Chapter 423: The Cocoon Battle
Chapter 423: The Cocoon Battle
Time flew. At midnight on May 16th, the registration for the preliminary round of the Peak Conquest Tournament officially closed.
The 【Bug Arena】 had concluded.
May 16th itself was a rest day for the competitors, giving all players a full day to recuperate.
At dawn on the 17th, the 【Cocoon Battle】 would commence. Starting from the knockout stages, all matches would be held within the tournament's dedicated sleep mode server, scheduled between 1:00 AM and 2:00 AM. Players who weren't standing by in the Login Space at the designated time would be automatically disqualified.
Every match in the 【Cocoon Battle】 would be broadcast live. Competitors could watch any ongoing battle via screens in the Login Space or conference rooms. For those who preferred a lively atmosphere, the game mall featured massive displays where the main screen would showcase a particularly popular match, accompanied by live commentary from two professional game analysts.
Xiao Tan's performance in the preliminary round was decent—though he hadn't secured the required consecutive wins for automatic advancement, he had completed all fifty matches.
Despite achieving a nine-win streak and defeating high-tier players like Bu Tian Ge, as Feng Bu Jue had analyzed, encountering opponents who could counter him was inevitable...
In the end, Xiao Tan's record settled at forty-two wins and eight losses. According to Feng Bu Jue's calculations, this was still comfortably enough to qualify.
Since Xiao Tan had to work overtime continuously from May 8th to the 15th, he had completed all preliminary matches by the 7th. During the busy workweek, he only entered the game in sleep mode for one or two short scenarios each day, barely logging in during daytime hours.
Over these seven or eight days, Feng Bu Jue, Si Yu, and Bei Ling frequently grouped together for team dungeons. When friends were online, they would invite them along to minimize the chance of being matched with strangers—after all, Feng Bu Jue had become a celebrity, constantly bombarded with questions from random players.
Worth noting was that during the Peak Conquest Tournament's peak excitement, Dream Corporation quietly launched their second game—【Crazy Mind】.
Of course, it was only a trial version. At this stage, players could only engage in practice mode against AI opponents. The Pvp mode remained closed.
This was a card-battle game where players took the role of "Commanders", wielding "Duel Disks" to lead their "Deck Lords" into combat, commanding monsters, traps, and magic spells summoned from their cards.
The game could be directly accessed from the Login Space—simply lie down in a Gaming Pod, complete neural synchronization, and select 【Crazy Mind】 at the interface that read: "Welcome to the Login Space. Below are all game projects provided by Dream Corporation. Please select your login destination."
Feng Bu Jue's earlier remark that Dream Corporation had "ambitious plans" proved spot-on. The company's Gaming Pods, VR headsets, and other hardware were all proprietary models. Their games were exclusively playable on their own devices. Imagine—a day when Dream Corporation's Gaming Pods could run competitors' titles... Other manufacturers' hardware would instantly lose all competitive edge...
...
On May 16th, at 5:00 PM, the official list of three thousand players who advanced to the 【Cocoon Battle】 was posted on the tournament's homepage.
In fact, exactly one hour earlier, every qualified player had already received a system email notifying them of their advancement, highlighted in red. The system voice would also provide detailed prompts during their next login.
Overall, the announcement brought the inevitable mix of elation and despair.
The previously stabilized forums erupted in a frenzy of new posts once again.
Threads like "Sigh... 35 wins still didn't cut it?" or "Ten wins followed by four straight losses" and "You rich players are making it impossible for the rest of us!" flooded in—boasting, venting frustrations, or making excuses. Every participant who failed to advance seemed to carry profound bitterness, as if they'd suffered injustice or had merely been unlucky.
But as the devil himself, Ximenmr., had once said: Victory and defeat speak for themselves. The defeated earn no sympathy; the victorious are the true strong.
The preliminary round's format was actually quite fair—the vast majority of genuinely skilled players advanced. Those who failed to qualify could only blame their own inadequacy. Excuses wouldn't change a thing.
...
That evening at 8:00 PM, the detailed rules of the 【Cocoon Battle】 were announced.
The Cocoon Battle would consist of five main rounds, plus two additional playoff stages.
At 1:00 AM on May 17th, the first round would begin. Three thousand players would face random 1v1 matchups, dividing them into a Winner's Group and Loser's Group, each containing 1,500 players.
Within the Loser's Group, the 1,380 players with the weakest preliminary records would be immediately eliminated. The remaining 120 would enter the playoffs.
At 1:00 AM on May 18th, the first playoff round would commence. The 120 Loser Group players with the best preliminary records would face the 120 Winner Group players with the worst preliminary records in new random 1v1 matches. Losers would be eliminated outright.
At 1:00 AM on May 19th, the second playoff round would begin. The remaining 120 players from the first playoff would compete in a final elimination round. The 60 players who survived both playoff rounds would join the Winner's Group.
At 1:00 AM on May 20th, the second round of the Cocoon Battle would start. The 1,380 original Winner's Group members plus the 60 playoff survivors—1,440 players total—would face random matchups. Losers would be eliminated immediately.
At 1:00 AM on May 21st, the third round would reduce the 720 remaining players to 360.
At 1:00 AM on May 22nd, the fourth round would narrow the field to 180.
At 1:00 AM on May 23rd, the fifth and final round would determine the top 90 players.
With the Cocoon Battle concluded, these 90 victors would merge with ten invited special players to form the Top 100, advancing to the 【Butterfly Arena】.
Essentially, once reaching this knockout stage, losing even a single match would mean elimination.
All 3,000 participants were experts who had survived the preliminary culling. They undoubtedly understood that every battle was critical—hesitation or a single misstep would cost them everything.
Of course, the tournament structure did offer a sliver of mercy.
Considering that top-tier players might collide too early, two playoff rounds were added to provide second chances. These playoffs would also further test weaker-performing Winner Group contestants.
Another heavily debated topic was the "performance criteria." Currently, forum discussions raged over cases where some players advanced with 37 wins while others with identical records were eliminated.
Dream Corporation released detailed but convincing data to address concerns. The system would conduct comprehensive evaluations based on each player's total vitality value consumption, stamina value depletion, combat time, and skill points acquired during their preliminary 50 matches. These metrics would determine the playoff qualifiers and serve as tiebreakers for players with identical win counts.
...
On the early morning of May 17th, Xiao Tan logged into the game via sleep mode, his heart pounding as he prepared for his first 【Cocoon Battle】 match.
If the preliminary rounds felt similar to standard 1v1 kill modes, the knockout stages were an entirely different beast.
These matches featured live broadcasts. If randomly matched against a famous player, the battle might even be displayed on the mall's main screen, analyzed by commentators for hundreds of thousands of viewers.
Xiao Tan had always maintained a low profile, avoiding public attention. Now, he couldn't help feeling anxious.
However, such nervousness would likely fade once the battle began. After all, players couldn't see the audience or hear the commentators during matches. Even if selected for the main screen broadcast, they wouldn't know—focus should remain solely on the combat itself.
【Important Notice: The first round of the Cocoon Battle will begin shortly. Please prepare yourself within ten gameminutes. Teleportation will occur immediately once the countdown ends.】 The system voice echoed at 5:50 PM.
When the announcement ended, Xiao Tan could open the game menu to see the countdown timer displayed at the top-right corner of his interface.
(End of Chapter)
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