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Gold Medal Coach: Chapter 38

Participation Card

The registration channel for the Rising Stars Cup was opened and more and more players registered online. The official number of applicants soon exceeded 100,000.

The streamer Fred had signed up to participate so other streamers known for their ‘techniques’ had comments like this posted on Weibo. “Isn’t the streamer participating in the Rising Stars Cup?”

”Yes, it is a competition that is open to the whole country. This streamer should try it out. Maybe you can make it to the top 16.”

The technique streamers of the major platforms were miserable.

Should they register or not register?

If they didn’t register, the netizens would definitely say they didn’t have strength so they didn’t dare to go.

Yet once they signed up, it would be really shameful if they didn’t make it to the final round?

Usually when playing the rankings, they boasted very well. If they went to a big competition like this and lost, it would be too embarrassing.

Therefore, some people started making excuses. “I’m not going. I’m not interested in playing professionally.”

Another person said, “If you get first, second or third place, you have to enter the national team’s youth training camp. I don’t want to go to the youth training camp.”

This method of making excuses for not participating in the competition was ridiculed by netizens but everyone could understand it. After all, the most important thing in this Rising Stars Cup was the selection of youth trainees for the national team. Many streamers didn’t want to play professionally and this little bonus was a drop in the bucket for them. So if they didn’t participate, they didn’t participate. But…

Not long after Pei Feng registered for the competition, Lin Hai, the second most popular streamer of the Xing Network, also signed up.

Back when Fred was still with the Xing Network, all his data overwhelmed Lin Hai. Lin Hai was always second best, regardless of whether it was the popularity rankings or the gift rankings.

Now Fred had changed platforms and he was finally promoted to the throne of ‘first brother of the Xing Network’. The boss started to spend resources to promote him and advertise him everywhere. In the past few days, Lin Hai’s entire body had been refreshed and the number of live streams had increased wildly from noon to 3 p.m. This attracted a large number of fans who didn’t follow Fred after he left the Xing Network.

Many people joked, “Brother Hai, do you want to inherit Fred’s legacy?”

The two streamers always had the wrong relationship. It was difficult to say if Lin Hai deliberately signed up for the Rising Stars Cup in order to steal Fred’s limelight.

His live stream room even had the name: Live streaming the Rising Stars Cup.

The two big streamers of Xing Network and Little Bear TV participated in the competition so some small streamers signed up one after another.

In any case, they could just follow along. There was no need to pay to sign up. Regardless of whether they could get a good ranking or not, just live streaming the Rising Star Cup could attract a lot of popularity.

Jiang Shaoyu didn’t expect that Pei Feng would drive the influx of streamers. More and more game streamers became involved, whether it was signing up for the Rising Stars Cup or commenting on it from a bystander perspective. The popularity of the Rising Stars Cup reached its peak and almost all Gun King players knew about this event.

In the youth training camps all over the country, some youth trainees who wanted to play e-sports rushed to sign up.

“In any case, I haven’t signed a contract with a club. Rather than going to a club to play in the A-grade League, it is better to go directly to the national youth training team!”

“The prize money for this year’s Rising Stars Cup is so high and there must be a lot of participants. If I can break through and enter the national youth training team, maybe I can debut directly and play in the World Series. Isn’t that a lot more interesting than the A-grade League?”

Students from various high schools and colleges having their winter vacation also pressed the registration button.

It was a free skin. Don’t miss out on the free item!

The three day registration process passed very quickly. According to the final official statistics, the number of participants actually reached 3.5 million.

In the domestic qualifying competition, the total number of players who reached the 2500 segment was five million. In other words, 70% of the players who met the registration requirements had signed up for the Rising Stars Cup. It was almost a ‘national competition.’ There was such large-scale publicity that there shouldn’t be too many players who slipped through the net.

Jiang Shaoyu received the official information and nodded with satisfaction. “Their level won’t be weak if they manage to break through so many contestants.”

The assistant coach Lao Cui smiled and said, “This is the national event with the largest number of participants I have ever seen!”

To ensure a fair selection, medics would have a separate competition area. All medics would compete together before two were selected to enter the top 16. In a shooting game, medics with poor marksmanship were incapable of surviving in the field. In many games, all teammates would die and the medic was the only one remaining. In order to save their teammates, the medic would have to fight against the surviving enemies.

Could they say, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t shoot?’

This rule was approved by the medics.

The style of the medics’ competition was consumption. Whoever survived the longest was the winner.

At 2 p.m. on the seventh day of the new year, the working group started to go to work and the preliminary round of the Rising Stars Cup officially opened.

