Chapter 76: Encrypted Chat Unique to CS (150)

Having scored another free beef hot pot meal from pasha, Xu Beifang was very satisfied with everything today.

He had won the match against Tyloo, received advice on improving his Consciousness, and even freeloaded a big meal.

It wasn't that Xu Beifang couldn't afford a beef hot pot; he was a man with a weekly salary of 400 Euros now, not some college student without any source of income.

One week converted to RMB was over 3,000, and two weeks was almost as much as he had earned working a summer job for two months.

The main thing was that he liked this feeling of freeloading!

Of course, once VP paid his salary later on, he would also treat everyone to a meal.

During the group dinner, the group from VP also discussed the upcoming IEM Shanghai finals.

They analyzed with high spirits, and ended in silence.

In the other semifinal group, NRG faced Gambit; as expected, this 4/5 full-strength Major Champion lineup didn't have much of an effect and was completely crushed by NRG throughout!

On the first map, Train, which was Gambit's pick, Gambit managed to get 8 rounds, but they barely gave NRG any pressure at all throughout the game.

After this map was finished, among the 5 members of NRG, 4 had green ratings, and even cerq and daps had ratings exceeding 1.42!

This was enough to show the gap between the players of both sides on this map.

With Gambit's own map pick ending up like this, quite a few Gambit fans still hoped they could put up an excellent performance on their opponent's map pick.

But the reality was suffocating.

In the following map pick for NRG, Gambit only managed to get a measly 3 rounds!

This time, all of NRG's members had green ratings, with two members even putting up astonishing ratings of 1.87 and 1.66.

This level of performance from NRG made people gasp in amazement.

Also in the semifinals, VP had played a full three maps against Tyloo on their side, struggling to advance.

Yet NRG looked like they were smurfing, easily crushing their opponents to secure the qualification.

This wasn't even the same level!

The strength of NRG put a lot of pressure on the VP members, but they wouldn't be afraid to face them because of it.

Experienced as they were, they knew that reaching the finals might be their limit, so after the dinner ended, they went together to the Huangpu River to hang out and look at the night scenery.

pasha and the others invited Xu Beifang to go along, but he shook his head and declined.

VP didn't say much; they were already used to the young man's disciplined behavior, but as experienced veterans, they knew that cramming at the last minute was meaningless, and maintaining a good Mindset was the top priority.

Xu Beifang took a taxi back to the hotel room provided by the tournament organizers.

He adjusted his equipment a little, opened his stream, and set a title:

"Happy smurfing on 5e with danking."

Immediately after, he started the stream and began his warm-up before the Ladder.

As Xu Beifang was warming up by shooting bots, the phone placed at the bottom right of his monitor kept notifying him that people were entering the stream.

【Here we go!】

【Beifang is as hardworking as ever, starting a stream right after finishing a match, so diligent!】

【Calling out a certain lazy dog in room 6657 here.】

【Haha, the "annual update" series, right?】

Xu Beifang shot bots rapidly, slowly regaining his feel for the gun.

Nowadays, he could already multitask during warm-up training, easily answering questions from the fans in the stream:

"Hi, 6657 and I are different. I only stream as a side thing. As a Professional Player, I have to train every day and play the Ladder to maintain my form."

"Besides, I'm playing anyway, so I might as well stream while I play." Xu Beifang suddenly laughed, "Streaming occasionally gets me gifts from you guys, so I can add an extra egg to my instant noodles. Why wouldn't I stream?"

These sincere and even somewhat blunt words made many netizens in the stream pause for a moment.

But immediately after, quite a few of them started sending gifts.

Because these words were too real and not fake at all; besides interacting with the audience, what other use does streaming have?

Isn't it just to receive gifts and get some tips?

Facing the barrage of gifts in the stream, Xu Beifang didn't deliberately thank them, but continued to finish off the remaining 200 bots.

He glanced at the time, then opened WeChat and found danking to call him.

"danking, get online quickly, I'm taking you to smurf on 5e!"

danking really wanted to hang up this call, but he had Xu Beifang's stream open on his computer.

He felt a bit miserable. He wasn't usually the type of hardcore grinder, and before when Xu Beifang went to play FACEIT, he could slack off by himself watching demos of strong teams and play less Ladder.

As a result, now that Xu Beifang had returned to the country to play in a tournament and started playing 5e again, he had been asking him to duo queue until very late every night for the past few days.

"If you don't come, I'm going to solo queue..."

danking sighed: "Give me two minutes, I'm looking for..."

"Stop chewing betel nut, man, that stuff is carcinogenic." Xu Beifang reminded him again.

danking explained: "I'm looking for some chewing gum as a meal replacement, brother, I'm having withdrawal symptoms! It's miserable!"

