Chapter 346: Yinshan Village

Ornamental pool.

There was a lot of chatter from the audience as they watched Bai Liu, who was about to walk to the ghost bridge, but the discussion was quiet and non-aggressive.

When two popular teams are playing against each other, at least in the viewing pool, these spectators don't dare to say anything bad, after all, the team members who are not in the game are sitting at the bottom, so if they say something and offend the other team, it's not impossible to be hunted down and killed later.

Where else is the lesson learned from the clown killing the audience.

But it is inevitable that there will be discussions about the direction of the race, which is clearly not in Bai Liu's favour at the moment.

"...... Tsk, tsk, I think Bai Liu is going to be finished."

" Kong Xuyang has always liked to play his opponents behind panel silence, but I didn't expect him to have such a big card as devouring memories hidden away, the combination is truly unbeatable."

"Panel silence is a difficult skill to get right, and many major guilds have fallen foul of it ......"

Wang Shun turned his head back to the audience and looked worriedly at Bai Liu on the big screen: "The points in our pool have slowed down a lot."

Muke looked coldly across the table at the Fever Lamb players, "The Fever Lamb pool has tripled in points growth."

"The rate of increase in the pool depends on the momentum of the race, once it slows down it's hard to go up." Wang Shun became increasingly worried, "A lower pool growth rate means less people are watching you, which means less chance of getting a free pass later on."

"This match is one of the rare high profile matches you've had recently and Kong Xuyang is a very popular player, I don't think Bai Liu will lose to Kong Xuyang ......" Wang Shun sighed. "What worries me is that if Bai Liu doesn't win this match beautifully and spectacularly, his popularity won't go up."

Wang Shun paused, "You're about to meet Russell Cemetery, they're not going to come off the field alive, they're going for the kill, if you don't get the popularity bonus in this game, it's going to be hard to get it next."

"Without the get-out-of-jail-free card, it's going to be a bitter battle with Russell Cemetery." Wang Shun laughed bitterly.

Liu Jiayi was calm: "The pool can be a game, right?"

The pools are displayed on a vertical TV screen next to the entrance to the game, which is also known as the "Team Standings", and the teams that make it to the standings are quickly noticed by the audience.

A fast growing pool means that the team with this pool has excellent momentum and is currently looking up.

Just like stocks and funds, a fast rising pool will have many spectators placing blind bets, that is, rushing in without even asking, betting on players and teams, thus rapidly expanding the pool and boosting the popularity of the players, and it is only after they have done so that these spectators will in turn focus on the teams.

This is also known as a "banker's game", and is used when a team is going down the drain and is desperate for a win, simply to get people in first.

If this practice fails, that is, if the player loses, he or she will be scolded [for dragging a few along with him or her even if they die], and the team will generally have no way back to go, and will be directly besieged by the audience who lost the points until they disband.

And if this is successful, the short, quick and efficient gains will quickly get the audience who have tasted it on their heads, thus becoming more loyal to the team, placing more bets in the next tournament and piling up the player's popularity value like crazy to get him the get-out-of-jail-free card, a typical [gambler's mentality].

Liu Jiayi looks to Wang Shun: "Charles, the man behind us, started out as a game player, so he's not coming to control the scene at this time?"

"Personally, I don't like this way of getting to the top, the audience it attracts are too extreme, it's easy to get into trouble and it's not really fair to those viewers ......" Wang Shun frowned and let out a long sigh, "but I did previously also asked Charles if he wanted to be a bureau."

Liu Jiayi asked, "What did he say?"

Wang Shun said, "He said he wouldn't do it in pre-season and he wouldn't be involved in anything with Bai Liu in pre-season other than to help fund Bai Liu's training."

" Charles' exact words were [if the dark horse can't run in front of him himself, then he doesn't deserve any more energy from him]." Wang Shun took a deep breath, "In pre-season, Charles made it clear to me that he wouldn't give Bai Liu any boost."

Liu Jiayi quickly shifted the focus: "So do we have enough stored points in our own guild to make a game?"

"It's not enough." Wang Shun shook his head, "And Bai Liu has explicitly said that the points cannot be touched, saying that they are the foundation of these members of the guild and that it would be easy to scatter people if they were touched."

Liu Jiayi pursed her lips and looked at Bai Liu on the screen: " What is Bai Liu's current popularity ranking?"

She actually has no doubt that Bai Liu can win the game, but how ...... can rise back up the popularity ladder and break into the top 100 before playing Russell's Cemetery and getting the get-out-of-jail-free card is the heart of the game.

" Bai Liu is now ranked 151 in terms of popularity and has made it to the mid-season circle." Wang Shun replied, "but still a long way from the top 100."

"Now if we have to do a game to boost Bai Liu's momentum, we can only count on the sudden drop of a very high points audience to place a massive bet on him."

Wang Shun said with a bitter laugh, "But this kind of dirt-cheap audience has long been wrapped up by all the star players during the support season, all playing in the mid-season betting pool, where can they see Bai Liu, a pre-season rookie?"

Tang Erda looked at the team pool on the system panel and said in a deep voice with her hands on her knees, "Our pool is growing at a rate of almost zero."

Wang Shun was shocked and quickly opened his system panel and quickly checked: "How did it drop so much!"

"It's not just our side, Fever Lamb's pool has slowed down too ......" Wang Shun muttered as he watched, "All the teams' pools have slowed down throughout the pre-season ...... What's going on?"

Liu Jiayi was quick to react: "Which team is playing now in the mid-season, which team against which team?"

Wang Shun, reminded by Liu Jiayi, slapped his head and said, "I was so focused on our guild's match today that I forgot about this big event!

