[FLOTG] Chapter 9: Apprentice

In this situation, Shen Huai immediately thought of Song Xue-Yang. His sniper was unpredictable during matches, and there was practically no spot safe from his sniping, no person he was unable to reap.

Song Xue-Yang's sniper had left a strong impression on any powerhouse pro team who had ever faced Maple Moon in a team battle, without exception. This competitive season, the game developers of "City of Despair" had removed the talent Killing Strike, in large part due to how fearsome Song Xue-Yang's sniper had been. No fragile character class could escape the fate of being killed in one shot once their HP dropped below 50%.

Shen Huai rapidly scaled Cloudfall Peak. This was the only suitable sniping spot he had discovered after examining the terrain. Even though this area was a full 1,200 metres away from where he had been fighting, that shot would have been no problem if it was Song Xue-Yang!

Sure enough, there was a sniper in prone sniping position on a boulder at the top of Cloudfall Peak. Shen Huai typed into the current channel:

[ Current ][ MuWanGe ]: Song Xue-Yang!

The sniper on the boulder turned around, but it was a female sniper named <Falling Sleet>.

Shen Huai was startled, unsure how to react.

Song Xue-Yang was also taken aback. The Ash Wing in his memories had always primly called him 'Captain Song' — this was the first time Ash Wing had called him by his full name like this. Somehow, inexplicably, he felt like their relationship had become closer and it felt pretty good.

Still, he pulled himself together very quickly, typing rapidly back: [ God Snow? Where's God Snow? ]

The female gunner sent over this string of questions and her character was so excited that she fell face first off the boulder onto the ground.

<Falling Sleet> circled the peak but found no one else around. She asked uncertainly: [ You... can't have been calling me that, right? ]

[ ...... ]

Shen Huai flushed. For some reason, when he had seen that bullet streak across the sky to strike down that sprinting swordsman, his gut instinct was that it was Song Xue-Yang. There was no one else besides him with such accurate marksmanship.

[ Did you kill that swordsman just now? ]

<Falling Sleet> was very surprised. [ I killed someone? I just like the scenery here, so I was taking screenshots on a random rock! ]

Shen Huai examined <Falling Sleet> dubiously. This was a max-level female gunner account, but her equipment was pretty much rubbish and the account was not associated with any guild. If this wasn't someone's smurf account, then it must be a newly purchased account like his.

As if finding it strange that she had been able to kill someone just by taking some screenshots, <Falling Sleet> moved into a targeting pose.

[ Ah! Why can't I shoot?! ]

Shen Huai could tell from sound alone that she had not loaded any bullets. He could not help but remind her: [ You need to first load the bullets. ]

The gunner fiddled around for a bit before managing to fire a shot, but the bullet only traveled for less than 100 metres before hitting a tree trunk.

[ Ah! How can it be blocked by a tree?! ]

[ ...... ]

Most of the skills in-game could penetrate obstacles, but the ultra-long range sniping skill of snipers would be hindered by the terrain. This was by design in order to balance out the advantages of shooting from long range. Otherwise, with a player such as Song Xue-Yang who was especially proficient at ultra-long range sniping, the other players might as well stop playing.

Shen Huai really could not connect this gaming noob before him to the thousand-metre head-collector Song Xue-Yang. From the looks of it, this <Falling Sleet> must have accidentally shored up energy while screenshotting and then coincidentally shot the swordsman...?

Shen Huai felt that this guess was not unreasonable — even if Song Xue-Yang wanted to get close to him with an alternate account, there was no need for him to still choose a sniper class and arouse suspicion, right?

Unfortunately for Shen Huai, a normal person would indeed avoid doing so, but for Song Xue-Yang, who not only had deep insight into how people's minds worked but was a master manipulator at reverse thinking, this was just acting within normal parameters.

Song Xue-Yang continued to act cute as the little gunner in front of Shen Huai.

