Chapter 12 Tactics The achievement “Breaking Bad”, +600 points…
But no matter how bad it was, how bad could it get… That was what Li Qingming thought.
Then, after being continuously slaughtered by Si Yan for several matches, all four of them fell silent.
“Are the four of us, truly, even human?”
Looking at the post-match settlement screen showing all four humans eliminated, Li Qingming slowly moved his hands away from the keyboard and mouse, hugging his head.
Clearly, Mu Jiu also hadn’t expected them to be beaten like this. He pursed his lips and remained silent. This was indeed the first setback he encountered after returning, making him clearly understand the gap between his current self and top-tier players.
Si Yan cast a faint glance over the few of them, his fingers tracing over his water bottle. Their mechanics actually weren’t a big problem; the problem likely lay in the shotcalling.
Just like how the humans in Wuxian Weidu were divided into four roles based on their skill specialties—Deciphering, Support, Rescue, and Kiting—the bosses also had different roles based on which aspect made it easier for them to control the game’s pacing: Pursuit, Camp, and Map Control.
For example, Xuenv‘s skills could deal damage to survivors. Once a human was put on the dissociation table, it was also quite difficult for teammates to rescue them, leaning more towards Pursuit and Camp.
He thought Mu Jiu and the others should still be able to trade blows back and forth. After all, the fundamentals of all four were quite good; they could stably kite and rescue. However, the bad part was that most of the characters in his pool were of the Map Control type.
Map Control-type Controllers had high mobility. By dragging out the match, they could gradually deplete the humans’ statuses and items, achieving the goal of chronic suicide.
His commonly used boss, Huzhong Ying (Shadow in the Lake), was a very typical Map Control boss. Its skill allowed it to place circular water abysses of different sizes within the instance map. Its main body could shuttle between different water abysses, acting as a built-in “mini-teleport”. Huzhong Ying could also adjust the flow of time within the water abyss to speed up or slow down.
In the few training matches they played, his early-game pursuit pacing wasn’t good because Huzhong Ying lacked skills to quickly kill humans. Even if he placed a slowing water abyss, humans would quickly rotate to another spot, rendering the water abyss useless.
Therefore, his strategy was: after initiating the downing pacing, he placed an accelerating water abyss in the area of the dissociation table to pressure the rescue role, while simultaneously placing slowing water abysses in the areas of undeciphered fragments to drag down the humans’ deciphering pacing.
Moreover, Huzhong Ying‘s high mobility made it very easy for him to tightly control the final fragment. Whoever came to decipher it would die. Even if his early-game pacing was terrible, as long as he ensured the fifth fragment could never be fully deciphered, the main gate could never be opened.
After Si Yan pointed out their problems and the few of them discussed it, they unanimously agreed to let Mu Jiu take over the shotcalling.
Aside from being miserably slaughtered by Si Yan in these past few matches, it was also clearly evident that there was a wall between Mu Jiu’s individual ability and the other three. However, in a team cooperation game, one person alone definitely couldn’t win.
Mu Jiu’s first reaction was to refuse.
Because he had seen Shi Wen shotcall, he knew clearly that he couldn’t do it. A shotcaller needed to pay attention to too many things: the boss‘s skills, the distribution of fragments, the arrangement of teammates. One person controlling the direction of the entire match; this role was usually undertaken by the Rescue or Support positions.
The ob role that Mu Jiu usually played required focusing more attention on mind games with the boss. If he split his attention to shotcall, the probability of operational mistakes would definitely greatly increase. And once he made a mistake in ob, the entire match would inevitably snowball beyond recovery.
However, looking at the expressions of his other three teammates, Mu Jiu sighed and said, “If I’m shotcalling, we might have to change our playstyle.”
Ob, also known as Hard Support, was originally just a type of Support. If he absolutely had to shotcall, it would be best for him to switch to Soft Support, like Yaojishi, Huayishi, and the like. The operational pressure would be much smaller.
After all, for the upper limit of performance, Soft Supports relied on teammates, while Hard Supports relied on themselves.
After listening to the plan Mu Jiu provided, Li Qingming thought for a while. “If you don’t want to switch, we’ll just play like we did before.” He didn’t want Mu Jiu to wrong himself by playing a position he didn’t like.
