Chapter 313: The Same First-Year Competitor
As the opening ceremony concluded, the official roster of confirmed participating teams was released on the league’s website.
Aside from streamers and video platform creators, most viewers had little interest in browsing the preliminary rosters. There were simply too many teams, and most came from unfamiliar cities and schools—not worth the effort.
Unless it involved their own city or a favorite team, even the group stage teams didn’t attract much attention. Instead, the public’s focus swarmed toward the five hundred seeded teams that had advanced directly to the finals.
As the fifth-ranked city, Lian City’s teams naturally drew significant attention.
Both Lian City’s seeded team and the Light Institute of Lian City—also directly seeded—had their starting rosters examined countless times. Naturally, the most eye-catching detail was the bold, striking label: [First Year].
[What the hell is Lian City doing this year?]
[Arrogance of a major city! Do they think they’ve locked in a top ten finish and brought a first-year along for tourism?]
[A first-year and a fourth-year as substitutes? Arrogant—too arrogant! I officially rename Lian City the City of Arrogance!]
[Looking at these rosters, this year’s league is interesting. Of course, the most outstanding thing is Lian City committing the sin of arrogance first!]
[Does anyone know this first-year’s background? How did a seeded team give her a substitute spot?]
[No idea. I don’t think any major consortium leader has the surname Xu?]
[Interesting. Looking forward to their performance. If they flop, it’ll be a huge joke.]
[Jealous. Is this the composure of a major city?]
Discussions about Xu Zhi and Light Institute’s roster dominated social media panels. As a city consistently ranked in the top ten in both the league and city rankings, Lian City’s sudden bold move this year drew enormous attention.
The name Xu Zhi—appearing for the first time—gained massive exposure and discussion in a single day. A brand-new player who had never shown her face became instantly famous on the very first day of the league.
“Junior, how’s your social media holding up?”
After training, Tong Zhou browsed the forums and raised an eyebrow teasingly at Xu Zhi.
Xu Zhi blinked. “It’s fine. I disabled friend requests from strangers. But why did my follower count suddenly spike so much?”
“Because the roster’s out. Everyone now knows you’re the only first-year in a seeded team.”
It wasn’t an exaggeration. Aside from some obscure small academies in remote areas using talented first-years to fill gaps in preliminary teams, no major academy would field a first-year. Forget finals seeds—even among group stage seeds, there wasn’t a second first-year.
Xu Zhi’s existence was simply too conspicuous.
“By tomorrow—no, tonight—there’ll be all kinds of analysis videos. You’ll definitely get name-dropped.”
Tong Zhou chuckled, clearly anticipating the spectacle.
Xu Zhi shrugged lightly. “What can they even analyze?”
“Fair point. They’ll analyze your background, your family—but they’ll never guess your ability.”
A first-year at the Longevity stage—no one would believe it. They’d only accuse Lian City of lying or using a first-year to divert attention.
As they chatted, the dean and analysts—now quite familiar with them—walked in.
“We selected a few matches from today that are barely worth watching. Only a handful. We’ll show them first, then give a brief breakdown.”
Xi Min spoke calmly, with a faint arrogance befitting the strong. The students below didn’t find anything wrong with it.
After all, preliminary teams were indeed only “barely worth watching” to them.
Xu Zhi rested one hand on the table and propped her chin with the other, watching the projected match footage. Xi Min pointed to the team on the right.
“This team is from a city called Dingchan. It’s quite remote and merely a subordinate city. By previous standards, they wouldn’t even qualify to participate.”
Then Xi Min suddenly looked at Xu Zhi.
“Notably, this team also has a first-year student. And this student is not a substitute.”
That immediately sparked curiosity among the seven.
If Xi Min had chosen this footage, it definitely wasn’t because the academy had no better players and had to field a first-year. It meant that first-year had something noteworthy.
“Based on our observations, this first-year is around Level Six Comprehension. Among ordinary first-years, that’s already quite exceptional.”
“Attribute: Winter. His extraordinary abilities are focused entirely on peak individual combat. The rest of the team is also stronger than most preliminary teams. With their coordination, they easily secured the team battle.”
“The key point is their team fight coordination—it flows extremely smoothly. They didn’t field the first-year in the individual matches, likely to conceal his personal strength.”
After explaining, Xi Min looked at Xu Zhi, who was also a first-year.
“What do you think, Xiao Zhi?”
The girl seemed slightly distracted. Only after being addressed did she shift her cheek off her hand and answer casually:
“What do I think?”
“Level Six Comprehension? Fodder tier.”
Nothing worth paying attention to.
“Arrogance of a major city!” Tong Zhou burst out laughing. Clearly, he’d been surfing the internet during breaks.
The others didn’t find Xu Zhi’s villain-like statement arrogant.
They wouldn’t call a Level Six Comprehension “fodder.” In a remote subordinate city, producing such a transcendent was already impressive.
But the one speaking was Xu Zhi—a first-year who had already reached the Longevity stage.
She absolutely had the right to think that way.
Xi Min only glanced at her helplessly and said nothing more. After these days together, they were well aware that this young genius’s personality wasn’t exactly… “bright.”
“This team’s current performance makes it highly likely they’ll reach the group stage. If that first-year breaks through to Level Seven Comprehension during the preliminaries, their evaluation will rise further.”
“However, that’s somewhat difficult. Judging by his condition, he likely only just reached Level Six recently.”
“Their team battle has clearly been honed over a long period. It was the most pleasing team fight among today’s prelim teams. Clearly, they weren’t going all out.”
Xi Min slowly analyzed the team’s performance and reminded the seven prodigies below to observe how “commoners” maximized their limited abilities.
“The precise control of extraordinary energy they displayed in team combat is something you should learn from. Few transcendentals nowadays manage such fine control.”
Though, in truth, such precision likely stemmed from limited reserves—they had to calculate every bit carefully.
The reason Xu Zhi’s team didn’t control their energy to that extreme was simple:
They didn’t need to.
It was like the difference between one hundred units out of a millionaire’s reserve of a million—
And one hundred units out of a poor person’s reserve of ten thousand.
