Just people like Hao and Cher would pose a threat. Yet such people weren't that many to begin with. Even with such knowledge, Cher underestimated the game and didn't take this step as seriously as Hao.
She planned to wait for the start of the game to establish her guild. Hao could only bitterly smile. Sometimes being smart wasn't enough to succeed, you must have passion and be creative to achieve that.
"They are heavily recruiting," Hao simplified things by saying this, "and the numbers will keep rising with the advance of the game."
"Few thousand… This is…"
"Too hard to compete against?"
"Nearly impossible!" Hil couldn't hide her thoughts, "how can we compete against such sharks? It's impossible."
"It's hard indeed, but not that impossible," Hao shook his head before adding, "as long as we act and move with a proper plan, we still have a chance."
"How?" Hil pointed back at her dorm, "even if we forced everyone to join Dawn, we will still end up with a few hundreds. Not to mention not all will love to play this game like the two of us."
"Who said that?"
"It's MMORPG and MOBA, but there are shooting game lovers who won't find any amusement there."
"You are mistaken," this time Hao couldn't simplify things to her. Before she could ask, he added, "I can't explain it for you, but this game has everything any gamer would dream about. You'll have to wait until the game is launched to test that."
"I have to wait this long… Can't you explain it already?"
"Then you'll have to wait until we gather the core of our team at least," Hao sighed, "talking about this would take lots of time and effort. Let it be a one time explanation for the best."
"You are lazy, I get that," she suddenly pointed at him and laughed, making him feel a little awkward.
"It's not laziness, it's just too complicated to explain," Hao couldn't help but say in his defence.
"Lazy boss indeed," she kept teasing him and he decided to drop the matter.
"So do you have any place in mind to start with?"
"The official big competitions are being cancelled," she said while thinking deeply about this, "but there are few small competitions where many enthusiastic young players are participating in."
"Fun is always running amok in any gamer's blood," Hao knew his bet was right. After all, even if big competitions were called off, the players wouldn't stop playing and competing.
"But… I'll need to first dig more about such tournaments," she held her head with both hands, "it might take all night to do that."
"Then you better start off now," Hao stopped, motioning to her with his hand to return.
"Now?" Hil couldn't believe he asked her this.
"Tonight you draw the schedule," Hao pushed her like he was pushing a rock or something, "tomorrow we'll go out and visit them one by one."
"That's unfair!" She pursed her lips in complaint, but she got only a laugh in return from Hao.
"Who said life isn't?" He just pushed her for a few metres before letting her walk on her own. She gave him a blaming look and he kept motioning with his hands for her to keep walking.
She kept mumbling to herself with words he couldn't hear. He watched her return while shaking his head with a big smile.
"Things are going smoother than I expected so far," he placed both hands in his pockets, looked up at the stars and took a deep breath.
Just being here alone made him recall events from his past. On such clear and nice nights, he used to go out with his girl.
Just thinking about such long and aimless walks made him smile, bitterly smile. He had to let her go for now. But not every second passed without recalling her face.
Her father… that old man was like an insurmountable peak standing in his path. He knew how deeply his girl loved and cherished her father. As her man he wouldn't aim to break such a relationship.
But to get his girl, he had to break that old man in the game and in real life. Things reached such a stage thanks to the old man's actions. Hao didn't seek to do anything evil about him, even when he knew he wasn't welcomed by that old man.
He thought that the father would choose the happiness of his daughter. But reality proved that sometimes stubbornness and ego might be more damaging to people than anything else.
That led to the current situation. He lost all contact with his girl for months now, not even knowing where she was.
The only path Hao saw in front of him was to make a comeback in the upcoming game. Defeating her father's scheme in the game would be enough to limit that old man's actions, or that was what Hao hoped for.
He would also be able to find her in the game, at least he held higher hopes for that compared with looking for her in real life.
"A loving daughter who can't see through the darkness in her father's heart…" he shook his head and returned to look at the sky once again.
He didn't wait outside for much longer. As he returned back, all the students he met greeted him in respect and curiosity.
Yet he wasn't in the mood to speak or interact with any of them. He spent the past months preparing for this, and now he was already on the first step over his new path.
Preparing and walking on the path were two different experiences. He returned to his room, closed the door behind and looked at the side rooms with boxes.
He thought about wasting his time tonight and opened the boxes. But he soon dropped this idea. He returned to the main room, got out his laptop, and started to revise the plan files he prepared there.
The folder was filled with four subfolders, each held a name related to the stage of his plan.
First was the start, and this was what he was doing right now. Then the start of the game, then creating a pro team, and lastly dominating the world.
Of course in each folder there were lots of files, but he started with the last folder and not the first in order.
