Superstars of Tomorrow

Panda Novel

Fang Zhao didn’t stay for too long at Zaro’s little gathering. Mo Lang had given him a task yet again, and he needed to return and handle it.

As Fang Zhao was leaving, Zaro told him, “Let’s talk more when you are free. See you in the game.”

The Leizhou professional Esports athletes: “…”

Senior Master, you are really high today.

Fang Zhao chuckled. “Alright, but it might have to wait till after I graduate.”

After returning to his dormitory, Fang Zhao looked at the questions concerning his thesis that Mo Lang had sent over as well as the timing for the dissertation defense.

HuangArt had just finalized Fang Zhao’s dissertation defense timing ten minutes ago. After him would be other advanced students who had submitted applications in turn.

Thirty minutes after Fang Zhao found out about the confirmation of the timing, he received a call from a Fiery Bird representative. Fiery Bird had already learned of the timing for the dissertation defense. The day of Fang Zhao’s dissertation defense was also the day the All-Star Match would start. However, the first two days of the All-star competition didn’t involve “Battle of the Century”. “Battle of the Century” would start on the third day.

“Battle of the Century’s” All-Star Match featured special guests. Some were retired top gamers. Some had retired from professional circles before “Battle of the Century” had even been released. However, they had been superstars during their prime in their respective games. This was a marketing ploy targeted at gamers’ nostalgia, and gamers were all too happy to lap it up.

Fang Zhao was different from these people. Fang Zhao had made a name for himself through “Battle of the Century” when it had first come out. Even if he was no longer a professional gamer, he was still talked about continuously. He could even attract attention from people outside of gaming. Furthermore, with Fang Zhao’s status as an endorser, Fiery Bird naturally wouldn’t let an opportunity like this slip by.

After all, they were a commercial company and had to operate under their best interests. Even though it was close to a crucial period of Fang Zhao’s graduation, they still had to try. Perhaps they could convince Fang Zhao to participate in the match?

Fang Zhao rejected them.

When signing the endorsement contract with Fiery Bird, Fang Zhao had told them that his studies took precedence during his advanced studies period. Fang Zhao would only cooperate with Fiery Bird and take part in commercial activities when they didn’t interfere with his studies. It really was a crucial period this time. Even if he had confidence and was in the mood to enjoy other hobbies, those watching him, especially Mo Lang, didn’t want to see this. The old master was already so old. Fang Zhao would feel apologetic if the old master still had to worry.

With regards to this, the Fiery Bird representative replied, “No worries. You can reconsider. The invitees for special guests will only be confirmed on the fifth or sixth day of the All-Star Match. We wish you a successful dissertation defense.”

After the call ended, Fang Zhao thought about this All-Star Match and browsed through his friends’ social media accounts.

From Silver Wing, Jinro and the others were already flaunting their invitation letters.

As he browsed, Fang Zhao saw Danke Assis’s newly posted status——

“New little companions![Photo]”

In the photo, Danke was squatting in the middle, flanked by two extremely magnificent robotic dogs. Although the robotic dogs were sitting on the ground, they were much taller than the squatting Danke.

In the comments section, there were a group of people showing their envy with oohs and ahhs. There were also others who asked whether Fiery Bird had started to make robotic pets. Were they prototypes? Could they crowdfund them?

However, Danke had actually been miserable when the photo was taken, contrary to his victory pose.

He had only been acting pretentious for the photo. No one knew the pain he had actually felt.

Danke looked at the large burn hole in the sofa and wanted to scold someone. Although it had been his wrong instructions that had resulted in the sofa being burnt, but…!

Why does a dog have laser weapons?

How the f*ck is this a robot pet? This is clearly a terminator!

They were downright playing with his happy life!

Danke glanced at that bear kid playing with the black ball at the side. Then, he took a photo of the wrecked sofa and sent it to his father. He needed to let his father see his heartache! And he wanted to request for more funds to look after this bear kid!

Suddenly remembering a fantasy drama that was currently airing, Danke analyzed the pros and cons and assigned himself the persona of a “companion of the crown prince”.

