Chapter 92: Fire Boy cannot handle the gentleness, Zeus's iron fist soothes the heart

"Zeus!! Are you playing..." As a practice match ended, s1mple finally couldn't help but start to "red heat," turning his head, ready to start cursing.

"Is there a problem somewhere?" Zeus asked with a very gentle expression.

Looking at the NaVi short-sleeve shirt that was about to burst, s1mple's expression suddenly calmed down. He shook his head submissively: "Nothing, I wanted to praise you for playing well."

"It wasn't that good; I feel like my timing was still too poor in a few waves." Zeus rubbed his head and laughed.

At this moment, s1mple finally understood why the commanders in the CIS region all liked to train their muscles.

A clear train of thought is for reasoning with them; those outrageous muscles are for reasoning with them when reasoning doesn't work.

Under the deterrence of Zeus's iron fist, s1mple was forced to become sensible.

However, he still felt depressed and speechless in his heart. He looked at Fire Boy, who was grinning to the side, and his anger suddenly surged:

"Fire Boy, what are you laughing at? Did you play well just now? The Iron Plate was breached once!"

Fire Boy: "..."

There were big question marks in his small eyes. He had guarded the Iron Plate for 15 rounds; wasn't it okay to be broken through once?

Could it be that a 21/3/16 record over 30 rounds was very poor?

"What are you looking at?" The practice match was temporarily over, and Zeus also asked a question.

Fire Boy's face returned to a smile, and he replied to Zeus: "This MIBR was reverse-swept by VP at the ZOTAC Cup."

"Ah!!"

They were still quite surprised to hear this news.

They all knew about the Hong Kong ZOTAC Cup competition; after all, it was the only international event recently. Although the overall level of the event was not high, the exaggerated prize money still made them very envious.

When they were bored, they had also talked about the strength of the participating teams this time.

Then they gave a common answer—MIBR was just there to pick up money!

MIBR's current world ranking is 7th!

On HLTV, if world rankings are roughly divided, there will be several tiers with large differences in strength.

But the top 5 in the HLTV rankings belong to T0.

5th-10th belong to T1.

10th-20th are T2.

The strength of teams after 20 is uneven.

Apart from MIBR, the strongest in this event was just Tyloo, ranked 12th in the world, and VP, ranked 19th in the world.

Tyloo was eliminated early, and in their view, VP couldn't affect MIBR's path to picking up money either.

"What's the situation?" The anger s1mple originally felt in his heart was also shocked by this sudden news. "How could MIBR still lose? Were the odds for VP maxed out?"

Ignoring s1mple's joke, Fire Boy looked at the match report and said: "The new VP player performed well, forcibly awakening the state of the other VP members."

He turned his head to look at s1mple: "It's that Nice. Didn't the two of us and Ropz play a triple-queue that day and get blown out by Zywoo and Nice?"

"Oh, oh! I have an impression of this." s1mple recalled. His state wasn't good that day, and he had dragged Ropz down.

Fire Boy continued: "It was outrageous. He got 83 kills in one BO3. As an entry fragger, he put up an average 1.42 rating. MIBR couldn't contain that guy."

"Hiss..." Everyone in the NaVi training room gasped.

Zeus frowned and said with some curiosity: "Where did Pasha find such a genius player?"

"It seems like they met on FACEIT and dragged him to a trial," Fire Boy replied.

They also knew about this situation. At that time, VP had found a lackluster substitute, but they hadn't found a good player to fill the spot.

Zeus didn't expect Pasha to be so reckless now, directly looking for people on FACEIT.

And most importantly, he actually found someone!

Looking at this record, he was also a very powerful genius teenager.

"How come you know everything?" Edward patted Fire Boy on the shoulder from the side, his face smiling.

"You know, I get along quite well with people." Fire Boy smiled modestly. He wasn't bragging; he even knew the birthdays of every professional player he was familiar with.

s1mple looked at the briefing on Fire Boy's phone and was also amused: "MIBR is going to be mocked now. It's a rare big upset!"

Immediately after, he took out his phone and started typing to edit.

Edward walked over and asked: "What are you doing?"

"Need you ask? Of course, I'm joining in the fun!" s1mple said as if it were a matter of course.

