Chapter 415: Chapter 402: The Best in the World (First Update)

Cola Frenzy Club.

Caramel removed his VR headset and wiped the sweat off his forehead with a towel while grabbing the water bottle next to him for a gulp.

He had not been playing “Spirit” just now, but “Strife.”

As the Strife World Championship approached, after the beheading battle of Denghis Xisi ended, Caramel had devoted all his time to the global ladder combat arena of Strife.

On the one hand, it was in preparation for the world championship, and on the other hand, his rank in the “Spirit” ladder combat arena had always been first, even Zhao Mingwei couldn’t pull him down.

In the Strife global competitive battleground, his current rank was ninth. For reference, Juan Canyun of Reactor Sub-atomic was twelfth, Feng Yi of Hemisphere Domination was fifth, and Lu Wei of Titan Squad was fourth, while the top three places were all occupied by top foreign players.

As for Zhao Mingwei, whom Caramel considered his biggest rival, his rank might have already fallen beyond one hundredth by now.

This was partly because the players from Eagle Country spent most of their time playing “Spirit” and didn’t have time to push for ladder points.

Caramel had decided that before the official start of the World Championships, he would push his rank in the global ladder of Strife to first.

This had been his goal since he began playing Strife, one he had always aimed to achieve, or rather… this was Caramel’s goal in every game he played.

He played games not to win, but to be first, which was completely different from Zhao Mingwei.

Whenever Zhao Mingwei played “Spirit,” he would never skip the story during dramatic moments and would spend time studying the strategies for instances, exploring any novel and interesting side quests.

But Caramel wouldn’t. His only target was leveling up, crafting better equipment; unnecessary storylines were skipped whenever possible, and no matter which game it was, Caramel was always that player who would spend enormous amounts of time striving for the top spot in various global ranks.

He had indeed achieved it. His name was on all the top rankings of “Spirit,” especially in the ladder arena where, since the server opened… he had never dropped out of the top three, having now continuously held the first spot for almost three months.

What Caramel needed to do now was claim first place globally in Strife and prove who the strongest Strife player in the world was.

And in the ladder match just now, he had achieved it…

“Caramel! Didn’t the boss tell you to hold back while playing ladder matches? The video of you wiping out White Emperor of the neighboring White Sword Squad when you were at half health has blown up on YouTube!”

Bei You, the coach of Cola Frenzy, walked into Caramel’s training room. This coach was somewhat unfortunate… He has never managed to get a “Spirit” account. Whenever he heard players discussing content in “Spirit,” his response was, “What is happiness? That’s theirs, I don’t have it.”

The main reason he hadn’t received the “Spirit” game access was… Bei You was a Korean coach.

Having foreign coaches in Eagle Country clubs was quite common. Currently, among Eagle Country’s top three tycoons, only Reactor Sub-atomic was entirely domestic. Hemisphere Domination and Cola Frenzy had foreign players, including Korean and European players.

Although Bei You of Cola Frenzy was a Korean coach, his Chinese was incredibly fluent. He had been coaching at Cola Frenzy for almost three years, witnessing the club’s rise and fall.

“Coach, don’t you respect opponents?” Caramel put down the towel in his hand, indicating there was no problem.

White Emperor was currently the world’s number one player in Strife, his accolades even surpassing those of Zhao Mingwei… After Zhao Mingwei retired, he was legitimately the top player in Strife.

But it was this White Emperor who had been defeated by Caramel with a half-health advantage in their last match.

The duels between professional players were mostly evenly matched, but a situation where Caramel dominated with half his health left was practically a steamroll, so when this PVP footage was released, it immediately caused a huge uproar on international networks.

“Respect is fine, but I told you all to conceal your strength. Now everyone is acting when playing global rankings, can’t you hold back a bit?” Bei You expressed his helplessness.

With the World Championships approaching, everyone was intensely training, but the sudden surge in performance level among Eagle Country’s players was something the big three clubs, even the players of Hemisphere Domination, had unanimously chosen… to hide their true capabilities.

Caramel’s actions were even more extreme, as they only played training matches and not ladder rankings, yet Caramel didn’t understand the concept of hiding one’s strengths.

“I’ll be careful next time.” Caramel didn’t argue with his coach.

He found it quite amusing. After all, Bai Di was currently the top contender, an opponent against whom Caramel had to exert his utmost effort in the past! And now his coach was telling him to hide his strength when facing Bai Di?

Caramel felt somewhat empty, like playing a game really well but then feeling the emptiness after having fun with a cheat code for a while.

But this emptiness was more about… maybe there was no one among the current professional players in the conflict who could pose a challenge, not even Juan Canyun or Feng Yi could make Caramel feel anxious.

Perhaps he only felt a sense of crisis when competing against Zhao Mingwei.

But that was fine, his goal was to be the world’s number one, and now he had the strength to claim that title!

“Caramel you blockhead! Hurry up and log in for the awards ceremony!”

MacCoffee suddenly burst through the door. She was the enthusiastic spokeswoman for Cola Madness and also an interviewer, even though her usual job was a minor broadcaster. But whenever there was an interview task at Cola Madness, she was responsible for it.

“Awards ceremony?”

“The awards ceremony hosted by Queen Mei! You ranked first in combat merits. The rewards make even me drool,” MacCoffee said excitedly.

“The awards ceremony in the ‘Holy Spirit’? If I don’t go, will I not receive the rewards?” Caramel’s brow furrowed slightly, having thought that like usual, rewards from events in ‘Holy Spirit’ were directly sent through mail.

So now the system was organizing an awards ceremony? Wasn’t it just the end of a game event?

“You will definitely get the rewards, just go to experience the atmosphere,” MacCoffee said after she had carefully read the official notification before informing Caramel.

The notification clearly stated that players would still receive their rewards after the ceremony, even if they didn’t attend.

“Then I’ll just skip it. You guys go watch that cutscene if you want,” he said.

Caramel was currently busy with pushing for the top rank in global conflict, his hands felt hot, and as long as he stayed in the arena until he boarded his flight today, he was confident about pulling Bai Di down from the first position.

“The chairman already guessed you’d say that and he insists that you must come,” said MacCoffee.

MacCoffee understood Caramel’s tendency to want to skip cutscenes and go directly to the rewards in any game.

“Is this really necessary?” Caramel really didn’t want to waste his time on such a useless cutscene.

“If you don’t come, the chairman will make you take a ship to Eagle Country!” MacCoffee resorted to threats.

“How can I get to Eagle Country by ship? How many months will that take?”

“Don’t know, but it should be enough time,” she guessed.

“Alright, how long is the awards ceremony expected to last?” Caramel ultimately had to compromise, considering that after he flew to Eagle Country, it would be a long time before he could play ‘Holy Spirit’ again. Taking the opportunity to boost his arena ranking in ‘Holy Spirit’ now seemed like a good idea.

“One or two hours? Queen Mei is getting coronated, you know. Can’t you immerse yourself a bit in the game experience?” MacCoffee muttered, but Caramel, indifferent, put his VR headset back on.

As for Bei You, the coach of Cola Madness, he could only sigh and walk out of the training room.