Ye Xiu and Guo Shao chatted as they walked back, and soon enough Guo Shao arrived at where his teammates were sitting.

Ye Xiu's gaze swept over them, and he saw He Ming, Shen Jian, and Wang Ze sitting together, these three former players from Excellent Era, or in other words Ye Xiu's former team. The players to the left were chatting with each other, the players to the right were chatting with each other, so these players in the middle were suddenly left with no one to talk to. They lowered their heads, and refused to look at Ye Xiu and Guo Shao, who had just stopped right beside their seats.

"Next time, if there's the chance, I would like to learn from senior some more." Guo Shao reluctantly bid Ye Xiu farewell.

"Good to hear! Go and rest now, I'm heading back." As Ye Xiu said this, he suddenly heard a distant shout.

Ye Xiu?

Are they calling me?

Who's calling me?

"It looks like there's no rest for senior!" Guo Shao said.

Ye Xiu turned back. The host onstage, whom he and Guo Shao had left hanging, was staring in his direction, clearly struggling to conceal his glee at Ye Xiu's misfortune.

"Ah, I'm so jealous! I'd love to go onstage again to challenge senior," said Guo Shao longingly.

"Don't." Ye Xiu quickly waved his hand. Onstage, the host was repeating what he had just said.

Yes, that was correct. Another rookie had come onstage, and the player he wanted to challenge was once again Ye Xiu.

"God Ye Xiu, I know you're working hard! We'll have to trouble you to once again come onstage!" the host said.

The helpless Ye Xiu could only retrace his steps.

This third challenger was a player with whom Ye Xiu was somewhat familiar.

Wen Kebei.

Wen Kebei of Team Heavenly Swords.

Heavenly Swords joined the Alliance last season. Lou Guanning and the other four were considered second-year players, so they were still eligible to issue challenges in the Rookie Challenge. Last season, Lou Guanning challenged Yu Feng, and this time, Wen Kebei jumped up to participate, and the opponent he named turned out to be Ye Xiu as well.

"Is there a point to this? It's not like we've never fought before." This was the first thing Ye Xiu said to Wen Kebei upon returning to the stage.

"Ah We've never played in an official setting, have we?" said Wen Kebei.

"This is hardly an official setting!" Ye Xiu said.

"Ahem!" The host coughed emphatically. True, the All-Star Weekend can't be considered any official setting, but God Ye can you not use such a contemptuous tone! Of course you've had enough of this place, but this is a rare chance for rookies to show themselves under the eyes of such a large audience!

"Haha, after hearing Wen Kebei's words just now, we can pretty much know the reason for his challenge." The host worked hard to keep up appearances.

"I hope that Senior may teach me," said Wen Kebei.

"Haven't I taught you enough times by now?" Ye Xiu smiled bitterly. Wen Kebei played Battle Mage. Among the Heavenly Swords players, Wen Kebei had definitely received the most lessons.

"It's never too much!" Wen Kebei's manner was quite shameless.

"Alright, come on!" Ye Xiu was helpless and could only accept the challenge.

A few moments later

"Keep practicing!" Ye Xiu said to Wen Kebei.

"Yeah" Wen Kebei sighed. He had lost quite miserably. How come the difference between him and the God was still so large?

The two people left the stage together, but this time they hadn't even left the stadium floor when Ye Xiu once again heard his name being called.

"Ah!" Wen Kebei was shocked. This was the fourth now, right? When he came back to his senses, he saw that Ye Xiu didn't seem to have heard, and was still leaving the stadium floor.

"God Ye!" Wen Kebei quickly caught up to Ye Xiu to remind him.

"Shut up! Let's go!" Ye Xiu said, his steps not stopping.

Wen Kebei didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Can you really pretend not to hear something like this? But Ye Xiu was acting like this anyway. As the host called his name louder and louder, Ye Xiu walked faster and faster.

It looked like shouts weren't enough, so the host could only take direct action. With the speed of a hundred-meter sprinter, he reached Ye Xiu's side and grabbed his arm.

"Let go of me, what are you doing!" Ye Xiu fumed.

"God Ye, the fourth rookie still wants to challenge you." The host's face was sympathetic, but his stomach was hurting from stifled laughter. He of course knew that Ye Xiu was just pretending to be ignorant. How childish! The host's thoughts were quite similar to Wen Kebei's.

"Be honest now," Ye Xiu said, glaring at the host. "Did Tyranny purposefully plan this out to mess with me?"

"Of course not!" the host immediately said. "Don't you know? The rookies are free to choose anyone they want once they're onstage! The fact that so many rookies wish to challenge you is a sign of your position in their eyes!"

"You think I'd believe something like that?" Ye Xiu said.

The host began coughing again. Just as the host had said, for the Rookie Challenge, the participating rookies had completely free will to choose any of the players to challenge. But how were these participating rookies selected? The All-Star Weekend was designed to be an exciting event, so the organizers wanted to try and deliberately create many exciting situations that the audience would enjoy.

