Chapter 315: Setting Off!
That night, Xu Zhi clicked on a few analysis videos from various bloggers and skimmed through them. For someone “with amnesia,” these videos were actually helpful—giving her a quick overview of the league’s history, the teams worth paying attention to, and even the political implications hidden behind the competition.
Near dawn, she closed her eyes and rested for a short while. The training Xi Min had arranged for her was no child’s play—it was genuine devil training. Xu Zhi could handle it, but she still felt fatigue.
She had never before undergone such systematic guidance and training. It felt rather interesting—there was a kind of beauty in abandoning the brain.
All she had to do was follow the analyst’s suggestions. Machines would detect whether every muscle in her body was performing optimally, whether she still had stamina to spare, and how her supernatural abilities could be further utilized. Almost none of it required her own thinking.
The correct answer was placed directly in front of her. There was no need to choose.
That made Xu Zhi slightly uncomfortable.
She was more used to growing wildly and choosing her own path.
After resting for about an hour, Xu Zhi suddenly felt something subtle—
As if someone was watching her.
The perspective seemed to be from above, extremely close. So close that she could almost feel “it” about to press face-to-face with her.
But there was no breath.
The moment that sensation appeared, Xu Zhi jolted awake.
There was nothing.
No one else in the room.
Except for the blood food that had appeared again.
The red jar sat quietly in its familiar place. Xu Zhi frowned.
“Again?”
Hadn’t it stopped for a while?
She activated her Peering Eye of Secrets and looked around. Still nothing unusual.
But this time, she clearly sensed “it”—the thing that had placed the blood food on her desk.
She didn’t even know how to describe it.
She didn’t know whether it was a person—or something else.
So why had it gone quiet for a while, only to suddenly reappear?
While thinking, Xu Zhi tossed the jar to the little aberrant species to devour.
Thankfully, she was secretly raising a Great Archbishop that could help her dispose of evidence. Otherwise, this would have been troublesome.
“I wonder how long this will last this time.”
Worrying about things beyond her control was pointless. Xu Zhi didn’t dwell on it.
They had already arranged a training match with Lian City Academy. But judging from the dean’s expression, the opposing lineup was less than satisfactory.
She frowned, her tone tinged with displeasure.
“The participants from Council Academy are a bit strange. They didn’t field their main lineup. They put in two substitutes.”
Within Lian City, calling Lian City Academy “Council Academy” wasn’t inaccurate.
“They want to hide something. They won’t even let us see it.”
Xi Min made her conclusion.
It was an extremely confident—almost overconfident—move. As fellow seed teams, training against each other would have been most valuable. Yet the other side arrogantly chose to hide their cards instead of fielding their strongest players, not even taking the scrimmage seriously.
How could that not be infuriating?
“In that case, we won’t take it seriously either. Chu Xiaoyue and Xu Zhi won’t play. Let the others handle it.”
The person being hidden by Lian City Academy was, like Chu Xiaoyue, a fifth-year student who hadn’t participated in the previous league. It was said she had originally been kept in the upper levels and transferred into Council Academy in her third year. Very little information about her was known.
It seemed Council Academy had prepared its own “secret weapon.”
Since Xu Zhi and Chu Xiaoyue did not participate in this scrimmage, there was naturally little to gain. The opponent hadn’t taken it seriously either. Still, they weren’t without information.
One very strange detail:
Aside from the two substitutes, the three main players fielded were all supports.
And the coordination between those three mains and the substitutes was quite rough. Clearly, they had barely trained together.
“Looks like Council Academy has really put all their chips on that secret weapon.”
They had prepared at least three supports for the hidden player.
Why at least?
Because one main player hadn’t even appeared. If Council Academy were crazy enough…
A four-protect-one composition wasn’t impossible.
Xu Zhi found herself intrigued.
Just how strong would someone have to be for the academy to dare build a four-protect-one lineup?
Even Chu Xiaoyue didn’t receive that treatment.
Generally speaking, the standard team composition was: main carry, secondary carry, double support, plus one healer. The inner academy’s original lineup was similar. As for Xu Zhi, her temporary role was also support.
A four-protect-one team required the sole main carry to be powerful enough that the entire team no longer needed additional damage output.
To date, there had only been a handful of four-protect-one teams in the league.
Such monsters were simply too rare.
“Interesting. I really want to see what exactly they’re hiding.”
Xi Min let out a cold laugh, clearly dissatisfied with Council Academy’s approach.
While the scrimmage with Council Academy was frustrating, the training matches with other group-stage seed teams went fairly well.
Xu Zhi, Chu Xiaoyue, and Ji Muge rotated in several times. There was still a noticeable gap between group-stage seeds and finals seeds. Out of ten matches, they won eight. The two losses had clear reasons.
After reviews and repeated practice, the team’s confidence in arena-style team battles improved significantly.
Meanwhile, the preliminary rounds were quietly nearing their end.
Out of tens of thousands of teams, only four thousand would advance to the group stage—less than a ten percent success rate.
With the start of the group stage, Xu Zhi and the others would depart for 自由城 to prepare for the finals.
On the day of departure, Xu Zhi was in a rather average mood.
Because that morning—
There was no blood food.
Which meant the “thing” delivering it knew she was leaving.
The sensation that an invisible shadow loomed over her life irritated her. Before the transport vehicle arrived, she simply opened her wrist device and scrolled online to distract herself.
As expected, the teams Xi Min had mentioned after training all passed the preliminaries—including the team that also had a first-year student.
This was one of the biggest dark horses of the prelims. Before the competition began, no one would have imagined that a shabby-looking team from a remote subordinate city could break through and enter the group stage.
[But the group stage is probably their limit.]
[There are more Longevity-tier players in the group stage—at least one or two per team. It’s not like the prelims where Insight-level rookies just pecked at each other. They even have a first-year on their team. That’s an obvious weak point.]
[I hope they go all the way. I love this kind of underdog storyline.]
[Keep dreaming. At best they stop at the group stage.]
Xu Zhi scrolled expressionlessly through the public discussions about the prelims and the much-debated “country team.”
One or two Longevity-tier players?
If she remembered correctly, the Lian City group-stage seed teams they had scrimmaged with all had at least three Longevity-tier members. As for her own team and Council Academy’s team—they were entirely composed of Longevity-tier players.
It seemed that from the group stage onward, this year’s competition would be far more intense than the audience imagined.
“Hey, junior sister, stop scrolling. Time to go.”
Tong Zhou waved at her. The vehicle sent to pick them up was already parked outside.
For the first time since arriving in this world—
Xu Zhi was about to leave Lian City.
