Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Not long after, the players from IG and Se7en who were seated near them were attracted by the sudden noise.

Seeing how everyone gave him a knowing smile after taking a look at their phones, Liu Zilang who was distressed instantly felt that he had made a huge mistake when he took the microphone from GodV that afternoon!

…

The next day, in the afternoon.

Liu Zilang’s team, as well as the two other teams, left their hotel to head toward California’s Colt Arena.

While they were there to attend interviews arranged by the media the day prior, they were heading there on that day for the tournament.

Since the tournament venue was near their hotel, they arrived at their destination in less than half an hour by car.

At that time, there were roughly 2 more hours before the tournament began. Nevertheless, the venue was flooded with people who were trying to get into the arena.

Long queues were seen at the entrances whereby passionate western fans brought handmade signboards with them to support their favorite teams. Some of them had even painted their faces with their favorite team’s logo.

While the crowd comprised of mostly western spectators, there were also quite a number of Hua Xia exchange students.

Apart from vehicles that were allowed to go in and out of Colt Arena, the roads around it were blocked from use. Thus, drivers needed to use another route if they were not heading into the arena.

Among the members of 4AM, Long Shenjue and Cpt had no experience in international tournaments. Therefore, when they saw the crowd outside the arena, Long Shenjue gasped. “Tsk, tsk! The westerners are making it such a huge event.

“Anyhow, Tencent from China is still the one leading.”

Liu Zilang chuckled and then said, “It’s a world tournament after all. Of course, they have to make it huge to maintain their reputation.”

“It won’t be on Tucao… will it?” Cpt asked softly.

Upon hearing him, everyone else was startled. GodV smacked Cpt’s head and then laughed at him. “What are you thinking about? Are you thinking about losing already?”

“It won’t, it won’t.” On the other hand, Liu Zilang shook his head as he giggled.

The few of them became relaxed after chatting with each other and laughing. Not long after, they entered the arena through a passage specially arranged for players.

Once they arrived at the resting room, Liu Zilang retrieved a keyboard that had been placed in a dustproof bag.

When GodV saw this, he became curious. Hence, he asked, “Is that the ‘piano keyboard’ Guru Qiu was talking about?”

Right away, the other 4AM members gathered around him as well. Since they were all professional players, they were no strangers to “custom-made keyboards”.

Even so, it was normal for them to be curious.

A keyboard was neither a rare martial art book nor a divine weapon. Since Liu Zilang had brought it, he was fine with showing it to others.

After noticing their curious looks, he quickly removed the dustproof bag.

What came into view was a dark metallic keyboard that had a rather rustic look. All the keys on the keyboard were either black or white in color. They gave off the mysterious feeling of Hua Xia’s Yin and Yang.

Long Shenjue could not help but reach his fat fingers out and then press one of the keys carefully.

“Da!”

A clear sound was heard.

It sounded like the perfect alignment of gears inside a certain refined device used during the era of steam locomotives.

At once, Long Shenjue expressed his astonishment, “It sounds… so awesome!”

All of a sudden, Aluka recalled something as he asked, “Oh right, I heard that every key on the keyboard makes a different sound. That’s why it’s called the ‘piano keyboard’. Is it true?”

The moment Liu Zilang heard Aluka’s question, he swept his fingers across the keyboard.

On the spur of the moment, dissimilar sounds were heard as if pearls of different sizes had been gently dropped onto a jade plate.

Afterward, Liu Zilang shook his head and then explained with a smile, “That’s exaggerating. It’s just that every key has slightly different tones, it’s far from a piano.”

When the other 4AM players heard his “serious” explanation, they were speechless.

‘Why the f*ck did you compare your keyboard to a piano then!’

While they were conversing, a staff member knocked on their door. It turned out that all the computers were ready for use, thus they were asked to go over to input their settings.

At the front stage, there was a clear contrast between the scene inside and outside of the arena.

Looking at the seats that were fully occupied, many players from teams that were new to such a huge scene began to feel overwhelmed.

Fortunately, 4AM had Liu Zilang and GodV. Not only did they not feel nervous at all but they were also fired up.

Perhaps at one point in their professional careers, they realized that they had been working hard for such a moment on stage.

The two of them quickly calmed their teammates.

With that, they walked onto the stage steadily amidst the enthusiastic cheers from passionate spectators and headed toward the player zone that was decorated like a plane cabin.

The seats were divided according to their regions.

Other than 4AM, IG, and Se7en, other teams that had also been categorized under the Asian region included ACE from Korea, Gold from Southeast Asia, and AHQ from Taiwan.

Each row was meant for two teams, hence the six teams occupied three rows.

Furthermore, the competition employed the rule that eliminated players had to leave the stage.

With that, spectators from both the arena and live streaming channels were able to have a clearer view of the comprehensive strength of each region through the number of players left in each seating area.

In addition to that, unlike the number of players from the Asian division, the European and American division was like an insurmountable mountain.

Therefore, since they knew where their opponents were seated, the teams from the Asian division appeared to be in more harmony.

On the contrary, in the player zone of the European and American divisions.

Between strong teams like Liquid and Faze, they treated each other as their biggest rivals.

Thus, the atmosphere was clearly less friendly and the players seemed as if they were ready to jump at each other’s throats.

Of course, that was not entirely the case.

For instance, in the South American division player zone where four teams were seated at.

Due to the freaks from SKK, the other players in that division were aware of the gap between them.

The gap was so big that even in PUBG where luck played a bigger factor in the game, they could almost neglect the existence of luck.

Hence, teams like Solomid and Ghost were not looking forward to competing against them at all. They only hoped that they would not encounter SKK which they regarded as their bane.

Conversely, Shroud from C9 crossed his legs as he sat with his hands placed on his knees.

He looked as if he was totally unbothered and was even joking together with SKK’s Captain Carl.

Around 15 minutes later, all the players were notified through their headphones that the tournament would begin in five minutes. At that time, they were confirming their peripheral settings.

Furthermore, by then, the players were basically done adjusting their settings and had no problems anymore.

Before long, three people appeared on the commentary platform for the Hua Xia division.

One was a familiar face, Su Changming while one was Lord Rong who had commentated on the intramural seeding match at the University of Jianghai.

The last one was a guy with glasses who looked decorous but his nose gave the biggest impression.

When GodV looked up and saw that person on the commentary platform, he was dumbfounded.

“Eh? Why is he here to commentate?”

…