Novis was confused by what he had just heard. Just the other day he had seen the club room completely packed. VSW was the most popular game in the world and the club had at least 50 members, but right now Alex and Scarlett were telling him they were the only members left.

"You saw the person leave right now, didn't you? everyone has been coming to me nonstop to quit." Alex explained.

"Do you know why?" Novis asked.

Alex clenched his fist before answering

"It's Mac, he's threatening everyone who is in the club or anyone who wants to join."

Novis felt bad, Scarlett had explained what was happening in the club. If Novis had never helped out in the first place then perhaps they still could have gone to the tournament. Mac clearly held a grudge against him and Scarlett and was punishing the club for it.

"Even if I was to join, including Scarlett that only makes three of us. We still wouldn't be able to join the tournament."

Alex remained silent. He knew Novis was right. Even if he could convince Novis to join the team would there be anyone else willing to join? There were very few people who would be willing to go against Mac and his gang.

Although Novis would have liked to help there was nothing he could do. Arthur had already beaten Mac. Another beating wasn't going to do anything.

With no other option left, Novis decided to leave the two of them and head home.

Alex currently felt so useless, his eyes started to water up. His dream was slowly fading away in front of him and there was nothing he could do.

"Don't worry Alex, I'm sure we will be able to find someone. I'll talk to my friends. Even if their complete beginners I'm sure we can do something to train them up in time." Scarlett said.

Just then, the clubrooms doors slid open and in walked a tall athletic blonde boy. It was Dan.

"Hi is this the VSW club room?" Dan asked.

Alex and Scarlett looked at each other and smiled.

****

Novis's mind was distracted by the situation at the VSW club. If perhaps he was stronger then he could guarantee the protection of the other students. He could do this with the help of Arthur but it felt wrong of him to rely on Arthurs help every time.

When Novis arrived home, he went straight into his gaming capsule to play a few games. He had this pent-up energy that he needed to release.

As he went online, he selected the warrior Heros puer. Novis wanted to see how far he had come and hoped he would be able to improve his ranking.

Novis went ahead and selected the middle position. He wanted to focus on one on one battles to improve his fighting abilities. The first game went well. Novis defeated his opponent only using the Chain blade but his opponent was far too weak for him to learn anything.

He carried on pushing forward with his red army until eventually reaching the blue base and capturing the flag. Novis thought at this rate, he would be out of the bronze rankings in no time and people would no longer be able to look down on him.

The next match, again Novice selected mid, this time he decided to use the dual blades. Every game he wanted to practice using a different weapon to improve himself in battle. This game was similar to the last. Novis easily defeated his opponent. But as soon as he did, he heard his teammates urging him to come back to the base as soon as possible.

Before Novis could reach his base, the enemy team had captured the flag. Novis thought there was nothing he could do and was just unlucky that he had bad teammates.

Then the next match a similar thing happened. As soon as Novis was about to defeat his opponent, the player ran away behind his tower. Novis would then push forward and the player would come back all healed up. The person would keep repeating this until Novice heard the system message.

<Red Team losses>

Novis was starting to get annoyed, Novis continued to play the game but the matches ended up in the same pattern. Every time he would win a game, he would lose two games never allowing him to rank up.

Novis was getting frustrated, he would always overpower the person in mid but still would keep losing his games. Novis left the capsule and tried to think about what went wrong.

"Arthur do you know what I'm doing wrong?"

"Hmm. It seems like to me your focus on the opponent in front of you and not on the whole game."

"But I'm doing the same thing you did aren't I."

"Yes, but it seems like the teammates I would play with had a better understanding of the game. They reacted the battlefield well and gave instructions well. The players you are playing with are inexperienced, perhaps they need guidance."

Novis thought about what Arthur said, but Arthur wasn't able to help him much because when he played the game the players, he played along with were more skilful due to their rank being in gold. He needed the help of someone who had gone through the ranks before. From a lowly bronze tier to a high tier.

Then it hit him, there was a person who had done that exact thing before. He was even living under the same roof as himself, his brother Bill.

Novis quickly stormed into his brother's room. Novis explained to Bill that he had a problem ranking up but didn't think it was his skill level. The two of them then decided to watch Novis's games together.

"To be honest you're not doing anything wrong, eventually you should rank up like this."

"What do you mean?"

"Well look at it this way, if both teams are playing with random players and there in the same rank as you. If you played 1000 games then it should eventually even out to a 50/50-win rate. If you truly don't belong in that tier range, then your skill level will tip the tables. How good you are will decide how often you win your matches. All you need is a higher win rate than 50% to rank up."

Novis understood what his brother meant. That if he was truly good at the game then eventually, he would rank up causing the balance between the teams to tip. But Novis wanted to get stronger, currently, he was playing against incredibly week people and wouldn't be able to play with stronger people for a while.

Bill saw that Novis didn't like his answer.

"There is another way, play with someone experienced. They can call the shots for you and tell your team what to do. If I was in your games, I would be bossing all the useless people around. The problem with Bronze 5 is that it's the lowest rank possible. Meaning there really is a big difference in people's skill level down there. There might be people who deserve to be ranked even lower than that but they can't get any lower. We call this elo hell."

"But I haven't played the game for long, I don't really know how to get out of this elo hell?"

"Then play with someone who does."

"Can I play with you?"

"Unfortunately, our ranks are too far apart, you can only team up with people two whole ranks higher than you. If you're in bronze you can play with a silver or gold at best."

Novis had gotten his answer but still didn't really know what he could do to improve his win rate. Arthur wasn't the best at tactics he was only good at coaching a fight.

Just as Novis was about to leave the room, his brother called out to him.

"Hey bro, if you really think you got better, how about a one on one," Bill asked.

________________________________

Gaming terms.

Elo Hell: Is a term used by players when they are unable to rank up, due to bad players causing you to lose the game.