2 Are You Interested in Turning Pro?

Away from the cheering crowds and in his own quiet room, Jayden let out a deep sigh of relief as he finally leaned back into his chair, his nerves finally easing from the tension. Up until a moment before, he had been sitting on the edge of the chair, fully focused on the game.

But now, one word occupied the bulk of his screen – Victory.

That was a close match, but luckily he eventually came up on top. Otherwise, he might have to play another round just so that he could end the day on a good note!

As Jayden closed the victory panel, pop-ups started appearing like crazy on his screen.

[System Notice: Firelord213 has requested to add you as a friend. Do you want to accept?]

[System Notice: Undying Hands has requested to add you as a friend. Do you want to accept?]

[System Notice: Elemental Mammoth has requested to add you as a friend. Do you want to accept?]

[System Notice: Alphabets has requested to add you…]

[System Notice: …]

…

Hmm? Why the sudden flood of friend requests?

Jayden took a quick glance at the time displayed on his phone.

8.45pm.

Good, there was still a bit of time before 9pm, so he might as well spend the time clearing these friend requests. There might be a lot of them, but Jayden was not in a hurry. One by one, he went through the invitation messages that accompanied each friend request.

[Firelord213: That was cool as hell, bro! Add me!]

Jayden did not hesitate as his cursor went straight to the reject button.

[System Notice: Friend Request rejected!]

Next.

[Undying Hands: You sure handed it to that so-called ace! Add me so I can show you what I am able to do as well!]

So-called Ace? Was it the guy whom I just beat?

This one actually made Jayden hesitate for a moment, but only for a moment.

[System Notice: Friend Request rejected!]

[System Notice: Friend Request rejected!]

[System Notice: Friend Request rejected!]

Jayden was starting to get bored of all the random messages when one of them suddenly piqued his interest.

[Elemental Mammoth: That was an interesting fight and you show promise. Are you interested in turning pro? If so, I can help you with that.]

Turn pro? Like become a professional player? Me?

This was the first message that made Jayden ponder for a while.

Let's see what this guy has to say.

[System Notice: Friend Request accepted!]

Even though he accepted the other party's request, Jayden did not initiate any conversation, choosing to go through the rest of the messages first. Unfortunately, there were no other interesting messages, so he rejected them all.

When he was done, he finally clicked on the blinking icon at the bottom of his screen that indicated unread messages.

[Elemental Mammoth: Hi there, I will cut to the chase. Are you interested in turning pro? Otherwise, let's not waste each other's time any further.]

Jayden subconsciously let out a snicker upon seeing the message.

What an extremely friendly first message, but it was just the way he liked it!

Rather than exchange unnecessary pleasantries, it was much more efficient to simply be straightforward about things!

[Dis Pear: Why me?]

[Elemental Mammoth: Why do you think? Are you not confident in yourself?]

Wow, just wow.

This guy! Was he trying to recruit Jayden or was he trying to pick a fight?

[Dis Pear: No matter what, I still need to hear your reason before I can trust that you aren't just all talk.]

[Elemental Mammoth: Fair enough, but if that's the case then whatever I say here can still be pure fluff. Let's meet up so I can show you how serious I am. Where do you stay?]

[Dis Pear: I am in City A. What about you?]

[Elemental Mammoth: City A as well. That's good, saves us the trouble of travelling. Let's just meet up at Café X tomorrow then?]

[Dis Pear: Sure. Time?]

[Elemental Mammoth: I am free all day tomorrow so you can decide on the time. Let's discuss this offline, my mobile number is …]

Jayden proceeded to save the other party's phone number before logging off the game. He could feel his heart pounding faster after the discussion, but after contemplating a little more, he started to have mixed feelings about the meeting tomorrow.

A professional gamer, eh? Was he truly suitable for it?

Since young, his parents had drilled into him the importance of a good education so that he could find a stable job.

As his parents always say, games were for kids. Out of so many people playing games, how many had actually succeeded as a professional gamer? Rather than waste so much time playing games, studying to be a successful professional in real life was much more practical!

Thinking up to this point, Jayden's gaze once again wandered to the time displayed on his phone.

9.00pm.

It was time to push all these matters to the back of his head and start his daily revision for school!

Jayden was currently in his last year of High School, a year that was considered extremely important in dictating his future. Whether he could get into a good university would depend on his results at the end of the year.

Naturally, he dared not slack off.

On top of attending regular school lessons, he chose to invest at least 2 hours every night into his revision work. He had always been smart, so coupled with the hard work that he had invested, Jayden's grades were considered stellar among the students in his school.

But considering that the year had only just started, even Jayden was still relatively lenient on himself in terms of studying, choosing to spend some time on World of Kings every night.

The next day passed quickly, and after bidding farewell to his friends, Jayden immediately headed to Café X in order to meet up with Elemental Mammoth.

He was expecting to see a middle-aged man all dressed up in a suit, but on the contrary, the one who waited there was a young man dressed casually in t-shirt and jeans.

Even so, he was obviously older than Jayden, probably around mid to late 20s?

"Hi, you must be Elemental Mammoth?" Jayden put down his bag before taking his seat opposite the stranger.

"Haha, please call me Ian instead. And yourself?" the young man let out a short laugh before nudging a glass of iced chocolate towards Jayden. "I ordered this for you by the way."

"Thanks," Jayden received the drink politely. "I'm Jayden."

