The Climb Has Begun—Believe You Won't Stop Here

[Ding~]

[Daily Training Tasks Updated]

[1. Complete 1,000 BOT kills on aim-training maps]

[2. Complete the Pre-aim Challenge three times on each of the Seven Active Maps]

[3. Get 500 kills in Deathmatch mode]

[4. While playing ranked on the Ladder, play at least one Ladder match on each of the Seven Active Maps]

[5. Watch one game Demo every day]

[6. Maintain thirty minutes of daily fitness training]

[The host is advised to train with weights during Daily Tasks to obtain more Rise Points rewards.]

[Ding~]

[New task acquired: Raise your Perfect World Platform score to Diamond S. Reward: Random B-class reward]

Seeing the massive list of tasks, Su Zhe even began to wonder whether he was playing one of Pig Farm's games.

This was way too grind-heavy! And Leon Kai was the NPC handing out all the quests.

Still, it suited him perfectly. Aside from his limited playtime and lack of experience, another reason his improvement had been slow lately was that the rewards from Daily Tasks had been a little too scarce.

Even after converting all his Rise Points into Attribute Points and putting them into Reaction, his Reaction stat was only [67–72].

What interested him most, however, was the new task that had appeared at the end.

As long as he reached Diamond S, not only would he get a B-class reward, he would also earn a ticket into the world of Professional Players!

A D-class reward had already given him donk's insights into technique and brought him a huge leap forward. What about a B-class reward, or even the rewards after that...?

"Keep it up!" Su Zhe silently encouraged himself before throwing his focus back into CSGO.

After completing every new Daily Task once, Su Zhe felt that the most challenging part was still playing the other maps in actual Ladder matches.

Although he had gained a general understanding of the layouts of the active maps through the Pre-aim Challenge and Deathmatch, Map Understanding was not something you gained just by running through a map and learning which paths led where.

What utility to throw at the start to take map control more easily, when to watch for where the opponents might have pushed up to, and so on...

Without a huge accumulation of game experience, there was simply no way to play those situations well.

The most outrageous map was probably Nuclear Crisis. He could actually get lost while playing it.

As a heavily CT-sided map in professional matches, his record on the Attacking Side was somehow better instead.

All of that showed just how important Map Understanding was. Fortunately, video tutorials from self-media creators had become fiercely competitive these days; some people even made guides for a single position on a particular map.

That let him save time and cross the river faster by feeling his way across the stones laid down by those before him.

The Rise Points he earned from Daily Training also kept increasing.

Busy days always passed quickly.

As he walked across campus, withered yellow leaves could be seen scattered everywhere. Some provinces and cities in northern China had gradually entered late autumn.

After the Paris Major ended in May, Valve canceled the Major events scheduled for the second half of 2023 due to the CS2 update.

However, in the month or so since the update, quite a few S-rank events had been held, such as the IEM Sydney Cup and the Kangaroo Cup.

And the annual CAC Asian Invitational was about to begin in Shanghai. Its generous $500,000 Prize Money had attracted many top professional teams from around the world.

That included famous old esports powerhouses like Faze and Mouz.

As the tournament date drew closer, players from numerous professional teams began arriving in Shanghai one after another.

As Valve's domestic agent, Perfect World Platform was also the only choice for many pros looking to practice their aim in Deathmatch or play ranked on the Ladder.

On social media, plenty of people posted screenshots or videos of running into Professional Players in Ladder matches.

Fat Brother had just returned to the dorm from the school bathhouse. Wiping his still-damp hair with a towel, he called out to Su Zhe at the computer, "Zhe~ Want to duo queue?"

Without turning around, Su Zhe replied, "In a minute. Give me a few minutes—I'm still two hundred-something BOTs short."

"Sure. That'll be just enough time for me to dry my hair."

After putting his toiletries under his bed, Fat Brother turned and looked at the intensely focused Su Zhe. "I'm starting to suspect you've been possessed or something. You've turned CSGO into a job."

"But your improvement really is ridiculous. It's only been a little over a month, and you've gone from C+ to S! Who would believe that?"

Working his mouse and keyboard, Su Zhe kept killing BOTs through muscle memory. Hearing Fat Brother's words, he smiled. "You're stronger than me. You made it to S Division in just two weeks."

"Get out of here! How is that the same thing?" Fat Brother laughed and cursed. "CS2 changed quite a bit compared to CSGO, but the fundamentals are still mostly the same. Isn't it normal to get back to S after two weeks of shaking off the rust?"

"You're the monster here. You had me thinking CS2 was easy to Rank Up in, but it doesn't seem any different after all."

Maybe it was because of the atmosphere, but roommates in college dorms generally played the same games.

After Fat Brother's online romance had fallen apart some time ago, he found Valorant increasingly boring. Under Su Zhe's influence—since Su Zhe came back to the dorm every day and played nothing but GO—he gradually returned to the game as well.

After being horribly out of sorts on the first day, he gradually regained his lost feel for shooting. In the end, after duo queuing with Su Zhe last night, the two of them both reached S Division.

Once he had dried his hair and put away his towel, Fat Brother stood behind Su Zhe's chair and teased him with a grin. "You really didn't cry when you reached S yesterday?"

Su Zhe turned and shot Fat Brother a glance without saying anything.

At the moment he reached S Division yesterday, he really had secretly shed a few tears. If his roommates had not been there, he might even have let out a few satisfying roars.

[S-rank is more than just a rank. This is a new world.]

[The climb has begun—believe you won't stop here.]

The animation sequence was not particularly hype, but when he truly reached S Division and thought back on the hard work of the past month, he felt an indescribable mixture of emotions.

Over the past month, he had spent at least ten hours a day on CSGO.

When his class schedule was packed, he sometimes did not finish his Daily Training Tasks until three in the morning.

For that, he had to thank his roommates, who slept like pigs. As long as he did not make too much noise, he would not wake them.

The long-term lack of sleep and high-intensity Ladder matches had left him utterly exhausted.

This was no longer something he could sustain through positive feedback alone. He had gritted his teeth and forced himself to persevere.

When he advanced to S Division yesterday, the already emotional Su Zhe released all the negative feelings that had built up over the past month.

"Alright, I'll stop messing with you. Let's duo queue. Today, your bro's gonna carry you hard and farm some spicy little points!" Fat Brother patted Su Zhe on the shoulder, still wearing that ever-cheerful grin.

As he sat down in front of his own computer, he also remembered the first time he had reached S Division.

He had still been a senior in high school back then.

He vaguely remembered it being 2:12 a.m. on Wednesday, September 22, 2022—though he did not remember it that clearly.

That night, he had shouted in excitement, only to be overheard by his dad, who had gotten up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. He got a brutal beating for it.