In addition to the driver, there were 13 people in the car, 3 teachers and 10 students.
In addition to Zhou Mengran, there are two other teachers: Wan Endong, deputy director of the second-year high school group, who is responsible for travel arrangements and logistics, and Zhang Huizi, director of the school's medical team, who is responsible for accompanying treatment.
"Ling Ling~This way~"
After Gu Ling put away her luggage and got into the car, Huang Weiwei waved to her.
There was an empty seat next to Huang Weiwei, and Gu Ling walked over and sat down.
After everyone arrived, the bus started moving.
"Hey, where's Xianjiu? Don't you always let Xianjiu out?" Seeing that Gu Ling didn't have Naughty Ghost or Xianjiu with him, Huang Weiwei asked curiously.
Gu Ling smiled helplessly: "Xianjiu entered the beast space to continue meditating."
The powerful effect of those three videos is quite long-lasting. Xianjiu is still worried about it now and does not miss any training time.
"Xianjiu is trying too hard..." Huang Weiwei sighed.
After chatting with Huang Weiwei for a while, Gu Ling opened WeChat and clicked into the newly created competition group.
A lot of information about the opponents in this competition was posted in the group. Gu Ling has been meditating and training these days and didn't even have time to take a good look at it.
"..."
An hour and a half later.
The bus stopped in the parking lot of Linbin Hotel in Hailan City.
Linbin Hotel took care of the accommodation and food for the school team participating in this friendly match. When Gu Ling and others got out of the car, they saw more than a dozen buses parked in the parking lot. Many students wearing different school uniforms were Be present.
"Oh, brother Wan, you are finally here."
At this time, a middle-aged man who looked like a teacher from another school walked over with a smile.
When Wan Endong saw the visitor, he also showed a polite smile and took a few steps forward: "Long time no see, Dachun."
The middle-aged man glanced at Gu Ling and the other students seemingly casually, still smiling: "These are the students from your school. They look very energetic. You should be sure that you can enter the top 16 this time, right?"
Wan Endong twitched the corner of his mouth and said in a humble tone: "Haha, how can I say this accurately? This is the first time for the children to participate in the competition, so there is no need to put too much pressure on them."
Hearing this, Shang Qichun shook his head pretending to be distressed: "Hey, the students I brought are not as quiet as your students and teachers. They are all too proud. On the way here, they kept clamoring to enter the top eight. To enter the semi-finals or something like that haha..."
"..."
Seeing this somewhat hypocritical scene, Gu Ling approached the two female teachers and lowered his voice and asked, "Teacher Zhou, Teacher Zhang, why do you think Director Wan's face looks a little bad?"
"I'm not sure about this." Zhou Mengran shook his head.
Zhou Mengran has graduated from Nanping No. 1 Middle School for many years. In previous years, he only came back a few times during holidays and was not very clear about what happened in the past few years.
So, everyone who couldn't wait to eat the melon turned to look at Zhang Huizi.
Zhang Huizi said: "The person who talked to Director Wan was Shang Qichun, the senior director of Wenli No. 1 Middle School. In the last friendly match, the opponent No. 1 Middle School encountered in the top 8 of the team competition was Wenli No. 1 Middle School. Then Lost to them.”
Gu Ling and others suddenly realized.
"So this is ah……"
"Isn't this just when enemies meet and become extremely jealous?"
"No, no, this should be called enemies on a narrow road."
Zhang Huizi continued: "Nanping No. 1 Middle School and Wenli No. 1 Middle School are almost the same in terms of teaching staff and student performance. In addition, Wenli County is right next door to Nanping County. The two schools are close to each other and there are many differences between them. Comparisons are inevitable.”
Lou Huayu rubbed his hands: "Then we will definitely defeat Wenli No. 1 Middle School this year and get revenge."
"That's right!"
"Yes."
On the other side, Wan Endong, who had just finished a few words of greeting and walked over to get rid of Shang Qichun, heard the students' heroic words and laughed, and the depression on his face was wiped away:
"It's good that you have this fighting spirit, but now go to the hotel, put your luggage away, and have dinner together at the hotel at 6 p.m."
"Everyone, please relax tonight, eat well, drink well, and sleep well. We will gather at 8 o'clock tomorrow morning to draw lots for the group competition. The qualifiers for the team competition will officially begin at 9 o'clock."
Gu Ling and others responded in unison: "Yes!"
"..."
The hotel rooms allocated to Nanping No. 1 Middle School are: three single rooms for teachers, two double rooms for students, and two triple rooms for students.
