he map where the two characters sp.a.w.ned was the Wild Lush Forest.
The greatest characteristic of this map was that it was wide.
The seemly endless tropical rainforest nearly obstructed the whole characters’ view, the trail left on the wet and muddy ground were particularly realistic, also causing some draw back to mobility to a certain degree. It was also because the map was too wide, that the probability of an encounter between both adversaries was also reduced, such made the Wild Lush Forest, especially for in-game 1v1 single matches, a must avoided map.
This time, however, because Little Monkey Lord was aiming for making things more interesting for those interacting on the feed, the process of discarding maps was done on base to random picks, as for Lin Xiao –as he was too familiar with all the maps, he had poured his full attention to consciously going through his equipment collection during the pre-match phase, not spearing more than a brief glance, almost all the maps he clicked on were random too.
Thus, led to the Wild Lush Forest becoming the last egg left on the basket, such rare sight popped in front of the crowds of onlookers.
Originally everyone also felt a great deal of intrigue towards this seldom displayed map, however the remaining curiosity they had, having watched the Summoner on screen called Army Chef, going back and forth on a game of cat and mouse, after a few laps, the trolling army completely broke lose–
“Heartless streamer makes a monthly income of millions by roaming a map live!”
“The importance of sense of direction for a streamer.”
“You’re past half of Long March’s eight hundred miles 1, Little Monkey Lord you must keep up, Red Yan’an2 is in front of you!”
“History’s most boring hide and seek, how long till the end of the match? Bets! Make your bets!”
“I bet on an hour!”
“I bet on two hours!”
“You know what, I bet that after three hours –both will make first contact!”
……
Little Monkey Lord’s hands heavily taped on the table, ultimately having reminded himself about how expensive that bunch of electronics were, he held back his impulse to flip the table, with a face of distress turned towards the camera and complained tearfully: “Baby’s heart feels bitter, but Baby saves his comments…”
He wanted to spill tears on top of crying, he also knew that for him to find someone with that sense of direction of his was out of the question, he might as well try something if he couldn’t take the initiative to attack, it might also help him recover some of his lost face, he tipped on the general chat: “Bro, a real man doesn’t hide, man up and face me directly!”
Lin Xiao asked in return: “Got lost?”
Little Monkey Lord tipped a string of dots, all the blood he had been holding back on his chest was finally sprayed out. Lost? Mini-sis, ah! Gurl, can you read minds, huh?
This time Lin Xiao seemed to be very thoughtful: “This map is too big, getting lost when you’re not familiar with it is normal, send me your coordinates, I’ll go to you.”
“…” Little Monkey Lord thought for a moment, and at the end gave his former coordinates, “(78,-168).”
Lin Xiao also gave a simple answer: “Coming.”
Little Monkey Lord silently ignored the once again outburst of flooding booing comments, he turned his head on a forty-five degree angle while staring at the ceiling of the room, the corner of his eyes became moist when for some unknown reason was brought back to that day he went by himself to the Imperial Capital and tried to find his way, countless times he would head on the opposite direction to where he wanted to go, such extremely tragic experience.
He should stick to the advice of staying alert when away from home, on Little Monkey Lord’s side having finished reporting his coordinates, it was obviously impossible for him to earnestly stay put waiting for the other to come knocking at his door, instead with nimble movements found a secretive hiding spot near a particular tree.
Putting to use the geographical advantages of the tropical rainforest he strongly obscured Army Chef from plain view, while on the other hand on the stream he picked back his initial topic that was teaching how to battle: “As everyone saw, during a battle, depending on the map one must aim for properly using its advantages. Just like for thisWild Lush Forest map, a feature of it is its complex terrain, when the opponent does like just now, cough, when he induces you to give him your coordinates, please don’t expect him to readily face you honourably. In order to prevent the other from attacking, we need to set an ambush first, in order to look for an opportunity and use it disrupting the other’s evil… uh… schemes?”
As his words fell, in front of millions of viewers Little Monkey Lord, with dangling tears at his eyes faced the camera, his big mouth brought two face-slaps on himself.
