“Ah, what the fuck!!”
Danking slammed his fists hard into the air in front of him twice, trying to vent the frustration from that last match.
He had actually started taking that ladder game seriously toward the end, but for some reason, the situation had suddenly turned strange. He felt the entire match had become incomparably chaotic, and then, for no apparent reason, everything collapsed all at once.
It was exactly like TyLoo in matches: gaining an advantage early, falling slightly behind mid-game, finally clawing back a bit of an edge, then suddenly collapsing like a bout of diarrhea.
“My Z!” Danking shouted, imitating QUQU’s catchphrase. “Can the three of us not even beat randoms in a stack anymore?”
He had originally wanted to maintain a bit of his “pro player dignity” in front of this “genius youngster,” to let the other side understand what it meant that “being a genius is only the threshold for meeting Dan God.”
But this genius youngster had kicked him flying with one foot.
He had completely lost face!
Danking felt like even his nose was turning a little red.
But fair was fair—he did feel that the “Potato Mine” on the other side was genuinely skilled.
Although he had yet to personally watch how “Potato Mine” played the game, in CSGO, the victim’s perspective was far more terrifying than the player’s own perspective.
Judging from how quickly he was killed from the victim’s point of view, Danking could tell just how fast the opponent’s reactions were. From the angles and movements of the opponent’s repeated kills, he could also reverse-engineer all kinds of small details.
He felt this guy on the other side was pretty good.
In his heart, Danking silently acknowledged this Potato Mine.
Still, he felt something was a little strange.
Because their lineup this game hadn’t been bad either.
Even if there was one top-tier expert on the other side, he could hold his own against that expert, and QUQU and Mini World weren’t bad either.
Logically speaking, even if they lost, it should have been a long, drawn-out painful match. Yet the result was that they had been inexplicably crushed the whole way through.
It made no sense.
Strange!
Too strange!
“Hm?” Danking clicked on the red dot in his friend list with some surprise, and suddenly discovered that “Calm Down” had sent him a friend request.
As a professional player, plenty of players he encountered in ladder wanted to add him as a friend. After all, being able to say they had Danking on their friend list was something to brag about. So Danking usually didn’t accept.
But CSGO’s ecosystem was somewhat primitive. “Calm Down” had brought a bunch of ladder randoms and blown him up. Danking felt the other side was qualified to take up one slot on his friend list.
Danking only considered it for an instant before choosing to accept.
Calm Down: “Danking! Danking!! I’m your fan! I watch your stream all the time.”
Danking rolled his eyes. What era was this ancient meme from?
He replied in the chat box: “Bro, what level is your stream badge again?”
Calm Down: “Bro, I can’t talk until I hit level 21!”
Danking laughed. “That’s fucking Wanjiqi’s stream!!”
He found that this kid on the other side was actually quite interesting. This guy was definitely one of Wanjiqi’s little generals.
The viewers in the stream were also amused by their interaction.
Danking directly sent out an invitation as well. “So, want to play together? I’ve got three here. If you come, we’ll be a four-stack.”
After casually bragging for a while, Yang Yu also stated his real purpose.
Calm Down: “No rush on stacking for ladder. Idol, I want to get a sticker. Do you know any way?”
Danking raised an eyebrow.
So you added me because you want to join TyLoo and play professionally?
He wasn’t surprised by this. Although the CNCS circle was small, quite a few of the younger generation of players had been dug out from the ladder.
RA’s 259 next door especially liked doing this sort of thing. Most of RA’s current players had been drawn by 259 from the ladder like card pulls.
Danking had never expected that one day, he too would walk Old Nine’s path.
“Come voice first.”
After saying that, Danking pulled Yang Yu into the Perfect World room, then opened his mouth and explained to QUQU and the others, “That guy who was first on the other side just now said he wants to play professionally. I’ll test his quality first. Boss QU, why don’t you guys queue a few games first?”
“The genius youngster who was first on the other side is preparing to go pro?” QUQU was a little surprised. As a relatively famous streamer in the scene, he paid quite a bit of attention to news in the community.
He had watched several demos of this Calm Down already. He only felt that this person’s aim was truly locked on. There were also a few suspicious points in the demos, but not many.
However, “Calm Down” had never responded at all to the various doubts online, so the heat around the matter had gradually died down.
He hadn’t expected that today, while queueing with Danking, this “Calm Down” would finally reveal his thoughts.
“It’s fine, I’ll stay in voice and listen to what’s going on too.” QUQU wasn’t in a hurry to leave.
He had been worrying about finding entertaining content anyway. This wave just happened to ride a bit of popularity—what a beautiful thing.
Following the link Danking sent, Yang Yu soon entered the TS voice channel.
Yang Yu first gave a tactical throat-clear. “Hello, hello, can you hear me?”
