How Could You Evolve in Secret Without Bringing Me Along?! (Please Vote with Monthly Tickets)

Chapter 16: How Could You Evolve in Secret Without Bringing Me Along?! (Please Vote with Monthly Tickets)

After Jiang Yang's "epiphany," the scene before him gradually faded away.

He was still craving more. That sudden burst of inspiration, that feeling of having an epiphany out of nowhere, gave his brain a thrilling, almost shuddering pleasure.

His line of thought had been right.

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

NIKO's technique this time made him realize that pre-aiming wasn't muscle memory. It wasn't something you could master just by memorizing the map.

At certain specific positions, memorizing the map and pre-aiming could indeed improve your accuracy.

For example, NIKO's classic play of taking on the Big Sniper at K1.

But most of the time, pre-aiming relied on your understanding of the map and your sense of space.

Though Valve was lazy, they still put a lot of care into the game itself.

The ground on every map wasn't perfectly flat. There were plenty of bumps and dips, and these uneven spots all served their own unique purpose.

So simply remembering a standard height wasn't enough to pre-aim as smoothly as NIKO did.

You had to understand the map before you could pre-aim for specific situations.

He was a little surprised to see [NIKO's Pre-Aiming] suddenly become intermediate, but he could accept it.

In CS:GO, understanding often mattered more than mechanics.

After gaining so many insights, Jiang Yang thought back to his earlier ranked games and realized just how sloppy he had been, playing far too aggressively.

This epiphany about [Pre-Aiming], combined with the [Dust II Positioning Guide] he had just obtained, was a case of one plus one being greater than two.

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

He quickly shoved the last pan-fried bun into his mouth and hurried back to the Little Black Room where he streamed.

Now it was time to climb the ranks!

Jiang Yang turned on his computer and checked the time. It was just past ten.

He loaded into the Aimbotz training map and quickly warmed up with 500 bots.

Though his recent insights had made him a little overconfident, he still had to do what needed to be done.

If he didn't warm up properly, his aim might feel ice-cold later, and he could get killed by the other team even after pre-aiming perfectly. That wouldn't be much fun.

After finishing with the bots, he specially loaded into a Dust II practice map and reviewed the map's standard utility. Once he was sure he wouldn't mess up his grenades in a match, he left the map.

Ranked matchmaking. Map: Dust II. Searching!

While he was waiting for a match, his Xiaomi 11 buzzed.

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

Jiang Yang immediately replied: "1."

As he replied, he scrolled through WeChat and couldn't help finding it funny.

Two weeks ago, they'd still communicated in full sentences like people from the old days.

Then, as they played more and more doubles, their messages had gotten shorter and shorter.

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

"You're up early today. Didn't you used to get up at noon?" Li Hua asked casually.

"I was starving, so I went downstairs to buy breakfast." As he replied, Jiang Yang invited Li Hua into the room.

After Li Hua joined, he started matchmaking.

But the next second, he awkwardly discovered Perfect World was warning them that the players in the same room had too large a rank gap.

Li Hua asked in surprise, "There's a rank gap? How many points did you drop to?"

He'd gone on a weeklong trip with his family to escape the summer heat, and assumed Jiang Yang's rank had fallen over the past week.

Li Hua instinctively checked Jiang Yang's match history.

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

"Holy shit, how are you almost A+ already?"

Jiang Yang was currently halfway through A rank. His exact score was 2,109, just 91 points away from A+.

Li Hua checked the stats and was even more shocked.

"Seventy-six games, a 65% win rate, and a 1.26 average rating. Did you really play these?"

"What the hell is going on? So I'm the one with the rank gap!" Li Hua cried over voice chat. "We started playing this game at the same time. How the hell are you almost A+ already?!"

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

Li Hua felt even worse. He checked his own stats and saw that he'd played over a hundred games this season.

But his rating was a measly 0.97, and his win rate was only 48%.

He hadn't realized how big the gap was until he compared them.

When they played together before, he'd thought Jiang Yang was just a little better at the game than he was.

But now it was clear that Jiang Yang wasn't just a little better. Their talents weren't even on the same level.

"Man, you're the worst!"

"How could you evolve in secret without bringing me along?!"

Jiang Yang laughed and suggested, "How about we borrow an account from someone in the class group?"

Li Hua turned him down. "Forget it. I'm going to cry under my blanket for a bit. Just a little while. You go play solo and rank up."

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

"I refuse to believe it. If you can make it to A, then I can too!"

With that, Li Hua hurriedly left the voice chat, clearly planning to go on a furious ranked grind.

Jiang Yang could only hope Li Hua wouldn't come back as a C+. Otherwise, borrowing an account later would be a real headache.

He started matchmaking again. With only Dust II selected, he found a match quickly.

After all, players in China loved Dust II.

His earlier thoughts had indeed been right. With his better understanding of pre-aiming, stepping onto this map felt like coming home.

Dust II was an excellent map for aim duels, with a good balance of close-, medium-, and long-range engagements.

That meant gun skill alone wasn't enough. You also needed other methods to help you secure kills.

You could coordinate utility, or use little tricks.

Jiang Yang's excellent understanding of pre-aiming let him thrive as an entry fragger over the next few games.

Before, he'd actually been better at defense.

After all, his incredible reaction time and ability to deal with ECO rounds made it easy for him to get kills on the CT side.

But now, with his deeper understanding of pre-aiming, his offense had improved considerably.

His success rate when breaking onto sites was much higher.

And as he continued to get kills through pre-aiming, he kept absorbing the insights from [NIKO's Pre-Aiming].

Jiang Yang felt like he was getting stronger at an incredible pace.

He played from ten in the morning until three in the afternoon. He played seven matches in total and didn't lose a single one!

In the second match, they unexpectedly got bullied by Brother S on the other team.

Everyone thought they were about to get crushed by Brother S, but Jiang Yang's excellent performance gave his teammates plenty of confidence.

At this rank, everyone was basically a rank-point slave.

So they all pulled together and managed to turn the game around in overtime.

They made Brother S suffer.

After that match, Jiang Yang hit his stride. He started carrying hard in every game that followed.

The more he played, the better his aim felt. He found it easy to overwhelm the other team with his gun skill.

After seven matches, even his lowest rating was 1.36, and his highest reached 2.01.

Ma Xixi finally woke up, realized it was already three in the afternoon, and ordered takeout for lunch with Jiang Yang. Only then did he step away from the computer.

By then, his score had reached 2,320, and he had officially made it to A+ on Perfect World.

He was only 80 points away from S rank!

There are two more chapters today. Please vote with monthly tickets this Monday, QAQ~