Edward was a bit speechless. He finally understood why s1mple, despite his strong strength, was not liked in the professional arena.

While the VP members were happy about their victory.

TaZ, who had already secured a spot in the finals, felt very complicated.

After years of living together, the relationship between TaZ, Pasha, and the others was not that of relatives, but it was better than relatives.

Yet, at the end of their careers, they fell apart because of a 500,000 yuan Mercedes-Benz. The spearhead came from him, but it didn't just come from him.

Before the 2017 DreamHack Masters, the VP boss publicly stated that if the five of them could win the championship in this competition, he would randomly give away a Mercedes-Benz worth 500,000.

They successfully won the championship in that competition. Because there was only one Mercedes-Benz, it was given to TaZ, who had better data in the competition, but in fact, Neo, who was the commander at the time, played a greater role in that competition.

After that incident, a fierce quarrel broke out within the VP team, and Neo was no longer willing to be the commander from then on.

The others in the team also seemed to have a bone in their throats, becoming estranged from TaZ. In the end, that VP team, which was once only one step away from a Major championship, no longer existed.

The continuous decline in VP's performance was initially caused by him. Countless times in the middle of the night, TaZ would think, if he hadn't been so greedy at the time, but instead chose to exchange the Mercedes-Benz for the whole team, would his prefix still be VP now?

But often after waking up from a dream, TaZ understood that his prefix was no longer VP, and there was no such thing as regret medicine in this world.

Tomorrow's match will be a meeting between old friends, and it will also be a crossfire for the VP members to take revenge.

TaZ was a little nervous, but also a little expectant.

VP's brilliant performance reminded him of past glory, but he knew that only one person could stand at the end tomorrow. He wanted to lift that trophy!

So, Pasha, Neo, Byali, are you ready to become opponents?

After accepting the official interview of the event, Xu Beifang met an acquaintance again when leaving the venue—Li Wenzhe, who had been a commentator at the IEM Shanghai station.

The two greeted each other, and then Li Wenzhe conducted a short interview with him in the capacity of a reporter.

After the IEM Shanghai station, Li Wenzhe gradually discovered that he might not be particularly suitable for the position of commentator. After all, other commentators needed to be professional and neutral, and he had a bit too much private work, but not enough, so he couldn't become an excellent commentator.

Finally, during a live broadcast, he was suggested by netizens to go to IEM Shanghai to interview players from other teams.

He was originally a staff member, and Li Wenzhe's English level was also quite good, so he decided to do it instantly.

The response to various interviews at the IEM Shanghai station was also good. Later, there was a competition in Hong Kong, and he didn't need to run too far, so he handled the visa and bought a ticket to come over as a staff member to conduct interviews.

He was blood-boiling watching this VP match in the backstage, and catching the VP members in the rest area also made him very happy.

After a simple interview, Xu Beifang left with the team.

On the way back to the hotel, the VP members were very happy, singing some Polish songs in the car.

Xu Beifang also shook his head and swayed along, very happy.

From the competition itself, defeating MIBR made them very happy.

Outside the competition, being able to advance to the finals was also a happy fact.

Although Xu Beifang's salary level was quite good, the income sources of CSGO players rely more on competition prize money, additional endorsements, and live broadcast income.

In the previous IEM Shanghai competition, VP received a prize of 50,000 USD.

And entering the ZOTAC Cup finals, they could get at least 60,000 USD!

If they could defeat Team Kinguin in tomorrow's final and become the champion, that would be 200,000 USD!!

In addition to being distributed to the coaching staff, the players could each get about 30,000 USD, which converts to 200,000 RMB!

This money could directly allow Xu Beifang to pay a down payment in a city other than Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, or Shenzhen!

In his previous life, he worked as an accountant and it even took him 3 years to earn this money.

Xu Beifang calculated in his heart, and the smile on his face became brighter. He also understood why everyone was so happy.

If they could win the championship tomorrow, Neo could add some money to buy the Mercedes-Benz that he had been brooding over.

Pasha could use this money to buy another piano for his daughter, or buy a house for himself.

For the e-sports industry, their income sources are much higher than ordinary industries.

The premise is that you have the strength to stand at the top of this industry.

Although VP is currently ranked in the top 20 in the world, there are less than 100 people ranked ahead of them. Now that they have finally achieved some results, they have this prize money.