All players logged into the Gun King game and there was an obvious Rising Stars Cup game server entrance in the lower right corner. Players could directly enter the server to participate in the competition.

Many players entered the game server for the first time and saw a gun arsenal full of weapons and a variety of skins. They were so excited that they took screenshots and sent them to their Moments. “F*k, I finally saw the legendary competition game suit. All resources are opened and the skins can also be selected.”

“Wu wu wu, I feel like a country bumpkin entering the city. My beloved MSG-Aurora that is out of print is actually available here!”

There were no restrictions on the gun skin a player could use during the competition. After all, the skin didn’t affect the data.

The server would be gone after the Rising Stars Cup ended so the arsenal and even the character appearance store were fully opened.

Some players who liked customizing their appearance immediately started dressing themselves. They put on beautiful clothes and things like sunglasses and jewelry.

There were also players who plunged into the gun arsenal and looked at the dazzling array of weapons, wondering what they should bring into the arena.

The 30 minutes of preparation time passed. At 2:30 p.m., the contestants’ screens simultaneously had a system message pop up: The Rising Stars Cup’s preliminary round is about to begin. You have been matched with opponent XXXX and the countdown to enter the competition room is 30 seconds.

At this time, Jiang Shaoyu was at the base of the national team and watching Pei Feng’s live stream room from a bystander’s point of view.

The preliminary round and semi-finals were both online competitions and the officials didn’t prohibit live streams. Pei Feng opened a live stream room but he was worried that the matched opponent would recognize him and run to the live stream room to peek at his screen. Therefore, he set the live stream on a delay of 30 seconds.

In the first match, he encountered an opponent who disconnected and the system directly judged it as a loss for the opponent.

Pei Feng smiled and said, “I was given a free game. Thank you, this friend!”

The live stream room was filled with ‘666.’

In the second match, he met a player with a decent level. After one minute of circling around, he was killed by Pei Feng’s neat shot.

The third match… the fourth match.

Pei Feng won them all very easily.

After seven consecutive victories, a notification appeared on the screen: Congratulations to the contestant Fred for successfully advancing to the next round. Please log into the competition server at 2 p.m. tomorrow and wait for the system referee’s notification.”

The netizens in the live stream room sent barrages to celebrate. “Brother Feng is one shot, one kill. It is too simple!”

“Even the preliminary round requires the 2500 segment to be eligible to sign up. If I had joined then my head would’ve been blown away.”

“It is right that Fred is awesome. I look forward to him continuing to sweep through them tomorrow!”

Jiang Shaoyu noticed that Pei Feng’s self-selected map for today’s competition was all ‘Skyscraper’, a four star difficulty full sniper map.

This time, the Rising Stars Cup was a five games, three wins system. The two players could choose a map while the next three games had the system randomly select a map. Such a setting was to test the players’ comprehensive mastery of the map.

Pei Feng played seven matches in a row with one map, which was really lazy.

Jiang Shaoyu sent him a private message: Tomorrow, change the map.

Pei Feng received the message and immediately sat up straight: Yes, Master!

Once he finished replying, he couldn’t help sending a message: Master, are you watching my live stream?

Jiang Shaoyu: Yes, it is boring to watch.

Pei Feng: I won’t let Master down~~

The first day of the competition ended at 11 p.m. and the 10 matches, seven victories rule directly eliminated nearly 70% of the players.

The competition continued in the afternoon of the next day. The players who were able to make it to the second round were obviously much stronger. Pei Feng was also serious. Since his master was observing his performance, Pei Feng intended to show his skills. He had more variety in today’s selected maps and his playing style was sharper. He used almost all ‘headshots’ to resolve his opponent.

It was another seven match winning streak.

In the third round, it was still a seven match winning streak.

Fred advanced to the semi-finals with a 100% win rate!

Jiang Shaoyu had observed over the past two days and was quite satisfied with his apprentice’s performance.

He turned back to the engineer of the national team, Qin Bo. “Are there any other players with a 100% win rate? Give me a list of key observation targets.”

Qin Bo was connected to the official database and could directly pull up the participation data of all players. He quickly used a program to make a table and explained, “There are more than a 100 people currently maintaining a 100% win rate and some of them are special. I will mark them in red for you. In addition to Pei Feng, there is a streamer of the Xing Network, Lin Hai, who currently has all wins. In addition, there is a 32 year old player with a 100% win rate. I don’t know if he filled in the wrong information.”

Jiang Shaoyu froze for a moment. “32 years old?”

Qin Bo clicked on the player’s information. “The data shows that he is 32 years old but he looks quite young. At present, I can’t judge if the identity information was filled in incorrectly. He is playing a medic and his win rate in the medic area is 100%.”

