The big day of club recruitments was over. On the following day, the Cssmancers club gathered in the basement clubroom to go over the applications. Everybody resent, except for Vi who went to fetch additional applications from the school secretary and Ben who was missing again for whatever reason.

  Is Ben even really a part of the club? Yuel sighed. At this point, it felt like Ben art-time member at best. But, it got tiring to ask the same questions ahe same vague answers every time so whatever.

  By the time everybody arrived, Kai was already there flipping through the application forms. She carefully went over them over and over but it was futile. She won’t find what she was searg for. Yuel khat because he ahe papers yesterday.

  "Huh," Kai sighed and spped the papers oable. Reality dawned ohere wasn’t a single petent female didate.

  Surprisingly, five girls applied for the club. It was a small number but way higher than anybody expected. As, their experieh the game ranged from "I don't know what this is about" and all the way to the pro level of "I heard about it, I think" In other words, pletely useless.

  "Who evehese girls apply?" Kai asked with a frown. She had to bme somebody for raising her hopes like that only to let them crash and burn.

  "A few gals gave me forms," Lars said.

  "And, you didn't tell them we only want experienced pyers?"

  "Nah, I said everybody is wele, haha."

  "You're really something..." Kai shook her head. "How did you eve so many girls to sign up anyway?"

  "I dunno. They just came to me and asked questions and stuff."

  I think they were hitting on you. Yuel rolled his eyes. It wasn’t just Julia, Lars opur with girls in general. So, there was a good ce all these girls approached him and "signed up" just to start a versation. They had no real iion of joining and they didn't care about Cssmancers in the slightest. As, the goof was too thick-headed to notiy of that.

  "So," Kai narrowed her eyes. "Why did you let them sign up if they clearly don’t know the first thing about Mancers?"

  "Well, they all looked nid ied so I thought I'd give them a ce."

  Yeah, I'm sure. Yuel hey looked ied in YOU, not in Mancers.

  "Whatever. I bet you’re happy now?" Kai hahe stack of papers to Yuel. "Looks like we're pig our new member based on rank. You’ve even already ordered the applications in desding rank order so we kly who that is."

  "Yeah," Yuel nodded and g the top application oack. It was the current favorite, the Gold III pyer.

  "Gotta say," Kai tinued. "Good job s the applications. Made it very clear how far at the bottom all the girls were."

  "That wasn’t my iion."

  "No, it's fine, really," Kai gnced aside and smiled wryly. "Just goes to show how damn hard it is to find a female pyers e. It's a good wake-up call. I really gotta stop dreaming about the impossible."

  "There's still the applications Vi will bring," Yuel tried to sole.

  "You really expect to see anything different there?"

  "Who knows," Yuel dodged the question. In truth, he didn't expeything. If even Lars, the girl mag, could only draw get girls of this caliber, there was little hope.

  This should've made Yuel rejoice. After all, it meant they'll pick the most promising didate for the club and that’ll reinforce the club's skill level the most.

  A, it was unfortunate. A part of him wished that the most petent pyer to apply was a girl. Or, at least, that one of the girls lied was petent enough to pete with a Gold III. That would have worked out the best for both him and Kai.

  A few mier, Vi came in with more application forms he collected from the school secretary.

  "Let me look," Kai snatched the papers right away and flipped through them one by ohen, she smmed the papers oable and walked away with her arms crossed. It wasn't hard to guess why.

  Male. Male. Male. Male. Male. Yuel flipped through the papers and that's all he saw.

  About what I expected. He put the papers down. There wasn't even anybody in Gold rank so none of these applits added anything of o the sele process.

  "Sorry," Vi apologized to Kai. "That's all they had. Even with my Information Bckhole, I was uo draw in any additional applications. I shall it seppuku to repent!"

  "It’s not like it's your fault," Kai shrugged. "That's just the reality of things. I should've it’ll turn out like this."

