Would Deception be able to cut off Eight Notes?
After listening to Pan Lin's and Li Yibo's analysis, the viewers began to ponder over this question. Through their observations, they calculated their speed and pathing to deduce whether the two would meet.
However, Li Yuan didn't push forward mindlessly like Pan Lin and Li Yibo said he was. As Eight Notes moved, he would summon creatures from time to time, preparing for a fight preemptively.
"Li Yuan has started summoning... but in this map, if Mo Fan plays slow, it'll be unfavorable for Li Yuan! All of us know that Summoners are very mana-hungry, and summons only stay on the field for a limited duration. Li Yuan is putting out summons, but if he doesn't encounter his opponent within their summon duration, wouldn't that mean he's just wasting his mana?" Pan Lin said.
"But what can he do... it's far too easy to get ambushed in this map. If Li Yuan doesn't summon creatures in advance, would he have the time to summon them when the fight begins?" Li Yibo added.
"In that case, Happy's side can just not do anything and run around in circles. If Li Yuan has no choice but to keep a few summons around, then in theory, couldn't MO Fan just wait for him to run out of mana?" Pan Lin said.
"Haha, Li Yuan will summon, but he certainly won't summon a lot of them!" Li Yibo laughed.
Eight Notes was a Spirit Summoner. If he mobilized his entire army, the scale would be massive. Sure enough, Li Yuan only had Eight Notes summon two Little Spirits. The two Little Spirits didn't stick close to him. Insteady, they spread out to Eight Note's left and right side.
"Hm? The positioning of these spirits!" Pan Lin suddenly called out when he saw this scene.
"It's very similar to what Ye Xiu had done with his Goblins!" Li Yibo laughed.
"Yes!" Pan Lin nodded his head.
Li Yuan had the two Little Spirits on his left and right side move around freely, extending the range of his vision to the sides. Although he wouldn't be able to directly see what the spirits saw, Li Yuan's effective vision had increased considerably.
"In this case, wouldn't this..." Pan Lin was just about to criticize Li Yuan, when Eight Notes drew another two summoning circles and called out two more Little Spirits. One of these two spirits moved to the front, while the other moved behind him. Li Yuan had now expanded his effective vision in every direction.
"Beautiful! I don't know if Li Yuan thought of it himself, or if got inspiration from Ye Xiu," Pan Lin praised. He saw that the four Little Spirits were positioned neatly to the front, back, left, and right of Eight Notes. All of them were moving at the same speed too.
"However, this method has dead angles. Li Yuan's vision is in fact in a cross shape. His vision at the corners is a bit lacking. But if he wants to make up for those corners, he'd have to summon four more Little Spirits, which would be too wasteful. He could have his spirits rotate in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction, but it would slow him down and would also place an extra burden on his mana," Li Yibo said.
"Li Yuan should be aware of this weakness!" Pan Lin said.
"Of course he knows. Take a look at his line of sight. He's focused on those four corners," Li Yibo said.
"In that case, even if Deception comes in from one of those four corners, he'll still be discovered," Pan Lin said.
"Not just that... if he comes in from one of the four corners, he won't be seen by the Little Spirits. That also means that Mo Fan won't know about the existence of the Little Spirits. If that moment comes, the two Spirits on that side can circle around and ambush him from behind," Li Yibo said.
"Oh! If you say it like that..."
"This is an interesting and well-thought-out formation. We originally thought that this map was rather disadvantageous for Summoners, but Li Yuan unexpectedly answered back with this brilliant formation," Li Yibo said.
"Ha, if the map really was disadvantageous for Summoners, I doubt Blue Rain would have sent Li Yuan up for the group arena!" Pan Lin said.
"True. The two players are approaching," Li Yibo said.
"Yes! Mo Fan's Deception is cutting in diagonally. At this speed, Deception will come in from the southwest corner of Eight Note's summon formation!" Pan Lin began speaking louder. He hadn't expected this match's high point to come so quickly. They had seen through Li Yuan's formation in theory, but how would it work in practice?
The camera shifted to Mo Fan's point of view. Would he notice the two Little Spirits?
Step by step, he approached.
The two moved quite fast, especially Mo Fan's Deception. As he moved, he would borrow his surroundings as cover from time to time. This map clearly hadn't been chosen by Happy, but he seemed to know this map inside and out. You could reach a certain level of understanding from looking at the map through an omniscient view, but to adeptly utilize the map required real practice. Mo Fan was able to quickly maneuver through the map stealthily as soon as he loaded into the map. It had to be said that he had quite the talent in this area.