At worst, if they lost, they’d just pack up and go home.
Mu Jiu smiled, tilted his head to look at him, and joked: “You really don’t want to win?”
Ever since netizens dug out that NK and juice were on the same team, a forum plaza had already been built. The name was the team name they had discussed and submitted early on: “Shaonian Xianfeng Dui” (Youth Pioneer/Crazy Team). Their fan count was rising very quickly. Yesterday, Li Qingming had scrolled through it until two or three in the morning, and very smugly said he was famous before even broadcasting, and that he was going to show off his skills.
Li Qingming choked in his throat. Closing his eyes, he waved his large hand, “Whatever! Brothers being happy is the most important thing!”
The few of them could all tell he wanted to win super badly but insisted on acting tough, and they laughingly went to punch him.
Si Yan also rarely opened his mouth to comfort them: “Actually, you guys are already playing very well. For example, in the third match, you almost managed a draw.”
Successfully escaping with two people counted as a draw.
The originally somewhat relaxed atmosphere instantly sank again because of Si Yan’s words. Looking at the resentful glares from the few of them, Si Yan silently mimed zipping his lips and giving an OK sign.
Fine, he didn’t know how to comfort people, he’d stop talking.
“It’s okay, I can play any position. Let’s try it first,” Mu Jiu said while finding a few strategy guides on the forum.
Unlike Hard Supports which relied on mechanics, Soft Supports relied more on shotcalling, requiring the coordination of four teammates to execute a system. The guides Mu Jiu read were systems developed by players that were already applied quite maturely. He had never been a shotcaller and could only learn on the spot, so he had no bottom in his heart.
While eating lunch, Mu Jiu was still holding his phone and reading, chewing a single piece of green vegetable for ten minutes.
Si Yan glanced at him, his eyes narrowing slightly.
He admitted he had a prejudice against Mu Jiu in the beginning. But after getting along these past few days, his view of him had changed greatly.
He was fiercely loyal to his friends and very serious about doing things. Therefore, such a person didn’t look at all like someone who would forfeit a match and act capriciously.
Mu Jiu’s other three roommates were going to eat Luosifen (snail rice noodles), leaving the two of them who didn’t eat Luosifen together. Si Yan snatched away his phone, turned off the screen, and casually tossed it onto the table, telling him to concentrate on eating.
“I’m not comforting you, you guys truly are already playing very well. You don’t need to put so much pressure on yourself,” Si Yan said.
Besides, based on Mu Jiu’s individual ability, as long as he continued to play ob, it wouldn’t be hard to attract clubs to recruit him. After all, the ob position was the easiest position to showcase individual flair and mechanics, regardless of winning or losing.
If he was using the Gaoxiao Bei as a springboard to return to the pro scene, there was absolutely no need to switch positions.
“Winning isn’t the most important thing to you,” Si Yan pointed out meaningfully, but didn’t lay it out completely bare.
Hearing this, Mu Jiu looked up at him twice. He didn’t pick up his phone again, lowering his head to eat his already cold noodles. After eating two bites, he lost his appetite, picked up a tissue, and wiped his mouth.
Looking at Si Yan again, his expression was as serious as ever. “They are my teammates.”
Si Yan didn’t need to test him anymore. What he saw of him was exactly the kind of person he was.
“Let’s go, time to head back,” Mu Jiu stood up and walked out.
Sitting in his original spot, Si Yan lowered his eyes and chewed over Mu Jiu’s words in his mouth again. His lips curled into a light smile, feeling a sense of sudden enlightenment. After returning to his senses, he found Mu Jiu had already walked far away. He shouted at his back: “Wait for me,” got up, and chased after him.
Returning to continue training, Mu Jiu tentatively picked Yaojishi for a match.
The role was Support. At the start of the game, he carried three initial potions. The initial potion could directly restore 25% of health. Every time the skill CD was ready, he could choose a potion to convert into either an Antidote or a Poison. The Antidote could directly restore 50% of health, while the Poison deducted 10% of health but granted a 5-second speed boost. There was an 80% chance of successful conversion, and a 20% chance of converting in the opposite direction.
