As the second half of the 2020 season approached, Lee Shin got busy.

He had to raise his performance for his return as a player, and at the same time, continue working as the team’s coach.

Judy, who had won the overall championship at the amateur tournament, was selected with a priority pick by Team MBS in the rookie draft and signed a player contract.

For now, it was a second-tier contract, but it included a clause to renegotiate her salary upon a starting lineup appearance. Most likely, she would make her pro league debut in the latter half of the year.

Judy had already improved rapidly and established her own style, so even without being controlled like an avatar by Lee Shin, she could now play steadily on her own.

There was nothing more Lee Shin needed to teach her.

To be exact, she was no longer at a stage where further instruction would lead to improvement.

Only accumulating experience through countless real matches remained. Facing challenges and overcoming them on her own.

Once Judy had stabilized, manager Bang Jin-ho gave Lee Shin a new task.

“Team analysis?”

“You’ll handle both Humanity vs. God Race and Humanity vs. Monster. We need to be able to beat those two races to strengthen our team’s humanity lineup.”

The race matchups in Space Craft were as follows:

Humanity > Monster, Monster > God Race, God Race > Humanity.

In the pro league, Humanity players were sent out targeting Monster players, and conversely, the opponent team would deploy God Race players targeting Humanity players.

The MBS team’s slump was largely due to the weakness of their humanity lineup. With ace Shin Ji-ho gone, that weakness had become even more prominent.

If their Humanity players could reliably defeat Monsters and avoid easy losses against God Race opponents, that weakness would be resolved.

Moreover, the top three players in the country, including the famed twins and Hwang Byeong-cheol-the ‘Heretic’, were all God Race or Monster.

If Lee Shin were to return as a player and reclaim the throne, he had to beat them.

Manager Bang Jin-ho gave this task to Lee Shin with such complex considerations in mind.

“Understood.”

Lee Shin began studying God Race and Monsters as instructed.

He started by reviewing the matches of Park Young-ho and Choi Young-jun in the World SC Grand Prix.

To analyze the Monster and God Race styles, watching these two was the right approach.

Despite all the criticism, they had proven their skill on the international stage by winning silver and bronze medals. They embodied the latest trends in Monster and God Race strategies.

There happened to be some good reference material.

France’s Enzo Juan, who sank Park Young-ho in the finals to win the gold medal.

And America’s Michael Joseph, who went toe-to-toe with Choi Young-jun and finished fourth with two wins and three losses.

Both were Humanity players.

And both had playstyles uncannily similar to Lee Shin’s. It was as if their teams had deliberately raised them that way.

Enzo was stylish.

He had flashy control skills and knew how to strike decisively when the opponent showed weakness. Combined with his handsome appearance, he was a natural crowd favorite.

But in the first set—

Lee Shin noted how Enzo Juan was crushed by Park Young-ho’s daring five-worker build.

Park Young-ho produced only five workers, then rushed six Roaches.

The opponent had nothing but construction drones—completely vulnerable.

It was a high-risk build order that guaranteed a loss if he failed to crush the opponent’s throat right away.

Enzo Juan lost without resistance.

“His control is weak.”

Lee Shin saw through the real Enzo Juan, contrary to his widely-known image.

The flashy control he showed this tournament was just superficial flair.

His blocking with construction drones—the most important part—was weak.

That’s why he let six Roaches into his base.

Fragile defense.

Enzo Juan lost miserably.

But from the second set onward, he became a completely different player.

He launched harassment precisely during Park Young-ho’s weakest timings.

He knew the weakest points of Park’s defense and struck there with surgical precision.

After being harassed continuously, Park Young-ho started falling into Enzo Juan’s psychological trap.

He lost the third and fourth sets in a row and, in the end, suffered a humiliating defeat, losing every set except the first one with the five-worker build.

It made him look like a noob who couldn’t win without such a gimmicky tactic.

Korean fans were enraged by this. He failed to display the skills that had carried him through a bloody fight against Choi Young-jun.

“It’s not that Park Young-ho did poorly—Enzo Juan’s team just did too well.”

It wasn’t Enzo Juan himself, but his team.

Their strategic team had analyzed Park Young-ho down to the bone.

Enzo Juan had simply exploited the weaknesses of Park Young-ho that his team had prepped him to recognize.

“If it had gone on longer, Park Young-ho probably would’ve won.”

That was Lee Shin’s conclusion about the matchup between Park Young-ho and Enzo Juan.

But the foreign player who was truly frightening was Michael Joseph, who had clashed with Choi Young-jun.

He relentlessly harassed Choi Young-jun, who produced overwhelming quantities like a monster!

Draining Choi’s resource lines with harassment to suppress his production—no easy feat.

Choi Young-jun also had solid defense. No matter how much damage he took, he squeezed out units through insane resource optimization.

His physical control was amazing.

Michael’s fast tempo that threw Choi off balance was impressive, but what stood out even more was his sustained aggression even as the match went long. He had incredible stamina to maintain focus for extended periods.

But in the end, Choi Young-jun won.

“Harassment alone does have its limits, after all.”

A wide view of the map.

Choi deployed a grand positional play, dominating the map and narrowing the opponent’s attack routes.

Michael Joseph’s relentless aggression with absurd mechanics was terrifying, but Choi overcame it in the end.

“I know how to deal with Park Young-ho. The real problem is Choi Young-jun.”

