Compared to character level, skills could directly increase one’s combat prowess.

Hao Tian sent out skills one after another and chased his opponent to the edge of the arena platform.

Hong!

Suddenly, Star Chess released a burst of energy from his body, causing a shockwave of flame to break Hao Tian’s series of attacks.

“Star Chess has used Energy Burst!” exclaimed the commentator.

There were three ways to win in these fights. One could either directly defeat one’s opponent, have one’s opponent surrender, or force them off the platform. Star Chess was already forced to the edge and had no choice to but to activate his Energy Burst.

However, the next moment, Hao Tian also used his Energy Burst, and as if a raging wild bull, he rushed at Star Chess and threw a heavy punch that broke through Star Chess’ defense and landed right on his chest.

Boom!

The muffled sound of the impact rang out!

Star Chess lost his footing, fell off the platform, and crashed onto the ground, causing clouds of dust to rise up.

“The winner is Hao Tian!” announced the commentator in a booming voice.

“He won!” the spectators screamed in excitement, and Hao Tian’s fans all stood up and cheered for him.

The screams from tens of thousands of people flooded the arena like a tsunami!

Star Chess was led off the center with eyes full of regret. Although this opening fight was held more for the sake of showmanship, and neither of the pro player would be disqualified regardless of the result, it was still a great chance to gain popularity. Winning under the eyes of tens of thousands of people was the best way to prove one’s reputation. But now that he had lost, most of the spotlight was on Hao Tian, unlike he had planned.

But it was what it was. Since he had lost fair and square, although Star Chess was unhappy, he still suppressed his emotions.

Red Phoenix bent her waist and walked onto the center of the platform with a smile. “Thanks to both of the pro players for bringing to us such a high level fight. Master Star Chess, you unfortunately lost. Do you have anything you would like to say?”

Star Chess collecting himself and forced out a smile. “It was an enjoyable fight. I got to witness how strong the young man is. He has a lot of potential. People like him will be able to take on my generation’s torch and fight for glory on the international stage…”

This was obviously just a formality. By using formal language and constantly mentioning the ‘young’ and ‘older’ players, Star Chess was secretly emphasizing the fact that he was a veteran.

“Thank you for your thoughts.”

Red Phoenix turned to Hao Tian and said, “Master Hao Tian, do you have anything you would like to say?”

Hao Tian stretched his hand for the microphone. Red Phoenix was glad as she thought that Hao Tian was finally going to say something and quickly passed him her microphone.

Hao Tian stared at Star Chess for a while expressionlessly.

“Are you only here to earn some pocket change or something?”

He then dropped the mic and left without another word. He evidently did not care about keeping up small talk with Star Chess at all.

Star Chess’s expression turned ugly, and veins were almost popping out of his head. He gritted his teeth.

How could he say something in front of so many spectators‽ Star Chess was furious.

The audience in the arena was instantly sent into an uproar, and Red Phoenix hurriedly tried to smooth things out.

…

“Kid’s got character. I like it,” Han Xiao said as he smirked.

He remembered Hao Tian from the past. This fellow did not bother with the bullsh*t that came with being a pro, and he hated being under the spotlight. He focused on training himself all the time and was very professional and righteous. In other words, a combination of a gaming nerd and a simpleton.

Han Xiao’s requirement when looking for players to cultivate was basically just how popular and how much potential the player had in his past life. It was not that he looked down on noobs or anything, but pros simply offered him a better return as they could utilize his resources to a better effect.

With the current resources at his disposal, Han Xiao could easily cultivate a player to a point where they were invincible among the current players. However, he did not do this as it was not beneficial in the long run. All the benefits that Han Xiao had been providing Frenzied Sword and the others with were more or less logical compared to the current players’ level.

Although the current players had weak attributes, this did not mean that they were bad at controlling their characters. With that in mind, Han Xiao could still learn a lot from the players. Despite how overpowered he currently was on Planet Aquamarine, the new techniques that he had learned from the players would prove useful in future fights.

Countering various abilities, performing countermeasures in emergencies, movement control, overall macro… and so on were all part of professional tournaments.

Players all developed in their own ways, and watching all the different powers clash against each other was one of the interesting aspects of these fights. For example, although Hao Tian did not have Star Chess’s [Ground Stomp], he was able to use other trump cards. Being able to utilize this variety of skills to their full capacity and even combine them in fights was what differentiated pros from regular players.

Moreover, being able to develop oneself properly also counted as a strength. Take boxing as an example. If Person A worked hard every day to train himself, while person B slacks off all day long, naturally, A would have a physical advantage over B in a fight. Or maybe A had better connections and could find a teacher to teach him new moves, while B could only train by himself. There was no rule that said A had to stop and wait for B to catch up.

This logic could also be applied to players. Be it farming monsters, complete missions, or looting for better equipment, no matter how prepared one was, in an actual fight, it would all come down to one’s performance. Maybe due to his lack of practice, B would get pummeled by A the whole fight. But just before B was about to lose, he might catch on to a mistake A made and turn the round with a one hit KO. Something like this was extremely common in tournaments.

Competitions would often produce with unexpected results, and this was what made it all so interesting.

The chance for Han Xiao to venture off into the stars would not come for another four or five months. As this was right in the middle of the tournament season, Han Xiao planned to take this time to look for more potential lackeys. For him, players were currently the most valuable resource on the entire planet.

After the ceremony, the arena started off the regular matches. All ten battle platforms had one referee, and all had ongoing matches at the same time. There were about ten thousand players who had registered for the tournament, and they were all currently going through the first elimination round. Each match was fairly straightforward and only took around ten minutes on average.

Only when the elimination stage entered the final rounds would the tournament slow down, giving time for the players to be introduced one by one.

As Frenzied Sword and Bun-hit-dog’s matches were held on a different day, Han Xiao got bored and went to the forums after switching between several fights.

There were a lot of players who were excitedly discussing about the opening fight. Hao Tian’s performance invited a lot of praise, and Long Sky Club also released their official message, congratulating Hao Tian for seizing victory in the opening fight.

…

A few days later…

Players were eliminated one after another, and the audience’s excitement was higher than ever. Han Xiao was also rejoicing from this.

Aside from selling merchandise, creating more tools, and training with Hila, he spent most of his free time watching the fights. He mainly paid attention to the team battles where two teams would try to fight each other to the last man on a random map. Each team was allowed to send in six players.

Pugilist, Esper, and Mechanic. These three classes had drastically different combat styles and allowed for a large variety of team combinations and skill chaining. Moreover, taking into account of terrain differences, team battles were much more entertaining to watch than the individual battles.

The more common teams were composed of a main tank, melee attacker, ranged attacker, and someone in charge of crowd control. The specific numbers for each role would differ depending on the team’s tactics.

Pugilist was naturally the most popular class for the main tanks.

Espers, on the other hand, were more of a jack of all trades. Due to their varying abilities, Espers could take on both melee and ranged roles in a fight.

Mechanics played the role of the main attacker and dealt outburst damage under their teammate’s protection.