3 Leave Everything to Us!

Seeing how Jayden was unfazed by his words, Ian was pleased. It was an exact re-enactment of the mental resilience that he had seen in the other party's playstyle.

As expected, he had not been wrong about Jayden.

"Now that we have the contract out of the way, let's play a quick practice match so I can see what you are made of!" Amos cracked his knuckles menacingly.

"Be careful, the kid is good," Ian only gave that bit of vague advice to Amos.

"Hahaha! Why else would you be inviting him? But you do not have to worry, for I am just as good!" Amos laughed as he entered a different computer room from Jayden.

As the studio for a WoK team, the computers here were unsurprisingly installed with WoK card readers. With a mere swipe of their account cards, the two were able to quickly log into the game.

World of Kings primarily comprised of an open world in which players followed the game storyline, defending the world from mythical beasts.

However, to most players, following the game storyline was only secondary.

To them, the most important part of the game was definitely to hit max level and start farming for rare equipment, eventually joining or forming a Guild that could stand at the top of World of Kings. Only then could they proclaim themselves as leaders of the game!

And then there was the Arena mode, one of the most popular modes in WoK. By getting into WoK's Arena Leaderboard, a character's name would be displayed for all to see, or commonly referred to by players as getting airtime!

Within the Arena itself, there was a large variety of maps that could be chosen, each with their own unique map elements that could then be utilised by players to their own advantage.

Rather than plain and straightforward battles, this provided players with an option to make use of superior strategies to overwhelm their opponents, thus adding a layer of unpredictability to the game. The complexity of the game resulting from all the potentially different playstyles had been the main contributor to World of Kings retaining its players while attracting new ones, maintaining its position as the undisputed market leader among games for the past years.

Name: Storm Origin

Class: Halberdier

Map: Ship's Deck

The Halberdier was also a secondary class that belonged to the Weapon Master primary class. But as opposed to the Swashbuckler, the Halberdier specialised in attacks that had an Area of Effect, or AoE for short. This was a tricky matchup for Jayden, since it did not matter how many clones there were when the Halberdier could strike them all at once.

For this reason, many players regarded Halberdiers as natural counters to Swashbucklers, but Jayden was unconvinced.

The Swashbuckler was not only about his clones after all.

Speed! That was the true idea behind the Swashbuckler!

"Holy Shit! A Star Ranked Equipment! What are its effects?" Amos yelled out in surprise from the other room.

He obviously did not watch the match yesterday.

"Find out for yourself in game!" Ian shouted back without hesitation.

"Fine, I will do that then!"

Since Ian had already answered on his behalf, Jayden merely let out a snicker as their characters loaded into the Arena map.

Ship's Deck was considered a tricky map with lots of map elements to abuse. The ship was long and narrow, swaying left and right in regular intervals. Lots of crates were lying around the deck and two tall masts stood erect equidistant from the centre of the deck. There was a parapet that ran along the perimeter of the deck, but that was far from enough to prevent characters from being thrown overboard.

However, it was not the end when characters fall from the deck.

In WoK, characters could even fight in the ocean, so even the waters surrounding the ship were part of the effective map area. In addition, there were ladders along each side of the deck for characters to climb back up. This was also true for the ship masts, allowing for characters to climb to the top of the masts.

Storm Origin braced himself as Dis Pear charged towards him, only to see the Swashbuckler stop just out of his range.

Amos frowned as he saw Dis Pear kick a crate towards him, controlling Storm Origin to crush it with a swing of his halberd.

Was that a taunt?

Cocky kid! Let me show you what your senior is made of!

This time, it was Storm Origin who charged forward. He spun his halberd in the air impressively before making a huge swing, only to hit nothing but air.

Stab-!

Feeling an attack connect against his back, Storm Origin did not hesitate and swung his halberd to the back, once again hitting nothing with his swing.

Stab-! Stab-!

Another two attacks from the back.

Amos' frown deepened.

This time, he chose not to turn around, instead rolling forward so as to disengage. Only when he had created some distance did he turn around to face his opponent.

As expected, there were three figures standing before him now. But that was not too big of a problem, for he was a Halberdier!

Even if Jayden's Dis Pear was able to dodge the previous attacks, there had to be a limit to his control. As a Halberdier, each of Storm Origin's attacks naturally dealt higher damage. So as long as he could connect enough hits, taking a few more strikes from the Swashbuckler was fine.

