Please Choose Your Opponent!

[Hex: Dungeon BOSS: Transforming, Time Remaining 0.1 hours...]

As Jiang Yang waited anxiously, the last bit of time finally ended, and then he noticed that [Hex.Dungeon BOSS] had disappeared.

What appeared next in his personal inventory was something he had never seen before.

[Hex. Choose Your Opponent]

[Description: In this Hex, you can choose your opponent yourself. Simply spend a certain amount of Comeback Points as an appearance fee to start a simulated match.

P.S.: Please adjust to a difficulty that suits you!]

[Enter Hex. Choose Your Opponent?]

Jiang Yang wouldn't find any Hex strange.

But the ability to directly choose his opponent struck him as very practical.

After all, Jiang Yang still didn't know his actual skill level.

The system only showed him as Level 3 Professional.

But just being a mid-level professional was enough to blow Newhappy away like a fish, which confused Jiang Yang himself.

He actually had a theory that the system's professional level might be based on the era of the 30-year-old Jiang Yang.

In the game CS, the skill level of professional players has been constantly improving.

It's 2021 now; an ordinary professional player from 10 years ago would probably be on a completely different level.

It was normal for the CS skill level 14 years from now to be much better than it is now.

With his Level 3 Professional skill, being able to defeat Newhappy was relatively normal.

Thinking this way, Jiang Yang instantly felt much more confident.

And this Hex...

If he could really pick opponents, he could choose current top professional players for simulated matches, which would let him know his own level.

[Enter Hex. Choose Your Opponent?]

"Yes!"

Jiang Yang willed it, and the scene before him shattered. He suddenly found himself sitting in front of a computer.

This time, the surroundings weren't obscured by mist, but he was on a huge stage.

His vision was filled with a sea of people. Under the night stadium lights, the audience's phone cameras flashed like a starry sky.

The cheers and shouts washed over him, and a sense of competition instantly gave Jiang Yang goosebumps.

However, he soon noticed that the cheers from the crowd were quite formulaic, even stopping with his thoughts.

He quickly stopped caring and focused his attention on the screen.

The system's small text then appeared.

[The 30-year-old you wants to return to the top of the world, but opponents from the past and present stand in your way. You must constantly battle and seize every opportunity to improve your skills. Now, face the fears hidden within your heart.]

Jiang Yang raised an eyebrow.

Fears hidden within his heart?

Meaning, the players who would defeat his future self and force him to retire?

His competitive spirit flared up. He wanted to see exactly which player was so strong they had this ability.

Jiang Yang believed his professional mentality was always good; he wouldn't be devastated even if he lost a match.

But his Dao heart could be shattered, which was truly outrageous.

At this moment, five IDs appeared before him.

S1mple (2021), ZywOo (2023), donk (2024), Karrigan (2022), ropz (2022)

The first two IDs immediately put him under immense pressure.

The current strongest players in the world, the two unrivaled prodigies of CSGO, were on a different level.

The skill of these two was called "beyond human."

One was aimbotting, the other was wallhacking.

If this were football, they would be equivalent to Messi and Ronaldo.

These two IDs truly exuded immense pressure.

Then, he recognized Karrigan and ropz. One was the current in-game leader for FaZe, and the other was the star rifler for Mouz.

Karrigan had always been known as the world's number one IGL, so it wasn't strange for him to be an ID that caused him fear.

Ropz was one of the best riflers in the world, often called "the lurking ghost."

Riflers were incredibly annoying and could certainly leave a deep impression, so that was somewhat acceptable.

But who was this donk?

Jiang Yang raised an eyebrow. He was truly unfamiliar with this ID.

He had previously thought NIKO would be there, but in the 30-year-old Jiang Yang's mind, donk's pressure was actually stronger than NIKO's, which was a bit strange.

Jiang Yang pondered as he considered who to choose.

Immediately after, the IDs gradually disappeared, and he officially entered the confrontation.

Jiang Yang quickly pressed to check the scoreboard.

What the hell! This isn't a multiple-choice question! ... Jiang Yang was instantly stunned.

