CS: I became Top 1 by grinding my skill level

Han Tian was referring to a pair of completely black gloves—a night-clothes outfit.

He doesn't really like overly flashy accessories; a black night-clothes outfit paired with a raw leather butterfly knife looks quite nice on him.

The slightly worn night clothes he picked out are now worth around two thousand yuan on the market. He was thinking of returning them to the girl after the finals.

Furthermore, even if Du Chengzi is willing to give me a pair of gloves, I can't deliberately choose the most expensive ones; that would seem rather ungrateful.

"You seem to be getting a little ungrateful, kid."

"Go ahead and pick whatever you like! Pick something expensive! Something nice-looking!"

"It'll make our competitors and the audience think we can't afford oranges!!"

Du Chengzi glared at Han Tian with his arms crossed, looking utterly disappointed. This kid was so naive. He should pick someone more expensive so that Han Tian would owe him a favor. At least... when other teams try to poach him in the future, he'll have to think twice about his role as manager.

Du Chengzi packed a pair of brand-new crimson kimonos and the pair of night clothes that Han Tian had chosen together and sent them a quote. Only after forcing Han Tian to accept it did Du Chengzi nod in satisfaction.

For talented players like Han Tian who don't know what's good for them, the only way to manage a club is to use both kindness and severity to keep them firmly under control. That's the way to run a club.

Han Tian shook his head helplessly. It seemed he could only keep it for now. As for the butterfly knife, he would return it to the captain and the girl when he left Chengzi.

The thought of his dream of becoming a professional player in Europe, and the fact that he was destined to go to Europe and would inevitably have to leave the Orange team, made Han Tian feel a little sad. After all, Captain Du Sinian had been kind to him and had recognized his talent. He felt lucky from the bottom of his heart to be able to join a team like Orange, which had good treatment, relaxed management, and a warm atmosphere, as the first stop of his professional career.

The salary is extremely high, there are no unfair contracts that restrict me, they won't take up too much of my time, and they even promise that I can switch to online training when I enroll in university.

It can be said that Du Sinian has given Han Tian all the favorable conditions he could, so it's no wonder that he has such a conflicted and contradictory mindset.

The Chinese CS scene is still too weak. Top-tier teams in the Chinese region can't even participate in a few major tournaments a year. Professional players who are based in the Chinese region don't have many opportunities to prove themselves on the world stage throughout their entire careers.

Therefore, Han Tian knew that if he wanted to reach the top of the CS world, the next step was to first find his place in the world's strongest region—Europe.

"We'll talk about the future later, but as long as I'm with Orange, I can't let down this team that treats me like family. My desire to win every championship for Orange will never change."

Han Tian looked helplessly at Du Chengzi, who was grabbing his arm and insisting that he try on the new gloves. He secretly made up his mind: a man will die for a friend. Whether it was the Electric Snake Cup in front of him, the CAC Asia Invitational Tournament later, or the IEMBJ at the end of the year, he would definitely win a world-class championship for Chengzi, Du Sinian, his teammates, and this silly female manager in front of him before he left.

.....

"Bang--"

[T routing used AWP to kill CT nuko]

In the Orange Team's training room, after Zhang Zhen and Ai Ke and the other team members arrived in the afternoon, Han Tian and his four teammates began their first official training match.

The opponent was the previous 16-to-8 team – the anime team led by nuko. Yesterday, Du Sinian contacted Leonkai, saying he wanted to borrow his apprentices.

Faced with the request from his old teammate Du Sinian, and also wanting to see just how high Han Tian's potential could be in a match against a strong, established team, Leon Kai readily agreed.

In the morning, he summoned his disciples, including Nuko and Diguawan, and the 15:15 training match officially began in the afternoon.

Leonkai also invited Mo, who was currently not broadcasting matches and had nothing to do, to provide guidance. Since it was a training match, the two did not stream it. They simply observed Orange's performance in the training match on TS and discussed Orange's current strengths and weaknesses.

"Things are different now. Compared to when Zhao Qingcheng was around, now that Routing has arrived, Chengzi can finally implement some tactics centered around snipers."

Watching Zhou Wanli secure the first sniper kill on Banana Road, Mo slowly shook his head. He had previously watched some demos of Zhou Wanli's smaller tournaments, including the previous 5E National Tournament.

As a veteran professional player, he could tell that Zhou Wanli was indeed a sniper trained in Europe. His individual ability was beyond question, and his teamwork and tactical coordination were far superior to Zhao Qingcheng's.

Mo was clearly annoyed when Zhao Qingcheng was mentioned. As a Tianlu youth training player who was about to join the team, backing down at the last minute was a disgrace to Tianlu.

Even if you're a mercenary hired on short notice, once you're on the field, you have to play seriously. Don't talk about food poisoning or other underhanded tricks. Although Du Sinian had already pleaded for Zhao Qingcheng, Mo still couldn't control his temper and decided to complain to the Tianlu youth training coach.

Playing in offline matches is the destiny of every professional player. If they are so afraid of even such a small venue, what will they do when they go to large venues like the Bird's Nest or the Shanghai Stadium with tens of thousands of people? They'll be scared out of their wits.

Professional players can have occasional off days, but they absolutely cannot lack professional ethics, or they'll face attacks from the entire team. If Zhao Qingcheng doesn't change his professional attitude, he should just go home and start a livestream to make money while he's still young.

"When I teamed up with Lao Du before, I found that he really has a lot of leadership skills. He does a pretty good job of setting things up."

Watching Dussian methodically deploying tactics in the game, Leonkai realized that Dussian had learned a lot of European team strategies compared to when he was playing with random teams a few years ago. At least his default CT play had a bit of the feel of OG's in-game leader Aleksib.

Mo nodded. He also felt that Du Si Nian's command of the CT side was indeed quite good, but Orange's attacking tactics were still rather rigid.

"His offensive command...this style is very similar to that short-lived old Chinese team from the 1.6 era..."

"Is it that... 1.6 MG?"

Leonkai obviously knew this team that was quite famous in the 1.6 era, after all, he also grew up playing CS 1.6.

"Yes, that's the style of their captain, Chang Chengyu. Their offense relies heavily on the map control ability of the team's free agent, while the main force continuously launches various variable-speed bombs at a single bomb site."

"Hahaha, now that you mention it, I remember. In the final match in Lion City, they beat the Little Days team to tears. After the match, the MG teammates came over to shake hands, and the Little Days captain was crying with snot all over his face. I still remember it."

"Yes, I was only 16 or 7 years old back then. I had just started thinking about becoming a professional gamer. Sigh, looking back now, they are all our seniors."

Back then, the conditions for playing professionally were really tough. There were very few formal clubs, and most of the competitions were organized by players themselves. There was no such thing as a salary, and the prize money was far less than it is now. Everyone was playing based on their passion and love for CS.

When Chang Chengyu fell ill, it didn't cause much of a stir in China. However, everyone in the CS community donated money to the best of their ability. At that time, the CS community was too small, and the amount of money that could be donated was very limited. In the end, such an excellent captain and genius commander passed away from illness at a young age.

"Alas, it's a pity that the heavens are jealous of talent. If MG's captain Chang were still alive, he might be a coach at TyLoo or VG now, passing on his command style and continuing to contribute to Chinese CS."

Mo couldn't help but feel deeply moved. He had only officially started playing professionally about ten years ago. His idols and goals were naturally the veterans like Sakura, tk, and Chang Chengyu from the 1.6 era. So he would often learn about them and their teams. Every time he saw the legendary self-organized team MG disband due to the sudden death of its captain, he would sigh endlessly.