After the match, there was naturally no shortage of discussion about TES.
Especially since Lin Fan had already signed up for the Naraka: Bladepoint Elite Cup, even more people were watching TES's upcoming schedule.
"Brother Infinite Borders is still in great form. That Syndra probably beat Xiye into a daze."
"He's already dazed. Two games and he didn't even know what he was doing. If he could roam left and right it'd be fine, but the problem is he got pinned under turret the whole time—pure passive imprisonment."
"Xiye's age is right there. He's been washed for ages. WE bought him back for 'cheap and usable,' didn't they? Well, cheap is cheap, but he's not usable at all. If he keeps playing like this, summer will be even worse than spring."
"TES winning is normal. WE were spring's last-place squad and didn't even strengthen in summer. This roster is a strong contender for bottom one. Trying to bump into TES is hard—no matter what, TES shouldn't lose."
"Winning is the baseline. If they lost, that's when TES would have a real problem."
…
Seeing how peaceful the discussion was, there was no way to stir narratives, so people could only wait for the next chance.
In reality, it wasn't just the League scene watching TES.
Even Naraka's planners let out a sigh of relief.
What they feared most was TES dropping a match before the Naraka event even began—especially to a heavyweight like WE.
Post-match public opinion would blow up TES, and the club would definitely step in.
Because they really do have to consider fan emotions and team results.
If you can lose to WE, how could anyone feel safe letting Brother Infinite Borders split his focus to play another tournament?
The hype had only just been built. If the trump-card player can't play, then everything explodes.
So the Naraka event organizers wanted TES to win more than anyone—win, and win clean.
Thankfully, nothing went wrong.
Then they couldn't help sighing again:
Genius players really do exist.
He's achieved things in League, won TFT Worlds on the side, and now he's entering a Naraka tournament too.
And that made them feel even smarter.
They'd studied TES's schedule before arranging the tournament.
Why make a league like this?
Because they wanted Brother Infinite Borders to join.
Once he joins, it's easy to bring in traffic.
Then other Naraka streamers can ride that traffic and keep the hype rolling.
Whether Naraka can return to peak depends on this Elite Cup.
Saying that out loud is a bit ridiculous, even absurd.
But you can't deny it—Brother Infinite Borders' popularity really is that high.
The official online qualifiers were tomorrow, but the planners already wished the matches could start immediately.
So they began arranging everything for the next day.
Minimum registration requirement: Falling Sun rank.
After counting, the number of solo entrants exceeded 400—478 in total.
They split it into five groups: four groups of 96, and one group of 94.
Naraka's official broadcast would reveal the grouping at 8 p.m.
After grouping, starting June 15 at 5 p.m., qualifiers would begin.
Top 40 from each group would advance to the elimination stage.
Then 200 players would be split into Groups A and B again, with the top 50 from each advancing to finals.
The final 100 would fight for the championship.
From that alone, you could tell the intensity would be high.
And a lot of players were thinking the same thing the officials were:
Brother Infinite Borders is entering.
If you kill him once in tournament, the heat comes instantly.
You could even title it "Saved Chinese esports" and it wouldn't be that crazy.
"Convince Brother Infinite Borders to return to League"—a great achievement.
So many people rushed to sign up.
Brother Infinite Borders is terrifying in solo queue, but in solo queue nobody targets you specifically.
Tournament is different.
If you get put in the same group, just chase him and kill him—instant traffic.
So when the official grouping stream started, everyone prayed like crazy.
Under the random draw, all 478 names appeared on the big screen.
Everyone started searching carefully.
Dine was in Group A.
And once the groups were finalized, people started sending gifts to the Group A streamers, with a clear objective:
Kill Brother Infinite Borders in tournament.
Eliminate him.
There's a big bounty.
That lined up perfectly with what those streamers wanted.
Now they had even more motivation.
They originally planned to ride a small wave.
They didn't expect so much real cash to be thrown at them.
One day's earnings were even higher than the previous month.
They were happy, but also a bit sour.
