Choose Your Opponent!

[Hex: Dungeon BOSS: Transformation in progress. Time remaining: 0.1 hours...]

As Jiang Yang waited anxiously, the final bit of time finally ran out. Then he noticed that [Hex: Dungeon BOSS] had disappeared.

What appeared in his inventory right afterward was something he had never seen before.

[Hex: Choose Your Opponent]

[Description: In this Hex, you can choose your opponent freely. Spend a certain number of Comeback Points as an entry fee to start a simulated match.

PS: Please adjust the difficulty to suit yourself!]

[Enter Hex: Choose Your Opponent?]

Jiang Yang wouldn't have been surprised by whatever kind of Hex appeared.

But being able to choose his opponents directly seemed very useful.

After all, even now, Jiang Yang had no idea what his actual skill level was.

According to the system, he was only at Professional Level 3.

Yet being merely an average professional was enough for Newhappy to blow him up like a fish in a barrel. Even Jiang Yang himself was a little confused by that.

He actually had a theory: the system's professional rankings might be based on the standards of the era when thirty-year-old Jiang Yang was playing.

In Counter-Strike, professional players' skill levels kept rising.

It was 2021. An ordinary pro from today would probably be so far ahead of the competition if sent ten years into the past that it wouldn't even be funny.

It was only natural that the standard of CS fourteen years later would be much higher than it was now.

Given his Professional Level 3 skill, it made sense that he could beat Newhappy.

Thinking about it that way, Jiang Yang immediately felt a lot more confident.

Now, as for this Hex...

If he really could choose his opponents, he could pick some current top-tier pros for a simulated match and find out exactly where he stood.

[Enter Hex: Choose Your Opponent?]

"Yes!"

With a thought, the scene before Jiang Yang shattered. Suddenly, he was sitting in front of a computer.

This time, he wasn't surrounded by fog. He was on a huge stage.

As far as the eye could see, the venue was packed with people. In the nighttime arena, the spectators' phone cameras shone like stars.

Their cheers and shouts of encouragement washed over him. The sheer competitive atmosphere gave Jiang Yang goosebumps.

But he soon realized that the crowd's cheering sounded strangely mechanical. It even stopped whenever he wanted it to.

He quickly stopped paying attention to it and focused on the screen.

Only then did the system's small text appear.

[At thirty, you want to return to the top of the world. But opponents from both the past and the present stand in your way. You must fight on, seizing every opportunity to improve your skills. Now, face the fears buried deep in your heart.]

Jiang Yang raised an eyebrow.

The fears buried in his heart?

Were these the players who'd driven his future self into retirement?

His competitive spirit stirred. He wanted to see just who was so strong that they could do that.

Jiang Yang thought he'd always had a good professional mindset. Even after losing a match, he never fell apart.

But for his mental game to be shattered like that? That was ridiculous.

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 two strongest players in the world right now—Sen Zai, the twin legends of CS:GO—were both in a league of their own.

Their skill was said to be beyond human.

One had an aimbot; the other had wallhacks.

If they played soccer, they'd be Messi and Ronaldo.

Those two IDs were genuinely intimidating.

He knew Karrigan and ropz, too. One was FaZe's current in-game leader, and the other was Mouz's star lurker.

Karrigan had long been known as the World No. 1 IGL. It wasn't surprising that he could be one of the IDs Jiang Yang feared.

Ropz was one of the best lurkers in the world—in short, a sneaky bastard.

Lurkers were a pain to deal with and left a lasting impression, so that was understandable.

But who was this donk?

Jiang Yang raised an eyebrow. He really didn't recognize the ID.

He'd thought NIKO would be there, but in the mind of thirty-year-old Jiang Yang, donk seemed to put more pressure on him than NIKO. That was strange.

As Jiang Yang wondered about it, he considered whom to choose.

Then the IDs gradually disappeared, and the match began.

Jiang Yang quickly opened the scoreboard for a look.

What the hell! This wasn't a multiple-choice question!... Jiang Yang froze.

He also noticed that his teammates' IDs in the simulated match had been muted, replaced with colors.

The system said they had the skill level of top-tier professionals.

Jiang Yang settled down and began playing carefully.

The simulated map was Nuke.

In the system's simulated matches, Jiang Yang could give broad commands. He could call for an A execute with flashbangs, a Line Smoke outside, or even some fairly complicated, synchronized plays from different angles.

For the pistol round, Jiang Yang went with a standard A Area execute using flashbangs.

But against that terrifying lineup, his teammates died in seconds. Jiang Yang managed to kill karrigan and then S1mple before a follow-up shot took him out.

When they reached the Full Buy Round, Jiang Yang picked up the Big Sniper, intending to test himself against the world's top snipers.

He had first spawn. After reaching the outside area, he used his positional advantage to jump-peek and gather information.

Then he heard the AWP fire.

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

Jiang Yang: ?

Come on, man... I jumped out and showed just a sliver of my scalp, and you sniped me?

How did you even kill me!

As if sensing Jiang Yang's confusion, the system showed him the death cam.

After the countdown ended, Zaiwu moved straight to the blue container beside the outside Warehouse and held the sniper angle with his Big Sniper.

Then Jiang Yang saw himself in Zaiwu's field of vision.

(The black dot beneath the red arrow is the protagonist's exposed position.)

He really had only shown a tiny sliver of his scalp. In Zaiwu's view, it had probably been visible for less than a quarter of a second—and it was only two pixels across.

Yet Zaiwu had flicked and killed him with a single shot.

"Ah!!"

Jiang Yang's handsome brows knitted together. He really couldn't make sense of that shot.

How was that fair?!

Incredible dynamic vision + incredible reaction speed + pinpoint aim + predicting where the target would appear = Zaiwu's sniping ability.