As the number of clones increased, it would become increasingly difficult for Jayden to micro all the clones, and thus the preciseness of his control was bound to decrease. When that happened, Amos had decided to call forth his strongest skill to settle it once and for all!

With that in mind, Storm Origin charged forward once more to confront his opponent.

Parried!

His first swing was blocked by Dis Pear, but that was not the end of it.

Stab-! Stab-!

The two clones at the side took the chance to attack.

Even though it seemed to keep occurring, parrying was actually a highly demanding skill in WoK. It required an attack to be timed perfectly such that it struck the opponent's attack before it landed.

On top of the fact that most attacks ended within a fraction of a second, there were also other factors such as character class, weapon speed, skill speed, as well as other character stats that influenced attack speed as well.

As long as the timing was off by just a little, the parry would fail, receiving full damage from the opponent, as well as losing a potential chance to trade damage.

By parrying, the opponent's attack damage could be mitigated to a great extent, but the actual reduction value was once again dependent on the difference between each character's skill choice, damage, as well as character stats.

In extreme cases, despite parrying, a character could still be completely blown away by the opponent. Of course, even then the character would no longer receive the full damage from the attack.

All in all, parrying was a risky maneuver that most players would not attempt unless they were that confident in their mechanical skills!

A Halberdier had greater base strength and higher weapon damage than a Swashbuckler, so despite parrying, it should have been a good trade for Storm Origin. However, things changed when there were two clones attacking him from the side.

No, after that last parry, there were now three clones.

Even while parrying his attacks, Jayden had managed to maintain perfect control over the movements of the clones, having them evade Storm Origin's attacks and attacking from the side.

Of course, one could also argue that since Dis Pear was parrying Storm Origin's attacks, the clones then have slightly more room to work with due to the attacks being stopped.

Parried!

Stab-! Stab-! Stab-!

Parried!

Stab-! Stab-! Stab-! Stab-!

Amos grinned excitedly upon seeing this.

This new kid, would he really be able to parry every single one of his attacks?

There was only one way to find out!

Amos' Storm Origin started varying his attacks by attack angle, speed, and even mixing in different skills.

However, the result was still the same.

Parried!

Every single attack was parried!

Of course, this was only a practice match, or else Amos would definitely have done things differently. However, it was still an extremely impressive feat.

After all, since the start of the match, Storm Origin had not managed to land even a single clean hit on Dis Pear!

This was something that probably only the kings in the professional circle could achieve!

Parried!

Stab-! Stab-! Stab-! Stab-! Stab-! Stab-! Stab-! S…

…

Storm Origin finally fell, seemingly disgracefully, considering that Dis Pear still had more than half of his HP left. However, even Jayden could tell that Amos had not been serious during the match.

Well, unless he really was this bad…

"Awesome! Truly awesome! What kind of mechanical skills are those?" Amos burst into the room right after the match ended.

"I just got lucky there. I probably won't be able to do the same if I tried again," Jayden grinned while answering, clearly proud of what he had done as well.

"Not too bad, this was a good showcase of your skills, considering how you managed to match Amos even as he switched around his attack patterns," Ian nodded from the side as well.

"Not too bad? You need to be more generous with your praises, Ian! That was amazing!" Amos continued. "It would be awesome to have you on the team!"

"Haha, thanks!" Jayden answered.

"Calm down, Amos. And Jayden, you should probably get going now. Drop me a message when you are done considering, but remember not to take too long," Ian reminded.

"Got it! I will come to a decision as soon as possible," Jayden nodded.

"What? Already? Come on, let's play another round! Or let's do some dungeons!" Amos was still reluctant to let him go.

But at this time, Ian's voice turned ice cold.

"Are you so free? Is the daily practice routine too simple for you? Should I double it then?"

Hearing that, even the lively Amos sighed resignedly, "Well then, I will go practise now. Hope to hear from you soon, Jayden."

"Y-Yeah, sure," Jayden felt a chill in his blood as he saw how dejected Amos became.

How bad was the practice routine that Amos would give such an extreme reaction?

He would probably be able to find out only after he officially joined the team…

"See you as well, Michelle," Jayden called out to the girl who had been standing at the back all this while.

"See you in class," Michelle waved him goodbye as Jayden left, then turned to her brother and asked curiously. "Is he really good at World of Kings?"