"I see," Ian paused for a moment as his gaze lingered on Jayden's school uniform, but quickly snapped out of his daze. "Well then, let's get down to business. Yesterday, you asked me for the reason why I chose to approach you?"

Jayden nodded while sipping on his drink, waiting for the other party to continue.

"Well then, let me break it down for you," Ian flipped open his laptop and turned it so that the screen faced Jayden.

Playing on the screen was a replay of the match between The One and Dis Pear from the night before. Jayden merely took a quick glance at it before turning his attention back to Ian.

"Of course, many would argue that you have only won because of your Star Ranked weapon, but I see it differently. While the increase in duration did play a big part, the key turning point to the match is definitely here!"

Ian pointed to the screen as it showed The One's ferocious combo on Dis Pear after getting rid of the clones.

"Initially, you had been completely overwhelmed by your opponent's buff. Most casual players would have either given up here or simply continued struggling in vain, but you quickly got used to the change in speed and even began to counterattack. Mental resilience and adaptability, coupled with the mechanical skills necessary to accomplish one's goals, those are the traits that I believe are required of a professional player, and those are exactly what you displayed here. Are you convinced by this reason?"

Jayden subconsciously let out a snicker, "Tell me more about becoming a professional player."

Knowing that he had gotten the other party's interest, Ian smiled in satisfaction and put away his laptop, "Let's go, I will show you the studio. It is not far from here."

Ian was not lying.

The studio truly was not far from the café, and even by walking they only took around 5 minutes to get there.

It was refurbished from an apartment unit. The living room looked normal enough, and so did the kitchen. Of the four rooms, two looked just like the inside of an internet café, each occupied by two rows of computers. There was also the bedroom, which Ian did not open up for Jayden to see, and the last room looked more like an office conference room than anything else.

"This is where we hold team meetings as well as discuss strategies for matches. The projector allows us to screen game replays so that everyone can see what we are talking about," Ian explained.

"I see," Jayden nodded.

Unlike his other friends, Jayden had not been paying much attention to WoK's professional scene, and thus he did not know much about how it worked. But as expected, the studio was not just a place where people came together to play the game.

The very existence of the conference room itself was testament to the amount of hard work required to achieve success, though just the thought of joining them in heated discussion about a game felt a little awkward to him.

At this moment, the jingling of keys could be heard from the main door.

"Looks like somebody just came back. Let's introduce you guys," Ian led the way out.

"I'm here, and together with the little princess as well!" the newcomer yelled out enthusiastically as he opened the door. "Oh? Who is this?"

The young man stopped at the door upon seeing Jayden standing beside Ian. He looked to be in his early twenties, with a muscular body that proved how often he worked out.

"This is Jayden, I am getting him to join the team," Ian explained before turning to look at Jayden. "This is Amos, and he plays as a Halberdier on the team."

"Oh! New blood! Nice to meet you!" Amos stepped forward to give Jayden a big friendly hug.

"Woah!" Jayden was slightly flustered for a moment before the other party let him go, but at this time his gaze fell on the girl standing behind Amos, and his eyes grew wide in astonishment. "Michelle?"

"Jayden?" the girl exclaimed in surprise as well.

"What? You know the little princess?" Amos took a step to the side before taking a good look at the two. "Oh, I see you are wearing the same uniform!"

"Yeah, we are classmates," Jayden nodded to Amos before turning back to Michelle. "Are you part of the team as well?"

"Eh? No, I am not…" Michelle hurriedly shook her head.

"Hahaha! Looks like you guys are not very familiar with each other! Michelle is Ian's sister so she is staying here! If she is part of the team then there wouldn't be a future for us anymore!" Amos gave Jayden a friendly slap on the back while laughing.

Jayden felt the pain coursing through his body, but he tried not to let it show.

"That's not nice! I might actually have talent for the game if I tried!" Michelle sulked.

"Hahaha! Let's see you try then!"

"It wasn't easy getting Jayden to come, please try not to scare him off," Ian stepped between Amos and Jayden, having noticed the latter's stiff expression after being slapped on the back. "Anyway, there really isn't much that we can show you before you officially join the team. Since you are already here, do you want to play a practice match with Amos so we can know where each other stand?"

"What? You haven't joined the team yet? What are you waiting for! Just join us!" Amos expressed his surprise upon hearing Ian's words.

"I can't say that I am not interested, but what are the terms?" Jayden turned his attention back to Ian.

"We are just a new team so we can't provide much, but the basic terms are still there. And that includes the fact that your character will then belong to the team instead of to yourself! After all, we can't risk having any of our team members screwing up, ending up having to play without a proper character!" Ian explained before going to retrieve a team contract from the bedroom.

"You will be taking my character?" Jayden's eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Don't worry, you will still retain possession of the card, just that the official ownership is with the team so you are not allowed to sell or make any modifications to the character without the team's approval. But in exchange, we will immediately pay you double the market price of your character's current net worth!" Ian explained.

"You can bring the contract back while you consider our offer, but the earlier you come to a conclusion, the better. After all, you are not the only one whom we are looking at, and there are others who can take this position as well."

"Oh come on, Ian! You say that I am scaring off the guy, but you are the scary one now!" Amos quickly tried to dispel the solemn atmosphere.

"I understand, I will go back and think about it," Jayden kept the contract into his bag.

Jayden, on the other hand, appreciated the seriousness that Ian was portraying. After all, if the other party was treating this as a casual matter, then Jayden would have serious doubts about the team's future!