Deception's footsteps gradually slowed down and became more and more careful.
Almost there...
Mo Fan had been calculating. If Eight Notes had taken the central path, it should be about time for the two to come across each other. As a result, when it was about time for them to meet, Mo Fan had Deception slow down.
Hm? What's that over there!
At this moment, a glimmer of light suddenly appeared in his view. Mo Fan turned to take a closer look and saw an Water Spirit charging towards him.
"They've found each other! But..." Pan Lin shouted. Everyone knew what he meant by 'but': Mo Fan had noticed the Little Spirits.
Li Yuan's cross-shaped formation had been very balanced. If one wanted to pass through the formation diagonally without being noticed by Spirits, one would have to take an extremely precise route. Mo Fan's path clearly wasn't precise enough. He came in from angle just slightly off from the center, resulting in him being discovered by the Little Spirits at the front.
Mo Fan was quite calm. He didn't hurry to attack and instead tried escaping from this Little Spirit.
After watching Ye Xiu's and Yu Wenzhou's match, Mo Fan knew what these summons could do. The summon's movements could warn the owner of his position, but at the same time, he could use them bait the opponent to a position which he could ambush from.
Shadow Clone Technique!
Deception immediately formed a hand seal. His shadow clone remained there and continued to run forward as the Water Spirit chased after it. As for his real body, he moved to the side and ran forward along with the shadow clone.
"This..." Pan Lin was stunned.
Wasn't this a replay of the Yu Wenzhou versus Ye Xiu match?
At that time, Yu Wenzhou had used Shadow Clone Technique to trick Lord Grim's Goblin. Right now, Mo Fan was using Shadow Clone Technique to trick Eight Note's Little Spirit.
"This... both sides are doing what their opponents did in the first round of the group arena..." Pan Lin remarked. But just when he finished saying these words, he realized his mistake.
Mo Fan was doing the exact same as Yu Wenzhou, but Li Yuan? Li Yuan wasn't Ye Xiu. Eight Notes wasn't an unspecialized, so his following reaction would be very different from Ye Xiu's.
After noticing the abnormal movements of his LIttle Water Spirit, Li Yuan knew Deception's general location despite not being able to see Deception, so he had the other LittleWater Spirit on Eight Note's left to draw closer. The movements of the two Little Dark Spirits on his right and back were also adjusted.
Why did he choose to group the same-element Spirits together? There was naturally a reason behind it. Because Big Spirits required two Little Spirits to fuse together. Li Yuan had arranged it in preparation to create a higher-staged Big Spirit.
The other difference with Ye Xiu... When Ye Xiu found Swoksaar, Lord Grim chased after him relentlessly. But when Li Yuan ascertained Deception's position, Eight Notes slowed down, only making sure his summons were within his line of sight. Afterwards, he summoned more Little Spirits. They didn't all move in the same direction. Rather, the Little Spirits spread out like chess pieces. The viewers had an omniscient view, and from the bird's eye view from the broadcast, they could clearly see Li Yuan's current formation.
As for Deception, his real body and his clone were trapped inside the net. The ambush Mo Fan had been waiting for never came because Li Yuan didn't seem to have any plans of getting near him. Eight Notes stayed outside of his vision.
The situation seemed poor for Mo Fan, but many people were feeling doubtful.
Because in the last confrontation between Li Yuan and Mo Fan, Mo Fan had displayed masterful skill at escaping. Last time, despite being searched for by an army of summons, Deception hadn't been caught and was actually able to slowly approach Eight Notes.
"What will happen this time?" Pan Lin spoke out everyone's thoughts.
"I'm afraid, it's unlikely..." Li Yibo replied.
"Oh? What are your thoughts, Coach Li?"
"This time... Mo Fan doesn't even know where Eight Notes is!" Li Yibo said.
"Indeed!" Pan Lin suddenly realized the issue.
"But if it's just escaping, I'm quite confident he can do it," Li Yibo followed up.
"If it's just escaping?" Pan Lin looked at the match, "He's already escaped, no?"
Deception's Shadow Clone had dissipated, while the real Deception was carefully hidden. After the Little Spirits lost their target, they didn't know what to do and immediately stopped moving. But the viewers soon discovered that apart from the Little Spirits that had lost their target, the rest were following Li Yuan's orders and heading towards a predetermined location.