"Try harder, Tie Dan!" Xu Beifang felt that danking seemed a bit decadent these past two days, so he comforted him, "Actually, in today's match, I felt xcc was about the same as you."

"Really!!" The voice on the other end of the call suddenly became loud.

Xu Beifang suddenly felt he shouldn't have comforted him; he hoped one sentence wouldn't make this kid get a big head.

This kid wouldn't really think xcc was trash and start acting lawlessly in the club, would he?

The two entered the room and started matchmaking, and it didn't take long before they matched successfully.

This match they ran into Xu Beifang's "first teacher" Leon Kai along with Qiezi's small squad.

During the knife round to choose sides, Xu Beifang went up and killed Qiezi first, living up to Qiezi's name as the "Maoming Sharpening Stone."

Seeing the danking duo on the opposite side, both Qiezi and Leon Kai felt a lot of pressure. Both of them got serious in their streams, wanting to defeat this active professional duo queue in this match.

But 20 minutes later...

Leon Kai's stream was frantically flooded with "nmmdw," and Qiezi's stream was filled with "wdnmd," the kind of encrypted communication unique to CNCS.

The two of them had been driven into a Red Heat by Xu Beifang's breakthroughs, spewing flowery language in their streams.

Of course, they were just venting their emotions and not targeting Xu Beifang or Danking; after all, there was nothing to say when one's skills were inferior.

Moreover, although the stream title Xu Beifang set was "smurfing," their current bracket was already at the highest level on 5E.

After this match ended, Xu Beifang was also filled with emotion.

Ladder matches that he once had to treat with his full effort could now be won quite easily even if he played casually.

The Red Heat of Leon Kai and the other didn't last long, because soon Xu Beifang pulled them both into the room, found Ma Xixi from his online friends, and started their somewhat strange makeshift squad.

Xu Beifang finally felt some intensity in the matches; although Danking and the others were playing quite erratically, there was one game where the opponents seized the opportunity and beat them, which was very interesting.

They played a total of 5 matches, and the overall entertainment value was maxed out.

And the viewers in the streams of Ma Xixi and the others finally realized what a true "thigh" (carry) was.

Xu Beifang's attitude toward the Ladder was very serious, even while Danking was messing around with Qiezi and the others, firing his sniper rifle wildly.

Yet the viewers could always hear the information coming from Xu Beifang's mouth: "One at XX, killed him!"

"Lots of people at XX, they're speeding up, traded 2.5."

With Xu Beifang as a teammate, they felt very secure!

After a few Ladder matches, Ma Xixi was called out by friends to eat barbecue, and this little squad gradually dispersed.

Xu Beifang didn't turn off the stream, saying to the viewers: "I won't play Deathmatch for now. After the match with Tyloo today, I asked Xiaogui for advice, and he said if I want to improve my Consciousness, I should watch more demos of those top-tier Lurkers. So, I'll watch some demos first today, and after watching, I'll play a Deathmatch before going to sleep."

【Asking an opponent for advice after beating them, I admire Xu's character.】

【Suddenly feeling a bit ashamed.】

【How could he be embarrassed? Wouldn't the other person think you're mocking them?】

【...】

Looking at the buzzing chat in his stream, Xu Beifang replied: "What's there to be embarrassed about?"

"It's a fact that my Consciousness isn't good enough. Although Tyloo lost today, they still had many aspects where they played very well. If you want to become stronger, you should always look for problems within yourself. Since I'm not as good as Xiaogui in terms of Consciousness, I can ask him for advice."

"There's nothing to be embarrassed about with this. As long as you are sincere, the other person won't think anything of it." Xu Beifang gave another example to explain, "It's like if you, a veteran CSGO player, face a question from a newbie, would you think the other side is mocking you?"

【Newbie = Little Xu, Veteran = Xiaogui, seems like there's no problem, but it seems like there's a problem everywhere.】

【Professional Players really don't tend to reject people who like to work hard.】

【What kind of newbie crushes a veteran as soon as they start?】

【I also want to become this kind of newbie.】

【The veteran is crying to death...】

【...】

Watching the sophistry of some viewers in the stream, Xu Beifang shook his head and stopped explaining; his actions would not change because of these viewers' comments anyway.

After searching on HLTV for a while, he finally found a demo of a match where Xyp9x performed well.

This was a Pistol Round on Overpass, and Jiuye was acting as a member of Astralis to Break B.

Seeing this scene, Xu Beifang also began to think: if he were in this position, how would he be responsible for this task of Breaking B alone?

Although the positions were different, the functions were actually somewhat similar; after all, he had played a fake-execute Pistol Round today.

The main force of Astralis slowly spread out at A Site, and judging by their movement, they intended to go for a retro A Long One-Wave Flow.

'At this time, they should be doing some harassment at B Site.'

With the main force attacking A Long, as a solo player, one should initiate harassment on the flank to affect the opponent's judgment.