In matches against Map Control-type bosses, healers were exceptionally important.
Si Yan still brought out his specialty, Huzhong Ying, showing no mercy whatsoever. No matter how miserably they lost now, it didn’t matter; they wouldn’t lose face when they got on the competitive stage. He truly lived up to the nickname “Cold and Unfeeling Great Demon King” that Li Qingming gave him.
Following the previous script, while Huzhong Ying pursued, he placed slowing water abysses at all the fragments he passed by. Although the pursuit was slow, the humans’ deciphering speed was equally slowed. When the first person was hit and fell to the ground, the total progress of the fragments on the field was around 240%, barely two and a half fragments.
From the time they rescued this person from the dissociation table until he was eliminated, the fragment progress would rise to 400%. It looked as if only the last fragment was left, and victory was within reach. But the fragment progress stretched out by the three people completely couldn’t keep up with the speed at which Huzhong Ying depleted their statuses. At this point, once someone was downed and hooked, it would be the beginning of the situation collapsing.
This time, because Mu Jiu had arranged in advance which fragments his teammates needed to decipher, he also had the teammate closest to the boss rotate away early. Being in a safe position allowed for more kiting options and higher safety. The deciphering progress was much faster.
Deciphering, pursuit, downing; currently, it all seemed to be within Mu Jiu’s arrangements.
The only thing he didn’t calculate was that Yaojishi‘s potions had an 80% chance of successful conversion. As long as he could successfully convert one of his three potions into an Antidote, he could help the Rescue position recover their status.
But Mu Jiu looked at the three bottles of Poison in his hands, silent.
After the Rescue position finished rescuing, he prepared to follow the previous arrangement to find Yaojishi for a potion. Then, he saw the “Breaking Bad” achievement triggered by Yaojishi in the middle of the screen, +600 points. He was stunned.
He asked weakly: “Mu Jiu… is this also part of your tactics?”
His first reaction wasn’t that someone could be so unlucky that all three conversions failed. Instead, he thought Mu Jiu might have intentionally converted towards Poison for some tactical consideration. As for what kind of consideration, he couldn’t understand it; a shotcaller’s thoughts were always so hard to guess.
Mu Jiu’s scalp went numb with embarrassment. He directed the Rescue position to come decipher the fragment he was currently on, preparing to swap positions to rescue the next person.
It had been three years; he thought Wuxian Weidu would treat him a little better.
This “Breaking Bad” achievement had appeared countless times in his ranked matches. Just looking at it made Mu Jiu’s vision go dark.
Facts proved that Wuxian Weidu didn’t treat him a little better; it even backhanded him twice and told him to go cool off somewhere else.
After Yaojishi rescued the person, regardless of whether the person wanted it or not, he stuffed a bottle of Poison into their hands.
Yueshi, currently controlled by Li Qingming, had been on the dissociation table the whole time and hadn’t noticed the achievement. He subconsciously thought the potion Yaojishi gave him was an Antidote and drank it without thinking. It wasn’t until he started accelerating that he realized something was wrong.
Wait, why was the Antidote just now green?
He had just gotten off the dissociation table, and he had chugged a large bottle of Poison. He was already prone to dying, and now it was even harder to live.
Li Qingming: “???”
“Mu Jiu! You!”
After rescuing the person, Mu Jiu turned his head and ran, as if knowing he had done something to feel guilty about.
Translator’s Notes:
- Xuenv (雪女): Snow Woman.
- Huzhong Ying (湖中影): Shadow in the Lake.
- Yaojishi (藥劑師): Pharmacist.
- Yueshi (樂師): Musician.
- Huayishi (花艺师): Florist.
- Breaking Bad (絕命毒師): Literally “Fatal Poison Master”, the Chinese title for the TV show Breaking Bad. Here used as a game achievement for repeatedly crafting poison.
- Shaonian Xianfeng Dui (少年先瘋隊): A pun on the Young Pioneers (少年先鋒隊). “Xianfeng” (先鋒 – pioneer/vanguard) is replaced with its homophone “Xianfeng” (先瘋 – crazy first/crazy vanguard).
- Luosifen (螺蛳粉): A famous Chinese noodle soup dish known for its strong, pungent odor.
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