369 Chapter 369: Operation Metro (1/2)
The city hall where the students had gathered to watch their captains' match was full. The spectator seats were packed to maximum capacity as hundreds of students squeezed together and craned their heads to stare at the massive holographic screen that depicted the current stage. The captains had just been teleported to the metro station, and were turned invisible so that they could \”spawn\” wherever they wanted.
Fortunately, Harrison had already agreed beforehand where to meet up with his allies, and they chose to do so above ground, right outside the station and beside a nearby café that was just within range of the boundary of the map. Even though there was such an immense holographic screen projected at the center of the stadium-like hall, most students chose instead to consult their personal smartphones and beamed much smaller screens in front of them.
Noticeably, students from the same academy tended to cluster in front of a single hologram, where the vice-captain of their team would sweep his or her finger across to adjust the location they were viewing. Presumably, they were aware of the \”spawn location\” for their team captains, having discussed where he or she should best start off in.
\”Interesting…\”
Beside us was Divine Divination Academy. Ding Ke Po was watching the screen that was being projected by his vice-captain – a girl with long, purple hair and a hairband with yellow star patterns against its dark blue material – but he glanced toward us when he spoke. Evidently he was including our Jing Tian Academy in the discussion, especially since we agreed to ally for the qualifiers. A coalition formed since yesterday night, we extended it to several other academies, including Aurora Academy and other less known but definitely honorable ones.
\”From what we gathered, it seemed that everyone split into two teams for this last qualifying stage. Given the close confines and restrictive environment, everyone seemed to have agreed that they are better off allying with others instead of trying to tackle this stage alone. So it's a pretty even split, with twenty-five members in each team.\”
\”Did the tournament staff foresaw this?\” Craig chuckled, shaking his head in disbelief. \”To think we really ended up doing a team deathmatch for the final qualifying stage. Or perhaps this was always their intention?\”
\”But it makes no sense.\” Sheila looked puzzled. \”The match will go on until there are ten participants left. Why would they divide into groups of twenty-five?\”
\”Didn't you read the details in the latest email that they sent us this morning?\” Lily scowled at her. \”The format for this match is different from all the other stages. Unlike the other stages, participants will respawn after they are killed. The match will end after about thirty minutes, and the total points tally will be added to each academy's score. You get points for 'killing' another participant, so the more you 'kill,' the points you get. Whenever you get 'killed,' you automatically respawn. While this gives you a chance to get back in the game, this also means that the opponent can increase the gap between you and him or her if he or she repeatedly targets and kills you.\”
In other words, there was the potential for less skilled players to end up being used as farming materials for the more skilled ones. I remembered how awful it felt to be on the receiving end of one-sided matches where…the other team was essentially filled with smurfs who liked forming teams to crush newbies. Games tended to be fun…until it became extremely one-sided where the other party was literally toying with you. I never understood where the appeal lay. Wouldn't it be boring to watch or play a match where the outcome was already decided from the beginning? The same thing could be said for most xianxia stories as well – when the protagonist was curbstomping all of his opponents while being at the pinnacle of godhood (just look at Li Fu Chen from Eternal Reverence, for example), then where was the fun in reading it? We already know he was going to simply steamroll his opponents with his thousands of techniques. There were no stakes, no tension, nothing. And with Li Fu Chen already reaching the peak near the beginning of the story and essentially becoming a god, where could he go from there? Even the infamous map change and power creep didn't make sense.
Back to the topic at hand, I fervently prayed that it wouldn't end up in such a situation. Harrison and his team getting utterly crushed when the match hadn't even neared the middle would be a very dispiriting and discouraging sight. Not to mention absolutely frustrating. No one liked to be on the receiving end of a humiliating defeat.
\”The winning team gets ten points per player,\” Yue Chu added helpfully.
\”It can't be helped,\” I murmured in Sheila's defense. \”We were hardly given any time to read the email. They literally sent us the details of the new format an hour before the stage officially started. Even Harrison was caught off guard.\”
\”This really is team deathmatch, huh?\”
Yue Chu turned to me, still mired in disbelief. He shook his head as he stared at me in awe and suspicion.
\”How did you guess that? Even the Divine Divination Academy didn't predict that the format for the final stage will turn out to be a team deathmach.\”
\”That's only because they weren't allowed to use their magic to find out what the format for the final stage would be,\” I pointed out. Much like how I wasn't allowed to use summoning magic before a match, other participants were obviously disallowed from casting spells before the match that would directly influence the outcome. Otherwise everyone would begin casting their ultimate spells right before the match started, stroll right in, wait for the bell, and then immediately unleash Armageddon right from the first second. That was completely unfair and against the spirit of competition. And I agreed with that logic, to be fair. \”If they were allowed to use their magic to divine the format, they would probably have predicted this as well.\”
\”Actually, I heard that the change to team deathmatch was decided at the very last minute,\” one of the Divine Divination Academy students said. \”The tournament staff caught wind of the participants going around and organizing alliances and forming what appeared to be two very large teams, and they decided to just turn this stage into a deathmatch between two teams.\”
\”That explains why we received the second email so much later,\” Theodore mused. We only received news of the new rules this morning, almost an entire night after we received the email notifying us that the final map would be the Metro. And also after Harrison ran around trying to forge an alliance together with several other schools. If I recalled, he managed to band nine other students together, rallying them to his cause and convincing them that the Divine Divination Academy captain would be useful.
Now it was time to see if he was right. The Divine Divination Academy's intelligence was pretty spot on – the tournament staff, evidently being aware of the alliances forged last night had placed all of Harrison's hastily conceived coalition together in the same team, along with fifteen others. From what I learned later, another ten out of the fifteen had also decided to ally together last night, with three of the remaining five in a group, and the last two members being strays who couldn't be bothered with alliances and whatever.
\”They turned friendly fire off,\” Cody observed as he consulted the details in his email. \”So the two teams don't have to worry about hitting their own teammates with their spells.\”
Take note, this was only possible because they had set up the same boundary field that prevented deaths in official duels. That was also how they were able to \”revive\” and respawn the participants who were \”killed\” during the match. The students would never truly die, after all. Not unless they cast a spell powerful enough to destroy the boundary field that was enveloping the simulated battlefield.
\”Wouldn't the team with the healers have the advantage?\” Pearl asked with a frown. That was right. Prior to the fifth match, and throughout the entire second qualifying round, there were complains from a few teams regarding how it was compulsory that the captain participate in the fifth match. After all, the captain was not necessarily the strongest or most powerful mage in the team, but rather the most skilled or charismatic person who could pull the entire team together and coax them to cooperate flawlessly.
Consequently, the captains from several academies were healers. They possessed great tactical ingenuity or had overwhelming personalities that were capable of weaving various individuals into a closely knitted cohesive unit, but they didn't necessarily have great combat ability. Therefore there were complaints that this fifth round would be unfair to these healer-type captains. Of course, the tournament staff merely listened stoically, but said nothing regarding the matter.
Perhaps they had taken that into account, after all, and decided that it would be best to see how these captains could work together as a team despite being thrown in with complete strangers. That certainly would be an impotant skill in real life. After all, you couldn't always choose your teammates, and were often forced to work with who you had rather than who you would prefer to have.