Since Roi refused to stick around and help Yuel practice parrying, there was no choice but to find somebody else.

  “Why me?” Julia grumped.

  “You’re not busy right now, so why not?” Yuel asked. “You think of it as target practice.”

  “Well, whatever.” Julia shrugged and sat down. “May as well practice my aim.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Hmph, I’mma shoot you so hard you gon wasting my time.”

  Why does she always seem eager to practice when it involves shooting me? Yuel smiled wryly and logged into the practice match. “ you pick Elf? It shoots long arrows, so they’re easier to parry.”

  “Huh? But I don’t py Carry. You said it’s like target practie, right? So, I’mma go with Pyro.”

  “Eh? But-”

  “Deal with it. Rather, you should be thankful I’m wasting my time on you at all, hmph.”

  “Alright, got it...” Yuel sighed. Pyromancer’s fireballs were also susceptible to parries, so it wasn’t the worst pi the world. However, the fireballs were nowhere as long as the Elf’s arrows, so hitting them was going to be even more difficult. As if Yuel didn’t already have enough trouble parrying the “easy” arrows. Sigh.

  In this fashion, whenever he had some free time in the club, he practiced parrying with another club member. He tried recruiting Lars as his perma practice partner, but that goof got bored after just 2 minutes and started shooting wildly. Even Roi was relut to parry against Lars’s swift shots, so Yuel had no ce. Gettien to a plump wasn’t much of a practice.

  Thus, most of the time, he ended up practig with Julia. She usually had some free time on her hands, because she didn’t have any particur training regime to follow. Simirly to Yuel, she absorbed knowledge from seniors and polished on her basics.

  “Stop dodging already, idiot!” Julia barked. “Weren’t you gonna parry my shots? Stand still so I shoot you!”

  “Sometimes it’s better to dodge.” Yuel rolled aside, dodging another fireball.

  “Gah! Die already!”

  You’re aware this isn’t an actual match, right? Yuel sighed. Julia was a bit heated up for the practice, so he was forced to parry against an oppo who genuinely sought his death. Perhaps it was good practical experience, but it was harsh on somebody with poor meical skill. Learning anything from this practice was rough while being stantly shot in the face. Somewhere along the way he was forced to improve his dodge rolls to cope with her, which wasn’t all bad.

  But really, Julia took this too seriously. As the practice progressed and Yuel got more used to parrying and dodging her shots, she grew increasingly irritated. At some point, that unleashed her aggressive side, which Yuel only ever witnessed when they practiced alone.

  It also happened back during the summer vacation. Whenever he taught her new offeeiques and made her try them out on him, she went full gas and bombarded him as hard as she could. She definitely had the makings of a strong aggressive pyer, but she never used that style in real matches, or even in practice matches.

  Apparently, Ellen worked on drawing out that part of Julia. They did special training to get Julia more fortable with pying aggressively, in hope to incorporate that aggressiveness into her otherwise passive pystyle. They couldn’t practice it too often though, since Julia was relut to show that side of herself when Lars was nearby.

  So, how did Yuel know all that? Well, he was forced to help with Julia’s special training. Acc to Ellen, the easiest way to draw out Julia’s fme was to make her pete against Yuel. In fact, at some point, it felt like Yuel’s parrying practice transformed into Julia’s aggression training. It’s Ellen who repeatedly pushed Julia to help Yuel with the parrying practice, so there’s no doubt that fox phis transformation from the get-go. It wasn’t bad though, si meant they both gained something from these sessions.

  Before long, the pre-tour season began for junih school teams. The club’s main team, referred to as the “first string”, had scrimmages with other schools every other week. The schools peted for points which determiheir seeding in the regionals ter this year. Schools with the highest scores would have to py less matches to reach the finals, a major advantage.

  The same yers picked their petitive niames, each school’s team had its own petitive name. Ihe game, that doubled as the name of the guild to which all club members belonged. For Yuel’s club, the guild name was StormBlitz.

