"The Number One Palace" Legacy?

"The Number One Palace" Legacy?

After lunch, Jiang Yang and Ma Xixi had a brief break.

Ma Xixi sat on the sofa reading a trashy power-fantasy novel, letting out silly chuckles from time to time.

Jiang Yang, meanwhile, stood on the balcony in the breeze, looking through the system's contents.

He had not noticed it before, but after finishing his placement matches, a subtle change had appeared on his system panel.

[Overall Level: Amateur LV.3 (Expand)]

Amateur level, and only LV.3 at that. Wasn't that a little too hurtful?

But looking on the bright side, he still had enormous room to improve!

Jiang Yang focused his mind on "Expand," and the image before him instantly changed.

[Overall Level:

Aim: Amateur LV.5 (2323/5000)

Game Sense: Amateur LV.2 (131/2000)

Map Understanding: Amateur LV.2 (53/2000)

Positioning: Amateur LV.3 (31/3000)

Reaction: Professional LV.8 (18398/800000)

Pistol Proficiency: Amateur LV.2 (23/2000)

Sniper Rifle Proficiency: Amateur LV.5 (23/5000)

Rifle Proficiency: Amateur LV.1 (77/1000)

Other Firearm Proficiency: Amateur LV.1 (996/4000)

...

(Collapse)]

Looking at the data displayed by the Old Timer system, he finally understood why the system had given him that kind of evaluation after his placements.

After all, this was completely unlike the level a retired Old Timer should have had in the system's understanding.

If you had already mastered an ability and went without touching it for a long time, you would only decline a little at most.

But in the system's eyes, Jiang Yang's level looked more like degeneration.

Counter-Strike was not like school knowledge that you returned to the teacher the moment you graduated.

So it was perfectly normal for the system to be confused... Jiang Yang laughed to himself.

Still, these stats made much more sense on him.

According to the system, his talent was exceptional, and he had become a top professional player in the future.

But right now, as a newbie with less than a hundred hours, this was completely reasonable.

There was a saying widely circulated in the CS:GO Community—CS:GO only began after five hundred hours.

He had only played for sixty-two hours. He could only take it slow.

He studied his current abilities for a while.

His reaction ability was the strongest, unexpectedly reaching Professional LV.8.

Reaction speed could be trained, but someone with naturally fast reactions had an extremely high ceiling and floor.

At the very least, he would not end up like Ma Xixi, getting torn apart by a Desert Eagle before he could even fire his Big Sniper.

Even if his aim was off, he could still fling out a couple of bullets to scare the other side.

But what truly felt incredibly useful to him was the system panel itself.

He could use the system panel to understand his strengths and weaknesses, ensuring that he would never misjudge his own level.

For example, Jiang Yang was a pure C+ right now. He could not even talk tough about it.

He just did not know how to improve those abilities.

Unable to figure it out for the moment, Jiang Yang simply exited the system.

He pulled out his phone. Little Break Station, launch!

After asking Ma Xixi, who was grinning foolishly at his novel nearby, which characters made up "Leon Kai," Jiang Yang quickly searched up the big brother with the long neck.

Then, among Leon Kai's videos, he found a tutorial on Counter-Strafing.

Counter-Strafing was something he still lacked badly.

During today's placement matches, he personally preferred buying the Big Sniper, but part of the reason was that his Counter-Strafing was poor. Many times, even after aiming with a rifle, he would spray an entire magazine into nowhere.

And through "Hunter's ECO Special Tactics," he had also learned how important Counter-Strafing was.

So mastering this technique would be his biggest improvement right now.

Through Leon Kai's explanation, Jiang Yang finally understood the concept of Counter-Strafing.

In CS:GO, shooting while running was most likely inaccurate. Only when movement speed dropped to a certain point would bullets become accurate.

Stopping in the shortest possible time when encountering an enemy was called Counter-Strafing.

The method was just as Ma Xixi had said before: while moving, press the opposite directional key and use the reverse direction to cancel out your momentum.

For example, if you were moving left and suddenly encountered an enemy, you needed to release A while tapping D.

Jiang Yang also noticed a detail: bullets did not become accurate immediately after Counter-Strafing.

You still needed to wait 0.2 to 0.3 seconds before firing.

He was like an assassin driving a little car, tasked with killing every enemy that appeared on the map.

The opposite directional key was the brake. But even if he slammed on the brake, the car would not stop immediately—it would still roll forward for a distance due to inertia.

So if he fired while hitting the brakes, his accuracy would not be very high.

He needed to fire only after braking and coming to a complete stop. Then his bullets would be accurate.

After working through the essence of Counter-Strafing using his own logic, Jiang Yang felt that he understood everything.

But while his brain understood, his hands had no feel for it whatsoever.

He would still need plenty more practice.

But Jiang Yang had no time to study Counter-Strafing for now, because at night, his real work began.

Nighttime was when Ma Xixi's streams truly got good. As one of the country's best Counter-Strike commentators, he would cast matches at night whenever there were games.