<Falling Sleet>: [ Big sister, so you're playing an assassin! So cool! I heard that assassin controls are super complicated. I don't even dare to try playing one. ]

Shen Huai corrected her. [ It's big brother. ]

But <Falling Sleet> continued as if she had not seen his reply. [ Big sister, since you play assassin, then do you know god Ash Wing? His assassin is amazing! I'm his fan! ]

Shen Huai did not say anything, turning to walk away, but <Falling Sleet> chased after him. [ Big sister, PK with me! I want to see the assassin skills! ]

Shen Huai stopped moving. [ You can't beat me. ]

[ I just wanna try. I especially want to play assassin, but my friends tell me that assassins are too hard and don't suit me, so I bought this gunner account. Please, spar with me! ]

The character design chosen by the gunner was a little lolita type whose height wasn't even equal to the length of Shen Huai's assassin's legs. The long sniper rifle on her back seemed as if it would crush her at any moment... she looked rather pitiful and yet very funny at the same time.

System: <Falling Sleet> has invited you to a PK. Do you accept?

Shen Huai looked at the gunner running circles around him, and clicked to accept in a moment of weakness.

The two of them were swiftly loaded into the arena map. Shen Huai pulled a flip onto the platform, while <Falling Sleet> was still spinning in circles with her gun raised, unable to tell north from south or east from west.

Shen Huai could not help giving her some instruction. [ Don't use magnification mode in a PK arena. Your field of vision will be reduced. ]

[ Oh oh. ]

<Falling Sleet> immediately tried taking aim again, the barrel of her gun touching Shen Huai's chest. A long-range character forcefully turned into a melee combat character.

[ You should keep some distance from me. ]

[ Oh oh. ]

<Falling Sleet> retreated a few steps, taking a prone position about 10 metres away from Shen Huai and setting up her rifle...

Forget it, they should just fight...

The black-clad female assassin sprinted forwards and raised the sharp blade in her hand. Backstab - Pierce - Dark Razor!

The sudden appearance of the assassin within her field of vision startled the gunner so much that she tucked into a back roll to escape without even stopping to store her rifle. She managed to roll away... but her rifle was left behind.

If a gunner did not pick up their gun after it was dropped, the gun would return to the owner's hands after 5 seconds. If this happened in an official match, the gunner would definitely be targeted and pursued by the enemy in the interim, but as Shen Huai watched the gunner cautiously sneak over to pick up her gun again, he just could not bear to attack her.

He chose to surrender.

In all his time playing the game, this was the first time Shen Huai had ever surrendered in the solo arena.

Song Xue-Yang looked at the "VICTORY" printed on his screen and leisurely pressed on the key to take a screenshot. After that, he happily typed into chat.

[ Why did my gun drop? ]

Shen Huai replied patiently: [ You can't move your character while in sniping mode. You need to stand up first and keep your gun before using back roll. ]

However, it was very easy to miss the best moment to dodge because of this. Things in the pro arena could shift at the drop of a hat — even a delay of 0.1 seconds could be enough to create an irreversible gap.

In a match during the S4 competitive season, when Maple Moon was up against Thunderbolt, Song Xue-Yang successfully killed a swordsman who had tried to get close and attack him immediately after a back roll evasion. Everyone was shocked by this unprecedented accomplishment — if not for the slow-motion playback of the stadium, no one would have even known for sure what had happened.

Recalling that awesome move Song Xue-Yang had pulled in that match, Shen Huai clicked to bring up the leaderboard, only to see that Song Xue-Yang's ID was still greyed out.

[ So that's how it is! ] The gunner was again full of life. [ Big sister, your assassin is so cool! Take me as an apprentice! ]

[ I don't accept apprentices. ]

But <Falling Sleet> clung to him doggedly. [ I really, really, like assassins. My friends all say that assassins are too weak to play, but I think that assassins are just so cool. I want to learn some powerful controls and then play an assassin character. I want to let them see that assassins are not weak at all. ]

These words were a direct hit to Shen Huai's weak point — this was a reason he just could not refuse.

System: <Falling Sleet> would like to take you as a master. Are you willing to accept her as an apprentice?

Shen Huai clicked the confirmation button, and <Falling Sleet>'s name appeared under the apprentice column in his friends list.

Song Xue-Yang looked at the words 'Master - MuWanGe' under his own friend list as he tapped his index finger lightly against the surface of his desk.

