You evolved secretly without taking me! (Requesting monthly votes)

Chapter 16: Why Did You Evolve in Secret Without Me?! (Seeking Monthly Votes)

As Jiang Yang's 'epiphany' faded, the scene before him gradually disappeared.

He still felt a sense of lingering satisfaction. This burst of inspiration, this sudden enlightenment, truly sent a thrilling jolt through his brain.

His line of thought was indeed correct.

The signature moves of these top players could help him understand the game faster.

NIKO's technique this time made him realize that pre-aiming wasn't about muscle memory or simply memorizing maps.

In certain special positions, memorizing the map could improve pre-aiming accuracy, that was true.

Just like NIKO's classic K1 position for holding a sniper rifle.

But in most situations, pre-aiming relied on your understanding of the map and your spatial awareness.

Although Valve was lazy, they were quite serious about the game's content.

On every map, the ground wasn't completely flat; many areas had bumps and dips, and these uneven surfaces served unique purposes.

Therefore, just remembering a standard height wouldn't allow for the silky-smooth pre-aiming like NIKO's.

Instead, you had to understand the map to pre-aim effectively.

Seeing that [NIKO's Pre-aim] had suddenly upgraded to Intermediate, he was surprised but accepting.

In CS:GO, understanding was often more important than execution.

After gaining so much insight, Jiang Yang reviewed his previous matchmaking games and felt they were too crude, too unrefined.

This epiphany about [Pre-aiming], combined with the newly acquired [Dust II Positioning Bible], was a perfect 1+1 > 2 combination.

He had a strange feeling that on Dust II, he was now terrifyingly strong!

Quickly stuffing the last pan-fried bun into his mouth, he rushed back to his small room used for streaming.

Now, it was time to climb the ranks!

Jiang Yang turned on his computer and glanced at the time; it was just past 10 AM.

He entered the Aimbotz training map and quickly warmed up by shooting 500 bots.

Although he felt a bit overconfident after his recent enlightenment, he still had to do his preparations.

If his warm-up wasn't good, his hands would feel cold later, and getting counter-killed despite good pre-aiming wouldn't be fun.

After finishing with the bots, he specifically entered the Dust II map to practice movement, reviewing the common utility usage on the map to ensure he wouldn't make any mistakes in matches before exiting.

Matchmaking, map Dust II, start searching!

While waiting for a match, he heard his Xiaomi 11 ring.

He picked it up and saw a message from his deskmate, Li Hua: "?"

Jiang Yang immediately replied: "1."

While replying, he scrolled through his WeChat messages, feeling a bit speechless.

Just two weeks ago, they were both products of the human era, communicating in full sentences.

Then, as their duo queue sessions increased, their communication became shorter and shorter.

The next second, Jiang Yang saw Li Hua sending a voice call request on QQ.

"You're up early today. Didn't you usually wake up around 12?" Li Hua casually asked.

"I was just really hungry. I went downstairs to buy breakfast this morning," Jiang Yang replied while inviting Li Hua to join his room.

After Li Hua joined, he directly started matchmaking.

However, the next second, he awkwardly discovered that Perfect World indicated a rank difference between teammates in the same room.

Li Hua asked in surprise, "There's a rank difference? What rank did you drop to?"

He had gone on a week-long family trip to escape the summer heat and thought Jiang Yang's rank might have dropped during that week.

Li Hua instinctively checked Jiang Yang's match history.

"Did you drop to D rank? Weren't you in B before?"

"Holy crap, how are you almost A+?"

Jiang Yang's current rank was past the halfway point of A, with a score of 2109, just 91 points away from A+.

Li Hua looked at the data, even more astonished.

"76 games, 65% win rate, an average rating of 1.26. Did you really play these games?"

"What's going on?! So it's me who has the rank difference!!" Li Hua exclaimed in pain over voice chat. "We've been playing this game at the same time, how are you almost A+?!"

"Maybe I've just played more," Jiang Yang explained.

Li Hua felt even worse because he glanced at his own stats; he had already played over 100 games this season.

But his rating was only a meager 0.97, and his win rate was even lower, at 48%.

It wasn't until they compared that the difference became apparent.

When they played together before, he already felt Jiang Yang was a bit better than him at this game.

But looking at it now, it wasn't just a bit better; their talent was on completely different levels.

"Dude, you're so dead!"

"How could you have leveled up secretly without me!!"

Jiang Yang smiled and suggested, "How about we borrow an account from our class group chat?"

Li Hua heard this and refused, "Forget it, I'll go cry in my blanket alone for a bit. It'll only take a moment. You go solo queue and rank up."

"No way, I can't accept this. I'm going to go try hard and rank up too!"

"I refuse to believe you can reach A and I can't!"

With that, Li Hua hastily left the voice chat, clearly intending to go on a furious ranking spree.

Jiang Yang could only hope he wouldn't turn into a C+ by the time he returned, otherwise borrowing an account would be really difficult.

He started matchmaking again, selecting only Dust II, and quickly found a match.

After all, people in China loved this map dearly.

His previous thoughts were indeed correct. With a deeper understanding of pre-aiming, he felt right at home entering this map.

Dust II is an excellent map for aim duels, with balanced engagement distances at close, medium, and long ranges.

This means that besides pure marksmanship, other means are needed to secure kills.

This could be utility coordination or small strategies.

Jiang Yang's excellent understanding of pre-aiming allowed him to navigate these rounds with ease.

Before, he was actually better at playing defense.

His superior reaction speed combined with his anti-eco capabilities allowed him to easily get kills on defense in those kinds of rounds.

But now, due to his deepened understanding of pre-aiming, his offensive capabilities had improved significantly.

His success rate for offensive pushes had increased considerably.

And as he continuously secured kills through pre-aiming in matches, his comprehension of [NIKO's pre-aiming] was constantly being absorbed.

Jiang Yang felt he had entered a state of rapid improvement.

From 10 AM to 3 PM, he played a total of 7 matches and didn't lose a single one!

In the second match, they were unexpectedly caught by Brother S from the opposing team.

Everyone thought they would be stomped by Brother S, but Jiang Yang's outstanding performance gave his teammates a lot of confidence.

At this rank, everyone was basically a win-hungry tryhard.

So the team worked together, and in the final overtime battle, they successfully completed a comeback.

It made Brother S suffer a long defeat.

After this match, Jiang Yang's form officially heated up, and in the subsequent matches, he began to carry relentlessly.

His hands felt better and better as he played, and he felt he could easily crush the opponents with his marksmanship.

By the end of the 7 matches, his lowest rating was 1.36, and his highest was an astonishing 2.01.

It wasn't until Ma Xixi finally woke up, realized it was already 3 PM, ordered takeout, and called Jiang Yang for lunch that he temporarily left his computer.

At this point, his score had already reached 2320, and he had officially climbed to A+ rank.

Only 80 points away from S rank!

There are two more chapters today. Requesting monthly votes on Monday QAQ~