Gu Ling and Huang Weiwei were assigned to a double room, and the other three girls were assigned to a triple room.
On the boys' side, Lu Jiuwen, Long Yifei and Dai Hao were assigned to another triple room, while the remaining Pei Gang and Lou Huayu were assigned to the last double room.
When it was almost 6 o'clock, Gu Ling and others left the hotel room and went downstairs to eat.
Arriving at the arranged private room, the hotel waiter brought the dishes out one by one in an orderly manner.
"Let your pet beasts out." Zhou Mengran clapped his hands.
Everyone released their pet beasts one after another.
At this time, Gu Ling opened two contract formations glowing with red light, and Xianjiu and Naughty Ghost came out of them one after another.
Seeing so much food, the two beasts ran over happily.
Lou Huayu pointed at the naughty guy with trembling fingers: "Gu, Gu Ling, you, you, you..."
Red contract formation!
Two-star beast master!
This thought came to everyone's mind at the same time.
Gu Ling nodded calmly: "Well, I just became a two-star beast master a few hours ago."
"Oh no! No wonder you came so late!" Long Yifei was shocked.
Lou Huayu geared up excitedly: "Then our team doesn't have a warrior-level pet beast? How can we reach the semi-finals and break the school's historical record?!"
"Shhhhhhh!" Wan Endong's face suddenly turned serious, and he walked quickly to the door of the private room. He first glanced outside furtively, and when he saw no one was around, he turned his head and said, "Please keep your voice down. "
Seeing the strange looks that everyone was looking at him, Wan Endong coughed twice and straightened up: "Gu Ling, you naughty kid, try not to let others see you these days. You guys should do the same, keep it secret. "
Gu Ling nodded: "Don't worry, Director Wan, I know."
"We'll keep it a secret."
"This is a big killer! It is also our trump card in this team competition."
Zhou Mengran reminded: "The Pet Alliance has relevant regulations. When a beast master contracts a new pet, he must go to the nearest Pet Alliance to register the information within seven days. You can check the time limit and update the information on the seventh day."
In this way, the identity of Gu Ling's two-star beast master can be kept secret to the greatest extent.
Gu Ling: "Yeah, I think so too."
Afterwards, everyone listened to Wan Endong explaining the process of the team qualifiers while eating.
A total of 80 schools will participate in the friendly competition. Each school will send a team to participate in the team competition. The school teams that reached the top eight last year can directly advance to the top 32 without participating in this year's qualifiers.
The remaining 72 teams will be divided into 24 groups, with each group of three teams competing against each other in best-of-three games.
Each team sends three players for a 1v1 battle. Temporary substitutions are not allowed midway. The playing list and order must be submitted fifteen minutes before the game.
Each team wins a game and gets 3 points, loses a game and gets 0 points, and each team gets 1 point if it's a tie.
In the end, the team with the most points will qualify from the group and participate in the top 32 team competition.
Lou Huayu was chewing on a big chicken drumstick, and his voice was a little unclear: "...Director Wan, don't the top eight teams need to play in the qualifiers?"
"Yes." Wan Endong nodded.
"The top eight teams are all relatively strong. This is also to prevent some school teams that are too weak from encountering the top eight in the first round of the qualifying round and directly become a crushing situation."
After all, this is a friendly exchange competition between schools, so you still have to save some face.
Zhou Mengran smiled slightly and said: "This is also a good thing for us. If our luck is not bad and the strength of the teams in the group is not strong, then we can let the substitutes play first."
"Not only in the qualifiers, but also in subsequent games, if we don't encounter too strong opponents, there is no need for all three regular players to play."
Zhou Mengran was fully responsible for the competition, so Wan Endong and Zhang Huizi didn't say anything, but they also agreed with Zhou Mengran's arrangement.
Lou Huayu was the first to express his assurance: "Teacher, don't worry, it will be no problem if you leave it to us."
Huang Weiwei then echoed: "Yes! We can definitely win."
"Don't be too careless. There is a live broadcast in the school. If you lose, you will be embarrassed in front of all the teachers and students in the school." Dai Hao touched his glasses with his fingers.
Zhou Mengran took a sip of juice and said, "That's right. The opponents who come to participate in the competition are all in the top ten grades of their respective schools. We cannot take it lightly."
"yes!"
"..."
After dinner, Gu Ling and the others went to the central battle arena where the friendly match would be held tomorrow to familiarize themselves with the venue.
After walking around for a few times, they all went back to the hotel to rest until after ten o'clock in the evening.
…
the next morning.