He had just joined Maple Moon the year he got to know Ash Wing. One night, he had inadvertently clicked into a live-stream channel, where the streamer was playing an assassin. In S2, the assassin was an extremely powerful character class and commonly played, so a streamer who would neither show their face nor reveal their voice drew hardly any attention at all.

Out of sheer boredom, he watched the stream for while, but when he saw the assassin instakill a mage at full HP with just one extravagant combo, his eyes changed.

As a dominant character class of the version at the time, assassins were a dime a dozen in the Arena, but this was still the first time Song Xue-Yang had seen an assassin with such explosive damage and such combo speed! The way the assassin had allocated their skill points and talent points was completely unlike any other assassin. A "one-shot" play-style on the knife's edge, combined with a full set of equipment all buffing attack speed, and the ability to pretty much instakill any fragile character class with one combo!

This assassin was too fearsome. At that instant, Song Xue-Yang felt that all other assassins he had seen before paled in comparison. Even the assassin player in the pro team Primo Wolf did not shine as brightly.

Song Xue-Yang decisively clicked to subscribe to the channel, making a mental note of the streamer's name at the same time ― Ash Wing.

However, Ash Wing truly streamed very rarely. It was as if they would just stream whenever the mood struck them. Song Xue-Yang only managed to catch them streaming for the second time two months after that first stream. It was 7 in the morning, and Song Xue-Yang was the only audience member in the channel.

Ash Wing did not seem to mind though. They played assassin as usual, the cold glint of their dual blades even more honed than the last time Song Xue-Yang had seen them.

Song Xue-Yang recommended Ash Wing on his Weibo, and, without exception, the fans who flocked over in response were all awestruck by the play-style of the assassin of this lowkey no-name streamer.

The number of Ash Wing's fans grew and grew, while Ash Wing became better and better at playing assassins.

Song Xue-Yang created an alternate account at the Throne of Secco region, finally adding Ash Wing as a friend after stalking him for 3 months. By that time, Ash Wing had already become a popular streamer with over a million fans, but they still streamed very rarely and never revealed their face, as mysterious as a reclusive master.

Song Xue-Yang did not care about any of that ― he just really admired Ash Wing's skill and did not care at all what the other might look like. He extended an invitation to Ash Wing to join his team, but the other turned him down. This surprised Song Xue-Yang, and he continued to chase after Ash Wing tenaciously. Although he had slowly become friends with Ash Wing along the way, the other still never agreed to his proposal to join Maple Moon.

In the S3 competitive season, the assassin was greatly nerfed, to the point where even Song Xue-Yang believed that the assassin character class was really no longer playable. And yet, Ash Wing actually managed to pioneer the "infinite paralysis" play-style for assassins in the Arena! Similarly, when assassins were once again nerfed in S4, Ash Wing then came up with the "dual-cultivation poison-magic" play-style!

Ash Wing surprised him again and again... Song Xue-Yang could not help but be enraptured by them.

When the talent "Killing Strike" which the "dual-cultivation poison-magic" assassin relied on was cancelled in S5, Song Xue-Yang was not at all worried, because he knew that Ash Wing would definitely find a way to bring the assassin back to the stage.

When he saw Ash Wing defeat BattleGod's Xiao Zhang with 10% HP remaining, Song Xue-Yang's excitement almost reached fever-pitch. For the first time, he yearned desperately for Ash Wing to join his team. He began wondering about the person behind the ID. What kind of person were they? What did a person who could pull off such beautiful combos look like? What would they sound like? How many more outside-the-box insights on assassins did they have to offer?

Everything about Ash Wing was a mystery, and Song Xue-Yang could not help but want to delve deeper.

Thus, when Song Xue-Yang found out that Ash Wing was finally interested in joining a pro team, he was not about to let this chance slip by! He wanted to become teammates with Ash Wing — he wanted to really get to know this person called Ash Wing.

Zhou Ning glanced at Song Xue-Yang's screen as he passed by and said, "You're tricking Ash Wing again?"

Song Xue-Yang was unashamed, stating proudly, "This is called strategy."

