After more than twenty hours of flying, Su Zhe finally arrived in Sweden.
With a staff member from the club there to pick him up, he made his way to the entrance of the Nip club. From a distance, he saw someone waving at him.
"Hey, brother!"
Su Zhe compared him with the photos he'd saved on his phone in advance and realized the man greeting him was k0nfig, who had added him as a friend twice.
When they met, k0nfig gave him a big bear hug. "You finally made it. Sorry for the long trip."
The gesture was so warm and open that Su Zhe felt a little bashful. He'd never met such a friendly "stranger" before.
K0nfig greeted the staff member who had shown him the way, then said to Su Zhe, "Come on, I'll take you to the Training Room first."
Su Zhe nodded and followed k0nfig. K0nfig was quite talkative along the way, introducing him to all the club's facilities.
Su Zhe nodded now and then, taking in his surroundings and marveling that Nip truly was a powerhouse team in the world of CSGO. The corridors inside the club alone were several times wider than those at Tianlu, which he'd visited before.
And the decor was on another level. It was no different from the grand mansions he'd seen in movies.
He followed k0nfig to the Training Room in an elevator. Peeking inside, he saw only four people there.
Su Zhe asked curiously, "Are there so few people in your Youth Training program? Or is it not time to train yet?"
K0nfig couldn't help laughing at that. "How could this be the Youth Training department? This is our Main Team's Training Room."
"Oh, I see." Su Zhe scratched his head awkwardly.
He was still a little face-blind when it came to foreigners. Except for famous people or those with distinctive looks, everyone else seemed to look the same to him.
The people in the Training Room noticed the commotion at the door. A tall man with a head of curls got up and walked over. "You must be Arrow, right? I'm es3tag, Nip's acting captain for now. Come on in and have a look."
REZ and headtr1ck looked Su Zhe over with curious expressions.
The coach, djL, who had been watching a Demo, got up and smiled as he shook Su Zhe's hand. "Sorry for the long trip. Have you booked a hotel? Your tryout is scheduled for two tomorrow afternoon."
Su Zhe said, "Um, could I do the tryout today?"
K0nfig looked surprised. "Huh? Didn't you come all the way from Huaxia? Don't you need to get over the jet lag? You should at least rest first, right?"
Su Zhe shook his head. "No need. I feel pretty good right now."
Although he was exhausted after spending over twenty hours on a plane, he'd gotten plenty of sleep during the flight.
More than anything, Su Zhe was so excited about this tryout that he worried he'd lie awake thinking about it all night. His performance might end up being worse tomorrow afternoon.
Es3tag gave him a thumbs-up and smiled. "No surprise for an eighteen-year-old. You've got energy to spare. Ten years ago, I was just like you. I could train for more than ten hours a day without getting tired."
DjL hesitated for a moment, then said, "All right, then. I'll get in touch with X team and see if they're available today."
With that, he took out his phone and walked outside.
Huh? X team?
Su Zhe thought he'd misheard, so he turned to es3tag. "Um, could you tell me where the Youth Training department is? I can find my own way there."
Es3tag looked puzzled. "Why are you going to the Youth Training department?"
"To do the tryout."
"Why would you go to the Youth Training department for a tryout?"
"Where else would I go?"
"Hahahaha!" Their exchange made everyone in the Training Room burst out laughing.
K0nfig clutched his stomach as he laughed. "We didn't bring you here to recruit someone for the Youth Training team. Otherwise, we wouldn't bother with this."
Es3tag nodded. "That's right. If you pass the tryout, you can join our Main Team directly."
Then he added, a little sheepishly, "It's just that, for certain reasons, this tryout might be pretty difficult. You'll need to put up a good result."
"But given how well you've played on Ladder, you should pass as long as you're in good form."
Su Zhe's head was spinning. He'd only heard the first part.
Huh? Me? Join the Main Team directly?
Nip—the team that could thrash Tianlu—was letting him join the Main Team just like that?
Hearing this, Su Zhe felt as if he were reading The Three-Body Problem. This was way too sci-fi.
Es3tag saw that Su Zhe wasn't saying anything and thought he was nervous, so he continued, "Don't put too much pressure on yourself. X team is also using this tryout to find new teammates. They've got three new players this time, so they probably won't use any tactics during the match."
At that, es3tag couldn't help sighing for his home team.
Denmark had always produced strong CSGO teams. Team Liquid had once won three consecutive Major championships, forging the longest dynasty in CSGO history.
And X team, Denmark's second team, had also often ranked among the top ten in the world.
But a few months ago, X team announced that they were sending their key player, Point Brother, down to the reserve roster. The team's crucial players, stavn and jabbi, also betrayed the team and went to Team Liquid.
That left the once world number-one team with only sjuush and TeSeS. Their ranking had since plummeted.
K0nfig suddenly spoke up. "Let's not just stand around here. Since we're doing the tryout today, go warm up on that computer first, Arrow. We'll get ready too."
As he spoke, he pointed to one of the computers in the Training Room.
Su Zhe snapped out of his immense joy and quickly agreed.
As soon as he sat down at the computer, he quickly calmed down and focused.
He still didn't know why his tryout had suddenly shifted from the Youth Training team to the Main Team, but now that he had the opportunity, he absolutely wasn't going to let it slip away.
Su Zhe had killed more than three hundred bots on the aim-training map when the coach, who had just gone outside, returned.
"Luckily, X team's new players arrived early and stayed in rooms arranged by the club last night. Otherwise, we might not have been able to set this up today."
He walked up behind Su Zhe and asked, "Is there anything else you need to prepare?"
Su Zhe shook his head. "I'm ready. We can start anytime."
DjL nodded. "All right. Warm up a little more. They'll be ready soon."
With es3tag's help, Su Zhe joined the TS Voice. After waiting for more than ten minutes, all ten players from both teams entered the custom room.
Just before the match began, es3tag, the captain and in-game leader, reminded everyone over voice chat, "We'll play T Side without using Set Tactics. Just default. Same goes for the CT Side."
Su Zhe nodded when he heard that. The tryout made sense to him.
Set Tactics were plans prepared before the match began. At the start of each round, everyone just had to carry out their assigned roles.
As a newcomer, there was no way he'd be able to work well with their tactics.
With a default, they'd hold the areas they were supposed to control early on, then decide how to play based on what happened in the middle of the round.
That relied more on individual skill and experience, which was also the main purpose of a player tryout.
Su Zhe flexed his fingers, ready to begin at any moment. The coach, djL, stood behind him with a tactics notebook, ready to take notes.
The teams each picked a map. Nip chose Mirage, while X team chose Inferno.
The tryout rules were the same: each team played twelve rounds on one side, then switched sides and played another twelve rounds, regardless of the score.
Mirage was the first map, picked by Nip. They chose to start on T Side.
Soon, all ten players loaded into the server.
T Side: es3tag, k0nfig, REZ, headtr1ck, Arrow
CT Side: Nertz, TeSeS, nicoodoz, sjuush, kyxsan
Just before the match started, es3tag glanced at Su Zhe's serious expression and reminded him again:
"Good luck! They've all been playing professionally for years, so be cautious during the match. Don't play like you do on Ladder."
"Okay!" Su Zhe nodded.
After entering the server, his first feeling wasn't nervousness. It was that the server's ping of just over twenty milliseconds felt incredibly smooth!
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