  So, this whole “gender sele” thing is over. Yuel g the basement's door. No matter how much he stared at it, nobody was going to e and bring a ack of applications. It was over. No petent girls ever applied so the highest rank pyer will be selected... wait.

  Is it just me or there's somebody at the door? Yuel narrowed his eyes. He could swear he saw somebody peeking into the room from outside.

  "Somebody there?" Yuel asked as he approached the door.

  "...!" Something jumped he door. There was somebody there after all! It looked like a big bck hairball but it was actually a human.

  Didn’t I see it somewhere before? Yuel could swear he saw that long messy spaghetti hair before but he couldn’t recall the specifics.

  "You came here to apply?" Yuel asked as he drew closer to the door. However, that only made the spaghetti hairball retreat.

  "Wait!" Yuel instinctively broke into a run and the bck critter did the same.

  "Gone..." Yuel looked around but there was no trace of the wild creature he just saw. Was he halluating? Thinking of it, something like that happened yesterday...

  Right! It must be that girl from yesterday! Yuel smacked his forehead. How could I fet? It was such a bizarre experieoo.

  It was the same girl he saw in the crowd yesterday and failed to catch. Did she perhaps e to try applying again?

  Shoot, I scared her away. Yuel pursed his lips. This was bad. Kai will definitely bme him for sg off potential female didates.

  "Dude," Lars called out. "Whatcha doing over there?"

  "Well," Yuel gnervously at Kai. "I thought there was somebody who came to apply..."

  "Did you start halluating didates?" Kai asked.

  "Puy," Luke chuckled. "I bet he saw a young version of Maker, the legend himself, ing to apply, haha."

  "That's quite the ability," Vi nodded. "I shall dub it the Mystic Eyes of didate Perception!"

  What's with these reas? Yuel shuddered. It was like only he saw that bck hairball spying ohinking of it, he experienced something simir yesterday too. For some reason, only he saw that girl in the crowd. Frankly, it was getting rather uling. Brrr.

  Just as he was about to write off this entire i, he noticed a piece of paper on the floor. Did it belong to that spaghetti hair? Upon closer iion, it was one of the flyers Vi printed.

  Wait, could it be...!? That girl's application form!? Yuel dashed like a madman and grabbed the paper. It was indeed an application form!

  Gender: Female

  Rank: Ptinum V

  "Y-You gotta be kidding me..." Yuel stuttered. He rubbed his eyes but the form didn't vanish and its tents didn't ge. It was the real deal! A girl applied and she was petent enough to rival Ptinum league!

  "If I was just halluating, then expin this," Yuel smirked on his way bato the clubroom.

  "What is it?" Kai took the flyer. Her expectations have beerayed far too many times by now that she didn’t expect to see anything of note. However, the tents of this flyer almost made her eyeballs pop out of their sockets!

  “Wha!?” Kai dashed toward the door and frantically checked the surrounding area. As, the mysterious spaghetti hair girl was gone for. “There was really somebody here? It’s not your idea of a prank or something, right?”

  “Why would I bother,” Yuel said. “Besides, we’ll know for sure once we check her at.”

  “Right! Let’s do it!” Kai took out her tablet aered the pyer ID from the paper.

  “Oh, there’s a result!” Kai’s jumped.

  Never saw her express so much emotion before. Yuel smiled wryly. Though, admittedly, he was mad curious too.

  Kai searched the pyer ID from the application form and found a user who went by “BckFlower”. Unfortunately, some of the at’s profile info was set to private so they couldn’t see everything about BckFlower. For example, it was impossible to see her match history.

  However, they could still find out the important parts. BckFlower was Lv.62, so she was qualified for Ranked. However, as for the actual rank...

  Qualifying

  “Huh?” Kai cocked her head. “Does that mean she hasn’t fihe qualifier?”

  “So it seems,” Yuel frowned.