"At the same time as our match, there is a big match in the mid-season tournament." Wang Shun's eyes were complicated as he looked at the match-up table presented on the system panel, "...... Killer Sequence vs King's Guild."

"All the points in the game are now pouring into the pools of these two guilds, this is most likely the result of the match." Liu Jiayi stared at the insanely high pool points figures of the King's Guild and the Killer Sequence on the system panel, "I can't tell who's going to win from the figures for now, Wang Shun, can you tell?"

Wang Shun shook his head slowly: "The rate of growth is too fast for me to analyse."

Mid-season viewing pool.

Two snow-white lanes of light lit up on either side of the huge screen, with members of the Slayer Sequence and the King's Guild lined up inside.

At the front of the killer sequence was the Reverse God, and at the front of the King's Guild was Hearts, who, after stepping out of the aisle, crossed over to the host, who was standing in the middle, holding a microphone with a blank expression, and exchanged very civil and polite handshakes.

The entire audience basically had the same blank expression as this presenter, as if they simply couldn't believe they were seeing the scene in front of them.

There were so many people in a competitive viewing arena, and it was clearly the most exciting moment of the end of the game, but not a single voice was heard.

The whole room fell silent to an eerie degree.

Everyone stared blankly at the two teams walking towards each other in the middle of the field, as if they hadn't recovered from the match they had just played and didn't react to what was going on.

The Reverse God smiled and shook Hearts' gloved hand, "Very brilliant tactics."

Hearts smiled flirtatiously, "That would be more appropriate for you, wouldn't it?"

"After all, you did nothing but forfeit a single match." Hearts lifted his eyes and swept the Reverse God with a wink, "But shaved one of our heads."

The host looked like he was just now coming back to his senses, jumping up and down with his microphone in excitement and yelling, "Everyone! The result of the match is that the Killer Sequence has won 22-1 against the King's Guild!"

"This is the biggest mid-season game in history in terms of game point differential!!!"

"The single match killer sequence forfeits, the double match killer sequence gains 6 points for an early kill and the team match killer sequence gains 16 points for an early kill for a total of 22 points!"

"This is a high score that no team has ever achieved in mid-season, and the Killer Sequence is playing against the King's Guild, who came second last year!"

After a brief silence, the room fell into a frenzied mania, with everyone Buming so, blushing with excitement and shouting, or cursing, the names of the killer sequences.

Amidst such noise, Hearts looked unmoved at the Reverse God: "Abstaining from singles is your tactic, isn't it?"

"The rules of the points competition are that the first team to get eight points wins, and by forfeiting a single match, you are trying to get two early kills in the later pairs and team matches to maximise your interest in gaining points."

"You've got a lot of nerve to do that against us." Hearts gave a flippant sweep of the Slayer Sequence behind him, his eyes pausing for only two seconds as they passed over Spades, "You've got a team that came close to winning from me last year, and this year you've got the audacity to pave the way for yourselves by sacrificing my guild."

The Reverse God pretended to be honest and scratched his head with a friendly smile, "I was just trying it out, I didn't think it would really work."

Hearts were silenced for a second by the shamelessness of the Reverse God.

Mid-season is different from pre-season and post-season in that the core of mid-season is points, betting pools, and exemptions, while the Killer Sequence saw a major player change this year, and while it still voted five key players into the top 100, the player popularity rankings were quite polarized.

Spades and Invincible are firmly in first and third place, but beyond that Bai Yi, Bai Jiamu and Liao Ke are hovering in the lower 70s to 90s, in a very precarious position, and will be pushed down once the popular players make a push in the later stages.

The reason for this phenomenon is also simple, as the poor performance of the killer sequence in the regatta leads to a break in ranking as the team does not get up the average ranking.

The same is true of the roving circus.

And the only thing that can solve this situation is a strong, and highly visible, team competition.

The Reverse God made a risky move by picking this regimental match as the one against the King's Guild.

"Singles has always been your strong suit, Spades kills the game early and secures two points every time." Hearts looked to the Reverse God, "I didn't expect you to drop Spades from the singles and put Spades' immunity on hold for the team match."

Hearts watched the Reverse God quietly, " Spades isn't very good at team games, you're betting a close one."

The Reverse God smirked again as he glanced afterwards at Spades, who was standing next to him and clearly starting to wander off: "People change all the time."

Hearts let go of the Reverse God's hand and curtsied slightly before rising to look at Spades, who was standing next to the Reverse God.

She paused for a moment as her eyes went to the black whip held in Spades' hand, then Hearts took off her red gloves and held out her hand to Spades as she gave a very elegant smile, "It was a pleasure competing with you this time, Spades."

Spades' wandering eyes pause for two seconds on Hearts' face: "You who?"

Hearts: "......"

A loud choking cough erupted violently as the Reverse God calmly stepped in front of Spades and took Hearts' hand in a firm, strong grip, shaking it up and down twice as hard as he could, "Yes, Spades had a good time at this game too!"

"Pleasant enough not to remember who I am?" Hearts drew back her hand with a smirk as she gave a small nod to the rest of the Slayer sequence and turned to lead the rest of the team off the stage.

The Reverse God was relieved to see Hearts off the stage, then turned around and gave Spades a nasty smack on the head: "You've played him twice! He's been so polite to you, at least remember what he looks like!"

Spades recalls carefully, "Has she ever fought us before?"

Against the Gods: "......"

Bai Yi: "......"

Bai Jiamu: "......"

Liao Ke: "......"

Hearts, give up on this man and go find the next spring, you played him once in the final and he doesn't even remember you, it's really not worth it!!!