The King's Avatar 《全职高手》- Episode 8: Let Us Gather, Friends!
The King's Avatar 《全职高手》- Episode 8: Let Us Gather, Friends!
OMG OmG What a fight! Poor Plantago Seed! Haaahaa. Poor Yifan though I hope he gets better. Lastly STEAMED BUN!! My recaps are getting longer... XD
Team Tiny Herb team take their Captains words seriously and for the next couple of days the group attack Lord Grim when ever they see him online. While it was no trouble to fighting and winning against Tiny Herb it was interfering with his ability to level and gather resources. Ye Xiu decides that things need to change.
Meeting up with Tiny Herb again Ye Xiu goads Wang Jiexi saying the way that Tiny Herb has been 1v1 dueling him is very tiresome, they may as well gang up and fight him together. Tiny Herb players are outrage, from where comes this arrogance? Ye Xiu continues and asks Wang Jiexi if using him as a training partner was a good idea? Isn't he afraid the 'kids' would get traumatized (JY: pfft XD). Wang Jiexi isn't so easily cowed and tells Ye Xiu that he is the one being over confident. Ye Xiu counters out that his advantage lies in the fact that no one in Tiny Herb has ever fought a true Unspecialized class before, including Wang Jiexi himself. After mulling over these words, Wang Jiexi responds with "as you wish" and orders his team to attack together. This time, Ye Xiu is the one surprised, this wasn't exactly what he wanted... (JY: his cigarette ash dropped).
Without further words, Fiery Blaze leads the charge forwards on his broom (JY: flying~~~~~XD). Looking at the advancing group Lord Grim turns and...
Team Tiny Herb goes into a riot, what kind of player is this! No shame! No honor at all! (JY: oh come on you guys were ganking him XD). Wang Jiexi calls for silence and addresses his team to boost their morale. It's natural they'll loose to Lord Grim for now due to their inexperience (with the Unspecialized class) but they should not loose heart or confidence. Muster up the courage to face defeat and learn from it, find their shortcomings and improve on it. That is the reason they're fighting Lord Grim! Team Tiny Herb's morale which had taken a beating in the last few day is once again lifted. As Wang Jiexi is finishing his speech Soft Mist wanders up behind the team.
ganking - group of players ganging up to
kill another player.
~*~
JY: In the novel, Wang Jiexi analysed Tang Rou's shortcomings after fighting her. Tang Rou's game play remains at the level where she's just relying on her natural gifts - fast reaction, reflexes and apm, instead of elevating them with game knowledge, experience and strategy i.e. she's just mashing buttons for the most part.
Tiny Herbs members take turns fighting Soft Mist, easily beating her, but then gets easily beaten by Lord Grim in turn. Wang Jiexi doesn't join but observes and encourages his team, especially Gao Yingjie. When it comes to Qiao Yifan, Wang Jiexi notes that it's taking him over 3 minutes just to fight Soft Mist. One of the older team members remarks that Qiao Yifan is very hard working. Yes, Wang Jiexi agrees, but hard work without good results is also a kind of torture (JY: Unfortunately true). Perhaps Qiao Yifan would be better off in a different environment Wang Jiexi muses.
At last Qiao Yifan beats Soft Mist buts feels very disappointed with himself for taking so long. Xiao Yun walks by and belittles him again making him feel even worse. Unexpectedly Lord Grim amiably greets the boy when he enters the pvp arena. Having gotten so used to being over looked Qiao Yifan is stunned that a 'God' noticed him. Ye Xiu asks if Qiao Yifan has ever considered changing classes? Struck dumb by the question Qiao Yifan could barely formulate and answer. After the last couple of days Ye Xiu noticed that Qiao Yifan is not suited to playing the Assassin class and suggests the boy to give the Ghostblade class a try - specifically the Phantom Ghostblade subclass which specialize "Phantom Rings". Reason being that Yifan is actually very good at observation, taking note of the tide of battle and cooperation so a support type class would work very well for him. Change might be difficult but sometimes the result is worth the risks, muster up some courage young man! These words affect Qiao Yifan deeply.
Game Meta: There's two sub classes for the Ghostblade class - the Phantom Ghostblade and the Sword Demon. These are not official class in the game system but developed by the game players by specializing in different set of skills. The Phantom Ghostblade specialize in support while the the Sword Demon specialize in attack.
As his team take turns fighting Lord Grim, Wang Jiexi instead checks out Soft Mist's details having noticed the girls' irrepressible will to fight. She has loss all matches against them but there's no sign of her becoming discouraged and is in fact improving. He calls Soft Mist over for a chat.
After finishing off all Tiny Herb's players, Ye Xiu calls out to "Wang-Big-Eye", wouldn't the Captain like to try as well? Wang Jiexi accepts the challenge and returns to the arena after talking with Soft Mist. Ye Xiu jokingly asks if he should go easy on him. Wang Jiexi isn't going to show any weakness here telling Ye Xiu that trash talk was pointless. Of courses it's not point less Ye Xiu rebuts, just think about Huang Shaotian >:D. Apparently in the season 6 championships Huang Shaotian's trash talking tilted everyone and was the main reason contributing to Tiny Herb's loss. If it hadn't been for that, Tiny Herb would've won 3 championships in a row and equaled Excellent Era's record. Wang Jiexi hushes his team. They've lost to trash talk once already, do they want to loose to it again?
tilt - get worked up when playing games and
hence perform worse than you normally would.
At last the battle between the two Gods start. It's a really awesome battle with some great bgm. I'll add gifs below :D.