And so, was it a coincidence that all of these rookies wanted to challenge Ye Xiu? Ye Xiu didn't think so. He had a strong suspicion that this was the Alliance's doing, that they wanted to have him face this string of challengers. The best evidence for this was that from Happy, both Tang Rou and Steamed Bun had applied for the Rookie Challenge, but neither of them had been selected. The official response was that there were many applicants this year, and that they wanted to give more opportunities to the second-year players for whom this was their last chance at participating.

This reasoning seemed sincere enough, but now Ye Xiu had defeated three players, and aside from Wen Kebei, weren't the other two first-year rookies? From this, barring Happy's players from participating seemed like an intentional move. After all, Happy's players were most likely to disrupt this situation.

"It really is a coincidence, God Ye Xiu just please try and cooperate!" The host was still maintaining what he said, but it was clear that he knew very well that it wasn't that easy to fool this experienced God. His plea of "try and cooperate" could be considered his attempt at making peace.

"Alright" Helpless, Ye Xiu shook his head. The host was delighted on the surface and snickering in his heart, but then he heard Ye Xiu say, "Then I'll take this a bit more seriously. I won't use my main to bully the rookies anymore, give me an unspecialized account."

The host instantly spat blood. The God wouldn't just casually compromise, he'd already begun his counterattack. Like this, for example, he was deliberately making things difficult! Everyone knew that the unspecialized Lord Grim only worked because of that Myriad Manifestations Umbrella, and the core of this weapon wasn't its stats, but its ability to shift forms. The Myriad Manifestations Umbrella was unique; Lord Grim was unique. Unspecialized? Lord Grim was no traditional unspecialized. For this unique character, even the Alliance had no way of supplying an alternate account.

"God Ye! If you used an alt, the rookie would have no way of appreciating your true style!" implored the battered host.

"Aren't the alts supplied by the game company? Let them make a copy of the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella, and after this is over I'll keep it," Ye Xiu said.

"Ahahaha, God Ye you have such a sense of humor! But this is so last minute, it's a bit late now, isn't it?" said the host.

"You didn't prepare beforehand? This was very poorly organized," Ye Xiu criticized.

"Before this we didn't expect so many people to challenge you!" The host was also becoming a bit shameless. Ye Xiu had even pulled out a "after this is over I'll keep it," so the host certainly wasn't going to fall behind.

This sentence managed to shut Ye Xiu up, finally. He glanced at the rookie standing to the side, pitiful and innocent and not knowing what he had done wrong. Ye Xiu sighed and headed back to the stage.

"Thank you senior for your teachings."

"Keep working hard."

A few minutes later, the battle was over. The rookie walked offstage, satisfied, but God Ye Xiu didn't move. He stood alone on the stage, staring at that host.

"Er, is God Ye Xiu not going offstage to rest?" the host said timidly.

"Don't give me that. I want to see if you guys are done yet," Ye Xiu said.

"We have no say in it either!" Helplessness was written all over the host's face. He then announced the next challenger to come onstage: Team Void's second-year rookie, Ge Caijie.

Ge Caijie walked onstage as Ye Xiu watched him all the while. This was already the fifth person, but Ge Caijie, this second-year rookie with the commanding presence of a veteran, didn't waver because of any of this. When the host asked him, he announced the player he wished to challenge without any hesitation: "Ye Xiu."

The host didn't make a sound, and he put on a face of helplessness as he looked at Ye Xiu. His gleeful laughter was concealed in his stomach.

"There's really no end, huh? I'm going to throw this match!" Ye Xiu said.

"How could you do that!" The host laughed.

"Let's go!" Ye Xiu didn't say anything else as he walked toward the competitor booth. Ge Caijie didn't say anything either, and as he walked, he was already adjusting his emotions for the upcoming battle. Although this was only the All-Star Weekend, he took this very seriously, for he didn't want to lose. In Ye Xiu's individual match win streak this season, Ge Caijie was one of the ones he had crushed, but in that battle, Ge Caijie felt that he had still had a bit of a chance. If he had better handled a few details, if he were able to more thoroughly address a few problems

The Myriad Manifestations Umbrella, there was no way he'd brought two copies of it this time, right?

This is what Ge Caijie thought. Battling with two Myriad Manifestations Umbrellas had clearly been specifically guarding against the Exorcist's Seal Talisman. There was no reason for him to bring them with him everywhere?

And even if he had brought both, Ge Caijie didn't need to worry too much.

The Seal Talisman was a form of suppression, used to give Ye Xiu pressure, forcing him to change his techniques. If he didn't use the Seal Talisman, that might even be more useful than the effects of his using it.

Ge Caijie mentally organized the data he had from their last battle. He took a deep breath, stretched his fingers, and his character loaded in.

"Alright, next we have the fifth round of the Rookie Challenge, with Void's rookie Ge Caijie challenging Happy's Ye Xiu. These two players met in Round 14 this season. Does Ge Caijie plan on using this opportunity to wash away his previous loss? Okay, the battle officially begins, the two characters appear on the two ends of the map, this map is"

"Huh?"

The host was stunned, the entire crowd was stunned. After a beat of silence, booing. Even though Ye Xiu had been constantly booed by the Tyranny fans from the very start, this time was undoubtedly the loudest.

Because this match had already ended, after only one second.

The only trace left was the message that Ye Xiu had sent in the chat: "GG."

Ye Xiu really did throw the match!