12 Interview (1/2)

Li Ming was watching the end credits of the tryouts program that was being played inside his virtual reality gear. From time to time, he would recognize an ex-pro player's name. He had just easily cleared the third stage. He had understood that this would be a endurance test as soon as he crossed blades with the first enemy.

Knowing this, he chose to play slowly, pacing his ability usage. Instead of taking fights immediately, he would take advantage of ”On the Hunt” and it's stealth ability in its entirety, waiting the full 4 seconds before making the next action. This gave him time to recuperate and plan ahead for his next battle.

He also knew that it would be impossible for him to face more than 9 enemies at once. In an online press conference, Leo Corporation had revealed that it would cause a game to lag if more than 10 characters used all their abilities at the same time. With all this knowledge, he was able to take it slow and easily clear the stage.

However, he was very bored. The process of trying different combos got old as soon as he had tried a couple of them, and the enemies proved to be useless against his stealth. Of course, had they been the real players, they would have been able to detect him in his stealth, but all of their stats were reduced by 75%, leaving them as sitting ducks waiting to be cut down.

Suddenly, he felt his arm being tapped on in the real world. Taking off his headset, he was greeted by a man that was slightly sweating and his face was very red. This man was, of course, Celeste. At this point, Celeste was very embarrassed. He had been silently insulting Li Ming without even giving the kid a chance. However, Li Ming rose above and beyond all expectations and was able to break record after record.

Thankfully, Li Ming did not know about Celeste's opinions and previous bias against him.

”Mr. Li Ming, please come with me.” Celeste said nervously.

Unfortunately, Li Ming didn't see Celeste's tone as a tone of nervousness, but instead, he heard it as anger. This confused Li Ming. Had he broken a rule? What did he do wrong? He was pretty certain that he had not done anything to violate any rules.

”Umm... Did I do something wrong? Something to cause trouble?” Li Ming managed to ask.

'Did you do anything wrong? Something to cause trouble?' Celeste frowned, 'Of course you did something wrong. You broke every single previous record by an unbelievable margin, and you still have the audacity to ask what if you caused trouble.'

”I guess you could say...” Celeste chose his words carefully, ”You stirred the hornet's nest, and now the emperor has come out to play”

---

The crowd erupted into a thunderous cheers and applause as Li Ming was brought onto the stage by a very tired Celeste.

”Welcome, everyone, the man to break all previous records, give up for.... 'The Dawn'!'” an announcer exclaimed!