I said to attack! Said to try to trick the schemer! Bro, are you so straightforward that you blatantly came straight from the path? What the h.e.l.l?! If you don’t poses common sense for duelling go back and PvE, don’t come and PvP at the Ladder looking for some thrill! Sob sob… My face hurts… He had no energy left to once again look at the itching to spam audience.
Lin Xiao arrived at the coordinates but saw no one, he then came to realisation about what happened.
Propping his face with his elbow on the table, the corner of his lips lazily curled up, his other hand leisurely tapping on the keyboard, very soon he tipped the phrase: “Bro, don’t be afraid, huh, I won’t eat you.”
How come a soft and adorable Little Red Riding Hood saying the lines of a Monster Spider Woman gave him some sense of déjà vu? Picturing the scene, Little Monkey Lord couldn’t help but suddenly tremble. He had been a broadcaster for many years, he of course would not be incited by a few provocative words, he just pulled together his a tad crestfallen mood, and began to cast his first summon, Green Mushroom.
Under Army Chef’s control, a greenish mushroom-shaped summon the same shade as the surroundings almost became one with the map, swinging and swaying it began to make its way through the dense forest, slowly approaching the with a cute blank face Little Red Riding Hood.
Adorable Ghost clearly didn’t notice the incoming danger, until after the Green Mushroombite her, her HP bar gradually got drained of a little fragment, but the Green Mushroom was wiped out in a matter of seconds by the other that had quickly also raised her weapon.
“The Green Mushroom I just used is a basic summon, it has a blood-sucking skill. Although the HP it absorbs is little, it still can provide the Summoner character a proportional percentage of HP. As everyone has also seen, this low-level summon itself is also very weak, so it’s easy for the opponent to get rid of it with a focused fire, however the corresponding skill points it needs are not much nor is an excessive skill, for Summoners, could be said to be an essential must-have.”
He already had some understanding about his opponent’s hand speed, although Green Mushrooms died fast this one did way faster than expected, still Little Monkey Lord didn’t pay it much heed. Almost at the same time the Green Mushroom died, he quickly followed with the next summon, Ice Dryad.
Compared to the squishy and easy to bully Green Mushroom, the Ice Dryad after baring its fangs and brandishing its claws rushed over, directly released a freeze-up, that would freeze Adorable Ghost in place.
Little Monkey Lord’s hand speed soared, and he instantly summoned a Gooey Slime, deliberately manipulating it to rush forward going slightly to the left on a roundabout way, quickly pouncing over, flickering right by his opponent’s side. Under a vicious attack, the opponent’s HP began to decline once again.
“That outflanking method I just used, is an strategy a lot of Summoners like to use. After all, Summoners are a long range cla.s.s, summons are this cla.s.s ultimate defensive barriers. A sharp Summoner always keeps renewing their summons as often as they can, having the opponent constantly disrupted and with no way to determine their own exact location. As everyone could see, by now the opponent’s Soul Priest almost has half HP bar to go, while our Army Chef still has full HP.”
Having said to that point, Little Monkey Lord could not help but strike a cool pose with a charming smile towards the camera: “That way you can sink a ship with the impact of the waves of a torpedo.”
Immediately turning towards the screen at the sudden melodic sound of thunder, Little Monkey Lord that was suddenly feeling on a good mood, saw that the summons he had just threw were wiped out clean, on one hand made commentaries, while on the other proceeded to read the endless stream of miles long roasting. After all, he also was a Second Division Ladder veteran, although he himself wasn’t a Summoner player, but he could easily play as one, he didn’t reveal the slightest panicked look.
However, as he kept making summon after summon, his expression became increasingly ugly.
Although the opponent’s HP was still dropping down, but he often felt the rate on which it declined increasingly slowed down, moreover, the key point was that compared to before the dexterity he was putting to use right now was that of a division way higher, such situation clearly was very weird, he could clearly see the audience at the other end of the screen, but his heart couldn’t help but erupt with heavy retorts –He had brought out the heavy cavalry a little throwing so many summons, and the results? For almost half a day not only did they not kill the opponent but on the contrary were killed one by one by the other, shouldn’t this game not be called Zone but instead Plants vs. Zombies?!
