Hao didn't care about knowing the identity of those people behind the dirty lawyers. After all this was Cher's business, not his. He was sure Cher would get to the bottom of this.
So he was just playing calmly with these two. "It's time for you to leave," he abruptly stood up, pointed with his hand in a gesture for these two to leave.
"You'll regret this," the senior lawyer left these words before leaving with his partner who made sure to get the papers.
Hao wasn't interested in taking the contract from them. The faulted contract didn't matter this much. He just saw how this was a good chance to assess Cher and know how she'd deal with this problem.
He was worried? Not even close. He would worry more about other guilds rising up in the city. But problems like the greed of other people and trying to interfere in his business wouldn't bother him.
After all he held the final say in this matter. He managed to convince Cher, and it was time for her to show him her true personality.
"I just don't have her number," he patted his forehead, before taking his phone and looking for Hil's number.
"She is busy?" but Hil cancelled his call with a message telling him she'd call him later. "For later then," he shrugged, walked outside and started his journey inside the dorm.
The dorm was five stories high, extending to cover a wide area indeed. In his eyes, it was like four big buildings assembled together. Even the central corridor linking all the rooms together got into four directions.
Hao's first visit was to a few rooms with students playing shooting games. It was known how popular such types of games were. In fact some people even claimed that they were more popular and much more exciting than the MOBA and MMORPG games.
That was part of the reason why the Dawn developers placed the exciting part about shooting games in their new game. In Hao's eyes, this move was one of the most brilliant single moves in the history of gaming.
With this most of the current gaming community would support this game. Not to mention it would be much easier to recruit normal people into playing this game.
As it would suit most of any individual's preferences.
Hao wasn't an expert at shooting games. But through his first visits here, he realised how bad these players were.
They were impulsive, rashly attacking without any strategy. Just after half an hour, he started to know where the issue lied.
It wasn't in these players, but it was in him. As one of the top pros in the Apex game world, he placed much importance over strategy and decision making. It was something non-existent in the dictionary of common players at shooting games.
Hao didn't know if the pros of these games would act in the same way or not. But he knew why Hil described them as not suitable or not good enough.
They needed courses before starting to play Dawn. lectures about strategy, the concept of macro playing was a must to have skill that they all lacked.
In shooting games, macro wasn't that much important compared to micro. In fact all the excitement came from micro playing. Hao realised even the worst of them was much better than the fairly good players at Apex game in light of micro.
Micro meant how the player used his skills, movement, and other tricks to kill his opponent. As for macro, it was a term regarding the general strategy of the team in the fight, their movements and when to advance or retreat.
They got something they excelled at, and something they were bad at. If he managed to teach them little macro and strategy to benefit the entire team, then they'd end up as better than what he initially thought.
But that would require him to develop some crash courses that could be easily understood and learnt without wasting time and effort.
And to do that, he had first to sell them the idea of joining Dawn. he didn't let his success in tempting Rayan into his head. After all, he was lucky to use Rayan's friend's selfish act to his advantage.
As he kept walking and visiting their rooms, the students started to grow anxious about that. Of course he was well known to each of them.
At first he crashed into their rooms and forced himself in. He told them the simple truth, told them he came to watch their play.
But it seemed the minds of the youngsters here thought much about it. They didn't believe his words, and soon he found the owners of many rooms waiting for him at the door, welcoming him.
He even started to find more rooms with closed doors in his face. That looked a little weird as he never saw a closed door in the dorm before, even if there were girls in the room.
"This won't do… Sigh," Hao stood in front of another closed door on the third floor, feeling a little helpless.
He didn't know why, but all the students showed fear and anxiety with his presence. He wasn't that terrifying, never took himself for one at least.
"I saw enough for today at least," he decided to drop his tour after six hours he spent touring the three floors. His best gains came from the first floor, the early rooms when the students didn't know about his plans.
"Scanning and looking for drugs, aren't you?" just as he was about to leave, and while he was lost in his thoughts about his crash strategy course, he heard a familiar voice coming from his back.
He turned to see E standing in the middle of ten other students. Hao looked at their faces, feeling like they were confident in their numbers.
But since when numbers mattered this much? "What do you mean?" Hao put his arms in his pockets, calmly asking.
"You entered each room and stayed there for long minutes," E said as if he discovered the secret behind the Bermuda triangle, "are you acting as a rat now for the academy or what?"
Hao snorted in response, took a couple of steps forward as he crossed the area separating him from them. He could feel many eyes focused on his actions coming from many doors, and was sure this discussion was heard from many if not everyone here.
