The S10 World Tournament would officially begin on December 10th.
December 8th and 9th were the reporting times stipulated by the League. On the afternoon of the 9th, the four qualifying teams from the China Region went to the officially designated hotel to check in together. The competition was still being held at the Seoul E-sports Center, and the hotel hosting the international players was the same as the one used for the World Individual Tournament last time.
The China Region players were arranged on the 22nd floor of Building A.
Ye Shaoyang and Chi Shu's room happened to be just around the corner. Their teammates swiped their cards to enter their rooms, while the two of them walked forward side by side carrying their luggage. Chi Shu stopped at the door of Room 2219, looked down to check the key card, and said, "I'm here."
Ye Shaoyang looked at the familiar room number and said in surprise, "Isn't this the room I stayed in last time?"
Thinking of what had happened in this room, the two looked at each other and laughed at the same time.
During the last Individual Tournament, Ye Shaoyang had discussed tactics with Chi Shu in this room, and had also shared intimate kisses with Chi Shu here, helping him through his Susceptibility Period.
That was their first kiss, and the memory was still fresh.
Thinking of the scene where he was pressed against the wall and forcibly kissed by Chi Shu, the tips of Ye Shaoyang's ears couldn't help but burn. He blamed himself for not understanding Alpha Susceptibility Periods well enough, thinking that biting the neck like a Temporary Mark would suffice. He didn't expect to be kissed.
Even more unexpectedly, Chi Shu confessed after the kiss.
Ye Shaoyang didn't dislike it anyway, so he simply agreed.
Now revisiting the old place as a couple, Ye Shaoyang found that his choice back then was right.
After agreeing to be Chi Shu's boyfriend, there was no longer any estrangement between them, and their tacit understanding was even better than before. They had a common goal to achieve with the person they loved.
Chi Shu looked at Ye Shaoyang with gentle eyes. He lightly held Ye Shaoyang's hand on the back of the suitcase and said, "Last time it was you staying here, this time it's me. This can be considered a kind of fate."
Ye Shaoyang said, "Perhaps this room will bring us good luck again?"
The two looked at each other and smiled, intimately squeezing each other's fingers. They took out their key cards and swiped into their respective rooms.
Just after entering the room, Tang Can sent a message in the Tianhuan group chat: "Alliance notification: during the competition, there will be a buffet from 7 AM to 12 PM; 1 PM to 2 PM is the official lunch time, and 5 PM to 7 PM is dinner time. Since players from different countries have different schedules, everyone please bring your key cards and go to the restaurant to eat according to your own schedule."
Coach Lin reminded, "Pay attention to discipline while out for the competition. You cannot leave the team without permission. Once the groupings are out, I will notify everyone of the subsequent training arrangements immediately."
Everyone spammed: "Received."
There were a total of 16 qualifying spots for the Gods' War World Tournament. Because South Korea won the World Championship last year, they had 3 teams qualifying. China originally had 2 spots, but Yueying and Jingzhe qualified from the Wild Card region. The China delegation this year was quite spectacular, and Alliance Chairman Qiu Heng personally accompanied the teams on the expedition.
But the domestic anti-fans were right; e-sports wasn't a sport won by having more people. With 4 teams going to the World Tournament, if they failed to win the championship in the end, the infamy they would bear would be more intense than any past season.
Yueying and Jingzhe fought their way in from the Wild Card region. Even if they didn't win the championship, domestic fans wouldn't criticize them too harshly, saying "participation is what counts" and that they had tried their best. But Tianhuan was different. As the champion of the China Professional League, Tianhuan carried the hopes of too many people and faced the greatest pressure.
Worried that the players might be nervous, Coach Lin started distributing red envelopes in the group chat: "I'm sending 66 small red envelopes. Everyone grab them based on hand speed. Hope the upcoming matches go smoothly!"
66 red envelopes popped up continuously, raining down in the Tianhuan group. Everyone scrambled to grab the red envelopes with their hand speed, which did dilute the tension before the competition.
That afternoon, the match schedule was released. Coach Lin took a screenshot and sent it to the Tianhuan group.