The doubts on Little Monkey Lord’s heart became deeper and deeper, he decided to quicken up his battle reaction speed, but found the summon skills he himself used on a daily basis were actually not working.
What was going on? A BUG? He looked down, and saw the greyed out skill bar, looked at his mana, there still was half of it left. He frowned, suddenly the pangs of a strong sense of unease overflew him from deep inside his gut. Only a possibility came to his mind, his whole person seemed to have a somewhat silly look3 –If a Summoner couldn’t continue to release summons, there were only two possibilities, one was that there was not enough mana, the other was that the number of summons had already reached seven and hence couldn’t keep making summons. And right now, it was most likely like the second case for him. As a matter of fact during a slit of unawareness, his pace had actually already been such in a chaos that his summons had already numbered to seven, yet he himself was completely unaware of such?
Although he had been using non-stop the summoning skills, but he also clearly didn’t made any slips while a.s.sembling and controlling the summons to attack, several “Unable to Attack” prompts before made him think subconsciously that the summons were on the verge of dying, however that didn’t seem to be the case just now.
After so long that bunch of summons on the field were all still alive, while yet that Soul Priestwas no longer losing HP…
Wait, and the Soul Priest?!
A thought flashed on Little Monkey Lord’s mind, however, he wanted to pull apart his view from being blocked by leaves so he could watch the situation of the battle out there, however just as he stepped outside, taking the lead a person’s silhouette flashed in front of him.
Seeing the whirling staff that came right towards his face, the body of the him sitting in front of the computer slipped, directly falling with the chair after having lost its centre of gravity, the entire streaming room just heard him burst into foul words straight from the depths of his heart: “Duck yer Mugger!4”
He had obviously hid tightly and also had his summons outflank him good enough, how come that Soul Priest ended up finding his hiding place?!
Even though he had the impulse to go on a rampage, but when he himself watched carefully towards a far spot he steadily controlled his distant summons, he got the idea to test something –Such moving pattern, so underhanded!
Soul Priests, could cast blood-draw magic, crowd control curses, as well as supplementary three-dimensional displacing spells. On Ladder 1v1 Duels, due to the latter two being suitable for support roles and the lack of burst output, a burst output greatly full of blood magic was almost only left. And now, since his opponent could keep his seven summons sealed with a firm blockade on an endless-loop completely by himself, it was more than enough for him to be sure he had mainly picked the curse branch on his skill tree.
As for the curse skills’ pitiful damage? Not being afraid to end up dead during the course of the 1v1? It didn’t matter, when that staff simply came swinging right on top of his head it was almost already enough to explain everything, that was a legit melee weapon that could deal damage when striking!
Had Little Monkey Lord actually known from the beginning that the other was a curse route one, or also perhaps that he would be playing more of a high-end match instead of that kind of recreational teaching match, still Little Monkey Lord altogether controlled a bit the rhythm and number of his summoning then and there, he would not fall now into such a spot where he could not use skills and turn into a guy with all his opportunities cut short being left with no other choice than turn tail, such embarra.s.sing scene.
However as things were, the situation seemed to have already become a one-side one.
It wasn’t only Little Monkey Lord that couldn’t help but go berserk, seeing a Soul Priestpersonally wield then strike and wield then strike over and over again leaving someone half dead, a dead silence fell on the streaming room, everyone had already been thrown into some kind of storm –Using curses during a duel was okay, Soul Priest was a spell-casting cla.s.s, was it really appropriate for you to have a staff that increased melee damage as main weapon? You could actually play as Soul Priest on such way?!
Lin Xiao couldn’t feel the more than thousands of millions of galloping Gra.s.s Mud Horses5 at the other end of the screen, and so he brandished his staff completely emptying SummonerArmy Chef‘s HP bar to the last drop at once.