"Rat is something a low person like you knows better," Hao said while his sudden move forward startled the group around E, forcing them to retreat a couple of steps in unison.
Only E stood in front of him, with glaring eyes with hatred. Hao didn't know why this kid here was acting this hostile against him, but he didn't bother with that.
If such an ant wanted to be crushed, why would he show mercy then?
"And in here, I'm the one who asks questions, not be asked," Hao added as he stopped just half a metre away from E.
"You are very arrogant!"
"Indeed I am," Hao nodded as if this wasn't something he should be ashamed of, "after all I beat your ace player from day one. I'm your current dorm leader. And I'm not bothered by what others think about me."
"You…" E was astonished by the boldness of Hao. "At least I'm not the only one suspecting and hating you."
"And you are speaking on whose account?" Hao motioned behind E and at this moment, that poor kid finally realised that he was standing all alone in front of him.
This startled him and made him retreat a couple of steps to stand in the middle of his group again. Before his smile would fruit on his face, and before he could show off again, Hao simply took a couple of steps forward again.
And like before, the group around E retreated in reflex, and this time E was more attentive and retreated again.
"I don't have all day to play such a silly game," Hao laughed in mockery before turning to leave. "Tonight I'll have a big meeting with all of you, be sure to be present there," he added in a loud tone, enough for every eavesdropping student here to perfectly hear him.
Hao went towards his room, thinking about his next meeting with the students here.
*Ring!* *Ring!*
Just before he could reach his room, his phone rang. "You were this busy?" he answered while entering his room.
As he had nothing else to do, he threw his body over the bed, while listening to the female voice coming from his phone.
"I just finished a long meeting with them."
"With who?" Hao didn't know what Hil was talking about.
"That team I told you about," her answer wasn't clear to Hao, and with his silence she added, "the good team that got disbanded, the one who went to high school."
Hao recalled them. She mentioned them when he first met her. "And?" his tone changed as he sat on his bed, listening with full attention to what she was going to say.
"I found them! They just replied to my message once I moved out from the academy. I went and spoke with them, or what remained of their team."
"Remained?" Hao thought instantly about what he heard from Rayan.
"Three of the team decided to leave gaming, but the other four are still playing. And guess what…" she paused, took a long breath before adding in excitement, "these four are already seeking a college! I've spoken with the lady and she agreed to let them join us."
"Oh, that's great," Hao was glad about such an unexpected surprise. But mentioning Cher made him recall what happened with her lawyers. "When did you call her?" he suddenly asked.
"Before calling you," she said, "why? Is there anything wrong?"
"Can you send her number to me in a message? I want to speak with her."
"Well… I can give it to you in a few minutes. I'm almost here."
"Cool… Waiting for you then," Hao ended the call while thinking about this busy day.
It started with Rayan and discovering what other teams were doing. Then he went to meet up with the students, just to end up announcing the meeting with them.
And Cher's lawyers incident just came in the middle of all this. And now Hil was coming over to speak about her success in recruiting these kids.
He bitterly smiled. He knew he had little time before the launch of the game, so things would just keep getting hectic from now on.
"I hope things will turn out well before the start of the game," he muttered to himself before feeling a little hungry.
He didn't eat anything since meeting up with Hil at the morning. He decided to order a lunch. He also decided to take the menu and the number of that restaurant from her.
As he liked eating from there, he didn't intend to try other places. He was just lazy in such aspects.
"Did you announce the meeting already?" as she arrived into his room, she seemed to hear the news.
"I just need to speak with them about our guild," Hao nodded while sitting on the seat in the middle of the room, "everything shall be clear in their eyes. If they want to join other guilds, they have to know the price they'll have to pay before giving any promises."
"Ok," she said before her face showed a big smile, "I got them."
"That's great," Hao said in a tone that wasn't like what Hil expected. She thought he would be dancing out of joy.
"Why are you acting like this?"
"Like what?"
"Like… This!" she pointed at him in general. And he only gave her a calm smile in return.
"It's just one piece of the puzzle being solved."
"Just like that?" She was still surprised by his reaction.
"Anyway, where were they?" he asked, "for all these years, did they join another team?"
"No," she paused when she saw him taking out his phone, "they were in a high school not too far from here, can you imagine that?"
Hao held his phone while nodding. "That's why you came here so fast?" he asked.
"They are less than ten minutes walk from here," she nodded, "and they were playing for other teams during all this time."
"Really?" Hao stopped playing with his phone while giving her a silent questioning gaze.