Gu Ling and others got up at around seven o'clock. After breakfast at the hotel, they set off to the central battle arena.
Before that, Wan Endong had already taken the lead in drawing lots.
When Gu Ling and others arrived at the central battle arena, the results of the lottery had already come out.
When Wan Endong came back, there was a bit of joy on his face: "We are quite lucky. Our opponents in the qualifiers are Takeda No. 1 Middle School and Shuihe No. 1 Middle School. The results of these two schools' friendly matches in previous years have been relatively average, that is, barely The results to pass the qualifying round.”
Zhou Mengran quickly found the information of the two schools and posted it in the competition group just established last night.
Takeda No. 1 Middle School specializes in training fire-type pets. The attributes of the official team members' pets are: rock, water, and fire.
Shuihe Yizhong specializes in the training of electric-type pets. The attributes of the official team members' pets are: ground type, grass type, and electric type.
Lou Huayu scratched his head: "Aren't these two schools specialized in cultivating fire and electricity systems? Why do they only have a fire or electricity pet beast among their official team members?"
On the side, Lu Jiuwen said softly: "These two schools specialize in fire and electric pet beasts because they are close to two fire and electric pet beast protection areas, and there are a large number of wild fire and electric pet beasts living there. Beasts are easy to capture, so most of the residents there are pet beasts with these two attributes."
"If you want to stand out in those two schools, students who have the conditions at home will naturally make a contract to restrain the fire or electric beasts." Lu Jiuwen sent the school information he had compiled in private to the group.
"So this is ah……"
"Then these people are quite cunning."
After listening to Lu Jiuwen's explanation, Gu Ling shook his head: "I don't think that in two schools that specialize in training fire and electric beasts, they contracted beasts with other attributes. Even if they started with You can get by in school with your attribute advantages, but without a suitable instructor for training, you will only make many detours in vain."
However, these are the choices of others.
Maybe it's not that those people didn't think about this, it's just that they have money and connections, so they can find training institutions to train their pets, and they don't care about school training at all.
"No matter what, we have to win the first battle against Takeda No. 1 Middle School later."
"Since the opponent specializes in the fire element, the candidates for the first qualifying group match are: He Siruo, Lou Huayu, and Lu Jiuwen."
The first battle is more critical, and a crushing and beautiful record must be achieved to improve morale.
Zhou Mengran handed over the first battle of the first group game to He Siruo, who has attribute advantages and a stable and calm personality.
Zhou Mengran placed Lu Jiuwen in the third round, thinking that if he could win the first two rounds, there would be no need to play the third round and he could continue to hide Lu Jiuwen's strength.
Zhou Mengran turned to look at He Siruo: "Siruo, I'll leave the first battle to you."
"Yeah." He Siruo nodded solemnly.
"Come on Siruo!"
"We must win the first battle!"
Huang Weiwei and the others cheered on.
After the list and order of the battles were decided, Wan Endong ran errands to submit the battle information.
There were still ten minutes left before the start of the game. Zhou Mengran called Long Yifei and Sun Xueyi over: "One more thing. I want to give you two a task."
Hearing this, Long Yifei and Sun Xueyi couldn't help but become curious.
"Teacher Zhou, what is the mission?"
"Wait a moment and record the match video between Lishan Middle School and Mingdong Middle School." Zhou Mengran said.
"These two teams were the favorites to compete for the top 8 in previous years, but they had bad luck last year. They met Yushou Vocational Middle School and Hailan No. 1 Middle School in the top 16 and were eliminated."
"This time, these two teams are a bit unlucky. They are placed in the same group. If they want to qualify, they will have to expose some of their trump cards."
Although these two teams have also collected some information, the information on the battle is relatively lacking. The information on the data level alone is too one-sided.
Considering that there may be encounters in later games, the work of collecting intelligence before the game must be done properly.
Zhou Mengran handed two sets of recording equipment to the two of them: "Your task today is to record the game videos of these two teams."
Long Yifei and Sun Xueyi also realized the importance of this task and readily accepted it.
"Good teacher."
"We promise to get the job done!"
Long Yifei, who was just about to leave, suddenly remembered Wenli No. 1 Middle School he met yesterday and asked, "Where is Wenli No. 1 Middle School?"
Zhang Huizi next to her pursed her lips and smiled softly: "Over there... Director Wan doesn't worry about others going there, he will go and keep an eye on it himself."
"Ah...that's good."
When the others heard this, they immediately became happy thinking about the scene where Director Wan met the teacher from the other school yesterday. (End of chapter)