As the fight progresses, Wang Jiexi's moves become more and more wild until he fully unleashes his renowned "Magician" battle style. In a quick flashback, Ye Xiu explains that Wang Jiexi's battle style was a double edged sword. While it was strong, it was too unpredictable for anyone to cooperate with and so could not be incorporated into team battles. In the end Wang Jiexi could only change his battle style to suite his team. This was very difficult and for many people changing their innate style could spell disaster. Luckily Wang Jiexi was strong enough to overcome that. And doing all of that was so that Tiny Herb can win the championships. Back in the arena the battle has reached fever pitch. Fiery Blaze and Lord Grim charge at each other one last time and the arena explodes. Through the billowing smoke the system announces a draw.
Finishing the nights training agenda Wang Jiexi politely thanks 'Ye Qiu' for his time and hard work while pointedly ignoring the guys' trash talk. Ye Xiu does not mind, he made a killing after all, so they're welcomed back anytime. Wang Jiexi points out that it was very ambitious of him to build a Silver weapon and train new players at the same time. Ye Xiu laughs, that just means that if Tiny Herb wants to win another Championship they better hurry up. Tiny Herb's players are surprised by this piece of news. Wang Jiexi has no doubt that 'Ye Qiu' will be a great challenger and tells the team that this was all the more reason for them to do their best. 'Ye Qiu' experience, game sense and even trash talk are all worth studying.
~*~
Back in Joyful Flourish internet cafe, Tang Rou tentatively asks Ye Xiu what the GLORY Professional league was like. Ye Xiu does not answer instead he guesses that Wang Jiexi had invited Tang Rou to join Tiny Herb. Tang Rou confirms, but in the end, she refused. Ye Xiu is amused, he would have like to see Wang Jiexi's face when that happened, but still Wang Jiexi is a Captain who works his heart out for his team. Tang Rou asks again if the professional league was any 'fun'. Ye Xiu answers with is own question, is GLORY fun? Tang Rou begrudgingly says "it's alright". Then the professional league is pretty much the same, Ye Xiu concludes with a knowing smile. Although, Ye Xiu adds, Tang Rou would make a very good professional player because she likes challenges, right?
Later that night, in team Tiny Herbs empty training room Qiao Yifan is still sitting at this computer. Thinking back to what 'Ye Qiu' said to him earlier Qiao Yifan decides to take the plunge and creates a new character in server 10 - a little Ghostblade called One Inch Ash.
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| Character ID: One Inch Ash 一寸灰 Class: Ghostblade Guild: None |
春心莫共花争发，一寸相思一寸灰。
Never let your heart's desiers bloom like flowers,
for an inch of longing is an inch of ash.
-- From an untitled poem by Li Shangyin, Tang Dynasty
~*~
The next afternoon a tall, blond stranger rocks up to Joyful Flourish internet cafe dressed in baggy trousers and donning a backwards baseball cap. However this tough guy image is immediately shattered when the guy opens his mouth and introduces himself as "The Disciple" Bao Rongxing here to look for Lord Grim. He's Steamed Bun Invasion in real life! Ecstatic to have found his Boss, Bao Rongxing immediately gives Ye Xiu a bear hug (JY: XD that's so cute) explaining that he's on holidays and thought an IRL meetup would be awesome and that his normal day job is being a bouncer. Ye Xiu comes to the awkward realization that Steamed Bun is a brawler because he's a brawler in real life.
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| Bao - means "bun" |
Conclusion
Nice, I really enjoyed these last two episodes introducing team Tiny Herb. Wang Jiexi is a good Captain and I love how he has this reckless streak below a cool and serious exterior. I think Tang Rou and Wang Jiexi are very similar, personality wise. If the two of them teamed up it'd be quite formidable (of course after Tang Rou improves her game a lot more). The novel had Wang Jiexi ask Tang Rou multiple times to join Tiny Herb and I had a small ship going for them XD.In the novel team Tiny Herbs adventure with Lord Grim is a bit more drawn out and painful than the donghua lol. All of team Tiny Herbs players except Wang Jiexi got beaten by Lord Grim in and outside the arena. Their team morale was basically shot through the ground and even started fearing to duel Lord Grim. Had Wang Jiexi lost to Ye Xiu during their bout, Tiny Herb's morale would have been unrecoverable. Luckily Wang Jiexi pulled through as Captain. This actually really goes to show how good a player Wang Jiexi is - overcoming the advantages that the Unspecialized class have at low levels and also a Mage class's limitations with melee. I think Wang Jiexi would be very good at playing Unspecialized as well :).
This isn't shown in the donghua but Tiny Herb continued to train with Lord Grim under the betting arena arrangement. While they still continued to loose, they're morale was never down again and soon started improving. Unfortunately the server 10 branch of Herb Garden guild still went bankrupt multiple times and Plantago Seed spends most of his time crying over his guilds empty warehouse XD. On the days when Herb Garden didn't have enough crafting material to feed Lord Grim, Tiny Herb players just watched and reviewed recordings of their battles.
While Ye Xiu might call Wang Jiexi "Wang-big-eye" he actually respects him as a Captain and thinks he's "too smart". The two are both dedicated to their team, which makes Ye Xiu even sadder with the way his team treated him :'(.
Ah and Qiao Yifan poor thing. I hope this risk he's taking pays off and good on Ye Xiu for saying something (see he's not a bad Captain, EE was just blind!). I do however think he needs to stand up for himself a bit more.
Lastly, Steamed Bun!!!! Now I don't actually yet know when Bao Rongxing makes an appearance in the books. I've not read up to it. However during production, Butterfly Blue and the Producers all agreed with the fans request to introduce Bao Rongxing earlier. Apparently it doesn't change the story much so we're all good :D.
Novel Tracking: towards the end of Chapter 146 if you ignore Bao Rongxing.