Out of sheer curiosity, once I'd had my fill of that and ancient history, a few days before the banquet I started browsing the fiction section. It didn't take me long to start finding the stories offered there terribly samey. So, I went back to the dorm building and spent the rest of the vacation time relaxing, though I also cultivated a little—it wouldn't do to get too out of practice with it.
Then, it was time for the start-of-year banquet, and at first it was nice to be on the receiving senior side. After the first couple of hours, Shokoya, Jong, and I had formed a group of sorts with four underclassmen who shared our former background of VR gamers. Not long after we'd grouped up like that, the topic turned to our old gamer tags. "Yeah, come to think of it," said Jong, "you've never even told us what your old tag was, Zuhui."
I shrugged. "The juniors should go first, but sure I have no reason to keep it hidden, so I'll go after?"
Little did I know that I was about to hear a name that I'd very much regret hearing again, and regret agreeing to reveal my old tag to even more. Two players who reminded me a little of our own year's shield and spear rivals had gone by the tags, "CrimsonHowl" and "4DChessWithLasers". Another, the only woman among us 7, had been "RoseInMay."
Then the last one spoke up, who had introduced himself to us as Bing Hei. He was very short compared to the rest of us, about Shai Shan's height. He was extremely friendly, to the point Shokoya had referred to him as a "little charmer". "Well, it was…ShadowPwner. A little cringe, I know. Though, I did always play assassin type characters."
It was all I could do not to draw my weapon on him. It would have only embarrassed me if I tried, since of course we weren't allowed to wear our weapons in the residential hall and were supposed to keep them in our System inventories. The others gave me questioning looks as they noticed the clear, though restrained rage in my voice as I said, "Oh really? That name sounds familiar. Well, I said I'd reveal my old tag…I'm afraid mine's a bit cliché from what sort of characters I used too—WanderingArrow.
Forgive me for my forgetfulness, but what was your cultivation base again?"
His smile didn't even falter, but I noticed him tense up. "Peak of the 5th Realm…for the moment. I have a dual talent in Strength and Reaction, so I'm very much able to play to type here, though."
"Really? Well here, I've discovered talents I never knew I had. In fact, I'm the only one here besides Jue Zhu to have a high level talent."
"High level talent, eh?" The others, both my year-mates and his, were starting to back off as though it was an anime scene with the air chilling around the two of us. "Nobody in my year even has one of those. Of course, that makes me the best talent in my year."
"You don't say? Well, this is still basically the tutorial area. I'm sure you'll work hard and continue to improve, right?"
"Oh, you bet." Suddenly, we both noticed that the others had completely left. "Excuse me, senior brother, but I haven't eaten my fill yet."
Come to think of it, I really haven't either. I was a little surprised that I still had an appetite after a close encounter with the person who had nearly ruined my gaming career, and who had ruined my relationship with Impact Comet, preventing me from getting a further, non-temporary foothold at that level.
Well, it ended up a lot more complicated than that, but the gist was, he got it in for me for some reason or another—he'd absolutely refused any answer but "because fuck you" when I or anyone else had asked why he had colluded with a female Impact Comet player to frame me for sexual harassment. My account in Frontiers Online had been suspended for 10 days—it was supposed to be 30, but it got overturned after 10, not that I got any compensation, though the mark on my record was at least removed.
In many ways, I'd been lucky—my old studio was very understanding when they took me back, and Frontiers Online was a huge enough game area that I was able to zone-transfer my character and not have a negative reputation follow me. But it had been the last straw. From then on, I worked solely toward getting into a Permanent Virtual space as soon as possible, and gave up on any ideas of truly making it into the world of the pros. It was a little ironic that I made the final match of a semi-pro level tournament for the first time, in the game I went to after Frontiers—the closest I'd come to that old dream—so soon before doing so.
Of course, I warned the others, but especially Jue Zhu, how two-faced Bing Hei really was, and I basically had to tell them what he'd done to me as part of that. Jong was the most sympathetic—ShadowPwner had been a secondary member of one of Impact Comet's pro teams, and Jong, as BurningThunder, had likely fought his team once or twice at least. According to him, the guy had a pretty nasty reputation in the upper pro circles, enough that he wasn't even surprised by my story.
He did point out, though, that I was most likely worrying over nothing. We'd technically be in the same class for one year, but last year, the senior Inner Court members had hardly interacted with us juniors after the welcome banquet. If I was lucky, I could just ignore Bing Hei and he'd go away. And even if we both got accepted by the 10,000 Scrolls Library, it would just be a matter of maintaining my lead in cultivation that I had over him from a year's head start. Not to mention, I seriously doubted he'd train in the volcano this year. He might not even reach the 7th Realm, meanwhile I was aiming to reach the 8th this summer.
Yeah…I could handle this. I can handle this.