Testing his mettle

Ye Fengxing had some idea what sort of outfit the War Hero Family was. After all, he had heard a little about the incident with Lan Xi. He had been busy then and had not gone to join the fun. Otherwise, the War Hero Family would have had even more to sulk about.

Looking at their guild name... "War Hero Family Ninth Branch" or whatever, these people clearly were not part of War Hero's core membership. Otherwise, they would have been transferred to the main guild long ago. Why spend their days scraping by in a branch? (Guilds had membership limits. Even if a major guild had hundreds of thousands of members, they could not all belong to the same guild. Each branch was a separately established guild.)

How had someone with reaction speed comparable to a professional player ended up in the War Hero Ninth Branch...? Instead of transferring a talent like him to headquarters and properly nurturing him, what was the War Hero Family doing? Were they really that full of themselves?

This young Priest's skills were far from ordinary! They had only exchanged a few moves, so Ye Fengxing still did not know exactly how good the kid was. But his reaction speed and execution speed alone absolutely earned him the label "expert"-and not the kind of "expert" ordinary players imagined. Anyone who caught Ye Fengxing's eye certainly would not be some run-of-the-mill player.

"Expert" was a broad term that essentially meant someone who played well. But to Ye Fengxing, it was not a label to toss around casually. His own level spoke for itself. If you were not at professional level, you would be embarrassed to have God Ye call you an expert, right?

Experts among ordinary players had limits to their potential. Once they reached a certain point, their skills could no longer improve. That was a sore spot for countless people...

Many things were not as wonderful as song lyrics made them sound. Many things did not reward you just because you put in the effort. Some factors were simply fixed-take track and field, for example. How many people around the world trained for the 110-meter hurdles? Why had Liu Xiang won the championship? Had he worked harder than every other competitor?

Probably not... Talent accounted for a considerable share of how much a person could achieve. That was especially obvious in competitive sports!

PvP was also a competitive sport. Some people could practice themselves to death and never get any further, while others improved at astonishing speed as soon as they tried it. There was no denying that.

Ye Fengxing was a living example. Less than two years had passed between his first encounter with Light of Freedom and his formation of the Beaconfire Team. After that, he had charged straight upward until he stood at the very top of the world!

What could anyone say? That he had worked harder than everyone else? That was utter bullshit!

Xiao Xiaoxian's skills had yet to reach perfection, but his exceptional talent was impossible to hide! Ye Fengxing had a discerning eye, and he knew exactly how much room the kid had to grow.

Were all the people in the War Hero Family idiots? Someone like this could not be described as merely "talented." He deserved to be called a "genius"! Granted, nobody knew yet whether he could become a pillar of the guild, but surely they should at least try to polish a gem like him? They could not just dump him in some branch and let him go to waste...

Were the seeds of future professional players really worth so little these days?

Ye Fengxing was reading too much into this. His eye was extraordinary, after all, but the War Hero Family did not have all that many professional-level talent scouts...

The only person who had recognized it was probably War Hero Yi Yan. But Yi Yan was just an online gamer, not a professional player. Naturally, he could not assess someone's talent from a handful of moves the way Ye Fengxing could. Was that not asking too much of him?

Take that Divine Prophecy, for instance... War Hero Yi Yan had merely thought Xiao Xiaoxian had good game sense. Ye Fengxing, however, could tell that the kid possessed astonishing talent, even the potential to become a professional player.

Poor Yi Yan. In a certain someone's mind, he had instantly been lumped in with those unfortunate fools who had "no eye for talent" and "wasted gifted players." How was he supposed to bear that...?

War Hero Yi Yan had already done plenty to nurture Xiao Xiaoxian! But however discerning he was, he could not guarantee that the kid had professional-level talent. If he went shouting to War Hero headquarters for no good reason that he had a promising prospect, would they not mock him for chasing glory and desperately trying to climb the ranks?

With such a powerful healer standing there, Ye Fengxing had no choice but to make a tactical retreat. After all, he was alone right now. There was no way he could take on more than twenty people head-on, especially without a full set of orange gear.

Ye Fengxing moved far faster than ordinary players. Several Assassins activated Sprint and chased him, only to discover in astonishment that the Mage ahead was running even faster than they were. Then he used Blink and vanished.

[Team][Boom-Assblaster]: Holy shit! What kind of Mage is this? He runs so fucking fast!

[Team][Cold-Hearted]: Obviously a Gale Mage. The weird part is that his attack is still so high when he specializes in both wind and fire. His gear must be incredible.

[Team][War Hero Yi Yan]: Stop chasing. Watch your distance from the main group. Don't get picked off.

Xiao Xiaoxian had remained silent. He had been in a daze from the start, and nobody knew what he was thinking. The Mage beside him noticed his strange expression and gave him a playful nudge. "What's wrong, young fellow? Was that a bit too exciting?"