If this “crown prince” advanced high up, he would also be able to tag along and enjoy the benefits. Lalala~

With this thought in mind, Danke felt much more at ease. The new companions Dogdan and Dogke seemed much more pleasing to the eye now. Wasn’t it just a sofa that was burnt? It would still be worth it even if ten more sofas were burnt!

Fang Zhao was slightly intrigued when he saw the two robotic dogs in Danke’s photo. However, he quickly put those thoughts aside and continued to complete Mo Lang’s assigned task.

Days passed, and the day of the dissertation defense arrived.

The dissertation defense was a test of an advanced student’s entire year of learning. Mo Lang had already briefed Fang Zhao about the various questions dissertation committee could pose. While asking questions about the contents of the dissertation, sometimes they would suddenly find punctuation errors and disturb the student’s train of thought. Then, they would immediately switch back to asking content-based questions.

Even though Fang Zhao was already sick of his thesis and couldn’t be any more familiar with it, he also couldn’t anticipate all the questions the dissertation committee could pose. The most important thing for him was to maintain his composure.

Prof. Carter walked to the advisor’s seat, saw the name “Mo Lang” printed on it and walked one more row towards the back without a change in expression.

Everyone in the academy knew that Prof. Carter was the advisor in name only. The actual advisor was Venerable Mo.

The dissertation defense for Twelve Tones Advanced students was held in a large conference room. Besides many teachers observing, there were also quite a number of students who had come. If seating weren’t limited, all the students in the school would definitely have wanted to come. Those who were late didn’t even have standing room.

Before the defense, Mo Lang still called Fang Zhao over to discuss some detailed questions regarding his thesis.

The dissertation defense for a top advanced studies course like the Twelve Tones would take at least four hours with a break in between. However, it still basically took up at least half the day and generally took much longer than other courses’ dissertation defenses.

“Being stressed is a good thing, but don’t give yourself too much additional pressure. You have already done very well. Maintain your good state until the dissertation defense ends, and there won’t be any problems.”

Mo Lang looked at the time and walked into the dissertation defense hall together with Fang Zhao.

After everyone was seated at the appointed time, Fang Zhao’s dissertation defense started.

In this dissertation defense that was no less than four hours, Fang Zhao was bombarded by questions from the dissertation committee members in succession.

Any of these committee members could make the entire school quiver, and their questions followed one after another. The observers could sense the tense and stifling atmosphere. Indeed, those that could graduate smoothly from the Twelve Tones were gods.

In the short span of a year, besides grasping opportunities to absorb specialized knowledge and improving oneself, the students still had to busy themselves with a thesis, dissertation defense and other graduation requirements. The students present couldn’t help wondering if they would be able to do the same in that position. Could they answer the questions as calmly as Fang Zhao was doing?

During this time, the All-Star Match organized by Fiery Bird had begun.

Zaro, Woo Tianhao and others had come over to participate in the festivities.

All sorts of champion gamers, big or small, would appear at this venue even if they hadn’t received an All-Star Match invite. Zaro reckoned himself as one of them.

Even though champion was an overstatement, Zaro didn’t care. Not listening, not listening! In any case, I am also someone who has won a championship!

After browsing the various matches, Zaro was puzzled.

“Why are there so many kids? What ghastly games are these? Why are there still virtual rubik’s cubes?”

Woo Tianhao, who also followed “Battle of the Century”, read the information aloud, “It’s a cooperative release by Fiery Bird and a few brands of learning consoles. This is a global competition, and these ten participants are mainly students. I never imagined that virtual rubik’s cubes would have a rather high popularity.”

“There’s such a thing? Why weren’t there such events when I was in school?” Zaro felt aggrieved.

“Students associations finally won competition participation rights after decades of protest. Anyway, even if there were these events back then, you wouldn’t have been able to take part. These students’ IQs are much higher than yours.” Woo Tianhao turned his gaze away from the mini-games venue and looked towards another building. “However, ‘Battle of the Century’ is still the venue for adults.”

