NOVEL NEXT Chapter 354: B+ Team
While the Otter Team was reorganizing its team discipline and its members were all voluntarily starting extra training, the Starlight and Frost team had taken the grind to the extreme!
Although they had won their first match, the very next day, Arthur had resumed his extremely self-disciplined training, which left the young analysts on the team completely stunned.
Are all professional players this diligent? I'm in love.
Arthur put in extra training, and Justin was the first to follow. Then Aaron and Kevin joined in, and after that, Bella also came over to ask for advice. Before long, the two little bosses also gave up their rest…
In the end, the remaining members had no choice but to work overtime as well, just to avoid sticking out like a sore thumb.
As the captain who had led this team for many years, Leo would often feel a sense of bewilderment when he walked into his own training base: Is this really our club? Did I take a wrong turn?
Occasionally, when he was training until he was dizzy, Leo would miss the old, normal Starlight and Frost, and he'd miss the days when Aaron would start leisurely sipping tea before three in the afternoon.
But now, that same guy was often outside at three in the morning, having a passionate wrestling match with his Garchomp…
The change had come so suddenly that even Leo was having trouble adapting.
All of this was undoubtedly related to the arrival of one rookie!
Even a veteran like Leo, who had been a pro for over a decade, had to admit: he had never seen a rookie like Arthur in his life!
It wasn't a question of whether he was good or not. He was just… very special…
A player with a unique aura!
He had only been here for a few months, and the new season had just begun, but now even the cafeteria ladies at the training base knew: this young man's arrival had changed the entire club!
The first and most obvious change was that the number of people buying cooked food from them as a late-night snack had multiplied several times over.
The team's instructors had been a bit more relaxed lately, because this group of new players rarely asked them to look after their Pokémon.
But the base's nutritionists were about to explode from the workload!
Because the "grind culture" that Arthur had started had caused all the Pokémon's exercise levels to skyrocket. The demand for nutritional meals and energy blocks was ridiculously high every day.
Back in the youth camp, Arthur had even studied how to make energy blocks himself for a while, but he later found it was unnecessary because after signing with a team, the club covered all of it.
When Old Flame and Specter get going, their consumption of energy blocks is terrifying.
It had gotten to the point where every time he came to pick up supplies, the club's nutritionists would tremble at the sight of him.
To save costs, the team's energy blocks were made on-site by Pokémon nutritionists using raw materials.
"Master, please don't let your hand shake when you hold the ladle," Arthur finally couldn't help but say one day, standing at the window.
The next moment, Specter dematerialized, phased through the counter into the display window, and pointed at the rectangular drawer containing the energy blocks.
"What he means is, stop skimping on the portions. Just give me the whole tray," Arthur translated Specter's words.
"..."
The nutritionist felt like cursing!
Serving food without skimping is a soulless act! Damn it!
In the end, their final act of defiance was to just pack up the entire drawer of energy blocks for Arthur, at least managing to keep their tray and ladle…
Two weeks of this regular yet hair-pulling life quickly passed.
During this time, Starlight and Frost was unstoppable. After defeating the Otter Team, they secured another three consecutive victories. With a 4-0 record, they were at the top of the leaderboard, making everyone's jaws drop!
Before the start of every season, the league would invite commentators, famous veterans, and retired players or analysts from various teams to predict the league's trends. In recent years, this had even extended to giving teams a rating.
Before the start of this new season, everyone had unanimously favored the Blaze Team and the new Otter Team, rating them as the only two S-tier teams!
At that time, Starlight and Frost had only been rated B+. Because of their group stage loss in the Devon Cup, not many people were optimistic about this cobbled-together team of rookies and former substitutes.
Even with Arthur's unexpected appearance on the main singles stage, which proved that the trade between Starlight and Frost and the Sea Carp team was actually a brilliant, far-sighted move on their part, most commentators and retired players still ranked Starlight and Frost in the lower-middle tier.
And as luck would have it, among them was that same commentator with the impressive track record.
At the time, he had insisted, "Starlight and Frost, what kind of team is that? How can they compare to the Otter Team? B+! No more than that!"
Now, this quote, along with his many other historical achievements, had become the source material for a new round of memes.
And as Starlight and Frost continued their victorious march, "B+" had also become a popular meme. Now, more and more teams would self-deprecatingly call themselves a "B+ team" before a match, filling the pre-game banter with a cheerful atmosphere.
However, even among B+ teams, there are differences.
On this day, Arthur and his team boarded a plane to a new city, as they had another away game tomorrow.
Their opponent this time was also a team that had been rated B+ before the season: the Serenity Team.
The same team Serena had once been the captain of.
The "B+" label on Starlight and Frost had now become a meme, often mentioned in the same breath as the rating of the Otter Team they had defeated in their first match, used to tease that jinx of a commentator.
But the Serenity Team, after their captain's departure, was truly B+…
They no longer had a popular All-Star player. The player who had replaced their captain was nowhere near Serena's level. The team's strength had severely declined, and their current record this season was 1 win and 3 losses, putting them at the bottom of the leaderboard.
They were no match for Starlight and Frost.
But the main draw of this match was not this.
No one thought the Serenity Team could win. What people were interested in was—
"In today's match, will the rookie Arthur continue his brutal reign? And who will the Serenity Team send to stop this new Demon King?!"
The commentators were even using a chuuni term like "Demon King" to describe Arthur. It was clear he hadn't been acting very human lately.
After the first battle with the Otter Team, Arthur no longer had to hide the existence of Old Flame and Specter. And after one match to test the waters, he had confirmed that Specter's current physical condition was fine for low-intensity matches. As long as he didn't run into someone crazy enough to use Destiny Bond plus Explosion on him, Specter would basically be fine.
So, Arthur had completely stopped pretending. He had shown his hand.
In the subsequent three matches, he had achieved three shutouts!
Three 3-0 victories that had left his opponents questioning their life choices, with zero fun involved. Not only were they violent, but they were also swift!
Every time he took the stage, the match ended exceptionally quickly!
This was the result of the shared combat style of Old Flame, Specter, and Greninja—if you can't withstand their close-range brawling, your collapse is only a moment away.
Three players had already been added to the victim list.
So today, everyone was watching to see if a fourth person would be sporting a dazed, defeated expression after the match.
Especially since the Serenity Team had a lot of female players, which for some reason made people very excited
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