In his eyes, as long as he kept putting his goal in his mind, knowing the destination he wanted to reach, he wouldn't miss his path no matter what.
Hao spent the night revising his plan and editing the things he gained from his meeting with Cher. in fact he placed the step of selecting a guild master much later than now.
In addition to that, he didn't think he would be the boss of the dorm the first day he would arrive here. These two steps, no matter how small they looked, saved him a lot of time and effort.
He didn't need to work his magic and recruit the students here. He just needed to make a meeting and convince them easily with the support of Hil and Cher.
As for the guild master position, he didn't need to go through many profiles and candidates, study their personalities and try to filter them into a small list made up of five names at most.
Feeling that he achieved something, he slept the night with much comfort and a big smile over his face.
He woke up at seven A.M. his jetlag was much better after one day of rest. After getting a shower, he looked at the boxes all around, thinking about his next move.
"As I got lucky with the Hil and Cher, I hope this luck continues for finding more players with potential."
He knew he was very optimistic right now. After all, finding good players wasn't an issue, but finding players with potential to be world class was something else.
The biggest problem he faced was that he wasn't that experienced at the new game. He only played in the beta test long months ago.
He got real time experience, read tons of data about the game, but he didn't even play for more than one week there.
The highest level anyone achieved by this week of test was a member of a rival team. He got level fifteen while Hao was only thirteen.
According to the game developers, they were just testing and this wasn't the final version of the game. Many changes would be implemented, but Hao hardly believed these words.
After all, developing the game to such a stage was a big hurdle for anyone. They might lower the difficulty of raising levels in the game, something that all of the players who tested it with Hao complained about.
"A game that will have chances for MOBA, MMORPG, and shooting lovers to excel at isn't that easy…" He started thinking about that while walking outside his dorm.
The hour was still early and this was a vacation. So the dorm looked like it was deserted or something.
"Playing for too long and waking up too late… I have to change that," Hao lived by the pro rules for years. These teams didn't treat gaming as a game, but like a proper business.
There were fixed schedule hours for pros. Be it waking up, eating, exercising, training, and even hanging out and having some fun… Everything was meticulously calculated to bring the best results for the elites of the pro world.
Hao didn't have anything against such a strict system. In fact this system helped in keeping the mental strength and physical conditions of the pro players to be in top form all the time.
"I need to have my breakfast then exercise…" Hao didn't know if Hil was awake or not. But from the look of things here, he knew she would be lost in sleep by now.
He looked at the sports car of his, barked just on the side. "I don't need it," he knew at this hour, streets wouldn't be crowded. He also wanted to test the area here on foot.
"I'll then have a proper walk outside," as he walked his way from the front gate to here, he held a few memories about the direction he should follow.
If the campus here didn't provide any support for players in this dorm, then he should seek what he needed somewhere else.
Of course paying the expenses for all the students to train in an outside gym was unrealistic. He planned to use Cher and gain a few privileges away from the rich students here.
"Who are you?"
Just as he took a few turns, he was stopped by a well built youth. He was wearing a training suit, sleeveless while soaked in his sweat.
"I'm Hao," Hao said while jumping over any more useless introduction from that dude, "is there a training place here for me to use?"
"You…" the youth looked like he was way younger than Hao by a year or two, yet with his bigger build he made Hao feel smaller. "You are part of that dorm?" he pointed towards the dorm Hao came from.
"Is there a problem?" Hao feigned his ignorance about the tension between the students in the academy.
"You should thank god for being here," the youth snorted, giving Hao a very arrogant look that turned into a sarcastic smile, "the likes of you shall always know their rightful place. If it was up to me, I'd kick all of you out and let you be homeless again."
"Speaking like someone with authority here," Hao didn't get enraged at all. Instead he showed a light smile as if what he heard didn't bother him.
"I'm the head of the student council," the youth pointed towards his chest in pride before adding, "I'm Luke Gorshister."
"What a long introduction," Hao responded to such an arrogant tone by shaking his head in disappointment.
"You…" Before Luke could do or say anything, Hao already started walking away. Luke looked at Hao's back, feeling more annoyed and irritated with Hao's presence.
"Hao… It seems I got a long vacation this time," he muttered to himself, intending to dig deeper behind Hao and try to bring trouble to him.
As for Hao, he didn't think for one second about that jerk. In his eyes, he would meet up and face more of such arrogant wealthy kids here. So he had to grow a cold attitude towards their provocations.
Reaching the gate, he found the streets filled with few number of cars like he expected. This place was supposed to be on the side of the big city, but it gave him the impression he was walking in the countryside or something.
"Hmm… According to the app here, there is a gym a few blocks to the south from here… Will it be open by now or what?"