Group A: China BM (Beimu), USA FNO, Korea TOC, Africa ZZC;
Group B: China JZ (Jingzhe), USA FLD, Europe AMT, Korea TIP;
Group C: China TH (Tianhuan), Japan GOW, Africa YNF, Mexico GXC;
Group D: China YY (Yueying), Korea ATB, Europe HER, Japan MOK;
Seeing these letters, Cheng Xing felt dizzy and sent a headache emoji in the group.
Coach Lin highlighted three teams in red and explained, "North American champion FNO, Korean champion ATB, European champion AMT, and China champion Tianhuan are in four separate groups. We won't meet strong enemies in the group stage. Moreover, among the teams in Group C, apart from Japan's GOW which is relatively strong, the remaining African and Mexican teams are very weak. This draw result is very favorable for us."
Qu Jiang asked, "After the group stage ends, in the Round of 8, which group do we play against?"
Coach Lin sent a bracket schedule: "Group C 1st place plays Group D 2nd place; Group C 2nd place plays Group D 1st place."
Everyone studied the bracket carefully but couldn't make heads or tails of it after a long time. After all, no one knew which teams would remain from the 16 teams after the group round-robin.
Ye Shaoyang said, "Regardless of anything else, we just need to try our best to take 1st place in Group C."
Coach Lin laughed. "Yangyang summarized it correctly. Tonight at 6 PM, go downstairs to the restaurant on time for dinner. Starting at 7 PM, our 4 China teams will practice tactics in a round-robin format."
Everyone acted quickly, simply tidying up the luggage they brought, and went downstairs to eat.
At 7 PM, to prevent tactical leaks, everyone logged into the game using the laptops they brought with them. After all, being in a foreign country and unfamiliar place, if they went to an internet cafe or similar location and the content of their training was captured by built-in monitoring software on the computers, it would be troublesome.
Abroad, one must be wary of others.
The China Gods' War operations team opened a separate server for them to train on. The players turned on their own computers in their respective rooms on time and logged into the domestic server.
In the first round, Tianhuan played Yueying, Beimu played Jingzhe; in the second round, Tianhuan played Jingzhe, Beimu played Yueying… Such frequent rotation battles were a huge test of the players' psychological quality.
Moreover, they were facing top domestic experts.
Usually, one wouldn't dare imagine Tianhuan could play against so many strong teams on the same day?
But at the World Tournament, this had become commonplace.
Training lasted until 12 AM. The 4 teams each had wins and losses.
Even though Tianhuan was the champion of the domestic league, they couldn't guarantee winning every game against teams like Beimu, Jingzhe, and Yueying. Playing 3 games and losing 1, a win rate of around 70% was already quite good.
The coaches of each team began to review the games, reviewing until 2 AM before letting everyone sleep.
The next morning, Ye Shaoyang and Chi Shu got up early to eat. Except for the European and American players suffering from jet lag, the Asian players were still sleeping at this time. Ye Shaoyang and Chi Shu looked out of place mixed in with a group of European and American players.
The two looked at each other and calmly took their trays to sit by the window.
While eating, a handsome young man with short hair and blue eyes suddenly walked towards them and greeted Ye Shaoyang in broken Chinese: "Lieyang, long time no see."
Ye Shaoyang looked up, suppressing a laugh. "Mitchell, why did you cut your hair?"
Mitchell scratched his head. "Zhou-Zhou said my hair looked like a poodle."
Ye Shaoyang: "…"
Captain Zhou was too direct, right? Although Ye Shaoyang thought the same.
Mitchell asked eagerly, "Is it much more handsome after cutting it?"
Ye Shaoyang said, "Cough, much more spirited."
Mitchell was obviously very happy, looking at Ye Shaoyang with a smile. "This time I will definitely kill you."
Ye Shaoyang gave a friendly reminder: "We are not in the same group."
Mitchell said seriously, "Then I'll kill you when we meet in the knockout stage!"
Ye Shaoyang looked down at the breakfast on his plate and said helplessly, "Eat first."
This guy had been thinking about killing Ye Shaoyang for a year, and still hadn't achieved his goal. According to Captain Zhou, back on the international server, after Captain Zhou solo-killed Mitchell once, Mitchell chased him for PKs for several months until he killed Zhou Jiawen three times in a row before finally stopping.
Truly a persistent little lunatic.
