Chapter 2969: Winning Cheers, Main Network Load Pressure

The next day, the first event of the Snow Melting Competition officially began.

The Arcane Maze was originally Chess from Xia Duo's hometown, later added with some Spell Duel elements by him and recommended through Niya to her teacher, Princess Xiya, who was the overall person in charge of the Seven Towers at the time.

Since then, every Snow Melting Competition has included the Arcane Maze event, and because of this, the event has been able to spread widely throughout the Northland.

Over the years, many outstanding players have emerged among the Elves.

Today, Xia Duo and Niya came to Seventon to watch the competition, naturally not wanting to miss this new event brought by Xia Duo; likewise, just like yesterday, the contestants from Netheril today were mostly from Gustav Tower.

Or rather, they possessed Elf blood!

This was actually a continuation of yesterday's silent protest; not just yesterday or today, but according to what the Council had discussed beforehand, every subsequent match would prioritize letting those with Elf blood compete as much as possible.

For this, they were willing to lose some matches!

In the spectator stands, Xia Duo and Niya chatted while watching the match; the two sides currently battling on the field were from Netheril and Yierlan, respectively—what a clever combination.

"Who do you think will win between the two of them?" Niya asked.

In that case, the Main Network's greatest weakness would be exposed; even if it managed to survive the crisis by luck this time, in the future, as the number of Mages from various countries connecting to the Computing Power Pool Sub-network decreased, that weakness of the Main Network would inevitably be deliberately manipulated by them.

Being on-site had two main advantages: one was the large audience and lively atmosphere, and the other was being able to watch whatever one wanted.

That kind of situation was not what Xia Duo hoped to see.

If the future Public Computing Power Pool really evolved into that situation, then the so-called "Main Network" would completely degenerate into an optional ornament; countries would use it if they needed to, and ignore it completely if they didn't.

It was just that after the cheers, one could still not help but think of the opponent's identity as a mixed-race human, which allowed an inexplicable ideology to continuously breed and ferment among the Elf population, until it could no longer be hidden, completely shattering secular prejudices.

Some Elves liked to go to the scene to watch, some liked to watch the broadcast, or even check more detailed records afterwards, but regardless, this caused a significant decrease in the support for the Psionic Network of the Computing Power Pool by local Mages in Evereska.

For example, with activities happening in reality in Evereska, and the number of connections decreasing and load capacity dropping, various countries instead increased the number of their own national connections to impact the Main Network load.

The killing of pieces in the Arcane Maze possesses a huge first-move advantage; at the same level of Spell Duel, the first mover often wins, but the one being killed is not entirely without the ability to resist.

The Main Network load has already reached a very dangerous state and may be unable to support it at any time!

But as he said, the Arcane Maze is essentially a Spell Duel wrapped in a Chess shell; if one side possesses absolutely overwhelming Spell Duel experience and technique, even if they don't understand the rules of Chess at all, they might not necessarily lose.

Broadcasts might allow one to see deeper information during the match, but considering the efficiency of real-time broadcasting, the perspective is relatively limited, making it impossible for the audience to see whatever they want; what the audience can see depends entirely on the broadcaster's perspective.

It is also possible to counterattack by operating pieces through various techniques; if the counterattack is successful, the opponent's operation becomes invalid, and instead, their strategy for the game is exposed.

Through such methods, they could force the Psionic Network Center to make concessions on certain issues, such as increasing the dividend ratio for various countries.

And in Evereska, while the main body was relaxing and watching the competition, the avatar could not rest; affected by the Snow Melting Competition, the number of Mages connecting to the Computing Power Pool at this time saw a cliff-like drop.

But Xia Duo was also very troubled by this problem; shutting down the Computing Power Pool was clearly the responsibility of him, the operator, and borrowing resources from other countries was actually just temporarily transferring the connections that were originally only in the various national Sub-networks to the Main Network.

Many matches, even in Xia Duo's eyes, were very pleasing to the eye.

On the third day of the Snow Melting Competition, inside the Gateway Control Hall of the Psionic Network Research Center at the Alliance Headquarters, the group of Mages left behind to work overtime had fallen into a state of confusion.

Xia Duo had not missed almost any of the subsequent matches, but he had too many things to be busy with; his main body was like rushing between venues, traveling back and forth between the Territory, the Tower of Time, and Seventon.

But regardless, chess skill still possessed a very strong bonus for winning duels; otherwise, it would be better to simply cancel this event and just have a Spell Duel.

Of course, the main body still spent most of its time in Seventon watching the competition with Niya; the standard of the Snow Melting Competition was not low, and the level of the contestants was naturally increasing year by year, almost visibly to the naked eye.

Seventon had the Snow Melting Competition, while the Territory and the Tower of Time had the Jiche Sheji Dasai and internal Arcane Competitions; Xia Duo could not avoid saying some words of outlook and encouragement in front of the residents and members of the Tower of Time.

Xia Duo did not show any favoritism because the person competing on the field was a human; purely in terms of chess skill, the Elves were indeed superior, and even Xia Duo himself would be inferior if he didn't use the help of his Wisdom brain.

Although it was just a single game, it won the unanimous cheers and congratulations of the audience on the field; at that moment, he was not a mixed-race human with a sensitive identity in the Elf World, but a Maze player who had overcome the Elves with perseverance and Wisdom.

The charm of competition lies in this; it makes people involuntarily ignore many external factors such as the contestant's identity, gender, appearance, and race, and only appreciate the contestant's competitive level.

Very quickly, a critical turning point appeared in the match on the field; after several difficult captures, the Elf contestant exposed their strategy for the game, and was finally caught by the human contestant who seized the opportunity to complete a fatal checkmate, achieving victory.

"From the perspective of chess skill alone, the Elves are slightly better, but the Arcane Maze is not just Chess; it also involves Spell Duels, and in that aspect, humans have a slight advantage. The final result is really hard to say."

"Consultant Xia Duo, what should we do now? Temporarily shut down the Computing Power Pool? Or find a way to borrow resources from other countries?" a Mage asked.

The reason lies in the fact that most of the Main Network's connections are local Mages in Evereska, but now most local Mages are busy watching the competition; these Elves don't even need to go to Seventon, they can watch the live broadcast directly in Evereska.

The Sub-networks of the few countries that are still online haven't had any problems yet, but a big trouble has appeared on the Main Network side—

If one performs well and wins the match, even the most demanding audience will not hesitate to give their most enthusiastic cheers.

Compared to watching on-site where one can only rely on one's own Perception to obtain match information, broadcasts allow one to directly see deeper information obtained by higher-level Spellcasters through specialized Scrying spells.

Doing this would immediately solve the problem of insufficient Main Network connections, but—