August 4th, the third day of the National Tournament.
Miuradai's opponent today was Mamiya Nishi High from Iwate Prefecture.
That was right—the very Mamiya Nishi High that, in the original story, should have been brutally crushed by Kainan yesterday and sent home with a lopsided 104:49 loss.
A bottom-feeder among bottom-feeders, widely considered by manga fans to be possibly even weaker than Takezato.
And yet, they had somehow made it to the third round and become one of the National Tournament's Round of 16 teams. Just how weak had their opponents in the first two rounds been?
There was no need to dwell on the pregame warm-up. Wu Yufei had not even received a system mission for this game.
Once the game officially began, Miuradai immediately sent out its second unit. Wu Yufei and the other four starters all sat on the bench and watched.
Wu Yufei was more than happy with that arrangement. The opponent was so weak that even the system looked down on them, and he had no interest in wasting his energy or stamina out there.
Even so, Mamiya Nishi's players were embarrassingly disappointing. They could not even beat Miuradai's second unit and were not nearly as capable as Azure Phoenix High yesterday.
Azure Phoenix had at least been able to trade blows with Miuradai's second unit, even holding a slight edge at times.
By the end of the first half, Mamiya Nishi, the bottom-feeders, had been beaten into a 48:30 scoreline by Miuradai's second unit, led by third-years like Kawasaki Akio and Araki Kazuo.
Though the gap did not look overwhelming, everyone knew the winner had already been decided.
In the second half, Miuradai's five starters took the court for ten minutes to keep their touch sharp and work up a sweat.
In those ten