But the past half month had been the CS:GO professional offseason.

So even at night, they could only review classic matches or have Ma Xixi's partner explain professional players' POVs for viewers to learn from.

CS:GO was a very special FPS game. In this community-driven game, players embraced a culture of learning from the strong.

And Ma Xixi's partner, former Tyloo professional player and holder of CNCSGO's best result, MO, was extremely convincing when it came to analyzing player demos.

As soon as the stream began, Ma Xixi connected with MO on TS Voice.

"Hello, hello, hello?"

"I can hear you. Stop hello-ing," MO replied over voice, then curiously asked, "By the way, where's our Cousin?"

"You found out that quickly?" Ma Xixi was somewhat surprised. Jiang Yang had only arrived at his house yesterday and had only officially started work today.

MO answered, "The moment I started streaming, viewers were spamming about having Cousin usurp the throne. I wanted to see what kind of person he was, so impressive that he not only Palace'd Jia Zi, but was now going to Palace the short guy too."

Ma Xixi immediately teased him. "So is he going to Palace you next?"

"Then Cousin might just inherit your 'Number One Palace' title."

"That's what you call a legacy!"

MO could not hold it in after hearing that, and the two of them burst out laughing.

As a former professional player, MO had once achieved an incredible feat during his career: in the team's internal power struggle, he had managed a record of "one kicking four."

Their stream was called CSBOY.

Because of his height, Ma Xixi was mocked by viewers as "the short guy." MO, due to his poor emotional intelligence, was called "the idiot." Their previous assistant, Mingri Qing, was called "Jia Zi" because of her voice.

But now that Jiang Yang had temporarily taken Jia Zi's place, viewers were all telling him to squeeze out the short guy. Naturally, the "idiot" was curious.

Ma Xixi laughed as well. "I'll shove a Helmet up your ass. Why are you arguing with the chat?"

Then he looked toward Jiang Yang and sent him the TS address over WeChat. "Join the TS Voice channel. We'll call for you if we need anything. Usually, just keep an eye on the chat. Ban the comments from people mindlessly insulting others or stirring up trouble."

Jiang Yang quickly finished setting things up and joined the TS Voice channel on his computer.

He had been watching the stream the whole time, so once he entered the voice channel, he greeted them. "Hello, Captain MO. I'm Ma Xixi's Cousin, Jiang Yang."

MO responded, "Hello, hello. Do you usually play Counter-Strike, Cousin?"

Jiang Yang answered, "I do. I've been planning to grind some rank lately."

"Then I'll play with you sometime when I'm free."

Since they were unfamiliar with each other, MO did not know what else to say.

As the assistant, Jiang Yang did not speak any further either. He simply watched the chat from the side.

MO then asked, "What are we streaming tonight?"

Since it was the offseason, all the top professional players were resting, and they had no major matches to cast.

But they had been playing matchmaking for several days already, and MO was not particularly interested in playing anymore. He wanted to switch things up.

Ma Xixi had partnered with MO for many years, so he knew what MO was thinking the moment he heard that.

He thought for a moment. "It's the offseason lately, but I think that CIS youth tournament is still going on. How about you explain a Crown Prince POV for everyone? M0nesy's, I mean."

Jiang Yang spoke up from the side. "Is this m0nesy really that good?"

Ma Xixi then explained it to him.

Most youth tournaments were fairly lackluster.

But the youth league organized by the CIS region was special. This youth league was packed with prodigies, and its level was not necessarily worse than that of top-tier events.

Ma Xixi gave Jiang Yang an example.

The previous youth league's Champion, Mouz NTX, had been stronger than Mouz's main roster despite being a youth team.

Over the past year, they had earned far more prize money than the main roster.

There had even been cases in the CIS where youth teams had beaten main rosters, so the youth league they had organized this time had received quite a bit of attention.

M0nesy was the Sniper of the NAVI Youth Team and a well-known prodigy.

Because S1mple, the Sniper for NAVI's main roster, had the nickname Forest Emperor, m0nesy from the youth team had always been called the "Crown Prince."

In the eyes of CS:GO players, m0nesy was certain to make a name for himself at the top level in the future.

As commentators, it was fitting for them to pay some attention to these youth players. If this group made it to top-tier events later, they would already understand their backgrounds and information.

Ma Xixi realized that bringing Jiang Yang over had actually been a great idea. Jiang Yang could take the initiative to ask these questions, and Ma Xixi could explain things to the viewers in the stream.

After all, MO was not very talkative. Usually, Ma Xixi was the only one rambling on in the stream.

After listening to Ma Xixi's explanation, Jiang Yang fell into thought.

A prodigy who would make a name for himself in the future... would that be you?

Ma Xixi and MO quickly found the match demo and began explaining from m0nesy's perspective.

Jiang Yang hurriedly watched along as well. Although the person who might break his mentality had told him to pay attention, what he needed more right now was to learn alongside MO.

He also wanted to see how these youth players played the game.

I'm a little late, sorry, sorry.