He also noticed that in the simulation match, his teammates' IDs were muted and represented by colors.

However, the system prompt stated they had the skill level of professional players.

Jiang Yang then calmed down and slowly began to operate.

The simulated map was Nuke.

In the system's simulated matches, Jiang Yang could issue general commands, such as having them execute a bomb rush A, or go to the outer site first, or even synchronize attacks from several complex angles, all of which were feasible.

For the pistol round, Jiang Yang directly executed a standard A site rush.

The result was that under the pressure of those terrifying IDs on the opposing team, his teammates were instantly eliminated. Jiang Yang only managed to take down karrigan and then S1mple before being finished off by a follow-up shot.

Moving on to the rifle round, Jiang Yang, now holding a sniper rifle, intended to duel with the current top snipers.

He was in the first-person perspective. After reaching the outer site, he used his positional advantage to jump and get a look at the information outside.

Then, he heard the sound of a sniper rifle.

[ZywOo (2023) used AWP to wallbang and headshot kill young]

Jiang Yang:?

No way, man... I only exposed the top of my head when I jumped, and you headshotted me?

How did you even kill me!

As if sensing Jiang Yang's confusion, the system directly gave him a killcam.

After the spawn countdown ended, he directly arrived at the blue box next to the outer site warehouse, with the sniper rifle aimed at the sniper's nest.

Then, Jiang Yang saw himself in his field of vision.

(The black dot under the red arrow is the protagonist's exposed information)

He had truly only exposed a sliver of his scalp. In the killcam's view, it might not have even been 1/4 of a second, and it was only two pixels in size.

But the sniper shot him dead in one go.

"Ah!!"

Jiang Yang's handsome brows furrowed. He truly struggled to comprehend that shot.

Why!

Extremely sharp dynamic vision + extremely fast reaction speed + positioning ability + predicting landing spots = the sniper skill of the opponent.

Jiang Yang considered himself quite talented; he hadn't encountered anyone faster than him in the matchmaking ladder yet.

But even he, if he only saw such a pixelated dot in his vision, wouldn't fire.

Because the chance of hitting was negligible.

Yet, that shot from the opponent truly taught him a lesson: sometimes, snipers just have to break conventional expectations.

Continuing into the next round, Jiang Yang saw that his economy wasn't great, so he threw a smoke to the outer site first, intending to sneak down through K1 and engage in close-quarters combat with his pistol in the narrow terrain.

The smoke was fine, but Jiang Yang didn't expect that as he silently moved through the smoke, M4A1 bullets would penetrate directly towards him.

[Donk (2024) used M4A1 to penetrate smoke and headshot kill young]

[Donk (2024) used M4A1 to penetrate smoke and headshot kill...]

Good grief, was that smoke fake?

Jiang Yang was very confused.

He was instantly killed by that.

His temper truly flared up then, and he started to stubbornly fight on the outer site.

Then, in one instance, he finally managed to kill donk and the opponent sniper with his own sniper rifle and intended to slowly move into K1.

The moment he entered K1, he saw someone peek out from the main entrance in his peripheral vision.

However, thankfully, from his perspective, they were looking towards the red box area on the outer site.

But the next second.

"--Bang!"

[S1mple (2021) used AWP to wallbang and headshot kill young]

Jiang Yang slumped entirely onto his gaming chair, a smile of resignation on his face.

This is impossible for a human to deal with!

Are they really not cheating?

Jiang Yang didn't understand at all.

After calming down for a while, he threw himself back into the practice matches.

One good thing about Jiang Yang was that he was very competitive and stubborn.

So, even though his mindset had been shaken, Jiang Yang still tried his best to score a point.

But unfortunately, many times Jiang Yang had an opportunity, but he couldn't win.

He finally understood why donk was one of his inner demons.

It was because donk, the rifleman, was too accurate!

His fundamentals were solid, coupled with unparalleled reaction speed, which meant that if you didn't instantly kill him the moment you saw him, he would immediately counter-kill you.

It was a helpless feeling.

As soon as Jiang Yang's sniper rifle missed, donk could even directly hold an angle on Jiang Yang and kill him.