  When a pyer entered Ranked for the first time, they had to py ten “qualifier” matches to help the system estimate their skill level. Based oen matches, the pyer’s initial rank would be anywhere between Bronze V and Gold V.

  Back when Yuel and Lars started out, they were assigned Silver II and Gold V respectively. The system forbade pyers from doing the qualifier in parties, so each of them had to pull through on their own. Lars had an easy time carrying games with his skill but Yuel had to rely more on his teammates and that cost him games. The only matches that went well for him were the ones where he carried as Top.

  It wasly a pleasant experie it was behind them now. However, it wasn’t behind BckFlower. She was still stu the middle of the qualifier process.

  “So, her Ptinum rank is a sham,” Yuel cluded.

  “That’s...” Kai bit her lip a scrolling through BckFlower’s profile. “Wait, she IS Ptinum! In Duel.”

  “And she wrote that as her rank?” Yuel raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

  “Thinking of it,” Vi said. “We didn’t actually specify we’re asking for the rank of the MOBA mode.”

  “Oh, I remember that stuff!” Lars nodded. “I also wao write I’m Diamond when I lying to StormBlitz. It was my Duel rank.”

  “Right,” Yuel recalled that silly exge. “I had to stop you back then.”

  “Yep, haha.”

  “So,” Luke started. “Whatcha gonna make out of this? Duel rank doesn’t really say much but it’s something, I guess.”

  “Ptinum in Duel is det for a freshman,” Kai argued. “I was around Ptinum III in Duel when I joined. Besides, we already agreed we’re going to pick a female if she’s at least Lv.30.”

  “We agreed to test a female who is at least Lv.30,” Yuel corrected. “But, I agree. Ptinum in Duel shows at least some promise.”

  With that said, the Qualifying status didn’t sit right with him. BckFlower was already Lv.62. In other words, she hit Lv.50 a while ago and had enough time to climb all the way to Ptinum V in Duel. A, she hasn’t fihe qualifier for the MOBA mode during all this time. Why?

  “ you check her py rate in each mode?” Yuel asked.

  “Let’s see,” Kai switched tabs. “It’s... Err...”

  BckFlower an impressive 92% py rate in Duel. In other words, she has been exclusively pying Duel. The rest lit among the game’s other modes and only 4% was on the main MOBA mode. Needless to say, this was ing.

  “So,” Yuel cluded. “She got to Lv.62 almost entirely by pying Duel.”

  “So it seems...” Kai clearly wao refute that but it was the cold truth.

  The game awarded pyer exp regardless of which mode the pyer pyed so it ossible to get to Lv.62 by just pying Duel all the time. Apparently, that’s how BckFlower did it.

  “It’s like she has been pying a pletely different game,” Yue said.

  “But, that doesn’t mean she’ll be bad in the MOBA mode,” Kai argued.

  “I never said that. I still think we should call her over a how well she pys.”

  “Agreed,” Kai nodded. “I’ll catch her tomorrow during lunch break.”

  “Catch her?” Vi chuckled. “You make her sound like a rare Pokemon.”

  “She’s a shiny legendary,” Kai chuckled. “Good job spotting her, Yuel.”

  “You guys really didn’t see her?” Yuel asked.

  “No,” Kai shook her head. “I haven’t seen anybody.”

  “Yep, me her,” Lars said.

  “Nope,” Luke shrugged.

  “Kukuku,” Vi cackled. “Actually, I believe my Information Bckhole picked something up back then! But, the signal was so faint I wasn’t sure whether I should bring it up.”

  “In other words,” Yuel said. “You didn’t see squat.”

  “... no, I didn’t,” Vi admitted.

  It was so weird. There were five people in this room, so how came Yuel was the only one who saaghetti hair girl? It was a mystery.

  Either way, it was decided: they’ll call the girl over a her mettle. There was a lot of uainty surrounding this didate, but they’ll learn her worth for sure tomorrow.

  With that out of the way, the club spent a couple of hrinding Ranked and adjourned for the day.