Park Young-ho had clear weaknesses, which was why he developed his ironclad defense—earning him the nickname “Iron Wall Monster.”

But Choi Young-jun was truly a terrifying type.

Should it be said that even if he missed small things, he always managed to seize the big picture?

He wasn’t great at controlling a few units, but he was outstanding at managing large forces.

He often suffered losses in the minor details, but always secured long-term gains.

Though he had gaps, he played a fundamental kind of defense that took over the entire map and blocked all routes at the source.

A ruler’s playstyle, one that saw the game broadly and long-term!

Whoever he fought, if they played a hundred matches, he was the kind of player who would inevitably win at least sixty of them.

“I want to learn from him.”

It had been a long time since Kaiser had admired someone. Then, as if something had struck him like lightning, he muttered blankly,

“Learn?”

MBS’s second-tier player, Jung Da-ul, was still in the practice room late into the night.

Of course, he wasn’t there doing personal training late into the night. If he had been putting in that kind of blood-sweating effort, he probably would’ve made the first-tier roster by now.

Jung Da-ul was hanging around on online e-sports communities.

Sometimes he grinned at funny posts, and other times he passed time by using his identity as an MBS second-team player to leak bits of insider info on pro gamers.

Since it was his free time, no one said anything to him about it.

The community was currently extremely focused on Kaiser’s return to the professional scene.

Generally, everyone held both concern and expectation at once.

After all, Kaiser had suffered a wrist injury severe enough to potentially end a pro career.

While his passion in overcoming that and returning to the scene deserved applause, there were doubts about whether he could truly perform at his old level again.

Many voiced concern that he might only end up tarnishing his former glory.

On the other hand, because it was Kaiser, there was hope he would show something regardless.

There were even die-hard members of the Lee Shin Sect who didn’t care about records and just wanted to keep seeing his face.

Still, everyone agreed on one thing: it wouldn’t be like the old days.

The injury, the time away, and his age—none of them offered a bright outlook for his return.

“Yeah, it won’t be like it used to be.”

Jung Da-ul agreed with that sentiment.

Watching Kaiser play in the practice room every day, he came across as totally ordinary.

Of course, it didn’t seem like Kaiser was really going all out, but there was also nothing particularly extraordinary to be seen—so it was disappointing.

“Still, he’s definitely a skilled guy.”

Out of the blue, he’d picked up a cute foreign girl from the amateur league and, in just one month, turned her into a player who recorded a 90% win rate against ten second-team members. That was some coaching prowess!

Judith Levelin, trained under Kaiser’s bizarre methods, returned to the amateur league just one month later and went on to win the overall championship.

Looking back at e-sports history, those who had won the amateur league overall almost always ended up as successful first-tier starters.

“Ah, shit.”

Suddenly, his mood soured. Among the ten players who had participated in that legendary Judith’s second-team test, Jung Da-ul had been one of them. Of course, he was one of the nine who lost.

From his online trainee days when he knew nothing to now, he’d already spent nearly three years in e-sports.

He had defied his parents' pleas and chosen to become a pro gamer, playing games while everyone else studied for college entrance exams, sacrificing his valuable school years.

Now, apart from gaming, there was nothing left in Jung Da-ul’s life.

And yet…

“To lose to a girl who’s only trained for a month!”

It was an overwhelming sense of deprivation.

A feeling that the past three years of his life had all been wasted.

As if it was already predetermined at birth who would be second-tier and who would be first-tier.

Jung Da-ul couldn’t help but question his own talent.

“If I went back and studied for the college exam now, could I even get into university?”

It was a time when most people his age were preparing for the national college entrance exam. Having dropped out of high school, Jung Da-ul couldn’t help but worry more deeply about his future.

“Ah, screw it. I’ll just play a game.”

Feeling guilty about wasting time, Jung Da-ul closed the browser and launched Space Craft.

His plan was to find a suitable target online to boost his confidence a bit.

But then…

-Player_SIN has requested a match.

“Ugh, not this guy again!”

Jung Da-ul’s face twisted in frustration.

He’d been looking for a punching bag to get his confidence back, and here was some online high-tier god!

It was Player_SIN, the one who had delivered him three humiliating losses with a mix of shame and lectures.

Jung Da-ul tried to ignore the match request. But then—

-Player_SIN has requested a match.
-Player_SIN has requested a match.
-Player_SIN has requested a match.

“Ugh, seriously!”

Angry now, Jung Da-ul quickly sent a whisper.

-daul02: Go play with someone else. I’m not in the mood to play you right now.

-Player_SIN: If you're not in the mood to play, why are you online?

-daul02: Just because.

-Player_SIN: Trying to pick and choose your opponents?

He had no rebuttal—he’d been hit right in the nerve.

-Player_SIN: You think you'll improve that way?

-daul02: This isn’t practice. I just want to play casually.

-Player_SIN: If you’re going to play soulless games, why even be a pro gamer?

-Player_SIN: I made a room. Stop whining and get in.

“Ugh…”

He wanted to run, but after being told that, he couldn’t not go.

Reluctantly, he entered the room the other had made.

-Player_SIN: Starting.

-daul02: Huh? Wait a sec.

Jung Da-ul quickly tried to stop it, but his opponent force-started the match.

“Hey, you picked the wrong race, man!”

Player_SIN had chosen the God Race.