Reincarnated Avatar; I got 2 SSS-Rank Unique Skills
Chapter 204: The marathon starts

Chapter 204: The marathon starts

That night, before sleeping, Noah oversaw a deep analytical session with Gabriel, Aria’s boyfriend providing helpful insights on the bits and dots in between.

They started from the individual battles, Noah digging into Aria’s duel especially and critiquing it.

Listening to him, the 2 substitute players in the team felt weird. But they dared not interject.

This was the Sword Saint they were talking about.

And yes, if there was any pro player in the world worthy of critiquing her game, then it was definitely God Noah.

What shocked them even more was the suddenly subservient attitude that was displayed by the domineering Blademaster controller. In the face of Noah’s critique, Aria didn’t flare up at all, rather seriously listening to him with rapt attention and asking questions when required for clarification.

The 2 newbies were shocked.

But they learned something... humility. If even the strongest and most famous Blademaster controller in the history of the English Pro Alliance was open to learning, being reprimanded, who were they not to learn?

And yet, there was an even crazier part to it. Because, after Noah was done critiquing their performances, including the mistakes that they made in the 3 vs 3 battle rush, when it came to the team battle, Noah was roasted.

Aria critiqued Noah’s game, blaming him for taking it half-heartedly simply because the opponents were weaker than them.

Noah didn’t complain, he accepted the accusation with a smile on his face.

And wait till you hear Caleb speak. When the mathematician thug started, Benjamin had to groan as he pointed out and identified every single mistake that they made, dissected it, pointing out how it affected the flow of the battle, and also suggesting ideas on how they could improve on it another time.

To the 2 Echelon substitute players, their first official analytics meeting after their first Pro Alliance game was sobering.

’So, these is how pros do it...,’ they thought, filled with awe.

...

The next day...

London, Club Echelon Building.

Early in the morning, there was nothing scheduled and so the players did what they wanted. Most jumped into the game, raiding dungeons solo with their alternate Avatars, others simply doing random activities in the game for leisure.

Benjamin went out though. If Genevieve was to guess, the bastard most likely was out searching for a new gambling den since he was now on a stable salary once again.

They all acted oblivious, they were used to Benjamin’s antics.

As for Caleb. He isolated himself from the rest of his teammates, going to the club building library where he was most definitely reading a new novel, or did another episode of that his beloved book ’Shadow Slave’ upload again?

Nightingale filled the library with a whole catalogue of the Shadow Slave series simply because of Caleb.

Before the start of the season, Noah drafted a schedule for Team Echelon.

Every day, they had 3 main training sessions except on matchdays; the first, morning session starts by 9 and lasts 2 hours till 11. The second training sessions starts by 2 to 4, while the last, the evening session is from 8 to 10.

For the other time, the players had the freedom to do anything they wanted.

Hours later...

In the strategy room, team Echelon was gathered again but this time, they were not analyzing yesterday’s game. Rather, they were preparing for their next game with the knowledge of Echelon’s future fixtures.

The fixtures for the 12th season of the English Pro Alliance spanning all 38 matchdays was already released days before matchday 1.

[Club Echelon Fixtures:]

[Matchday 2:]

[Avalon Sovereign vs Echelon]

[Time: 6:00pm]

...

[Matchday 3:]

[Steel Dominion vs Echelon]

[Time: 6:30pm]

...

[Matchday 4:]

[Cyber Squad vs Echelon]

[Time: 8:00pm]

...

[Matchday 5:]

[Echelon vs Cerberus Core]

[Time: 8:00pm]

Today, Noah focused on their next 4 matchdays.

Apart from maybe Avalon Sovereign which was their next immediate opponent, every of the other teams had their strong points. After all, no club that played in the English Pro Alliance could be truly underestimated.

And yet, despite the game against Avalon Sovereign being the most immediate game, the players didn’t focus on that.

Rather, they focused on matchday 4.

Matchday 4... it was the matchday that millions of fans have been hoping and praying for since the day the truth of God Noah’s retirement was revealed.

