Gold Medal Coach

The Capital E-sports Center was a large venue with upper and lower floors that could accommodate hundreds of thousands of spectators. In previous years, the A-grade League finals were held here. Of course, there weren’t as many spectators for the Rising Star Cup and the competition venue was only open on the first floor.

The coaching staff from the national team came to the field ahead of schedule after having lunch.

This was the second time that Jiang Shaoyu had come to the Capital E-sports Center.

Looking at the familiar double story stadium in front of him, Jiang Shaoyu remembered the scene when he took the ACE team to the finals. He was only 18 years old and as he walked into the stadium with his teammates, he was surrounded by the deafening screams of fans.

In the blink of an eye, five years had passed.

Today, he returned to this arena as the coach of the national team.

Jiang Shaoyu stopped at the door for a moment. Back then, he walked in here with his teammates with the spirit of a last-ditch battle. Then ACE won the finals, creating the legendary story of a grassroots team defeating a giant club.

Today, he came here with the idea of selecting potential seeds to witness the birth of a new generation of e-sports players.

Among them was Pei Feng, the apprentice he personally trained.

He believed there were many talented newcomers in China who would go from this arena to the world.

The group came to the front row of guest seats and sat down.

At 1:30 p.m., the audience successively entered the venue. Pei Feng had many fans and the influence of big streamers really couldn’t be underestimated. Lin Hai’s cheering group was also very large. They even specially made glow sticks, posters, avatars and other support items. To Jiang Shaoyu’s surprise, there was another player who had many fans. They held a huge poster with the colorful words: Flowers are free to fly. The pollen will always be with you.’

It was really flashy.

Jiang Shaoyu couldn’t help wondering, “Whose fans are these?”

Qin Bo had already checked the finalists thoroughly. He heard this and said, “This contestant is the leader of the large players’ union, the ‘Iron Blood Legion’ in the online game. The audience members holding the poster should be members of the Iron Blood Legion.”

Jiang Shaoyu raised an eyebrow. “The Iron Blood Legion?”

Why did it sound like a strong chuunibyou disease?

Qin Bo added, “It is the one you paid attention to before, the one who played in a special manner.”

Jiang Shaoyu nodded. He really did have an impression of the ID [Hua Hua Da Shao]. His current win rate was 100% and he liked to use throwing weapons. He liked the stream of consciousness game style and bombarded people wildly. He could actually win all the way to the final round… it was interesting.

Jiang Shaoyu retracted his gaze from the audience. He picked up the tablet and looked down to continue the analysis that Qin Bo had handed him.

At this time, the lounge in the backstage area.

A middle-aged man wearing a mask was whispering to Lin Hai, “Fred is best at long distance sniping. Don’t fight him head on. You have an advantage in melee combat. The finals are seven rounds and it is a best of four system. We have two chances to choose a map. If we win on the home map then we just need to win one or two random maps to stabilize.

Lin Hai nodded. “Yes, I know how to fight.”

The middle-aged man said, “President Zhang personally came to the scene today. Don’t let him down.”

Lin Hai laughed and raised an eyebrow. “Rest assured, Coach Cheng. I can’t guarantee if I can win the championship but winning against Fred isn’t a big problem.”

Ever since Fred left, Lin Hai suddenly became the most popular streamer on the Xing Network.

This time, he signed up for the Rising Stars Cup and specially found a professional coach from a big club to do targeted training for him.

Fred claimed to be a ‘technique streamer’ but his ranking in the national server wasn’t that different from Lin Hai. He also led a boss in the low-end rankings every day. He might’ve been a youth trainee of the ACE team and the apprentice of God Wing… but he had been away from ACE for five years!

An e-sports player couldn’t keep up with the rhythm without training for a week. A streamer who hadn’t trained for five years couldn’t maintain the level of a professional player, right?

Lin Hai’s special training for a week and all types of tactical plans were arranged for Pei Feng.

Even the maps were carefully selected after consultation with the coach.

He had two goals for this competition.

First, it was to win popularity and absorb the fans who remained with Xing Network after Pei Feng jumped ship. The second was to defeat Pei Feng.

As far as the national team was concerned, he wasn’t interested. The income of a streamer was much higher than that of the youth trainees of the national team.

Pei Feng had just jumped ship and hadn’t stood firmly yet. As long as he defeated Pei Feng in the Rising Stars Cup and made Pei Feng fall here, it wouldn’t be easy to get up in the future. If Pei Feng fell, was there any need to ask who would be the top streamer of Gun King?

Lin Hai smiled in a very happy mood.

He had to see if he could get Fred in the draw later. He just hoped that Fred wouldn’t be killed so quickly.