  Unfortunately, he didn’t get to debut as part of StormBlitz in any of the scrimmages. In faone of the freshmen were picked for the first string. The seniors said it’s only natural for rookies to not be picked during their first year, but it was still frustrating. The petitive se was right there, right in front of him! Yet, he wasn’t allowed to touch it.

  Even so, Yuel kept practig hard every day. Aside from parrying, he also got many jungling tips, mainly from Dan. Along with Support and Top, the third role Yuel could py well was Jungler.

  Dan prided himself in being able to py any Jungler, even unventional ones like ancer Jungler and Druid Jungler, which utilized the CC of Support csses to fun as Junglers. trary to Yuel’s theoretical knowledge, many of these weird ideas were surprisingly viable as long as the pyer knew what he was doing.

  Aside from that, he also researched and analyzed many pro games with Aron, who was arguably the most simir pyer to him in the club. Just like Yuel, Aron closely analyzed the patterns of his oppos and formuted how to effitly take them down. The main differeween their pystyles was the point in the game at which they put their research to use.

  Yuel preferred exploiting enemy weaknesses as early as possible, whereas Aron waited until te game to finish processing the data. Therefore, while Yuel’s tactics were put to use throughout the whole match, Aron’s tactily came online during te game. Oher hand, said tactics were more bulletproof than Yuel’s, because Aron collected more data before drawing any clusions.

  For example, Aron usually saw through Ellen’s tricky pys and wasn’t fooled by them. The more Yuel got outpyed by Ellen, the more he realized the value of waiting longer before f his offeactics.

  “Taking your time to analyze the enemy more be a good thing.” Aron expined. “But, the way I see it, one of your strong points is your ability to make fast and accurate dedus. I don’t knoell it’s going to work in the pro se, but at least against oppos ye it’s plenty enough.”

  “Unless said oppo is Ellen.” Yuel grumped, ing out from another match where she pyed him for a fool.

  “Yeah, Ellen is a tough er.” Aron nodded. “But, oppos like her are rare in my experience. Also, I hope you don’t think she’s outpying you without putting any effort. Your presence forces her to py her hand earlier into the match, which leaves her fewer tricks for te game. That really helps me figure her pns.”

  “I see.” Yuel never sidered this iion before. From his point of view, he simply got outsmarted by Ellen. Therefore, he hought about the lengths she went to to achieve that result. It felt good knowing he also ily pressured her, that it wasn’t a one-sided bullying from her side.

  heless, he didn’t like this reality. Howard had the ability to shut down his tactid Ellen had the craftio outsmart them. They were only middle schoolers, so Yuel’s oppos were bound to bee stronger and stronger as he grew up. There’s no telling for how long his quick dedus would stay effective against petitive pyers.

  Therefore, he took some time to practice te game dedu, simir to how Aron did it. He and Aron watched and analyzed some pro games, sharing their dedus and how they reached them.

  They also analyzed recs of enemy pyers for uping scrimmages. Even though Yuel never got to py in any of StormBlitz’s scrimmages, he studied their oppos just as thhly as the first string and offered some insights during strategy meetings. He ensured he’s ready to py whehe team needed him, doing everything he could to better prepare himself for his eventual petitive debut.

  Half of the school year gone by. Yuel, and all other freshmen, only worked on honing their skills and gaining experience. In Ranked, Yuel, Lars and Taison reached the Diamond division by pying premades with other club members. Julia and Gregory weren’t too far behind, sitting at Ptinum I and Ptinum II respectively.

  Despite these achievements, none of them got to py in a scrimmages even ohey apparently didn’t even climb high enough to bee reserves for the first string. Oime, Ellen got sick before a scrimmage and had to be repced. Lars was excited about the possibility of repg her as the Carry, but Trever icked instead.

  This reality was frustrating but not too surprising, sidering the first string was posed mostly of third year students, save for Howard and Ellen. The pyers in line were juniors and seniors who didn’t make the cut, so freshmen had no business pying in official matches yet, not even as reserves.