Jiang Yang considered himself pretty talented. He hadn't met anyone on the ladder with faster reactions than him.

But even he wouldn't have taken a shot at something that tiny on his screen.

There was no real chance of hitting it.

Yet Zaiwu's shot had taught him a very real lesson: sometimes a sniper had to break free of conventional thinking.

In the next round, Jiang Yang saw that their economy wasn't great. He threw a Line Smoke outside, planning to work his way down through K1 and fight with pistols in the narrow passage.

The smoke was fine, but Jiang Yang hadn't expected the enemy to start firing M4A1 rounds through it while he was creeping past.

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

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

What the hell, was that smoke fake?

Jiang Yang was baffled.

They'd just taken him out instantly.

That really got under his skin, and he started stubbornly fighting for the outside area.

Then, in one round, he finally killed donk and Zaiwu with his Big Sniper. He planned to slowly make his way into K1.

The moment he entered K1, he caught sight of someone peeking out from Main Entrance in the corner of his eye.

Luckily, the guy seemed to be looking toward the Red Box outside.

But the very next second—

"Bang!"

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

Jiang Yang slumped back into his gaming chair, a look of relief spreading across his face.

This was completely inhuman!

Was the other side really not cheating?

Jiang Yang couldn't understand it.

But after taking a long while to calm down, he threw himself back into the simulated match.

One thing about Jiang Yang was that he was both fiercely competitive and stubborn.

So even though his mindset had already started to change, he kept trying to get at least one round on the board.

Unfortunately, he got his chances plenty of times but couldn't win the fights.

He finally understood why donk was one of his demons.

That Rifleman was absurdly accurate!

His fundamentals were rock-solid, and his reaction speed was unparalleled. As long as you didn't kill him the instant you saw him, he'd immediately Counter-Kill you.

It was a helpless feeling.

If Jiang Yang missed with his Big Sniper, donk could even hold the angle and kill him on the re-peek.

In a straight-up gunfight, Jiang Yang felt like he couldn't compete at all. The frustration was intense.

Ropz was just as infuriating. He was always sneaking around to get behind you, then suddenly stealing a kill.

Twice, ropz even electrocuted Jiang Yang with a Taser. It drove him up the wall.

Only Karrigan, the in-game leader, didn't seem particularly special to Jiang Yang.

Maybe this lineup was so strong that Karrigan didn't even need to show off his calling.

After the match ended, Jiang Yang was left reeling.

It was rare for him to get shut out. The other side hadn't even tried anything especially clever; they'd won entirely through ridiculous aim.

The slightest mistake on his part was enough for them to kill him instantly.

It was incredibly demoralizing.

Still, that night, Jiang Yang had managed to find quite a few openings against those top-tier players.

Quite a few times, he'd brought the match down to a clutch, only to get toyed with and lose. It was a shame.

Even so, he'd regained some of his confidence.

After all, a team featuring Sen Zai, Big Cousin, and ropz was the kind of lineup you'd only find in a dream.

Running into one in real life was practically impossible.

Besides, Jiang Yang hadn't been completely helpless.

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

Only then did he notice that the official [Hex: Choose Your Opponent] interface had appeared before him.

Well, it turned out all that had just been a tutorial.

Who in their right mind used the final boss as a tutorial?!... Jiang Yang couldn't help complaining to himself.

In this Hex, he found that he could run simulations every day. He could spend Comeback Points to add players at random or choose them himself.

But players from different years had different entry fees.

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

The required Comeback Points appeared on the right: 500.

So 2018 really was the captain's peak. And that was only the entry fee for a simulated match.

He added the entire 2018 Tyloo roster. The required Comeback Points rose to 2,000.

At that rate, he'd run out of Comeback Points pretty quickly.

After all, Jiang Yang only earned about 1,000 Comeback Points a day.

He checked the entry fees for the players from the "tutorial."

Karrigan was relatively cheap at only 5,000 points.

Ropz cost just 7,000.

The remaining three, whose aim was exceptionally sharp, each cost 10,000.

That was seriously expensive.

But Jiang Yang understood that only by playing against truly strong opponents could he keep improving.

That match had also shown him the upper limit of CS:GO.

Jiang Yang felt like he might be able to reach that level, too.

And he was already looking forward to facing those players again.

He was running short on Comeback Points...

With that thought, Jiang Yang left the system space, changed into his running clothes, and dragged Ma Xixi out for a jog.

Over the next two days, Jiang Yang's name grew louder and louder.

After beating Newhappy, it wasn't just Jiang Yang who felt more confident; the members of Helmet did too.

That helped them secure a smooth win in the match the next day.

However, in that day's matches, DD did most of the breaking through. Jiang Yang often barely saw anyone before the game was over.

Even so, Jiang Yang finished with a 1.2 rating.

That was actually a very good rating, but compared to his performance on the first day, it was a bit underwhelming.

Quite a few viewers in CSBOY's livestream chat started teasing Jiang Yang relentlessly, saying he'd become just another player.

One after another, they called him, "Cousin's getting old."

On the third day, though, they faced a Mongolian team called Checkmate.

It was a BO3, and the team put Helmet under a lot of pressure.

Not because their opponents had any outstanding aimers, but because the Mongolian team had an exceptionally good in-game leader.

His ID was BLitz. Players in the Asian scene liked to call him Blitz.

He caused Helmet a great deal of trouble, even bringing them to the brink of elimination. Fortunately, the old timers on Helmet had plenty of grit, and Jiang Yang stepped up at a crucial moment.

They narrowly qualified for the Asian RMR, earning the chance to compete alongside Tyloo and VG.

After spending a week cooped up in the Simulation Space, Jiang Yang couldn't wait to see what the country's two best teams were made of.