The Mage was only joking, but Xiao Xiaoxian nodded with complete seriousness, leaving him bewildered. Has this kid gotten obsessed or something...?

Then Xiao Xiaoxian said slowly, "I just pulled off a maneuver I'd never managed before. This time, I relied on reaction, not prediction."

The Mage was utterly lost. He looked Xiao Xiaoxian over a few times and asked curiously, "What are you talking about? I don't really follow."

"Oh, sorry, sorry." Only then did Xiao Xiaoxian realize how little context he had given. He explained everything that had just happened in detail, leaving the Mage speechless... How could he have imagined that, in that fleeting instant, the kid beside him had pulled off such an incredible maneuver?

Even spells that took effect instantly had telltale signs... The Mage had heard of that before, but such things generally only came up in certain settings-Professional League matches, for instance, or duels between top-tier players... In any case, ordinary players had no reason to ponder such remote, elusive things. There was no point.

"Not bad, kid. You're seriously good." Grinning, the Mage put an arm around Xiao Xiaoxian's shoulders and shook him hard a few times.

"Hehe." Xiao Xiaoxian was quite excited himself. All those years of hard practice had finally paid off. It had been worth it! "By the way, Brother Bing, did you see that Mage's name?"

The Mage paused. "I think he was called One Leaf Windwalk. What a weirdo. He's clearly a fan of God Ye, yet he plays a Mage."

"Oh..." Xiao Xiaoxian felt a little disappointed. It was seeing that name earlier that had filled him with an inexplicable excitement and allowed him to perform beyond his usual level... But thinking about it, how could that possibly have been God Ye? Could their group really be lucky enough to bump into the Original Self of Windwalker Blade Saint while casually wandering around the wilderness? They might as well buy lottery tickets.

"That guy's so lucky." Xiao Xiaoxian could only curl his lip, expressing his disdain for the fellow who had snapped up God Ye's name first.

[Team][Kuang Dao]: Well? Has anyone caught up with that Mage?

[Team][Boom-Assblaster]: Brother Dao, we really can't catch him.

[Team][Kuang Dao]: You've advanced to Shadow Assassin and still can't catch him?

[Team][Boom-Assblaster]: Yeah, and that Mage is weird. He used Blink, went behind a tree, and disappeared. We were only a few steps behind, but by the time we got there, he was gone. No idea what trick he used. We checked the bushes and the trees. Nothing.

While those two were talking, another team message came through.

[Team][Cold-Hearted]: I got

Everyone felt frustrated at the abrupt, unfinished message, but they all understood what it meant. Poor Cold-Hearted had been caught again... It had probably happened so suddenly that he had not even had time to finish typing.

[Team][Kuang Dao]: Coordinates 348,257. Surround him!

Without waiting for the deputy leader's order, everyone was already rushing toward the spot where Cold-Hearted had been attacked...

Crouching low, Ye Fengxing slowly approached Xiao Xiaoxian. Last time, he had only conducted a small test and had avoided lingering to keep himself safe. This time, he intended to give the kid's abilities a proper examination.

The same opening, the same Cyclone Bind. The difference was that this time, Ye Fengxing only pretended to cast it, canceling Cyclone Bind himself just before the cast bar finished. He wanted to see whether the kid's reactions really were that fast. After all, one success proved nothing. It could have been a fluke.

Sure enough, the result did not disappoint Ye Fengxing. The young Priest remained completely unmoved, standing firm as he cast his healing spell. Ye Fengxing began casting another Cyclone Bind, this time for real. Just as expected, the kid cast Divine Prophecy on himself an instant before the spell took effect.

"Okay, this little guy really isn't just guessing." Ye Fengxing snapped his fingers and sprinted away once more. "Who'd have thought the War Hero Family had such a promising prospect? What a waste of talent."

A figure suddenly rushed up beside Ye Fengxing! It was the Agile Warrior in Xiao Xiaoxian's group. To test Xiao Xiaoxian, Ye Fengxing had cast an extra Cyclone Bind, and that had taken time... An elite of the War Hero Family's Ninth Division was no pushover. He had used that opening to catch up.

The Warrior's Charge was an extremely powerful acceleration skill. In theory, it was only a tiny bit slower than teleportation skills like Blink.

Back when Ye Fengxing played a Warrior, he had loved using Charge to force an enemy Mage to Blink, then switching to a shield and catching up to smash a Shield Bash straight into their face. The poor Mage would have to burn a major skill or wait to die.

Everyone knew the bastard would fight that way, but nobody could figure out how to counter it—a Mage with God Ye right on top of them... Well, unless they were a mage god themselves, they could already be pronounced dead.

Should they let him combo them to death after a single Charge, or stall for a little while before he comboed them to death? That was a choice that hardly required any thought...