"Ash Wing? Where's Ash Wing?" A young man overheard them and hurried over. He had a pair of lively round eyes and a rather boyish face, which made him look pretty cute.

Zhou Ning said, "That assassin over there. Our captain tricked him into buying an account in the pro region."

Hai Xing's eyes lit up. "Pro region? Ash Wing is going pro?"

Hai Xing was the youngest member of Maple Moon, only turning 17 this year. It had been only a year since his debut, and he had only learned of Ash Wing after coming to Maple Moon.

At first, he too did not think much of the assassin character class. He thought that any streamer who chose to play an assassin must have done so as a last resort just to target a niche audience, because their operational skills must suck too much to make a living playing any of the other more popular character classes. However, after watching several live-streams together with the captain and the vice-captain, Hai Xing found that Ash Wing was a god-level player with insane hand speed and extremely steady operational skills.

Executing the most heaven-defying moves while using the weakest character class in the game, pwning a whole host of other proud players and character classes... anyone would be roped into becoming his fan.

Zhou Ning nodded. "Captain is planning to pull him into our team."

"Awesome!" Hai Xing leapt to his feet in excitement. "It's like you're especially reliable only at times like this!"

Song Xue-Yang had a lot of tricks up his sleeves — as long as he's on the case, Hai Xing really felt that this matter was pretty much already in the bag.

He said happily, "Wait, wait, pull me into the party. I also want to play with Ash Wing!"

Song Xue-Yang did not refuse — it wasn't a bad thing for teammates to get to know each other's operational habits in advance.

He reminded, "Use a smurf account, and act like a noob. Don't let him find out who we are."

"Ok!" Hai Xing giddily returned to his seat and opened up a smurf account. "Vice-Captain Zhou, are you coming?"

Zhou Ning shook his head. "No, I want to leave a good impression on our future teammate."

He did not believe that Ash Wing was the type who would take being tricked and manipulated lying down.

Within the game, Shen Huai received a message from <One Leaf Skiff>.

[ Stranger ][ One Leaf Skiff ]: Bro, are you ok?

Shen Huai replied: [ I'm fine. ]

<One Leaf Skiff> sent a friend request, which Shen Huai approved.

[ Friend ][ One Leaf Skiff ]: Are we still doing the mission? Miss healer and I are waiting for you.

Shen Huai felt that he was a pretty upstanding guy. [ The others? ]

[ Friend ][ One Leaf Skiff ]: I let the others go. If you still want to play, we'll make a new party.

[ Friend ][ MuWanGe ]: Ok.

Shen Huai turned to ask <Falling Sleet>: [ Have you played Falls Abyss this week? ]

The gunner instantly replied: [ Nope. ]

Shen Huai invited her into a party, adding <One Leaf Skiff> and <Desert North> at the same time.

[ Party ][ One Leaf Skiff ]: This gunner is joining us?

[ Party ][ Falling Sleet ]: Hello everyone~ I'm the apprentice of big sister assassin (＾＿＾)

Shen Huai suddenly felt like his new apprentice had a very similar speaking style to Vice-Captain Zhou...

[ Party ][ Desert North ]: He's a guy... male...

[ Party ][ MuWanGe ]: I'm a guy

[ Party ][ Falling Sleet ]: QAQ

[ Party ][ MuWanGe ]: Let's go. We'll round up some other people and continue playing.

[ Party ][ Falling Sleet ]: Wait! I have a friend who wants to join too.

Very soon, a mage called <Horizon> joined the party.

[ Party ][ Horizon ]: Hello, Great God! !

[ Party ][ Desert North ]: Where? Who's a great god?

[ Party ][ One Leaf Skiff ]: He's talking about the assassin, I think.

[ Party ][ MuWanGe ]: I'm not a great god.

[ Party ][ Falling Sleet ]: Master is a great god! A great god as amazing as Great God Ash Wing!

Before his computer, Hai Xing almost spat out his drink. Could someone tell him who the hell was this sweet and cutesy ass-kisser?

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Previous: Chapter 8: Hunted
Next: Chapter 10: Falls Abyss Dungeon

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