Before the actual game, there was a warm-up phase. Both teams were allowed to enter practice mode and check out the settings, controls, etc.

It was a brief phase but one of utmost importance. It allowed the players to warm up their fingers for the upcoming bout, as well as get used to the unfamiliar equipment.

Rodriguez stressed many times how important it was for pro players to be able to adapt to unfamiliar game gear. After all, they had to play on many different stages throughout their career and the equipment was different everywhere.

He shared some stories about spoiled novices who blamed their poor performance on the “uncomfortable” equipment. That was an unacceptable excuse unless the equipment was outright malfunctioning. Suffice to say, such players never survived long in the pro scene.

To get the Leopards used to this harsh reality, Rodriguez periodically switched up the equipment which the first-string was allowed to use during club practice. He rotated through a couple of different popular models of keyboards and mouses, the ones that were radically different from each other.

It's such an overkill, really. Cato sighed as he went through his usual warm-up routine. But, it has its merit. One of the models we use at the club is pretty much like this one, so I already feel at home here.

Cato has already played on this stage twice this year, but that alone wasn’t enough to let him master the equipment of ProCenter. It was only thanks to Rodriguez's over-the-top attention to detail that using this equipment felt like second nature.

On the other hand, for a club that didn't have the luxury of trying out this model during practice, there was always a period of adaptation.

"Dang, it missed!" Lars pouted. "C'mon, I should've landed that headshot!" 

"Just try again," Yuel said. "You'll get used to it. Or rather, it'd be a problem if you don't." 

"Yeah, no problem. I'mma get the hang of it, I always do. It usually takes me a couple of minutes, tho." 

"Yes, that’s understandable." Yuel frowned at the results of his own shooting practice. Perhaps he was never known for his sniping skills, but even so, the result in front of him was worse than usual.

And, it wasn’t just the aim. His Cryomancer didn't quite move as he commanded. There was extra sensitivity and offset that he had to get used to.

Fortunately, since the players had to log in with their own accounts, the game was smart enough to load their game settings. What’s more, it was possible to create multiple setting profiles for different occasions.

Thanks to that feature, under the “ProCenter” profile, Yuel arranged special configurations for audio, sensitivity, and so forth. These were the settings he considered best for the equipment in ProCenter... or so he thought, back when he configured them.

This feels a little off. Yuel frowned. Is the equipment different? Or, did I get used to different settings during practice?

Since Yuel only played in ProCenter once in a while, he couldn’t tell what actually changed: his preferences or the equipment. Either way, the settings he loaded felt a little off, so he had to adjust them yet again.

“This is irritating,” Yuel muttered. "I wonder if we can purchase the same models of keyboard and mouse for the club.."

"Oh! That's real smart, actually!" Lars agreed.

“Except, our club has effectively no budget.”

“That’s true, haha...”

“I guess we’ll have to buy it individually.”

"Yeah, makes sense. I'mma ask my folks about it later. I haven't asked them for anything pricey in a while, so it should be A-OK."

"Good for you." Yuel smiled wryly. "As for me, that probably will never happen, not with my strict allowance."

"Can't you just ask your mom to buy da stuff?" 

"I can, but I have a strong feeling she won’t be interested in covering this expanse. She’s not exactly thrilled about me playing Mancers."

"Okay, no problem! I'mma just ask my folks to buy one for you, too." 

"I appreciate the thought, but I can't accept such a generous gift out of nowhere. Gaming equipment isn’t exactly cheap."

“Yeah, that’s true. Then, how about I sneak it in as a birthday present? That’s a 200 IQ play right there!”

“My birthday is still months away, though.”

“Then... it’ll be an early birthday present!”

“You’re really pushing it, but it’s not entirely unreasonable,” Yuel said. “Anyway, we can discuss this later. Focus on your warm-up for now. Out of everybody here, it’s the most important for you to be in top shape.”

“No problem, yo. Gimme five minutes and I’mma draw out 200% of my power, believe it!”

“That’s good to hear.” Yuel nodded. “I wish everybody was as motivated as you about the warm-up phase. Especially, a certain somebody who thinks this is a good opportunity to take a nap.”

