7 Old Friend

"So she's a girl?"

"Yep, Asian-American girl"

"Which part of Asia?"

"Thailand"

"And you want her to stay in the gaming circle?"

"Absolutely! she's like a badass philosopher in a girl's body! Do you remember when I was 15? I never thought of anything else or want anything else from Peace rather than to fools around and make money from it"

"She's illegal, you know..."

"Ah. I know tha-- hey wait! Come back here Alex John!"

"Hahaha you know I'm just kidding!"

Alex, he's a former international champion of an Esport athlete. His contract has expired a few months ago, so he considers this chance to 'start all over again but within a new way' since he found a junior that he sees as a new opportunity and future for the Esport industry, they just need good guidance and he's going to invest his time and money for them because he has faith in them.

"Anyway... I got her Wechat. She added me about an hour ago."

"Whoa! I wonder how attractive is that girl is that our 'Online Emperor' have to add her Wechat, hehehe"

"You make me seems like a pedo!"

"Aren't you?"

"Absolutely no!"

Right now he's chatting with his old friend Sun Liang from a building he rent in Los Angeles. He rents this place with the personal money he earned from when he was still in the league. He uses this place as a new club for his new team and also as a residence for them.

"She's from an American server so you wanna let me know in case I found her?"

"That would be pure luck, I recommended her to join a club so maybe there's a chance in a tournament or competition.."

Sun Liang throws himself into the cushion, A lotus shape pillow magically appears out of the thin air on the virtual chatroom.

"You just want a successor to continue our career, isn't that the real reason you talk about this with me?" Alex calmly asks before reaching out for a cup of tea, a drone of hot water and a cup of tea flew out of the chatroom's refrigerator to pour him some hot tea before he picks up a cup and takes a sip.

"You know it, I know it, heaven knows it too. You know how short our career life span is, although VR and Rr technology help extending our 'hands' or career life span. It's nothing compared to those youngsters who have lightning-fast brain responses and APM. We could only hope that they'll be a decent heir among those new ones"

Sun Liang change his position to lay on his stomach with his face rubbing the lotus petal pillow.

"Yawnnnn.... Alright, Old Sun, you better continue our practice, I'll continue to talk to you later, I gotta sleep now"

"Hey! Hey! Hey! Don't go too soon! I haven't talked to you about the details yet! Come back here!"

"Ah, your stress on GaoKao and solitariness made you went nuts already! You've only met her for one time and consider this crap! Alright, Alright... since you're my old friend I'll listen to your yap, but I gotta sleep now!"

"Promise you'll really do it!"

Alex's avatar held his hand up into three fingers "I promise with all my pride and glory, now go away! Don't just sleep after you eat!"

"Okay... Okay... I'll wait for you at 10 AM Pacific Time, ok?"

"Good.."

The Caucasian man logs out of the chatroom and walks straight to bed, mumbling some words before he sleeps. "Long time no see, you crazy bastard!... I miss you.."

Sun Liang lies in that chat room for a few more minutes until Little Zhang called him out, he goes to the practice room, as usual, It's a room filled with mainly 3 types of VR games.

The one used often by him is the PC and capsule, the other one is the physical body VR, which he uses it lesser since it requires physical body movement. The PC has the VR adapter device to transfer their avatar's statues and senses signal to their brain like the ones Xiao Ping use at the internet cafe, The Capsule will use the neuroscience technology to directly render image and 5 senses to the brain to control their avatar without having to move their physical body, in another word, it's like a coffin to make you reincarnate into Peace Online while you sleep. So it's not wrong to say that some pro players who only use this type of VR device only eat and sleep all day long. Lastly, the physical body VR, these are the most difficult to use, since you have to move your physical body to make your avatar follow your movement. Your body has limits but your mind doesn't, so most people that are using this type of VR are the physical athletes that train their physical body to fights with other pro players virtually.

He inserts his ID card, gets into the capsule and closes his eyes, enters the password, and waits for his team at the private training ground as usual. Commanding and coaching his member, explaining strategies, and make references, he did it all as usual.

It's an ordinary day with ordinary training accept the fact that he thought about that PK with Xiao Ping almost the whole day.

'Those pair of eyes that stares fearlessly at me... I have never seen anything like that during my three years in this league. Even if I have to be out of the league someday, I would never regret pulling her into (gaming if I did)' He thought while dodging his team member's attacks.

'When she almost killed me with her bare fangs and when she stabbed me with my own dagger and she's not even conscious or knows about it...'

'I'm confident it's just a fear of being out of my comfort zone, alcohol removes fear in humans and silver vine removes awareness in cats.'

'When she's fighting with only instinct and not even a single logic on her mind, she still uses cunning strategies against me, so it's probably in her nature of laying traps and planning strategies.'

'Not even a pro-players I met have that same characteristic.'

'Remaining like sane in an insane setting huh?'

And many thought like that follow along.

After having lunch and dinner at the end of the whole training session of the whole day, he brings out some textbooks to lecture for GaoKao, Little Zhang who is one year younger than him join in for the study too.

"Face the reality huh... You don't have a right to say that! SAT isn't even a quarter hard of a GaoKao!" He yelled in the bathroom while taking shower after the lecture.

Little Zhang thought his captain must have eaten something weird today.

When it's finally about 10 am in America, Pacific Timezone he logs back into the chat room.

He burst out all the thought he had that day, Alex kinda hates to hear this teenage boy 'yap yap yap' but he just sucks his old friend's voice up and keeps his promise.

"Hey! be quite Old Sun!! Someone is knocking on our door!"

Alex shut his homie's mouth very quickly after hearing the doorbell rung. He ran out of the chatroom to open up the door and saw an East Asian girl with dark brown hair and light skin, about 5ft, tall standing in front of him.

"Hello.. This is the Blood Angle VR Esports club isn't it?"

"Ye..Yes... I'm the team captain, are you here for the new member interview?"

"Yes, My name is Colette, you can call my Xiao Ping if you can pronounce it."