Watching his retreating figure, Ye Shaoyang couldn't help but find it funny. "Mitchell's personality really resembles a poodle in combat mode. Does he really not consider switching to Warrior?"
Chi Shu said indifferently, "Battle Mage counts as his personal style too, I suppose."
A moment later, someone else walked towards them. It was a blonde, blue-eyed beauty.
Ye Shaoyang remembered her—Vanessa, the female Alpha player he met at the World Individual Tournament, the Jungler for the European champion team AMT, and also the winner of the MVP Award for the European region this year. A very talented rookie.
Winning MVP in her debut year, her legendary experience was just like that of Beimu's Miss Zhao Xinping.
Vanessa stopped in front of the two and smiled. "SUN, MOON, hello."
Ye Shaoyang said politely, "Hello."
Vanessa said, "It's a pity we aren't in the same group. Good luck, hope you advance to the next round."
She spoke in English. In his previous life, Ye Shaoyang often participated in world tournaments and understood daily English conversation. He nodded to her and said, "Thank you, good luck to you too."
After Vanessa left, Chi Shu leaned close to Ye Shaoyang's ear and said, "You are the champion of the World Individual Tournament; you will be the focus wherever you go. In the upcoming matches, Tianhuan will also become a key target for coaches of major teams. There's no need to expose many of the killer moves we practiced privately too early."
Ye Shaoyang nodded in agreement. "Mn, play normally in the group stage. We'll talk about the rest in the knockout stage."
On December 10th, the group stage officially began.
Each group conducted a round-robin within the group, BO3 format, Global BP. The top two in points would advance to the Top 8 of the World Tournament, then play knockout matches against qualifying teams from other groups until the champion was decided.
At the World Tournament stage, the teams here were all top-tier teams from major regions. Therefore, the officials wouldn't ignore the group stage; every match would have staggered times and be broadcast globally.
On the first day, the match of the most favored Korean team ATB was scheduled for prime time at 7 PM. Other teams' match times were staggered. The match between Tianhuan and Mexico's GXC was scheduled for 2 PM.
The viewership for this time slot wasn't high, and there weren't many spectators at the venue.
However, domestic netizens set their alarms one after another and opened the livestream to watch Tianhuan's debut battle in the World Tournament.
Mexico's GXC team qualified from the Latin American region. The e-sports strength of the entire region wasn't strong, and their tactical thinking wasn't that novel. Tianhuan's match against GXC went quite smoothly; the first game was taken quickly in less than 20 minutes.
In the second game, GXC changed their lineup and targeted Tianhuan's Jungler crazily. But unexpectedly, Chi Shu picked a utility hero to protect Ye Shaoyang's growth, letting Ye Shaoyang drive the tempo and crush the opposing Mid lane directly, pushing down the Mid tower at maximum speed.
Tianhuan took the match in 20 minutes again.
The domestic audience was stunned.
Previously watching Tianhuan's matches, one game often dragged on to 30 minutes. Today, two games were finished in 40 minutes, and everyone hadn't reacted yet.
[This win was a bit too easy, right?]
[Feels like a Great Demon King beating up a little newbie?]
[After all, the league in the Latin American region only started in recent years. The players and coaching staff aren't as professional as ours. Winning against the weakest team in Group C, no need to be happy too early.]
[They didn't seem to understand Tianhuan very well either.]
[The grouping this time is relatively favorable for Tianhuan. The opponents in the group stage aren't very strong, and there are no champion teams from other regions. Tianhuan qualifying is definitely no problem!]
The grouping was done by computer draw under the supervision of notaries from the Gods' War World Alliance; there was no possibility of black-box operations. However, teams from the same country were first separated into different groups, and then random draws were conducted using elimination methods. The rules were the same every year.
Luck naturally also affected a team's fate. Tianhuan had good luck in the group draw. Ye Shaoyang could already guess the Korean media's rhetoric—qualifying based on luck.
But what about after qualifying from the group?
Round of 8, Semi-finals—every match was an elimination match. Could they keep winning on luck?
The team that eventually won the championship would definitely be the strongest.
Winning 2:0 cleanly against the Mexican team on the first day was just an appetizer for Tianhuan. They would use subsequent matches to prove their strength and shut up all the media questioning them.