“Gufu...” Nia twitched in her chair, with her eyes closed. While everybody else was busy in Practice mode, Nia took the opportunity to close her eyes and drift into slumber.

“C’mon, wake up,” Yuel urged. “You need to warm up, too.”

“So sleepy...”

“Then do the warm-up, it’ll wake you up. I can join your room and duel you if that’ll help.”

“Maybe it will...” Nia put her hands on the mouse and keyboard, with her eyes still shut. She had to search for the equipment by touch as if she was blind.

This looks worse than her usual sleepiness. Yuel thought. She’s not just faking sleepiness to dodge responsibility, she’s actually sleepy this time. I hope this doesn’t cause any problems...

Perhaps it was hasty of Yuel to force Nia on stage. The girl barely even reacted to the fact she was on a big stage with a large audience. Her stage fright didn’t even kick in, that’s how sleepy she was. It was mildly concerning, to say the least.

Well, I’m sure she’ll wake up once things get serious. Yuel reassured himself. “C’mon, I’ll join your room. Pretend like this is a real fight, with the team’s victory on the line.”

“Ok...”

Meanwhile, on the other team, the warm-up phase proceeded without a hitch.

All members of the Leopard were accustomed to this brand of gaming gear, so nobody had an issue adjusting. And, since Rodriguez droned about the importance of warm-up countless times by now, nobody voiced a single objection to the procedure

With that said, some of them were definitely more gung-ho about the procedure than others...

『You have been killed!』

“Dang, bro!” Ronald exclaimed. “C’mon, one more time! I’mma win this one!”

“You’ll try.” William was unfazed by the bold declaration of his younger brother. Their score was 4-1 so far, so William was confident about his chances.

I’m in a good condition today. William examined his own hands. His body felt light and his mind was sharp. The light workout he did before getting on stage was showing off its effects.

Not to mention, today’s scrimmage was special. It was the first time this year that he was expecting to run into an actual challenge, one by the name of Gunz.

Good, good. Cato smiled meaningfully as he watched the two brothers spar. Looks like the “No.3 Strongest Player” is wholly motivated to defeat Gunz and claim the No.2 spot. This is what I like seeing~

“Hah.” Sonya sighed as she watched the two siblings go hard at each other as if they were fighting for their lives. “Where do they even get all that energy from? They better not burn themselves out before we get to the actual game.”

“Well, they feel motivated about a scrimmage for once, so that’s good as far as I’m concerned,” Cato said. “It’s the first time this year we might face an actual challenge.”

“I suppose they really view Stratus as a potential threat.”

“Ironic, isn’t it? The ‘weakest team’ might turn out to be one of the strongest we’ll get to face this year, at least in this region.”

“Perhaps.”

“Oh?” Cato tilted his head. “It doesn’t sound like you think Stratus is going to pose much of a challenge.”

“They might, but it remains to be seen. The way I see it, their entire team is riding on the backs of Gunz’s mechanical skill and Chessmaster’s shot-calling. If we shut those two down, it should be a cakewalk from there.”

“My, I think you’re underestimating the other members a little.”

“We analyzed them thoroughly, I even rated all of them. We know where they’re standing.”

“Yes, I get what you’re saying. For sure, Chess and Gunz are the biggest threats for us. The rest are ‘decent’ at best, so they got nothing on our lineup.”

“Exactly.” Sonya felt like there was nothing more to say on the topic, so she returned to her own warm-up routine. Hers wasn’t nearly as intense as that of the brothers. It was very methodical, going over specific motions she prepared according to the coach’s advice.

Sonya swapped to Electromancer and landed a couple of hits on moving targets. Then, she dashed through the jungle and placed a ward along the way before reaching the Griffin Camp.

After taking out the camp, she swapped to Knight and challenged an Ogre Camp with basic attacks, making sure to dodge all their incoming attacks as she sliced them down.

After that, she swapped to Areomancer and held a mock duel against a Pyromancer bot configured for the highest difficulty. She made sure to zone out the Pyromancer thoroughly in the lane, not giving him any chance to get close, just as she should be doing against a real Pyromancer opponent.