“Can hear you, can hear you.” Danking greeted him first. “What should I call you?”
Yang Yu thought for a moment. “Just call me Potato.”
Danking then got straight to the point. “Bro, what are you thinking? Planning to go pro?”
QUQU also asked curiously from the side, “What’s your thought process? Quite a few CS players are switching to Valorant now. With your talent, wouldn’t it be better to play Valorant?”
Although CSGO was fun, there was no complete tournament system domestically, and they had never managed to produce very good results.
Right now, it wasn’t just genius youngsters who were still growing; even many CS professional players had chosen to switch to Valorant.
“Fuck, Boss QU, if you keep talking like that, I’m kicking you out,” Danking said calmly. “If you keep doing this, there’ll be no one left in our CS section!”
When he said this, Danking lacked a little confidence, and there was some sorrow in his heart.
CSGO was clearly such a good game, yet now there was gradually a gap in talent. As a player who truly loved CSGO from the bottom of his heart, he really felt terrible.
At the same time, he also felt somewhat guilty inside. Recently, he had been thinking about it constantly.
If in the previous few years, he had successfully made it into the main stage of a Major—even if he had gotten a sticker just once—would the CNCS environment be a little better now?
These thoughts flashed through Danking’s mind.
Then he heard Potato say, “Valorant doesn’t feel as passionate to play. I started out playing Valorant. I only started playing CSGO a little over a month ago…”
[Holy shit, it’s a Valorant junior!!]
[I’m tearing up. It’s always GO players switching to Valorant, and finally there’s someone switching from Valorant to GO.]
[This is a Val bro drawn in by CSGO’s charm!!]
[So I’m not the only one who thinks Valorant isn’t that interesting. Honestly, Valorant really doesn’t compare to APEX.]
[Apex is fun. It’d be even better if that trash Origin could be killed off.]
Danking, however, noticed one detail. “Wait, bro, you only started playing CSGO a little over a month ago?”
“Let me see, about a month and a half. For the first half-month, I was happily messing around in C+. Then I felt it wasn’t that interesting, so I started seriously practicing aim and climbing…”
Before Yang Yu could finish, Danking interrupted him. “For real, bro? You’re messing with me, right?”
“What’s there to lie about with something like this?” Yang Yu replied.
The other three people in voice all sucked in a breath of cold air.
QUQU also suddenly understood one very strange point he had noticed while watching Yang Yu’s demos: his aim was ridiculously fierce, but all kinds of details weren’t very good.
Thinking about it now, with such little playtime, how could some details possibly be that good?
[After a little over a month, I was still obsessed with rushing around with the PP-Bizon, and this bro is almost at the top of Perfect World??]
[Could he be some god from another FPS?]
[Scary as hell, holy shit.]
[This bro’s improvement speed is basically mutation-level!]
Charging from C+ to Perfect World Diamond S in a month—this kind of terrifying speed, was it really not some old-timer making a comeback?
Danking was a little stunned too. Back in the day, they had played around two thousand hours before they began making a name for themselves in various offline tournaments and getting discovered.
Compared with the guy in front of him, even his own talent seemed a little lacking.
Yang Yu asked, “Danking, if I want to go to TyLoo for a trial, what kind of requirements would there be?”
“As for requirements, there’s absolutely no issue with your stats.”
Danking looked at Yang Yu’s rather luxurious stats, then thought of how Yang Yu had said he had only spent a little over a month reaching this rank, and he couldn’t help gritting his teeth a little.
“This sort of work usually isn’t my responsibility, but I’ll first help our manager take a look at what level you’re really at.” Danking chuckled. He planned to vent all the displeasure from the previous match onto Yang Yu. “Come 1v1 me. If you beat me, I’ll go talk to our manager tomorrow and set up a trial time with you.”
Danking then added, “But whether you pass the actual trial or not will depend on your own ability.”
Hearing this, Yang Yu was delighted. “Thank you, Dan God!”
“Stop messing around. You have to beat me in a 1v1 first.”
Danking rubbed his hands together, then pulled Yang Yu into the 1v1 server.
Yang Yu didn’t mind much. Since Danking had said that, it was basically settled.
The 1v1 was just something Danking had thought of on a whim.
However, both of the other side’s streams were watching too, so he couldn’t embarrass himself.
They entered the server.
During warm-up, Danking said, “I won’t put too much pressure on you. As long as you don’t fall behind by 10 rounds, it counts as your win.”
Ten minutes later.
The score overhead had reached 16:9.
After the duel ended, Yang Yu smiled and teased, “Danking, don’t go easy on me.”
Danking: “…”
The score was 16:9. Potato was the 16. He was the 9.
In this 1v1, he hadn’t even managed to reach double digits.
He was silent for several seconds, his mind replaying the 1v1 just now.
Had he really gone easy?
…
There’ll be another chapter later…