Xu Beifang's judgment and thoughts were not bad, but Jiuye on the screen chose to release information in the Sewer and briefly engaged in a firefight with the opponent.

Immediately after, he saw the CTs in the Sewer and those who were originally going to rotate to A returning to their original positions.

Xu Beifang suddenly had a realization: "Is this using the illusion of still controlling the map to mislead the opponent's judgment?"

If he were harassing on the outskirts of B, although the actions would have an effect, once the team really launched an attack, he wouldn't be able to provide help from B Outside very well.

In the Sewer, he could both pin down the opponent and help the front line at any time.

Sure enough, the choices and ideas of experts always make one's eyes light up.

Usually, he wouldn't think so much.

The effective time of this demo was less than 30 minutes, but Xu Beifang spent a full hour thinking and reviewing it.

Of course, his harvest was also quite rich; now he felt that knowledge about overall match flow, fake information release, movement, and so on was rippling in his mind.

He also understood why Pasha told him he must stabilize his own style.

Because the playstyle of experts like Jiuye is truly very attractive.

If he didn't grasp it well and failed to stick to his own style, he would likely end up learning to be a jack-of-all-trades and master of none.

【Beep!】

【Detected that the host successfully completed the suggestion: watch professional player demos to learn, check-in successful!】

【Reward: D-rank Treasure Chest x1...】

【Congratulations, Listen-to-Advice Value is 132...】

Xu Beifang nodded; the completion of this Suggestion Mission showed that his choice of this path was correct.

He couldn't help but think, if he could gather the strengths of many experts and integrate them, would he become a player at the level of Sen Zai?

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but smile.

Shaking his head to pull himself out of his fantasy, Xu Beifang immediately opened the TG Deathmatch server.

He began today's Deathmatch training.

After some effort, he got 1000 Headshot kills in Deathmatch, and then practiced the Pre-aiming Map twice; his daily aim training was finally completed.

【Beep!】

【Detected that the host has successfully completed the suggestion: Scientific gun practice, check-in successful!】

【Reward: D-rank Treasure Chest x1...】

【Congratulations, host's Listen-to-Advice Value is 236...】

Having completed another check-in task, Xu Beifang stretched and moved his somewhat stiff back a little.

Then he took another look at his Personal Panel:

【Host: Xu Beifang】

【Age: 22】

【Affiliated Team: 】

【Role: Entry Fragger】

【Status: Hot (Status increased by 20%, but more prone to mistakes)】

【Mindset: 87】

【Gunplay: 80 (Collapse/Expand)

1. Pre-aim: 69

2. Recoil Control: 65

3. Positioning: 80

3. Spray Transfer: 65

4. Multi-kill Ability: 73】

【Consciousness: 63-65 (Collapse/Expand)

1. Information Processing: 65

2: Map Understanding: 59

3: Aggressive Awareness: 57

4: Defensive Awareness: 64

5. Clutch Ability: 57】

【Reaction: 76-79 (Collapse/Expand)

1. Duel Reaction: 79

2. In-game Decision Making: 76】

【Weapon Proficiency:

1. Handgun: USP-S, Glock-18...

2. Submachine Gun: MP9, MAC-10...

3. Rifle: AK47, M4A4...

4. Sniper Rifle: AWP, SSG08...】

【Listen-to-Advice Value: 2530】

【Overall Evaluation: Through unremitting efforts, the host has finally taken the first step on the professional path. Please improve your abilities as soon as possible to gain a firm foothold on the professional stage, rather than being a flash in the pan.】

It's already 2530?

Xu Beifang had a thought.

【Do you want to invest 1000 Listen-to-Advice Value to increase Duel Reaction?】

"Yes!"

The next second, Xu Beifang saw the Duel Reaction stat change to 80; from then on, every additional point would require 10,000 Listen-to-Advice Value.

Looking at it this way, the Listen-to-Advice Value is becoming increasingly insufficient.

With 1530 left, Xu Beifang did not spend it all at once.

【Do you want to spend 500 Listen-to-Advice Value to purchase 'Muscle Repair Potion'?】

"Yes!"

The Muscle Repair Potion immediately appeared in the system inventory.

Xu Beifang closed the livestream under the entreaties of the night owls, then took a quick shower.

Lying in bed, Xu Beifang originally intended to enter the 【Dungeon - Unlimited Deathmatch Space】 to spar with those top-tier players, but thinking it might affect his energy tomorrow, he decided to shelve it for now.

He poured the Muscle Repair Potion into his mouth to ensure he would be in good condition tomorrow.

With beautiful visions in mind, Xu Beifang slowly drifted off to sleep.

I've updated ten thousand words today after posting this chapter, paying off the debt from the first chapter; taking it slow.

(End of this chapter)