Chapter 177: Chapter 176: Finder’s Keepers

As I watched Bihena play through her rounds, I began to get more of an appreciation for her talent in strategizing. I could tell that she hadn’t learned some of the secrets of the game yet, like how you could unlock special types of items by finding different resources. Even I hadn’t been aware of that until another Keeper told me.

Yet, even without that she was always a step ahead of her enemy. In every game, I saw a pattern from her. She would sacrifice a single troop at the start as a scout to locate the enemy and identify their racial characteristics. After that, she began to create and enact plans to counter that specific type of enemy.

Like this, she managed to win match after match. The only time that she seemed to struggle was when she met an opponent with a similar style of play. Both had sacrificed a scout in order to check the enemy’s race and location. And this led them both to playing on the defensive until they had built up their forces for a frontal clash.

Out of all twenty of her matches, or at least the ones that I watched, she played the Battle Mode for all but two of them. In one, her opponent agreed to the Culture Mode, which Bihena won by a narrow margin. And in the other, she suffered her one loss when playing the Exploration Mode.

Because Bihena still chose to use humans, her opponent had an easy victory in that match by playing the Arachne. With their numbers and speed advantage, it only took them a few minutes to explore a hundred percent of the map, before Bihena had even sent her troops out.

In the end, Bihena solidified her first place lead with a total of nineteen wins, and one loss. The second place went to someone with only one less victory, while third went to Kathy. I could see a proud smile on Bihena’s face as she stood on the podium, shaking hands with the companion that had hosted the event.

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