"Oh? Is the little princess interested in him? If you want some assistance, with my long history of romantic experiences, I can be your perfect consultant!" Amos immediately teased from the side.

"No, I am not interested in him! And what long history of romantic experiences? All you ever experienced is being rejected!" Michelle retorted immediately.

"Ouch! The little princess is so harsh today!" Amos held his chest in pain as he stumbled backwards.

"If you really want to know, Jayden is extremely good for a non-professional player. He possesses mechanical skills and adaptability that can both be considered as top tier." Ian finally decided to answer his sister's question.

"For a non-professional player? Then how about for professional players?" Michelle asked, and even Amos looked up attentively as he awaited the answer.

"As for that, I am still unable to tell. After all, one important thing about playing professionally is teamwork. But as long as he listens well, I am certain that he would become quite a force to be reckoned with in the future!"

That night, Jayden did not log into the game.

Instead, he spent the time carefully scrutinising the contract, making sure that he did not miss out any clause that could be potentially unfair. Only when he was certain that everything seemed fair did he finally keep it away.

By then, it was already 9.10pm, and Jayden once again buried himself in his books.

The next day during lunch break, Jayden was approached by another one of his classmates.

Ryan could not be considered as a close friend, but as classmates, they had definitely conversed more than a few times. As an athletic guy, he was naturally popular with the other kids. Too bad his grades were not the best, but he did not seem to really care about it too much.

"Hey Jayden, didn't you mention that you play World of Kings too?" Ryan placed his food tray on the table as he sat down opposite of Jayden.

"Yeah I do, what's the matter?" Jayden answered in between slurping mouthfuls of his noodles.

"The thing is, Michelle is thinking of starting the game, but the learning curve is quite steep so I am helping her get to the higher levels!"

"Michelle?" Jayden was surprised.

"Michelle, our classmate," Ryan thought Jayden was trying to confirm who it was since Michelle was quite a common name.

"But as you know, the optimal group for playing is 5 players. After all, that's the number you need for dungeons. I have already asked Alex and Nicholas and they have also agreed to join, so we are just lacking one more. Are you interested?"

"Did she tell you to ask me?" Jayden asked. After all, Michelle did see him beat her brother's team member yesterday. Perhaps she wanted him to help carry her to higher levels?

"Hah? Are you okay? The person she asked was me, all right? Me!" Ryan could not help but shoot Jayden a dirty look of disdain. "I am the one who is asking you, not her! Stop daydreaming!"

"H-Haha, I see…" Jayden could only give a dry laugh to curb the awkwardness.

He must have thought too much into it. How embarrassing!

"What? You would only play if she asks you personally?" Ryan was already eyeing him suspiciously by now.

"A-Ahem! Then why did you ask me? There are many others who play, right?" Jayden cleared his throat before attempting to change the topic.

Even though they were classmates, Jayden had actually never played together with the rest before. Jayden was closer to the classmates who were more studious, but few of them played WoK as regularly as Jayden did. At the same time, Jayden himself did not play WoK as regularly as Ryan's group did.

With this disparity, he was unable to join either group. So he ended up just playing alone and partying with strangers for dungeons.

"Yeah, I know how you only play a few hours a day. But those other guys didn't want to do it, saying that they want to continue farming for better equipment on their characters instead. Those guys just don't have the heart to help out a newbie." Ryan shook his head and sighed. "How about you? If you are willing to, I can even get the account card for you!"

Jayden let out a snicker at Ryan's offer, "Yeah, I can help. And don't worry about the account card, I can get it myself. It is probably a good time to create a new character after all."

After all, the ownership of Dis Pear might have to be given away soon. But of course Jayden did not verbalise that out loud.

"Isn't it? It is always fun to play multiple characters! Plus we get to help out our classmate at the same time!" Ryan's face lit up immediately upon hearing Jayden's agreement.

Jayden nodded at that. Michelle was Ian's sister anyway, so he definitely would not mind helping to carry her through the initial levels. Even if Michelle turned out to be a complete wreck in the game, Jayden was still confident that he had the skills to handle the burden!

"Oh, there's one thing I forgot to mention!" Ryan suddenly exclaimed.

"We have already decided on what classes to play, and considering that you play lesser hours, you can take the role of our Cleric! This way, even if you can't play as much, you won't have to worry about keeping up and can just leave everything to us!"