Sonya prepared all these training routines ahead of time and loaded them one after another. This was possible thanks to one of the many handy plugins for Practice mode that the game allowed to install.

There were many such extensions that ClassSoft officially approved of and added to the in-game store. Some were free, some had to be purchased, and others had subscription plans. Thankfully, many of them were discounted or made free for competitive players, so Sonya didn’t have to spend a cent on this one.

Thanks to that, Sonya was able to comfortably and efficiently rotate through the pre-programmed training scenarios. It made her use multiple different classes and practice different common situations.

It was almost like watching a speedrun session for a game tutorial. She went from practicing shots against moving dummies, to placing wards, to clearing camps, to laning against an AI opponent, to chasing a low HP opponent, to fleeing from an opponent, and so forth.

Yikes. I’d never be able to do something like this. Cato thought. Warm-up is important and all, but she’s definitely taking it too far.

Compared to Sonya, Cato’s training regime was far more conventional. He did some basic target practice, dodged some incoming enemy attacks, and simulated simple laning situations.

These were the main scenarios a player encountered throughout a match, so these were the only activities Cato focused on. In the remaining time, he simply repeated the same motions with a melee class, to make sure his brain wasn’t only warmed up for the controls of a ranged class.

It was a simple and efficient routine, one which maximized results for minimum effort. That was always the best way to go about things.

Besides, I’m not even the laziest one around. Cato excused himself. Matt always does far less than that.

Cato glanced at the neighbor sitting on his right. Out of everybody here, Matthew’s warm-up routine was the most basic.

This lazy bum straight up logged into Practice mode, moved around a little, shot a couple of targets, cast a skill or two, and then called it a day. Yeah, just like that. The entire endeavor took him less than two minutes.

He’s always like that, huh. Cato smiled wryly. Lazy but efficient. I can’t say I hate that. With that said...

Even for Matthew, today’s warm-up routine was extremely short. He barely touched the keyboard at all. After rushing through a couple of basic motions, he just sat there and gazed to the distance, toward the table on the opposite side of the stage.

“What’s wrong?” Cato asked. “Are you trying to study our opponents from afar or something?”

“Nah,” Matthew replied. “I was just wondering about one of their players.”

“Is there someone you know?”

“Maybe.” Matthew wasn’t sure. “InformationBlackhole... what was his real name, again?”

“Um, what was it?” Cato scratched his head. “Sec, I’ll ask my secretary.”

“Who’s your secretary?” Sonya lashed. “InformationBlackhole is Vincent Valentine.”

“My, you even remember the family name? As expected from my secretary~”

“Yeah, yeah.” Sonya rolled her eyes.

“Then, it’s him,” Matthew said.

Even though he last saw that eccentric journalist wannabe almost three years ago, it seemed as if not too much changed about the guy. The same couldn’t be said about Matthew, who was very different from back then.

“A friend of yours?” Cato asked.

“Not exactly. But, we went to the same elementary school.”

“Oh.” Cato took a moment to choose his words. This was a delicate topic. “Is he one of the bad guys?” He whispered.

“No, he isn’t. Although...” Matthew opened and closed his mouth without producing any words. He had no idea how to continue that sentence. His feelings on the matter were jumbled. “Nevermind. He’s just a former classmate, that’s all.”

“If you say so.” Cato deduced there was more to the story, but it seemed Matthew wasn’t comfortable about sharing the details at the moment. I better avoid opening any past wounds, especially right before the match. We can’t afford to lose today, not to this team.

This wasn’t just another game they had to win for the honor of the Leopards. It was an important match that Cato had to personally deliver to victory, for it was a long-anticipated rematch against Yuel, the one-time chess champion.

You’re not going to win the rematch, I guarantee you. Cato was confident. I’ll prove to you that I can beat you even when you’re fully prepared for the match.

Today’s game was more than just a scrimmage between two teams. It was a rematch, and possibly a showdown, between Cato and Yuel as strategists. Only one of them will walk away victorious today!