It was a Cyber Squad home game, meaning that the game would be played in Cyber Squad’s home stadium right here in London.

It was the homecoming of the legend.

It would be the first time that God Noah, Aria, and the others would be stepping foot in a stadium they saw as home for years.

Noah didn’t allow his teammates get too sentimental about it though, focusing on matchday 4 as he quickly started the analysis session. This time, he focused on all 4 clubs at once, discussing their basic game strategies and lineups.

From the lineup of Avatars that a team regularly fields, you can predict how they’ll play in any given game.

This is a core aspect of how pro teams prepare for each Pro Alliance game.

For the morning training session, Noah focused on just this, presenting a clear overview of the gaming philosophies of all 4 pro clubs, after which he simulated battles against virtual versions of the 4 teams in-game.

With this training, team Echelon would get an initial feel for their opponents.

That was all that they did in the morning training session.

When afternoon came, in the afternoon training session, Noah finally discarded the last 3 fixtures, focusing on the matchday 2 encounter.

[Club Echelon Fixtures:]

[Matchday 2:]

[Avalon Sovereign vs Echelon]

[Time: 6:00pm]

Yes, it was against a weak team.

Yes, Avalon Sovereign was a club that just lost a game that they already had to Cerberus Core despite playing at home.

Yes, Avalon Sovereign was a club that barely escaped the relegation zone last season. And yet, the fact remained that it was a pro club in the English Pro Alliance with a catalogue of bonafide pro players.

This was the reason why Noah would not underestimate them.

If in the morning, all Noah did was a general overview of their next 4 opponents. This time, he went on a detailed analysis of Avalon Sovereign; from their captain to analyzing their strengths and weaknesses.

He literally dissected Avalon Sovereign.

By the end of the training session, they all knew Avalon Sovereign like a book having studied them extensively like one.

They knew their preferences, their style, everything about them.

In the evening training session, Noah finally put his team through a grueling virtual training session against a virtual Avalon Sovereign team.

It was only a facsimile of the original, and yet, it was enough for his goal.

In the training, led by an aggressive Aria embodied by her Reckless Storm Avatar, they crushed Avalon Sovereign over and over again till they got tired. And yet, Noah didn’t stop it.

Even while tired and bored of it, they crushed the team some more, and then some more. Only then was Noah satisfied.

The next day, Noah shifted focus, forgetting enemy teams entirely as they focused on themselves... Team Echelon.

Noah focused on building their teamwork, shoring up their weaknesses, working towards making their teamwork telepathic in a chaotic arena.

In the English Pro Alliance, when playing away games, especially in big games or against superior opponents, English fans loved to present such a hostile and toxic atmosphere that it tended to affect players’ performance.

This was the unknown factor that Noah aimed to eliminate through teamwork. Most don’t believe it was possible to achieve, but Noah believed it.

He believed because he already did it once with Cyber Squad.

The OG Cyber Squad team got to a level of telepathy on the arena where even in the midst of an erupting volcano or a rampaging earthquake, they would still play at their best, tearing teams down with impunity.

This was what Noah aimed to replicate in Club Echelon.

Replicating it was not going to be easy. After all, the team was no longer complete, with 2 substitutes integrated to cover for the others.

And yet, he was not daunted by the difficulty of his task.

’It’s only exciting when it’s difficult’.

The marathon of an English Pro Alliance season... it was a familiar schedule, and yet one year away from the pro scene already made it seem like a lifetime ago.

But now, Noah and his teammates were recovering what it felt like to train to be competitive across a 38-matchday season.

It was grueling, but they were determined to do it.

They were determined to run the marathon to the end and win. Not just win, but to be the best winning team.

After all, only one reason brought them out of retirement... to win it all.

And so, they trained, trained some more, and trained again.

All the while, time moved fast.

And then, in a blink, it was D-day.

Early in the morning, Club Echelon traveled to Southampton where Avalon Sovereign’s headquarters and their hired home stadium was located.

It was a new matchday.

The hype and excitement of matchday 2 already started.