Jiang Shaoyu looked thoughtfully at the man on the screen. “Observe first and then watch the semi-finals.”

In the report that Qin Bo filled out, there were currently over 100 players with a win rate of 100%, most of whom were 17 or 18 year old teenagers. Pei Feng’s age of 20 was already relatively old. These days, the age of e-sports players was relaxed and the oldest foreign player was 24 years old. Pei Feng was in good shape right now and it wasn’t a problem for him to play for two or three more years. However, 32 years old was a bit too old. Why did he come to the Rising Stars Cup?

Jiang Shaoyu noted down the name of the elderly participant.

In addition, he saw another interesting piece of data. There was a player who played a charger. He had 21 consecutive wins in the preliminary round and used a large number of throwing weapons including smoke bombs, flash bombs, tear gas and grenades to kill the opponents.

The damage of his throwing weapons was at the top of all the participants.

It was a real ‘bombing’ style of play.

These players with special styles were all recorded by Jiang Shaoyu and he had the engineer continue to pay attention to them.

The next round soon began and the competition intensified. Pei Feng still maintained his winning streak.

His fans enthusiastically watched the live stream. “Fred has won 28 consecutive matches!”

“35 consecutive matches!”

“42 consecutive matches!”

“Based on this momentum, is he going to win consecutively matches to win the championship?”

“Jiayou, Fred. I’m watching you!”

At the same time, the fans of the streamer Lin Hai were also excitedly sending barrages next door on the Xing Network. “Brother Hai has won consecutively. Go straight to the finals!”

The small streamers who watched the show explained the Rising Stars Cup from a bystander perspective. There were also special commentators for the medic area.

For several consecutive days, the Rising Stars Cup had almost become an event of national concern.

The classmates around them and the netizens who knew each other—many people entered the semi-finals and got permanent skins. Some people excitedly said they would make the finals!

The week long online competition soon came to an end.

The list for the finals was released on the official website and the competition time was set for February 15th at the Capital E-Sports Center.

There would be official reimbursement for the top 16’s round-trip airfare and accommodation.

Pei Feng received an electronic version of the entry card issued to him by the officials, which could be printed and brought to the scene.

[Entry Card]

Name: Pei Feng

ID: Fred

Event: Rising Stars Cup finals

Location: Area A, 1st floor, Capital E-sports Center

When: February 15th at 2 p.m.

Pei Feng opened a locked drawer in his study. At the bottom was a quietly placed competition card.

The card was in perfect condition like it was brand new. The upper right corner had a printed colored photo. In the photo, the young man looked indifferent and expressionless. At the age of 18, his youthful appearance hadn’t faded but his eyes were cold and sharp.

[Entry Card]

Name: Jiang Shaoyu

ID: Wing

Team: ACE

Competition: A-grade League’s Pro League finals

Location: Capital E-sports Center

Time: November 15th at 4 p.m.

Pei Feng’s fingers gently slid over the young face on the competition card.

This was what his master looked like back then.

After the ACE team played in the finals at the Capital E-sports Center five years ago, Pei Feng had asked backstage, “Master, can you give me your entry card? I want to take it as a souvenir.”

Jiang Shaoyu handed him the card.

Unexpectedly, this had been collected for five years.

Pei Feng placed the two cards together.

One was his master’s participation in the finals of the A-grade League that year and the other was Pei Feng’s participation in the Rising Stars Cup.

The former was the end of his master’s career and the latter was the starting point of Pei Feng’s career.

Pei Feng smiled and spoke to the photo, “Master, I am here.”

You stopped being a professional and became the coach of the national team.

Let me fill in the position of sniper and let everyone know that God Wing’s playing style has never been lost.

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Mac
Mac
10 months ago

Gosh, Pei Feng really is precious.

Ketkai
Ketkai
9 months ago

Mc is amazing for planning such a competition. The mechanics, the prizes, etc. Everyone from different walks of life can be interested and they won’t lose out. Added are marketing especially from streamers.

It’s nice seeing the other challengers who seem to have potential OwO

That end scene gave me a lil goosebumps:

“One was his master’s participation in the finals of the A-grade League that year and the other was Pei Feng’s participation in the Rising Stars Cup.

The former was the end of his master’s career and the latter was the starting point of Pei Feng’s career.”

//screaming aaaaa ヽ(*≧ω≦)ノ

Ketkai
Ketkai
9 months ago
Reply to  Ketkai

Oh also also, the manpower, time, and expenses the organization must’ve rolled out owo

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