—

At 2 o’clock, the host came to the stage and said with a smile, “Good afternoon everyone, welcome to the finals of the first Rising Star Cup challenge! Let us welcome the top 16 players from all over the country to the final round with warm applause!”

There was loud applause at the scene. The groups of relatives and friends were shouting the names of those they were supporting.

Pei Feng was the last to come to the stage. He was wearing simple jeans and a black long-sleeved t-shirt. The capital in February was still very cold but the venue was heated. He looked handsome and neat in such clothing.

Pei Feng stood still on the stage and looked down below the stage. Sure enough, he saw a familiar figure in the front row of the guest seat. He smiled at Jiang Shaoyu. Jiang Shaoyu had no expression on his face and there was only a very calm look in his eyes.

Pei Feng put away his smile and obediently stood on the stage.

Lin Hai was standing next to him and took the initiative to greet him. “Hi, Fred. Long time no see.”

Pei Feng also nodded politely. “Yes, hello Brother Hai.”

The audience below the stage burst out screaming. “Fred will win!”

”JIayou Fred!”

“Brother Hai is awesome!”

”Brother Hai, jiayou!”

Jiang Shaoyu had a headache from the noise and rubbed his ears. Then he set his eyes on the big screen.

The information of the participants was displayed on the screen and the host introduced the participants in turn. This was followed by announcing the rules of the game. “The final round is a knockout system of seven rounds and four wins. Each player can choose two maps and the system will randomly choose three. The first to win four rounds will win!”

“The medics will also join the matching queue. If you encounter a medic player, you will use the time limited method. If the medic survives for 10 minutes then it will be judged to be the medic’s victory. If the medic is killed within 10 minutes, it is judged to be the opponent’s victory.”

“Next, the first round of the draw will follow. The system will randomly match players!”

The names of the top 16 players appeared randomly on the big screen. Soon, the screen froze.

The first match of the final round: Fred vs Brother Hai.

There was an uproar and the fans on both sides of the audience screamed with excitement.

The big screen switched to the live stream screen and the two commentators screamed with excitement.

“Welcome to the live stream of the Rising Stars Cup finals. I am the official commentator Xiao Hu.”

“I am the commentator Ah Yan.”

“The results of the first draw have come out. It is Fred and Brother Hai’s showdown… both of them are very popular technique streamers. This time, they passed through the hurdles of the Rising Stars Cup and reached the finals with a 100% win rate. I didn’t expect them to meet in the first round of the finals.

“Yes, the final round is a knockout format so the loser is directly eliminated. I believe that neither player wants to be out. This match will definitely be very exciting. Let’s wait and see!”

The ratings of the official live stream room soared by dozens of times in an instant when people heard that the first match of the final round was directly between Fred and Brother Hai. Fans of the two streamers quickly opened the live stream software and dense characters suddenly filled the screen.

“F*k, the first direct civil war between two big streamers?”

“It is fun!”

“Freed, I am cheering for you, Kill that Lin Hai.”

“I bet that Lin Hai will win!”

Both sides had supporters.

Formerly, the two of them were streamers supported by the Xing Network but they had never formally played against each other, even in the rankings. Therefore, Brother Hai’s fans said he was the ‘number one assaulter’ in the streamer circle while Pei Feng’s fans said he was the most ‘skilled sniper’. Who was stronger? They would find out today.

At this time, in the VIP seats on the other side, the boss of Xing Network and Coach Cheng wearing a mask were chatting with their heads down.

“President Zhang, don’t worry. Lin Hai has participated in my training during this period and the effect was very good. He originally had the standard to play professionally. I have specifically studied Fred’s style of play and chose two maps for this purpose. Bumping into him in advance is actually a good thing. As long as he is defeated in a PK, Lin Hai’s status in the streamer circle will definitely surpass Fred’s.”

“Yes, Coach Cheng has worked hard.” The boss of Xing Network, Zhang Ruiming said with a smile.

Fred jumping ship to another platform had a great impact on the popularity of the Xing Network.

He hadn’t expected that the backend traffic of the Gun King section would plummet 15% in the previous month. The loss of users was serious and it was a very scary phenomenon. The Xing Network had to seize this time to promote a top streamer who was more popular than Fred to win back old users and attract new users to sign up.

The Rising Stars Cup was his best chance.

—

Lin Hai and Pei Feng walked to the main stage one after another. Both streamers were alphas and they were equally good looking. However, Pei Feng was more sunny and handsome while Lin Hai was more mature and stable. As for their strength, they hadn’t played against each other. From the point of view of the national server’s peak competition, there wasn’t much difference. Therefore, President Zhang was quite confident. After all, Lin Hai had been studying with Coach Cheng of a wealthy club during this period of time and had developed a play style specially for Fred.

Lin Hai had a very good chance of winning.

