenly, Zhou Yiran bumped into Qin Xueyao when passing a corner. He shot without hesitation but Qin Xueyao reacted very quickly. After being swept with a wave of bullets, only 10% of her health remained but she dodged behind a building and disappeared in the blink of an eye.
On the other side, Ye Qingming bumped into Gui Siyang and both of them fired at almost the same time. Gunshots rang out one after another. Ye Qingming’s speed was 0.1 seconds faster and the firing rate of a pistol was much faster than a sniper rifle. He killed the kid first.
Zhou Yiran chased and blocked from the other side, finally cutting into a short road to stop the No 77 scout. A wave of strafing killed Qin Xueyao.
The score was 2:0.
In the third game, Qin Xueyao and Gui Siyang continued to fight cooperative guerrilla warfare.
This time, their luck was better. Ye Qingming went around the left at the beginning and ended up colliding with Qin Xueyao. AS Qin Xueyao dodged, Gui Siyang immediately shot and took the lead in killing Ye Qingming.
The two of them cooperated and pulled back a point. It was 2:1.
But in the fourth game, Ye Qingming and Zhou Yiran also cooperated. The familiar cross-search strategy quickly eliminated the other guardians. Qin Xueyao and Gui Siyang were also looking for people to snipe and killed all the other players.
In the end, it became a 2V2 scene.
Zhou Yiran was the first to be found and sniped. Then Gui Siyang was killed by Ye Qingming’s knife, leaving only Ye Qingming and Qin Xueyao on the field to fight 1V1.
In the meeting room, the judges watched nervously.
It was a scout solo duel and fighting was about detailed operation and positioning. In the end, Ye Qingming was an experienced veteran of the competition. Combine this with his hand speed and reaction that went against the sky. The two people fought in a narrow alley and QIn Xueyao’s knife skills were a bit worse. She was ruthlessly killed by Ye Qingming!
3:1, the lurkers won.
Qin Xueyao felt a bit lost as she looked at the grayed out screen. She should’ve just met gods of the A-grade League, right? Their level was too strong. No matter how she moved, she would be found by the opponent and she couldn’t fight with her knife. It was really miserable.
Her sniper teammate was pretty good and should be the MVP of this match? There was a high probability that she had dropped out of the running.
However, Qin Xueyao had a good mentality. She needed to have such psychological strength to play a support. If they won, her teammates could have good records but if they lost, she was quite powerless.
Qin Xueyao exited the game room. She didn’t know that the judges in the meeting room were currently discussing her.
“I’m quite interested in this No 77 scout. They assist their teammates by providing vision and the overall view of the situation is very strong!”
“The level of command is also good. If it wasn’t for No 77 stalling for time and observing the opponent, they would’ve lost very badly. It is good to have such awareness when at a disadvantage. One should stabilize the situation and seek a way to reverse the situation.”
“If this type of scout is paired with strong teammates, they can improve the combat ability of the whole team, right?”
“Yes, they can provide vision to the whole team.”
“The No 93 sniper also performed very well. Their response was quick and their marksmanship accurate. I think both of them can receive high scores and we will continue to observe them in the next round.”
The coaching staff’s scores were quickly summarized by Qin Bo.
In this match, four people got high scores. Jiang Shaoyu felt very pleased. He had guessed who this scout was. Fortunately, the other coaches also praised Qin Xueyao.
The judges he invited all had a ‘heart for talent’ and looked at people very accurately.
Even if they lost the game, as long as they didn’t give up easily, playing every game carefully and seeking breakthroughs in a disadvantageous situation, their spirit and perseverance would be seen by the sharp-eyed coaches and given high scores.
In this open selection competition, those selected weren’t ‘winners’ with a good record but good seedlings with potential and strength.
Winning might be beautiful but the losing side was also worthy of recognition as long as they went all out and played at their own level.