  Taison and Gregory voiced their frustration with this reality every other day, believing themselves worthy of debuting right away. Lars was also quite restless about it, spouting something like “I y an official match! Let them at me, yo!” at least once a week. Yuel shared their ses, but simply tinued practig, believing his efforts would eventually pay off.

  As if answering the rookies’ prayers, Howard made a special annou regarding the uping scrimmage against the Leopards team.

  “They got a first string and a sed string over there.” Howard expined. “Acc to scrimmage rules, both teams pit their sed strings against each other to earra points. None of the other teams we faced so far were fident about their sed string, so they never brought up the idea. But, the Leopards are different. They requested to challenge our sed string as well.”

  “Wait, we have a sed string?” Lars excimed.

  “Not an official one, but we form a temporary sed string for this scrimmage. From those who aren't in the first string, we’ll pick the best pyer in each role and form a team out of them.”

  “Oh! Oooh!” Lars’s eyes sparkled. “Did my time finally e!? I’mma do this, yo!”

  “Khaha, no way it’s you, dumbass.” Taison sneered. “They gonna pick da best Carry! You all know that’s me, right?”

  “You think you’re better? Fight me, dude!”

  “I’mma 1v1 yo ass!”

  “Alright, that’s enough.” Howard cpped loudly, returning order to the club room. “Sorry to inform you, but none of you made the cut. You didn’t fet we have Trever, right? So, guess who is getting the Carry role.”

  “Geh! That dude! Every. Siime!”

  “Damn, just graduate already, you scrub!”

  “Haha, too bad for ya.” Trever grinned and rubbed their hairs. “Try agai year, kids!”

  “Alright,” Howard tinued. “Here are the pyers me and Aron picked for the sed string: Trever as Carry, Gilbert as Mid, Roi as Solo, Dan as Jungler and Yuel as Support.”

  “Eh?” Yuel was dumbfounded. What did Howard just say? Who ying Support? In an official scrimmage? In an actual petitive match!?

  “Ah...” Yuel’s lips trembled as he faced the other freshmen. Everybody had been w hard these past six months, they all thirsted for eltive se. Yet, in the end, only Yuel made it. He overflowed with a mixture of joy and guilt.

  “Great job, dude!” Lars gave a thumb up. “Go show them what you got!”

  “Eh?” Yuel blinked. Lars wasn’t frustrated? Even though he didn’t make it? Even though Yuel’s first debut was going to be with Trever as his ne partner?

  “Don’t worry, I’mma follow ya real soon!” Lars ched a fist and bumped it into Yuel’s chest.

  “Heh, you better do.” Yuel smiled softly. They both pursued the same stage, so they were going to meet there eventually. It just so happened Yuel got there a little earlier, that’s all.

  “Good job.” Gregory smirked and preteo cp. “Now, go out there and mess up real hard, so ime they pick da best Support, kek.”

  “Keep dreaming.” Yuel retorted.

  “Officially,” Howard tinued. “The captain of the sed string team gonrever. But, you all know he’s ly the sharpest tool in the shed, right?”

  “You mean he’s an idiht?” Taison ughed.

  “What was that?” (Trever)

  “Gah!?”

  “Anyway,” Howard turo Yuel. “I trust you all to support him when it es to shot-calling and team strategy. Especially you two, Gil and Yuel. sider yourselves ‘very iial vice-captains’ in this sed string.”

  “Got it.” (Yuel)

  “Fine by me.” (Gilbert)

  “We don’t have any data on their sed string.” Howard expined. “We only assume they’re good, sidering their coach thinks they’re ready to py in a scrimmage. Work on polishing your teamwork as much as possible until the match, you have a week. That’s all for this meeting.”

  And so, an unofficial “sed string” was formed, with the iion of beating a sed string of unknown potential. This was going to be Yuel’s first debut in the petitive se, he couldn’t help but feel giddy! It wasn’t as impressive as pying on the first string, but it was going to be his first taste of the petitive se all the same!

  First, he’d exhibit his skill in the sed string. Then, he’d overtake Howard’s spot a in the first string. Finally, he’d get to the nationals and make a name for himself as Chessmaster. The path ahead never looked clearer!