Rebirth is fine, but I get eight hundred dollars right from the start?

Of course, when Lin Shu said he would have his two apprentices, Zhang Hai and Li Nan, in charge of overseeing things, he was just saying it; at most, he would only have them do some work.

The specifics of how to conduct the trials and how to determine whether a player is qualified are up to him.

"So that's why—how could the Prime Minister possibly defeat that old codger Sima Yi?" Lin Shu muttered to himself as he sat in his office, flipping through today's trial list. "On one side, talent is scarce and he has to do everything himself; on the other side, there are countless fierce generals and strategists, waiting in comfort for the enemy to tire themselves out..."

Even though his career was just starting out and he already had capable subordinates like Zou Lin and Tang Bin, Lin Shu still felt busy.

So busy it feels like there's always something to do.

At 1:30 PM, all the players who had been invited online to try out for HWG had arrived.

The training room on the second floor of HWG.

"Ahem... Let me introduce myself. I'm HWG's top laner, my Chinese server ID is tale, and my Rank is 2500!"

"I will now be responsible for verifying everyone's information. When I call out names and IDs, please report any errors immediately."

Zhang Hai cleared his throat, revealed his Rank score, and struck a pose like a senior member of the team.

"happy-Hu Fei!"

"arrive!"

A young man with a buzz cut raised his hand; he had a loud voice.

"SMLZ—Han Jin!"

Standing by the wall, the seemingly introverted young man gave a response.

"arrive!"

"Beating up Wu Hao, the 'superior dog' of District One!"

"here!"

"BSYY-Luo Sheng!"

"arrive!"

After Zhang Hai finished reading the list, Li Nan took over the conversation.

"Alright, everyone's here. Now let's talk about the trial training process—"

……

Li Nan held a stack of papers in his hand, which was the "HWG Player Trial Official Rules Manual" that Lin Shu had been working on late into the night for the past few days.

Of course, due to time constraints, it is currently only a first draft.

However, although it cannot compare to the sophistication of the top-tier barbecue clubs of later generations, Lin Shu could still confidently say that it was far ahead of the competition at the time of 2012.

First, there's the club's trial principle. Lin Shu's requirement is to prioritize players with stable mentality, strong execution, high team fit, and solid fundamentals. We don't solely focus on high scores; we emphasize on-court adaptability and professional potential.

The age limit is quite flexible; as long as you meet the requirements, you can be between fifteen and twenty-two years old.

However, those under the age of 18 need to provide an additional consent form from their legal guardian, and there is no record of falsifying age or identity.

As for professional ethics, Lin Shu had some reservations.

In the previous life, as esports developed and became more standardized over time, strict requirements were placed on the character of aspiring professional players.

That is, there are no bad records in the e-sports industry such as bans, account boosting, acting, cheating, verbally abusing teammates, or playing passively, and there are no criminal records of illegal or disciplinary violations.

It's still 2012, so of course he can't copy everything exactly. After all, in the current professional League of Legends scene, the practice of account boosting is indeed a way of survival for many mid-to-lower-tier clubs or teams.

To say nothing of the distant past, his business started out by using substitute players.

Therefore, Lin Shu crossed out several of them, leaving only three hard rules: no suspension record, no cheating, and no violations of laws or regulations.

"These are the basic principles, and in addition..."

After talking for a long time, Li Nan felt his mouth was dry and had to beckon Zhang Hai to continue.

"Yes, our club's management system is very strict. You will need to stay at the base for a long time, receive closed training, and obey the club's schedule and management system. There will be no conflict with part-time jobs."

"During the contract period, athletes are prohibited from engaging in any behavior that could damage their competitive performance, such as smoking or drinking alcohol."

After he finished speaking, the conference room fell silent for a moment.

Then it exploded.

"Oh, not being allowed to drink is one thing, but not being allowed to smoke either?"

"I can't concentrate on ranked matches without one..."

Whispering sounds came from all corners. Some people frowned, some shook their heads, and a young man with dyed yellow hair sitting in the back row even took out a cigarette, twirled it in his hand a couple of times, looked at the no-smoking sign on the wall, and didn't light it, but his expression was full of "Isn't this ridiculous?"

Zhang Hai and Li Nan exchanged a helpless glance.

There's no way around it; in the gaming world at that time, saying that everyone was a drunkard was a bit of an exaggeration, but saying that everyone was smoking was definitely true.

Playing ranked matches until midnight, with the screen filled with smoke, is the norm.

Suddenly being told they can't smoke a single cigarette is unbearable for these heavy smokers.

But their master had written it down in black and white, so they had no choice but to grit their teeth and read on.

"I'm sorry everyone."

Li Nan took a deep breath and explained, "Whether you can follow the club's rules and regulations is also part of the trial. If you can't accept it, you can withdraw now; we won't force you."

The air fell silent for a few seconds.

A guy with a buzz cut stood up, stuffed a water bottle on the table into his pocket, and said with an air of nonchalance, "Garlic Bird, Garlic Bird, I came here because of Emperor's reputation, hoping to make a name for myself... but you're being too nosy. No smoking? How can you have the energy to compete?"

With that, he walked towards the door, pushed it open, and disappeared around the corner without looking back.

The remaining people in the meeting room looked at each other. Some lowered their heads, some remained silent, and others carefully flipped through the team management regulations at the back of the manual.

A few minutes later, several young people who had not gone through the online interview process and were simply there because of the proximity and with a "let's give it a try" mentality also left the base.

Zhang Hai sighed, crossed out names one by one on the list, then looked up and forced a smile at the remaining few people:

"Is anyone else leaving?"

"If not, let's continue."

Seeing that the remaining people showed no intention of getting up, Li Nan breathed a sigh of relief and nodded to Zhang Hai.

The two exchanged a glance—it was time to get down to business.

Zhang Hai turned to the second page of the manual, cleared his throat, and began to formally read out the trial training details:

"Now everyone find a computer and sit down. Over the next few hours, you will need to conduct at least five rounds of ranked retesting on your main account."

Yes, Lin Shu didn't arrange any team-based competitive training at all.

Firstly, the conditions are not sufficient.

The club is just starting out and hasn't even gathered five official players yet. Where can we find teams of equal strength to play training matches?

Second, and more importantly;

This group of people were just random passersby and had no sense of teamwork whatsoever.

People come for trials hoping the club can provide room for growth and professional training—if they already know everything, then it's not a trial, it's poaching.

The basic task of a trial is simply to discover the player's strengths and potential as much as possible. As for how he cooperates with his teammates and how he plays a system, that's something to be taught after he joins the team.

"We will score each player based on their performance in ranked matches, including laning phase, mistake rate, resource participation, team fight performance, and performance in both winning and losing situations."