Brother Infinite Borders' fans were willing to pay that much just to get him eliminated from Naraka.
If Brother Infinite Borders goes live, how much does he earn?
It must be astronomical.
And his salary—rumor says it's already over ten million a year.
With that many fans, if he survives another year or two, he could reach financial freedom and comfortably sandbag forever.
Envy.
When will Naraka's heat ever match League's?
If it did, these streamers would live a lot more comfortably.
So they genuinely hoped Naraka's league could keep getting better.
Better production, higher attention, higher popularity.
As for the other groups' streamers?
They could only itch with envy.
Why were they so unlucky? Why weren't they placed in Group A?
Group A streamers were swamped with gifts already.
When the tournament officially started tomorrow, it would obviously be even crazier.
They hoped Brother Infinite Borders would keep going and not stop at groups.
The longer he stays in the tournament, the better it is for the entire Naraka scene.
They needed to seize this time to grow their channels.
Before then, they had to maintain good form and perform well.
Meanwhile, back at the club, Lin Fan started practicing immediately.
Without "cheats," he wasn't confident in any competition.
He had to keep training and hold form.
But he didn't grind ranked.
Instead, he joined custom rooms for blade practice.
Before tournament, blade practice matters most.
Ranked isn't as important—keeping feel is.
And solo tournament depends even more on individual performance.
The problem was: blade-practice rooms were mixed quality.
The intensity wasn't enough.
Until he saw a room titled "Tournament Practice—Skill Exchange."
The moment he entered, the intensity jumped.
"Dine? Is that Brother Infinite Borders? Kinda looks like it?" Jin Xian thought he could easily parry the enemy greatsword off.
But the opponent didn't throw a Stone Stance slash at all.
Instead, Jin Xian got baited.
Then the opponent jump-canceled into a single slash that deleted his remaining HP.
Honestly, that performance exceeded his expectations.
"It's him. It's Brother Infinite Borders. I just came from his stream."
"Streamer, can you hard stomp Brother Infinite Borders?" a viewer said, and sent a Treasure Map gift.
Jin Xian's eyes widened.
"Thanks to the boss for the Treasure Map! Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
Huya's Naraka category was basically dead.
Most streamers just collected base salary.
If boosting and paid-duo gigs were decent, you could make 20k RMB a month.
But a Treasure Map right now meant an extra 2,500 RMB.
How could he not get excited?
"Alright—if it's Brother Infinite Borders, that explains it. No wonder I felt so much pressure.
Watch me, I'll find a chance to fight him again. No wonder he dares to enter the tournament. He's genuinely strong. People aren't just hyping him."
"But if I play seriously, I can still beat him. Watch me solo-kill him."
As he spoke, he messaged his friends to go live and enter his practice room.
If he couldn't ride group-stage heat, he'd ride everyday heat instead.
Miss it and it's gone.
Tonight he could probably scam a lot of gifts.
Staring at Lin Fan's Yoto Hime, Jin Xian was buzzing.
His friends saw the message and swarmed in like sharks smelling blood through a cable.
But the dream was nice. Reality was cruel.
Two lives later, all he had done was land two light hits in blade clash… then he got chopped up by the greatsword in two or three swings.
"Wait—why is greatsword still this broken in this patch? This is kind of unsolvable!"
"Why is Brother Infinite Borders a greatsword monster? Does he always use greatsword?"
Jin Xian was numb.
He'd bragged so loudly, and still got hard stomped.
Chat tone shifted too.
"Streamer's still just a solo-queue king. If you want to fight Brother Infinite Borders, you probably need a pro."
"You think you can hard stomp Brother Infinite Borders? Three words: you wish."
"Boss wasted all that money. Might as well donate directly to Brother Infinite Borders—drop 200k and make him change his mind. Everything else is unreliable."
"Streamer got bullied so hard. But Brother Infinite Borders started with greatsword practice—probably his best weapon. Back then on stream he even hard stomped Dai Lao Liu."