It felt like he was completely outmatched in direct firefights, and the sense of frustration was immense.

Ropz was also truly annoying. He would always sneak around behind you and suddenly catch you off guard.

There were even two instances where Jiang Yang was killed by ropz's stun gun, which really disgusted him.

Only Karrigan, the in-game leader, didn't give Jiang Yang any special impression.

Perhaps it was because the opposing team's composition didn't require Karrigan's leadership to shine.

After one match, Jiang Yang was a bit dazed.

He was rarely shut out, and the opponents didn't play any special mind games with him; it was all just unreasonable gun skill.

As long as he made a small mistake, they could instantly kill him.

This was really demoralizing.

However, that night, he also got quite a few opportunities against these top players.

There were many times he managed to drag the game into late rounds, but he was often dominated in those situations and lost regretfully.

This also helped Jiang Yang regain some confidence.

After all, seeing Sen Zai, Big Cousin, and ropz on the same screen – a team of this caliber – was something he could only dream of.

It was basically impossible to encounter them in reality.

Besides, Jiang Yang wasn't completely without a fight.

With that thought, Jiang Yang let out a long sigh.

It was only then that he noticed the official interface for [Hextech. Choose Your Opponent] had appeared before him.

Well, I'll be, so everything before was just a beginner's level.

Who uses the final boss as a beginner's level?! Jiang Yang couldn't help but complain in his mind.

Within this Hextech system, he discovered he could simulate matches daily. He could spend Comeback Points to add opponents randomly or choose them himself.

However, the 'appearance fee' for players from different years varied.

"Add MO from 2018," Jiang Yang tentatively added one.

Then he saw the required Comeback Points displayed on the right as 500.

As expected, '18 was the captain's peak period, considering this was just the appearance fee for one practice match.

When he added the entire Tyloo team from 2018, the required Comeback Points jumped to 2000.

However, with this setup, his Comeback Points were running a bit low.

After all, Jiang Yang could only earn about 1000 Comeback Points per day.

He then looked at the appearance fees for the players from the 'beginner's level' he had just experienced.

Karrigan was actually relatively cheap, costing only 5000 points.

Ropz also only cost 7000 points.

The remaining three players with exceptionally good aim each cost 10000 points.

These were truly expensive.

However, Jiang Yang understood that only by playing against true powerhouses could his own skill improve continuously.

This session today also showed Jiang Yang the ceiling of CSGO.

Jiang Yang felt that he might also have a chance to reach that level.

Moreover, he began to look forward to his next encounter with these players even more.

My Comeback Points aren't enough...

With that thought, Jiang Yang exited the system space, changed his clothes, and grabbed Ma Xixi to go for a run.

Over the next two days, Jiang Yang's reputation grew even more.

After defeating Newhappy, not just Jiang Yang but also the members of Steel Helmets gained a lot more confidence.

This allowed him to win smoothly in the second day's matches.

However, during the matches that day, DD was mostly the one making breakthroughs; Jiang Yang often didn't even see anyone before the match ended.

But after the match, Jiang Yang still achieved a rating of 1.2.

This rating was actually quite good, but compared to the first day, it was significantly less impressive.

Many viewers in the CSBOY livestream chat were frantically joking that Jiang Yang had become just like everyone else.

They were all shouting, "Little cousin is getting old."

However, on the third day, they faced a Mongolian team called Checkmate.

This was also a BO3 match, and this team put a lot of pressure on Steel Helmets.

It wasn't because the opponents had outstanding fraggers, but because this Mongolian team had an extremely excellent in-game leader.

His ID was BLitz, and players in the Asian scene liked to call him Blitz.

This guy truly caused a lot of trouble for Steel Helmets, even pushing them to the brink of elimination at one point. But fortunately, the resilience of these Old Timers on Steel Helmets was very strong, and Jiang Yang also stepped up at crucial moments.

They finally advanced to the Asia RMR in a very thrilling fashion, earning the chance to compete alongside Tyloo and VG.

Facing the prospect of playing against the two best teams in the country, Jiang Yang, after a week of grinding in the simulation space, was eager to see what they were made of.