The two of them walked into the soundproof room and checked their equipment.

This competition allowed players to bring their own equipment. Pei Feng brought his keyboard and mouse set, which had a different color from Jiang Shaoyu’s set. The lower right corner of the keyboard and the middle of the mouse were engraved with the ‘Fred’ logo. In order to be consistent with his master’s ‘Wing’, his ‘Fred’ also had a pair of cute wings.

The two of them put on their headphones and the referee confirmed that there were no problems with the computers of both players. Then he waved to signal the start of the match.

In the commentary seats, the two commentators immediately became excited.

“The match is about to start. Let’s enter the first round between Fred and Lin Hai!”

“It is a sniper vs an assaulter. Each one has a chance of winning. A sniper has a long range but a small number of bullets. They rely heavily on terrain conditions and must find sniper points suitable for hiding. An assaulter’s requirements for the terrain aren’t so high and they can go head on, sweeping the opponent to death with a wave of fire!”

“Yes, at the beginning of the game, the two sides randomly drew lots. Lin Hai drew the first hand!”

“Let’s look forward to Lin Hai’s self-selected map in the first game. The map he submitted is…”

“The Circular Corridor!”

There was an uproar as soon as this map appeared.

The barrage floated in the live stream room like snowflakes.

“F*k! This map has no sniper points at all!”

“This is a secret room map and is especially suitable for chargers, assaulters and scouts.”

“Choosing such a narrow room map when fighting a sniper? Lin Hai is really disgusting!”

“The rules of the competition allow the players to choose their own maps. Is there a problem with Brother Hai choosing the maps that he is good at?”

Lin Hai smiled. He was obviously very confident.

This map had a very simple three star difficulty but for snipers who needed to finding hiding places to snipe—

It was a nightmare.

The Circular Corridor, as the name suggested, was a ‘回’ shaped passageway with four corridors connected together with four corridors.

If a fight broke out between players then it could only be at the corners of the corridors.

How could one snipe around the corner?

By the time he opened the camera and aimed, the opponent would’ve swept him into a honeycomb.

The advantage of a sniper was their ultra long range. They just needed to occupy the high terrain and they would be able to kill the opponent with one shot without the opponent being able to get close. This type of secret square room with a narrow terrain, a cramped space and four corners had almost no room for a sniper to play.

Lin Hai’s targeted selection map was excellent.

The commentators couldn’t help worrying. “This map is very unfavorable for snipers.”

“Yes, it is a map of pure melee combat. There is no way for a sniper to shoot.”

“It depends on how Fred responds.”

Pei Feng’s performance was very calm and he just smiled slightly after he saw the map.

He didn’t frown at all.

The map was selected and the players on both sides chose their guns. Pei Feng quickly selected the AK12-Dark Night, a lightweight assault rifle gun. His secondary weapon was the Poisonous Bee Dagger, a dagger with a poisoning effect after stabbing the enemy. His third weapon slot was the smoke bombs.

The commentator Xiao Hu was stunned. “He… isn’t carrying a sniper rifle?”

Ah Yan’s mind returned. “In this map, you can’t play at all if you choose a sniper rifle. It is better to fight with a rifle. However, didn’t I hear that Fred is a very powerful sniper? How can he play with a rifle?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen him play with a rifle.”

Lin Hai was the king of AK rifles in the streamer circle and the strongest assaulter in the streamer circle.

Pei Feng was playing as an assaulter against Lin Hai? Were they mistaken?

Everyone had such doubts.

Jiang Shaoyu was the only one in the audience who looked calm, as if he had long predicted this.

Yu Mingxiang said with a smile, “It seems like Xiao Pei is about to become serious? Everyone doesn’t know this but in the past, you let the players of ACE take turns to abuse him and he mastered the gameplay of various positions.”

Jiang Shaoyu leaned back against his chair, his eyes cold and sharp. “The apprentice I trained… how can he be so easy to target?”

The first lesson Jiang Shaoyu taught to Pei Feng when he received this apprentice was: Get up whenever you fall. People who give up easily aren’t worthy of playing e-sports.

Lesson 2: To beat your opponent, you must know your opponent well.

How to kill a player in the assaulter, charger, scout and medic positions. You need to first know how to play those positions yourself.

This was also the reason why Jiang Shaoyu had Ye Zi, Xiao Zhou and Lao Lin abuse Pei Feng in turn.

Jiang Shaoyu had retired for so many years but he could still kill all the Gourd Babies of the national team with a rifle, a dagger, a sniper rifle and a pistol.

As Jiang Shaoyu’s direct apprentice, how could Pei Feng not even know the most basic gun control?

Fred was definitely a very good sniper. But he…

Didn’t just use sniper rifles.