"GBL will probably be done after this pro league. Going from the 'big three' to this… kind of emotional."
"But Dai Lao Liu did teach Brother Infinite Borders. Brother Infinite Borders' greatsword was learned from Lao Liu."
"Streamer, keep practicing. If you're in Group B, with your skill, it's hard to end up in the same group as Brother Infinite Borders."
"Better to just watch Brother Infinite Borders farm noobs. More satisfying."
Jin Xian got the opportunity, but couldn't seize it.
When your skill isn't there, even if the chance is right in front of you, you still can't do it.
"This practice room isn't enough. I'll go see if Dai Lao Liu is hosting. If he is, I'll go play with them."
Lately GBL was chaos.
Started with lofty ambition, then fell behind.
Internal turmoil.
At critical moments everyone played their own game, no shot-caller at all.
A big reason was that Dai Lao Liu didn't have enough authority, so things turned into this.
Jin Xian checked his friends list, invited Dai Lao Liu to practice.
To his surprise, Dai Lao Liu agreed quickly.
He even brought a few pros to practice too—Da Bao, Ya Ya…
They all knew Lin Fan's skill.
Practicing like this actually improves you.
For pros, blade practice is just reinforcing knowledge—muscle memory in real fights.
In real tournaments, it's not just about move order sheets.
You also have to consider the environment—whether you'll get third-partied by a rat.
That's why matches rarely go "to the end" in a straight duel.
"Brother Infinite Borders, aren't you playing tomorrow?" Dai Lao Liu asked.
"Yeah. Group A starts tomorrow. It's good. It doesn't conflict with TES schedule."
"A pro who eats two bowls of rice is terrifying."
"Hahaha, no. My talent is average. Maybe my reactions are a bit better.
I've trained Naraka for a long time too. If you guys hadn't brought me to play back then, I'd probably still be fumbling around for ages."
Hearing that, Dai Lao Liu felt a bit embarrassed.
At first, he only invited Lin Fan because Lin Fan had huge Douyu traffic. He wanted to pull him in and ride the clout.
He'd never seen another game's pro player mix this poorly—having to chase stream traffic.
But it did help. Later his stream heat rose a bit. Sometimes people even came to flame him.
"Good pro player, ruined by you. Now he only thinks about practicing Naraka blade."
Especially the day Lin Fan decided to enter the Naraka tournament, his chat exploded.
Dai Lao Liu has been laying low ever since, and still hasn't streamed.
"Are you entering the Elite Cup too?"
"We're not doing trios. For solos, let Da Bao go.
And the officials are encouraging pros to enter Elite Cup too—more watchable."
"The prizes are good. Solo champion gets 200k, trios champion gets 500k. That's almost comparable to pro league payouts.
And with Elite Cup preheating, the pro league might get more viewers."
When he said that, Dai Lao Liu's eyes dimmed.
He thought the Naraka Koi Cup would be the start of his career.
Instead it turned out to be his peak.
"You guys aren't playing trios? I thought you would. That's why I didn't ask to team up… shame. If you'd said earlier, forming a team would've been fun."
Lin Fan felt it was a shame too.
Solo is never as fun as trios. Coordination fights are more interesting.
"Hahaha, no choice. Missed it is missed it. Let's practice more tonight.
Win solo and you'll be a triple champion," Dai Lao Liu said with a smile.
"Sure. Since I entered solos, I'll take the title. Otherwise how could I face you guys practicing with me right now?"
They practiced until 11:30.
Dai Lao Liu and the others had other training, so Lin Fan reluctantly stopped.
At this point, his hands already felt warm.
Next was waiting for tomorrow's matches.
Then on June 15, at 9 a.m., Naraka's official Weibo suddenly posted an update:
Trio format expands the schedule—two more days added to the registration period…
Lin Fan froze for a second.
Then he got excited.
Damn it—just as you get sleepy, someone hands you a pillow!
TL: If you want to read ahead by at least ten chapters, patreon.com/EdibleMapleSyrup