These mini games were meant for minors. In Woo Tianhao’s opinion, these were all games for little kids. Whenever he saw those games, he would recall the fear of being dominated by learning controls back when he was still in school.

“Let’s go, there’s no point looking at this. Let’s go watch the practice matches for ‘Battle of the Century’.”

Although the ‘Battle of the Century’ matches were scheduled to begin on the third day, the various gaming gods had already gathered. There were still free practice matches scheduled before the official matches to let the Esports stars adapt to the conditions.

At the same time, in Fang Zhao’s HuangArt dormitory.

Curly Hair had just completed two sets of practice questions and a reading comprehension exercise with great difficulty. He was just about to enter an online class to listen to a lecture when he saw a small advertisement on the web page.

“Want to get up close and personal with Fiery Bird’s All-Star Match?

“Want to interact with top gamers online?

“No need to head to the venue, the All-Star Match online platform is now open…”

Curly Hair stopped reading the whole string of words that followed. With glowing eyes, he stared ravenously at the screen as though it was a piece of meat.

“Waa! Fiery Bird!”

Curly Hair followed the notification and found an icon that had the Fiery Bird insignia. He rushed to enter it.

At the All-Star Match venue, virtual rubik’s cube competition ground.

A certain popular secondary school magazine was interviewing the current record holder of the virtual rubik’s cube game.

The 16-year-old record holder had set the record when he had been 14. Two years had passed, and that record was still unbroken. In the past two years, he had earned quite a bit through endorsement and advertisement deals. This competition had earned him fame and fortune.

As the interview was wrapping up, the host asked, “Later on, ten other virtual rubik’s cube gamers from around the world will challenge you. Are you feeling confident?”

“Of course.” The 16 year old record holder adjusted his bow tie while looking in the mirror. He flashed a mesmerizing smile. “Only I can break my own record.”

To make the program interesting, the host would pick someone from the online audience. Of course, this wasn’t a random selection. The system would pick from those with better records for this game. However, people on the leaderboards wouldn’t be selected. This was just for the sake of entertainment, not an official challenge match. Thus, the atmosphere wouldn’t be too tense. It was just a warm-up activity for interaction with fortunate viewers.

The host raised an eyebrow when the selection was done and the lucky viewer’s information was displayed on the large screen. This [Little Curly Curls] seemed like he was a primary school student.

The venue’s screen displayed the selected viewer’s ID as well as his education level: “Primary School (Verified by learning console platform)”.

Of course, this selected viewer could also be a secondary student. There were some people in secondary school that had kept their learning consoles in cold storage after a partial primary school level education. There were also some kids who were still in primary school but had secondary school level knowledge. The learning platform would put their education level as “secondary school”. However, this was only used for grading authentication by the learning platform. It wasn’t officially verified by the education ministry.

This fortunate viewer’s account had seen quite a lot of activity in recent weeks, so it was probably a primary school student.

“Looks like this is also an impressive little gamer. Alright, now, let us connect with this lucky little viewer.”

The host sent a call request.

However, the call was rejected.

Host: “… Perhaps this viewer pressed the wrong option because he was too excited.”

He sent another call request as he said that.

It was rejected again.

Host: “???”

The atmosphere suddenly became awkward.

The audience in the venue broke out in laughter.

The host maintained his smile. “Hi, are you student [Little Curly Curls]? Is it convenient for you to talk? You can also use text to reply. However, voice is still the best. We have to confirm whether you are truly playing or whether you’re using a program to play for you.”

The third call request finally went through. The entire venue heard a “guggugugug” sound and the rustling of a paper or plastic bag.

Host: “… Student Little Curly Curls, are you having a snack?”

The sounds from the other end paused, and a puerile voice replied, “Is… is eating not allowed?”

“Of course it is allowed. You don’t have to be so nervous.” The host chuckled. “Can I ask why you rejected the call just now?”

“Fang… My father said that besides during classes, I should not randomly talk to people!”

In the dormitory, Curly Hair applauded his own resourcefulness while gnawing on a chew toy.

By creating a persona of “my father is Fang Zhao”, people won’t know that I am a dog!