Ace booted up CSGO, finishing up the slices of fruit he had on a bowl next to him, he lightly stretched his wrists and fingers, there would be no change, but he had gained the habit from watching professional players play the game. Today would be an important day in his gaming career, after playing CSGO for a madman for some time, he was finally going to play his first ranked match. He had researched it beforehand, and found out he could only play 2 games every 24 hours, so he would first warm up with a few casual games, and then begin playing, in no rush to begin playing.
"Yes!!! Thanks man! You might as well be carrymaster123!", a fervent voice shouted out at him, a kid that seemed to be within his age group, he had just played with Ace there games in a row, and Ace had been top fragger [A/N: Person with most kills in the team] for every single match.
"Thank you", Ace typed in chat, he then left the game and began the matchmaking for a ranked game. From his understanding, he would first play ten placement matches, they were games which the system would use to place him in a certain rank with people at his skill level. In increasing order, the ranks were: Silver I, Silver II, Silver III, Silver IV, Silver Elite, Silver Elite Master, Gold Nova I, Gold Nova II, Gold Nova III, Gold Nova Master, Master Guardian I, Master Guardian II, Master Guardian Elite, Distinguished Master Guardian, Legendary Eagle, Legendary Eagle Master, Supreme Master First Class and The Global Elite. The top rank, Global Elite was where only the top 0.35% of the game belonged, give or take.
Ace began the match, he was playing on the Counter-Terrorist team, he would have to prevent the Terrorists (opponents) from planting the bomb, and if it was planted, diffuse it in time before it exploded. He selected the Glock, and a few flashbangs, the Glock would allow him to fire in rapid succession if he met more than one enemy. They were playing on Dust 2, a map that Ace had played countless games in before, so he began running towards mid doors, and whilst peeking, pushed forward to XBOX. He stood silently, waiting for an opponent to come, and he soon heard footsteps, he lobbed one of the flashbangs, and used the opportunity they created to peek at the opponent and one-shot him, coming out unharmed from the spree of bullets that had been sent out at him. He then noticed that one of his teammates had died whilst holding the Upper B tunnels, so he dashed forward through Top Mid, into the Outside Tunnels, holding the angle and waiting to see if anyone heard him. He could not hear anyone so he stepped forward slowly, but as soon as he did, a hail of bullets came his way, luckily for him, the sender was not very good, and only one hit, doing negligible damage to his character. He sent out the last flash grenade, but this time, even after it exploded, he waited. He knew that the player would soon think he had gotten scared and would leave the angle, that would then be his time. Luckily for Ace, he did not need to wait for long, one of his teammates had come through CT Mid and was in a firefight with an opponent, so Ace quickly hear the footsteps of the guy leaving to help his friend, he sprinted out of the corner and caught the running opponent's head with a beautiful headshot that made the dead person that was spectating him woop in voice chat, to be quickly silenced by a teammate that was waiting for someone to try to sneak the flank through Bomb A, trying to catch someone off guard. Ace raced past the tunnels, and hit the already low enemy that was fighting with his teammate with three shots to the chest, that also took him down. This enemy was the one carrying the bomb, so Ace simply waited at Back Plat for the enemy that would come looking for the bomb. Nevertheless, even before they could do that, they were taken down by various members of Ace's team, and in this way, Ace won the first round of what he hoped would be many…
Ace stood up from his chair, his sigh dripping with tiredness, he had not expected the games to be so exhausting. The opponents were not playing for shits and giggles anymore, and this required Ace to be at 1000% attention level, to ensure that he would not be caught unaware. Even then, he was still killed more times than he would like to admit, especially at the end of the second game, where Ace, the top fragger of his team, began to succumb from exhaustion and was caught unaware by three enemies three rounds in a row. They still won the game, but it was undoubtedly harder to do so than it would have been if Ace was in his peak condition at all times. This showed Ace that he would need to practice more if he wished to play more ranked, but for now, he would stick to one game per day.
Halfway through the games, he called Leilah, telling her that he had finished the work she had set for him and that there was no need to come this week. He emailed her the scans of the completed worksheets, and Leilah agreed but warned him that if they were not good, they would have a double lesson the following week. Ace had no doubts she would want to come for the lesson, but not to tell him how wrong he was exactly…
Veronica also sent him an email, informing him that the following day, his grandmother would be available for a meeting, if it was kept to less than thirty minutes in duration. Ace agreed, wishing her a good night, then set his phone to charge in his wireless charging station, and got something to eat, in his mind, writing a speech that would convince his grandmother to allow him to stream in peace, without giving her warnings that he was spending too much time in a game, which to be fair, for a person that had just supposedly recovered from an extreme illness three odd months ago, was most definately way above the recommended screen time, but considering how he had performed in all the sets his mother had set for him, he knew she would have no problem with him playing games, especially if he could convince her of the benefits.