What about those teams ranked behind them?

Countless internet cafe teams have died on the road for their dreams. E-sports is always cruel.

There is actually a certain reason why CSGO professional careers are difficult to develop.

Too many genius teenagers have died on the road.

Not everyone has the money, energy, and time to spend on this.

E-sports can be for dreams—

But it cannot only have dreams.

After winning this match, the VP members were very happy. The coach took them out for a simple late-night snack to fill their stomachs a little.

Immediately after, at Byali's suggestion, a group of people rushed back to the hotel, and in the early hours of the morning, they started training overnight.

Originally, VP didn't have much confidence in this event, but suddenly they got the qualification for the finals. As long as they reached out again, it seemed they could touch the trophy.

For a time, they were panicked because they didn't have enough training before.

So although they were happy in their hearts, they didn't stay at the late-night snack stall for long, and soon rushed back to train more.

After more than an hour of retake practice, everyone entered a short rest period. They were ready to wash up and sleep after another hour.

Pasha and Neo came to the balcony. Neo took out a cigarette and lit it, not in a hurry to smoke, just letting the tobacco burn slowly.

In the early hours of the morning, the whole city in front of them had entered a rest, and the silence soothed people's hearts.

But Neo's mood was not calm. The breeze blew, the fire of the cigarette slowly lit up, and his mood was very complicated.

"Thinking about tomorrow's match?" Pasha asked, putting his arm around his shoulder.

"A little." Neo didn't hide his emotions. He turned his head to look at the newcomer and Byali, who were laughing loudly for some reason, and said: "We used to be like this, training for matches until the early hours of the morning, laughing and playing in the training room, but I don't know when it started, this gradually became a job."

Pasha patted him on the shoulder, knowing that the incident had left a knot in his heart.

"Our boss is a brain-damaged person. Later, we took the initiative to help contact. Nice is a good kid. Don't let him stay in VP later. Michu should still have a contract, there's no way around that." Neo said to Pasha, "Young people trust us, don't let young people down."

The VP boss is truly pure. The Mercedes-Benz incident at the beginning was largely the boss's problem, but later it turned into a team problem because of TaZ's attitude.

It can only be said that the VP boss knows how to motivate team members.

If it weren't for the end of his professional career, Neo wouldn't take this anger and would have left long ago.

Pasha took the cigarette from his hand, took a puff, and soon coughed non-stop: "I don't know what's so good about smoking this cigarette now, but as for Nice's plan, the two of us think alike."

The two looked at each other and smiled.

VP is not willing to spend money to find new members now, and Nice staying in the team is also like being in prison.

Originally, his age of 22 was already old enough. If he couldn't go to other first-tier teams to shine, even if he had the opportunity to perform on the top stage later, it would only be a flash in the pan.

As Nice's guide, they didn't want to see this happen.

Kuben, as the accompanying coach, had fallen into a deep sleep and didn't know that two people were backstabbing the whole team.

Staring blankly into the distance for a while, Neo thought of tomorrow's match and suddenly said: "Pasha, let me command the following matches."

"Really?"

"Have I lied to you about this kind of thing?" Neo asked back.

"That's great!!" Pasha was quite happy.

Unlike the French who like to compete for command, Pasha became the commander because Neo was slacking off in the command position and was unwilling to take on the role in this position, so he was forced to take over this task.

But he also understood in his heart that his command was completely a clumsy imitation compared to Neo!

Not to mention how much energy command consumes him, in team management, tactical layout, and various command tasks, he didn't do as well as Neo.

After all, Neo was the commander during VP's peak period!

Neo took over the command position, so he could be a good sniper later and do his job well, instead of having to worry about the defense on both sides while his attention was highly concentrated.

"After finishing this London Major, I guess I'll have to go to a second-tier team to bring newcomers and muddle along. This might be the last time we two old men are in a match." Neo sighed, "If we don't go all out once, there might not be a chance later."

"Besides, after winning tomorrow's BO3, I'll add some more to all the prize money from coming to Huaxia this time, and I can buy a Mercedes-Benz."

Neo gritted his teeth and said: "That Mercedes-Benz from before, this time I want to earn it back myself!"

There is another chapter in the evening, I'm going out for a stroll to wash my brain.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 93 =====